#stage techs being a force of chaos

[jimsbeetroot]

Omg hiii!! I am in more need of Sid stories so might as well request one could you do a Sid x reader where it’s before a show and he wants some help with the face paint and the reader she helps him and it’s just a cute soft fluffy moment between them

yes yes yes! love this! I’ve wanted to write more Sid but I can’t seem to think of any scenarios! Please write if you have some ideas so my light bulb can start working again hehe. a/n; my favourite Sid mask is honestly his gray chapter mask. it’s so awesome, almost cyborg like, and with the metal plate it’s just become my favourite!

“paint me like one of your french girls?”

-

The hum of anticipation buzzed through the backstage area, where the familiar stench of rotting masks, sweat and metal filled the air.

It was the usual chaos before a Slipknot show, with crew members rushing about and the distant sound of drums being tested on stage. You’d poked your head out minutes earlier to get a look at the filled venue. The unbelievable crowd was a sea of smiles, some old, some young. But they all had one thing in common; they’d come to see fucking Slipknot. You could still hear the audience humming from the backstage room and it never ceased to amaze you, how far the band had gotten.

But amidst the frenzy, you were with Sid, tucked away in a quiet corner, away from the madness.

Safe to say, Sid wasn’t feeling it today.

He was sat crouching down, fiddling with some cables from his turntable. He was a genius at music, but he was your own personal and private handyman. The man could fix just about anything. Cars, tractors, motorcycles; he’d even managed to fix your damaged laptop once. There wasn’t a thing the man couldn’t do. But, there he sat, cursing under his breath in frustration. Somebody had messed with his turntable setup and he was forced to take matters into his own hands, seeing as the tech was sick. He knew how to, that wasn’t the problem. But he was fed up and annoyed that he had to deal with technical issues that could’ve easily been avoided.

Sid was wearing his black suit. The one with the red accents and patchwork.

You watched him intensely. His mask was on the floor next to him. You couldn’t see his face because his back was facing you, but you could feel the frustration reeking from him.

“Fifteen minutes, people!” A staff member yelled. “Fuck,” Sid hissed. You bit your cheek and took a step forward.

“Anything I can do?” You asked carefully. He could tell you to piss off, and you wouldn’t take it personally. But he didn’t. Sid turned around and forced a smile on his lips.

“Can you actually find my paint? I think it’s in my black bag,” Sid said. You nodded and swiftly, you made your way to his black travel bag, which he brought everywhere. You fished around and found the black paint. On your way back to Sid, a victorious ‘yes!’ was to be heard.

When returning, Sid was standing up, mask in hand and smiling at you, the frustrated look, long gone.

“Figured it out?” You asked him. He nodded and opened his arms. You met his embrace and wrapped your arms around him, letting his fold over you.

“Yeah. I’m punching Rick for leaving me to deal with that, the next time I see him,” Sid said, referring to his tech. “Wasn’t he like, really sick?” You asked, chuckling. Sid shrugged, “Probably too much Taco Bell.”

You grinned at his joke and shook your head. “Don’t be rude. The man just likes his burritos.”

Sid pulled you in for a kiss, his taller frame bending down to reach your lips.

“Paint me like one of your French girls?” Sid asked. Silence fell over the two of you before you both erupted in laughter. “No, seriously. In the last two shows, the paint has looked like shit. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s just black paint,” Sid said and shook his head.

“Sit down,” you said and put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him softly towards a chair. He sat down on the chair and you plumped down right on top of him as if his lap was your own, personal seat. It was.

“I think you should do three layers,” you said and opened the container of black face paint. You dipped your index finger into the creamy mixture and wiped it over Sid’s chin. “My patience is non-existent,” he responded.

“I know,” you scoffed with wide eyes, having experienced his impatience well over a hundred times before. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

"Hold still," you murmured, your voice soft, almost teasing.

He chuckled, the sound low and comforting. "I'm trying, but it's hard when you're this close, ya know?"

You could feel the heat rise in your cheeks, but you didn’t let it distract you. Moving to his eyes, you gently brushed the paint around them, filling in the gaps his mask left exposed. His eyes never left yours, and you could feel the intensity of his gaze, but it didn’t make you nervous. It was like he was grounding you, making you feel steady even when your heart was racing.

"All done," you finally said and leant back to admire your work.

Sid grinned, his teeth gleaming under the new layer of paint. "Thanks, babe," he said, his voice a mix of gratitude and something softer, something just for you.

He leant forward and captured your lips in a quick, tender kiss, his hand gently cupping your cheek. It was a small gesture, but it was full of the unspoken connection you shared, a moment of calm before the storm that is a Slipknot show.

When he pulled back, his mask was back in his hand, ready to be put on. "You wanna do the honours?" he asked, holding it out to you.

You took the mask from him, carefully pulling it over his head. As you secured it in place, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride, knowing you're the one who helped him transform into the wild, enigmatic Sid Wilson the crowd was about to see.

Sid was everything you wanted. He was crazy when he wanted to be, but he was also beautifully kind, calm and sympathetic. You wanted to hide him away to be yours forever and always.

"Go kill it out there," you whispered, your hand lingering on his chest for just a moment.

Sid gave you a nod, the intensity in his eyes now fully masked by the terrifying persona he wore on stage. But before he headed out, he leaned in close, his voice low and full of affection. "I'll be thinking of you, Y/N."

And with that, he was off, disappearing into the chaos, ready to give the performance his fans were waiting to witness. But even as the crowd roared and the music started to pulse through the walls, all you could think about was the warmth of that kiss and the softness behind the mask, a softness only you got to see.

[skellymom]

"Ballroom Blitz"

The Bad Batch Clone Fic Gift Exchange

*FINISHED FULL STORY*

(Pinterest pic credit: Not Labeled)

 @hexerein SURPRISE! Here is your gift for the @cloneficgiftexchange ENJOY!

Used BOTH of your prompts:

"This is not a clone clubhouse." Appears in this introduction.

"I don't believe that is the proper use of delicate equipment."

Characters: Hunter, Tech, Wrecker and 3 female OC's to pair with them. Stayed away from the tropes mentioned that you didn't want used. Had these OC's dancing around in my mind for several months...and YOU gave me the inspiration to use them! Thank you!!!

Story is written in third person as I LOVE supporting characters and being omniscient about the surrounding environment, building it up like YOU are watching a movie.

Summary: Clone Force 99 visits a dumpy nightclub for "science". These guys can't stay out of trouble. Tech finds friendship, Hunter figures out a secret, and Wrecker falls in love for the first time.

Word Count: 3.2K

Warnings: Swearing, fighting (no blood), explosion, fire, clone angst, sexual suggestion only.

Dancers waited behind the stage for their cue scanning the club’s dance floor. 

A Chiss named Saxe remarked with a disgusted look as she spied numerous shiny's among the crowd, "This is not a clone clubhouse."  

Rueby rolled her eyes at Saxe and sassed, “Honey, I thought this was a clone WHOREHOUSE!” 

The other dancers laughed at the clap back. Most of them KNEW the clones enjoyed the woman, men, and the genderfluid staff genuinely, happy to lap up the attention, tipped handsomely, and brought their favorites gifts as often as they had GAR leave to visit. Plus, they were handsome, non-threatening...most of the time. Usually only did the occasional stupid thing, which the Republic covered for monetarily. 

However, there was the rare dancer that didn’t appreciate these men. Usually, the uppity, better-than-you types. Rueby shot a disdainful glance at Saxe who backed off. Saxe then exited the stage to relieve one of several cage dancers. 

Rueby took a deep breath and did her most inspiring power pose, psyching herself up for the next number.  

She made her entrance oozing sass and sex appeal.  Cat walking, swinging her hips and ass.  Kill you/fuck me eyes trained on the audience.  All 6 and 1/2 ft of strongly muscled dancer's frame with ONE mission in mind: TO SLAY! 

MUSIC FOR THIS FIC!

The seedy club flooded with patrons.  Officially over capacity for fire code and safety.  But the deadbeat owner of the Flushed Orchid considered this a suggestion and not a rule.  He paid off the authorities to stay open.  They looked the other way on fire codes, treatment of his dancers, dealing of spice/death sticks/sketchy backdoor tub liquor, along with other unsavory activities. 

Rueby gyrated and flipped her hair around to the eardrum splitting music.  Multicolored lights trained on her through the dark while she danced her heart out on the elevated stage. She LIVED to dance. The harder, louder, and dirtier the music, the better. A collective whoop went up from the crowd as she backflipped and ended up in the splits on the floor. 

Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech wandered into the club taking in the chaos.  

“Eh...if you guys want to leave; I have no problem...” Hunter wasn't really a fan of the lights, noise, crush of people pressing by, or the prospect of getting a beer spilled on him. 

“The Coruscant Guard HIGHLY recommended this establishment.”  Tech practically yelled over the din.  “I’m here to conduct RESEARCH.” 

Hunter wrinkled his nose. “Tech, this place is a DUMP!” 

“True, it’s not 79’s. My data gathering there is complete.  I required another study environment.” 

“WHAT WERE YOU STUDYING?”  Wrecker’s regular voice could be heard perfectly within the loud environment. 

“The pre-mating rituals of the general populace of Coruscant.”  Tech answered.  “Specifically, their affinity for meeting at extremely loud and crowded places that handicap their ability to communicate effectively.  In addition, to observe how the consumption of alcohol changes the degree of their deeply held inhibitions.” 

Hunter shook his head.  “Go head, gather ‘data’.  I’m going to the bar to inhibit my senses.” 

Tech made a beeline for the stage.   

Wrecker followed...then he spotted Rueby! 

A beautiful, strapping Zeltron woman, with ample hips, and a Calypgian behind.  Her smooth skin was a beautiful shade of passionate red. Wrecker heard of legends regarding woman warrior giantesses.  Women almost as large as himself.  Probably even strong enough to sweep him off his feet.   

And she was hanging upside down off a metal pole, sensually caressing her deep indigo hair. 

Wrecker followed Tech through the crush of gyrating bodies on the dance floor.  They could only get 20 feet from the stage. 

Tech was too busy being IN the crowd, watching the “pre-mating ritual” of the people around them. 

Wrecker was entranced.  Rueby was now SPINNING ON THE POLE and holding herself horizontally off it with minimal effort!  While wearing stiletto boots.  

Rueby DEFINITELY noticed Wrecker.  She smiled right at him and released pheromones in her excitement. 

Honestly...this was a FIRST for Wrecker.  He usually noticed food, bombs, and the infatuations of his brothers.  For himself...it just never seemed to be the same. 

Until tonight.  Wrecker was experiencing an AWAKENING. 

Meanwhile, at the bar, Hunter flagged down Tipsy, the Twi ’lek barkeep.   

“What’ll it be Handsome?” She usually flirted playfully with the patrons.  And her tips reflected the extra attention they appreciated. 

“Take some Spotchka.” Hunter smiled. 

Tipsy filled the glass, sliding it across to Hunter.  “YOU boys don’t strike me as the usual clones who hang out here.  What’s your story?  IF you care to tell...” 

Hunter sipped his drink.  The lavender hued lady taking an interest had him rethink hurrying Tech and Wrecker out of the bar early. 

“We’re defective.  Belong to Clone Force 99.” 

“Oh!  Heard about you guys!!!”  Tipsy leaned forward on the bar taking extreme interest.  “Crazy stories.  You guys are OFF THE CHAIN!” 

Hunter grinned.  “Hm...we get the job done.” 

“Good looking AND capable.” she winked. 

Hunter blushed and took another sip. 

Several Reg clones and a Gotal summoned for service at the other end of the bar. 

“Be back later.  Gotta serve the patrons.” 

Hunter watched her go, grinning into his glass. 

Vix loaded up her tray and waded out into the tight crowd.  She HATED nights like this.  Being short and petite felt stifling in the crush of bodies.  On top of that, carrying a tray full of drinks and hoping not to spill anything was nerve wracking. 

She was SO CLOSE to earning enough money to quit this dump and start school.  Her plans were to study Botany off-world.  The thought of sitting in a quiet hololibrary and studying up on plant life relieved a bit of stress until... 

...someone YANKED on her tail!  Vix yelped angrily, baring her teeth. 

SHE WAS SO SICK OF THIS SHIT!!! 

Tech heard Vixs’ protest and looked up from his holopad. 

He noticed she was a small Amaran female who seemed to be in pain.  Their eyes met briefly.  His in query to her predicament, her’s in frustration. 

Vix flattened her ears and turned away from Tech to the large Houk holding her tail in his grasp. 

“Hello foxy lady.”  He leered. 

“Sir, the view is the ONLY thing I’m obliged to give you.  Let go of my tail!”  Her anger rising. 

“Aww...such a cute little angry redhead...” 

“I do believe the lady politely requested that you release her coccygeal vertebrae.”  Tech was now standing next to Vix. 

“Wut?” The Houk was dumbfounded. 

“HE SAID LET GO OF MY TAIL, YOU ASSHAT!” Vix screamed above the din of the nightclub.  Some of the patrons stopped dancing, turning to watch the fracas. 

The Houk’s attitude went from stupid to vitriol.  “BITCH!” 

Vix had enough.  She threw the tray of drinks at him. 

He finally let go of her tail.  But he went for the throat with his big hammy hands. 

Tech pulled her out of the way, the Houk stumbled past knocking over patrons.  Many of the dancers stopped and stared at the altercation. Some of the clones stepped up to assist but fell back seeing it was only the Defective Clones who were in a bind. 

The Houk got up and ran for them again.  Vix yanked the holopad from Tech’s hands and threw it with all she had, hitting the Houk right between the eyes.  It stopped him only minimally, as he bellowed in anger. 

"I don't believe that is the proper use of delicate equipment" Tech quipped as the Houk picked him up off the ground and was lifted above its head. 

“Oh...NO... I’M SO SORRY!!!” Vix was terrified Tech would meet his end trying to help her. 

Tipsy and Hunter were really hitting it off, until... 

Her eyes went wide in horror, pointing over Hunter’s shoulder “Is THAT one of your guys over there???” 

Hunter spun around to see Tech being held aloft horizontally above the crowd by an angry Houk.  To his credit, Tech looked extremely calm.  But the Houk looked as though he was going to throw Tech across the room. 

“WHAT THE KRIFF DID HE DO???”  Hunter just wanted a drink or two, then leave to go to bed.  

There was NO way Hunter was going to get across the bar to save Tech’s ass in time.  Too many bodies in the way...but he tried to wade through... 

Until Wrecker’s fist connected with the Houk’s face.  He went down like a sack of bricks.  Wrecker caught Tech from falling into the crowd. 

That move caused TOTAL MAYHEM!  Drunken patrons with pent up emotions took this as a sign to commence in a BAR FIGHT!!! 

People started screaming, fighting, breaking things. Mob mentality took over, infecting the whole establishment. 

Wrecker stood above the fray with his tall frame.  Still holding Tech to keep him from being dragged under in the craziness.  Vix wasn’t as lucky. 

“Vix!”  Rueby yelled from the stage.  Wrecker turned to see his Zeltron crush dive off the stage into the crowd like it was a river.  She came up pushing bodies furiously away from her path.  One patron decided he wanted to throw a punch her way.  She picked his ass up and threw him across the room. 

“Rueby!  HELP!!!”  Rueby pushed and struggled her way through the crowd towards the small panicked voice.  Then dipped down below the frenzied sea of bodies.  A minute later, Rueby emerged pushing bodies out of the way while holding Vix. 

Someone’s death sticks ignited something flammable in the room, and huge flames erupted.  The patrons who weren’t fighting were pushing and trampling each other to escape the burning building. 

“WRECKER!  TECH!!!”  Hunter was now caught in the fray and being pulled away from his brothers. 

“RUEBY!”  Tipsy could see Hunter was too far out in the crowd to bring him back to the bar.  “Help him!  WE ALL HAVE TO GET THE KRIFF OUT OF HERE!!!”  Tipsy pointed to Hunter.  Then she grabbed a chair, busted out the window, and jumped through it. 

Rueby recognized the boys by their matching armor, knowing they belonged together. 

“HEY BEEFCAKE!”  She yelled to Wrecker.  “GO OUT THROUGH THE BACK STAGE!  I’LL GET YOUR SERGEANT.” 

Wrecker nodded. 

“WAIT!”  Rueby yelled.  “CATCH!!!” 

She tossed Vix over the heads of the crowd to Wrecker.  He shifted Tech to his right arm and caught Vix with his left.  She yelped in terror.   

“Hold on!”  Tech grabbed onto Vix “This is going to be a VERY bumpy ride!!! 

Wrecker mowed through the crowd, hip checking people out of the way and hopped up on the stage. 

Rueby pushed and body slammed people out of the way best she could in the chaos.  Reaching out to Hunter as he extended his hand to her.  She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up and out of the crowd.  As her other hand could reach, she grasped the front of his armor and yanked him up over her shoulder...like he was a tiny child. 

Hunter was used to Wrecker doing this, but not a beautiful strapping woman wearing next to nothing.  She was holding his leg with one hand and gripping his buxom bottom with the other.  He could feel the fire, smell everything burning, the screams of fear were too much for his ears...it ALL was too much for him right about now. 

He just wanted a drink.  How did everything go SO WRONG??? 

Rueby managed to make it to the stage.  Wrecker set down Tech and Vix.  Then pulled Rueby up.  She set Hunter down. 

“We gotta bolt!  When the bar catches fire, WE’RE BANTHA BARBECUE!!!” 

Everyone ran like hell to the backstage exit. 

Hunter, Vix, and Tech made it out first.  They ran behind the trash dumpster for safety. 

Rueby and Wrecker barely made it out when all the alcohol in the bar ignited. 

The back door blew off its hinges, slammed into Wrecker, who slammed into Rueby.   

Hunter, Vix, and Tech watched their friends literally ride the heavy metal door across the back courtyard, over the tower railing...screaming bloody murder all the way. 

They disappeared out of view... 

...as their screams carried off into the distance...and down. 

“HOLY SHIT!” Hunter was mortified. 

“They...are they...” Vix couldn't even finish. 

“Sounds as though they are in freefall.” Tech’s head was cocked, listening.  “It’s an awfully long fall down to The Bottoms of Coruscant.” 

They ran past the courtyard, up to the railing, and leaned over... 

...to see Rueby and Wrecker hugging each other tightly, sitting on the steel door like a magic carpet as it gracefully glided up towards them. 

“How the HELL???”  Hunter was STILL mortified. 

Tech was glad he recorded the whole ordeal.  What an amazing visual. 

The door glided up over their heads coming down to rest on the balcony.  Both Wrecker and Rueby were safely out of harm's way.  But they wouldn’t let go of each other for quite some time. 

They all stared at each other for a minute speechless. 

“You’re welcome!”  Came a voice behind them. 

They all spun around to see Anakin Skywalker standing up in his hover craft hands raised.   

Obi Wan Kenobi was in the driver’s seat.  “Detonation Surfing seems to be a rather dangerous sport to take up, wouldn’t you say?”  His eyes twinkled. 

“You’re pretty lucky we drove by when we did.”  Anakin smirked.  “That first date would have been your last.”  

Wrecker sheepishly glanced at Rueby, who hugged Wrecker tighter. Her Zeltron pheromones had him in a state of horny bliss. The danger aspect of what just happened had her shivering against him...in an excited manner. 

“Anakin and Obi Wan thank you for assisting Wrecker and...” Hunter deferred to... 

“Rueby!” Tipsy appeared, running up and embracing her and Wrecker. Then she ran to Vix and Tech hugging them both. “I’m SO GLAD everyone is safe!”  

Tech was surprised by the physical contact. But not put off about it either. 

Tipsy then embraced Hunter and planted a HUGE kiss on his lips. He leaned in, embracing the Twilek, kissing her deeply, then pulled away, face bright red. He turned to see everyone staring at him... 

...Anakin Skywalker gave Hunter a conspiratorial look and smiled...something passed between them both in an instant... 

...and it occurred to him suddenly WHY Anakin was so odd with Rex the other day on the landing pad, why he seemed to spend SO MUCH time with Senator Amidala. 

That DOG! His secret was safe with Hunter.  

“General Skywalker, General Kenobi.” Hunter cleared his throat and nodded to them both. 

Kenobi spied the nightclub on fire behind him then addressed Anakin. “Seems there may be more souls in need of our assistance.” 

Before Kenobi could brief his padawan, Anakin Force jumped from the craft...over the guardrail and the group, then ran TOWARDS the fire disappearing from view. 

Kenobi shook his head and sighed “A Jedi’s work is NEVER done. Stay safe, everyone!” He swung the craft around and headed towards the burning building. 

The group waved as he sped away, stunned by their Jedi antics. 

The night wasn’t a total loss.  

Our merry group convened at the local Waffle Hovel. It was Wrecker’s idea. 

The men pushed together several of the small tables to fit everyone in their party. Besides, Baash the “Awful Waffle’s” owner, was used to seeing people in all sorts of conditions after partying all night on Coruscant. He didn’t care, long as they paid the bill. 

Rueby, Tipsy, and Vix lamented that their wallet’s burned in the fire...as they certainly didn’t have pockets in their skimpy attire to carry on their person.  

“No worries, ladies. We’ve got you covered.” Hunter’s headache left him as soon as they stepped into the quiet establishment, smelling the wonderful aroma of Baash’s Space Flapjacks.  

His attention was also taken up by Tipsy, who sat across from him. They made silent goo-goo eyes at one another. 

Same for Wrecker. He and Rueby eyed each other over their menus, making funny puns about the food. 

Sitting across from one another and between the two smitten duos were Tech and Vix. They babbled and info dumped excitedly realizing they both shared a passion: Botany. 

“...we were lucky to have survived the carnivorous Meat Flower of Dagoba, and I must say...” Tech trailed off. “Whatever is the matter?” 

Vix had suddenly gone silent and sad. “I was SO CLOSE to being able to quit the Flushed Orchid...and start my studies. Have to find another job that will hire an Amaran...don’t know if we are going to see our last credits from this one.” 

Tipsy added “Bet that slummy boss of ours will take all the insurance payout credits and run off.” 

“He was probably betting on it being the Fried Orchid at some point. That man let the place go SO badly. And he’s got friends that will ignore the way he kept it to get those credits.” Rueby was angry. 

“We know people at 79’s who will happily hire you. That is if you want to continue bar work and dancing?” Hunter offered. 

“Yes! It was much harder to get hired in due to it being more upscale. I’ll take it!!! Tipsy perked up. “The pay is SO much better too.” 

Rueby smiled. “Whooo! I’ll get to dance at the REAL CLONE CLUBHOUSE!!!” 

“OOH, and I can visit ya at work in-between missions!” Wrecker was excited at the prospect. 

“Oh honey...YOU can visit me ANYTIME.” She released more pheromones. Wrecker almost floated away with pure bliss. 

Vix exhaled and exhaustedly hung her head. “I can’t do it. Tried so hard...but, the bar scene just isn’t for me.” 

Tech politely intervened. “I am quite certain you will qualify for some financial assistance, including dorm rooming as well...If you choose.  In addition, I shall speak to Coruscant University’s head administrator. They have some...’ wiggle room’ filling seats at their lectures.” 

Vix was speechless.  “Wait...what’s the catch?” She warily inquired. 

Tech and Hunter were taken aback by the query. 

Rueby and Wrecker ignored the conversation and kept flirting. The rest of the people at the table no longer took precedence. They were in their own little world. 

Tech added curtly “Vix, remember the clones who witnessed how you and I were treated tonight? And their refusal to step in to help a stranger in need...and a fellow brother.” The memory struck a chord with the otherwise emotionally removed clone. 

“Oh... Yes.” Vix’s face clouded with disappointment. 

“We are NOT like THEM.” Tech glibly answered.  

Hunter softened and fixed Tipsy and Vix with puppy dog eyes “Just want to help. We know what it’s like to struggle. There are no strings attached. WE PROMISE.” 

“Ehhhh, MY FAVORITE CLONES! And they got some company here. HELLO LADIES! What are we orderin’ tonight eh?” Baash swooped in. “Tonight's special is Baash’s Hash! Best spicy potatoes this side of Coruscant. Ha-HAAA!!!” 

Tech and Vix debated the various choices on the menu while Baash patiently assisted. 

“Mmmm...I LIKE spice...” Rueby eyed Wrecker. 

He giggled like a maniac. 

“Get a room you two.” Hunter sassed. 

He was then hit in the face with a wadded-up napkin from across the table. 

Tipsy’s lekku went from a light lavendar to a blushed grape color. He noticed her sly smile. Then he detected a heady scent just under the aroma of cooked food. 

She leaned forward and whispered, “Let’s get one of our own.” 

(Credit: Cool moving star dividers by @4ngelic-wh1spers )

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[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

Notes: This is an expansion of the first section of my Tech Lives short story Lost and Found, and is told primarily from Echo's and Omega's perspectives. It started as a drabble to highlight Echo's/Omega's initial reactions to finding Tech, but my brain just wouldn't stop adding more details so... well, it is no longer a drabble 😅

Read on Ao3

Word Count: 6726

The Lost One

Echo walked into the rather small wooden cabin and glanced around. He was looking for Tintha's engineer/mechanic - the engineer who had become somewhat famous among certain circles not only for his brilliant skills but also due to his rather abrupt appearance on the codebreaking and data slicing scene in the past few years. Word had reached Echo's corner of the Rebel Alliance that not only was this engineer trustworthy and reliable, he could decrypt anything; and Echo needed this data decrypted if he wanted the intel necessary to free the small but influential rebel cell that had been captured by the Empire. 

Echo was fairly certain he was in the right place - the cabin had clearly been converted into a workshop of some kind, with engines and wiring and computers and datapads and other projects in various stages of construction or repair scattered across every surface in some kind of organized chaos - but there was no one else to be seen...

"Do you require assistance?" a voice came from a back room. 

The voice struck Echo as being eerily familiar, almost like... - but that was impossible, so he brushed the thought away. 

"I'm looking for Nu," Echo replied.

"That would be me," the other said, rounding the corner and examining his client with a frank stare.

Echo had seen enough strange things in his lifetime that he thought he had long since reached the stage where nothing could surprise him. But this...

If he didn't know better, he would think this engineer was Tech. An older, scarred, limping version of Tech... Then again, if Tech had lived, he would be about the age of this man... 

But Tech hadn't lived. He had sacrificed himself, shot the connecting strut of the rail car he was attached to in a desperate bid to let the rest of the squad escape. It had worked - the family had survived and even eventually got the Empire off their backs - but Tech had been lost. There was no way he could have survived that fall. 

Shaking his head slightly to clear his thoughts, Echo forced himself back to the task at hand. 

"I need the information on this data disk decrypted," Echo said, holding out the referenced item. "I was told you're the best person for the job." 

"Your intel is correct," the one called Nu said, his face taking on an expression of interest as he looked at the disk, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "There is nothing to date that I have not been able to decode." 

It was like talking to a ghost - a living ghost. Which made absolutely no sense, even for a clone who had worked closely with superstitious Jedi. The voice, the mannerisms, the speech patterns, the looks... All of it was so reminiscent of Tech. 

But Tech was dead. 

I have got to get a grip on myself, Echo thought. 

"I expect discretion with this," he stated. 

"But of course, that's standard protocol." 

For some reason, this reassurance alone was enough to prompt Echo to hand the disk over. "How long do you need?" he asked. 

Nu slipped the device into a datapad and, after scrutinizing it for a moment, nodded firmly. "The job will be done within the hour. Shall we settle on a fee of 100 credits?"

"Fair enough." Actually, if Nu was as good as he claimed, this was a bargain. "I'll wait here, if you don't mind." 

Nu nodded again, rather absently this time, his attention now fixed on the data as he stepped over to a nearby counter to do his work. 

Echo wandered aimlessly along the workbenches, glancing at all the projects but with his mind too full of questions to really take note of anything. 

It just wasn't possible. Even if Tech had survived, he would have found a way back to the squad, not hidden away for years on a backwater planet that didn't attract even the Empire's notice. He's not Tech. He's NOT Tech....

The villager who had led Echo to Nu's shop had cautioned him, "Nu is quite nice and very smart, but he is also... odd. Everyone likes him, but he keeps to himself and rarely talks about himself, always seems like..." the villager had waved his hand around his head vaguely before finishing, "I dunno, just odd." Echo could now see what the villager meant: confidence in his own skills notwithstanding, Nu seemed uncertain, unmoored, as if he wasn't fully present in the moment, as if... as if half his mind was constantly searching for information that was just out of reach, even as he expertly carried on with mundane tasks and conversations.

Telling himself he was being illogical and irrational wasn't enough. If something had somehow happened to prevent Tech from coming back to the squad, Echo had to know for sure - and he turned to face the engineer. 

"So where are you from, Nu?" Echo asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. 

Nu looked up at him and blinked. "Are you referring to my birth planet?"

"Yes."

"I... am not sure," Nu shrugged awkwardly.

"Uh, where's your family from, then?" 

"I do not know," Nu replied. He was frowning now. "I don't remember any family." 

"What do you mean?" Echo pressed, anticipation and dread and - was that hope? - building in his chest. 

Nu seemed to briefly ponder whether he wanted to continue participating in this interrogation, before deigning to reply somewhat stiffly, "I was critically injured in an accident many years ago. I remember very little of my life before the accident, and nothing of any family."

Echo's mouth had gone dry, but he pressed on. "What do you remember of your life from before the... accident?"

It was abundantly clear that this was not a pleasant topic for him, but for some reason Nu didn't disengage from the conversation. Instead, he sighed resignedly as he answered, "Nothing that is of any benefit to me. None of it is clear or complete. I cannot even remember the accident itself. I must confess, it is quite unsettling to have dreams or flashes of what seem to be memories, but not recognize any of it." 

"I can imagine," Echo said automatically in an attempt to be conciliatory; but he needed to know more. Everything Nu was saying was leading to one conclusion...

"When was your accident?" Echo asked now, drawing Nu's attention away from the device again. 

Nu's sigh was more impatient this time. "Oh, about a year or two after the Empire was formed." 

Echo's voice was still steady, but he could feel his heart pounding in anticipation. "Where did it happen?"

"On an Outer Rim planet called Eriadu." 

It felt like the bottom fell out of Echo's stomach, and his mind went blank...

"Now, if you're quite finished with the questions, I can get on with the work you requested I complete," Nu hinted sharply. 

Echo blinked - he was still human, despite the cybernetic implants, and he thought this moment was the closest he would ever get to feeling like he was physically rebooting. "Of... of course," he stammered. "It might be best if I wait outside." 

Nu had already returned to his work, and didn't reply nor seem to give any notice to Echo almost staggering to the door. 

Once outside, Echo leaned against the wooden framework, closing his eyes and breathing as heavily as if he had just outrun Imperial infiltrator droids, his mind swirling with the implications of the recent conversation. 

Nu was Tech. He had to be. A man who looked, sounded, and acted like an older version of Echo’s former squadmate and had suffered and accident on Eriadu that had apparently left him with amnesia, and with all the timeframes matching? Echo had never been as good as Tech at calculating odds and risk, but he intuitively knew the odds that this man was Tech were far greater than the alternative.

I have to tell them, was Echo's first coherent thought; and then he corrected himself. I have to tell Omega. 

He couldn't tell his brothers, not yet. Whatever the odds might be, Echo couldn't face the idea of telling Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair that their long-lost brother was alive when there was even the slightest chance he was mistaken. He had to be absolutely certain that his suspicions were correct. Besides, it was clear that Nu - Tech - wanted to regain his memories, wanted to know who he had been before; but he would want solid proof of his identity, more than what at this point amounted to no more than (very) strong circumstantial evidence, and Echo would have to gain Nu's trust if he wanted to have any hope of assisting with this objective. And Echo had the feeling that it would be best to give Nu some space to regain his memories before raising the family's hopes...

"It's finished," Nu said, dragging Echo away from his contemplations and gesturing for Echo to follow as he stepped back into the workshop. 

The engineer handed Echo the original disk as well as the datapad, stating simply, "The data in its decrypted form is downloaded onto the datapad. It will be easier to decipher that way. Now, about payment..."

"Will you meet with a colleague of mine?" Echo suddenly burst out. Events during the recent rebel conflict had made Echo wary about revealing to strangers his familial ties to Omega, and with force of habit prevailing, it was too late to correct it now. "She's a pilot named Omega, and she needs help with a rather complicated task."

If Echo had been hoping the name ‘Omega’ would jog Nu's memories as Tech, he was disappointed. No hint of recognition crossed Nu's face, but his expression did become inflexible, surprising Echo. 

"I will meet your colleague," Nu replied, "but I must inform you that while I sympathize with the Rebel cause and will assist you in these tasks, I am not interested in committing to the Rebellion."

Echo, taken aback, attempted to save face. "Who said this is for the Rebellion?" 

"It's obvious," Nu deadpanned, clearly unimpressed by the other's feeble protest. 

Echo sighed. There were signs Tech - Nu - had changed somewhat over the years, whether from time and experience alone or from the loss of memories, it was impossible to say. But Echo still felt inclined to trust him; and besides, it was a rebel who had recommended Nu's services anyway. 

"This isn't an attempt to recruit you," Echo promised, before blurting out the idea that had been circling in his mind. "And maybe... maybe we can help you figure out who you are, in exchange for your help."

Nu scrutinized him for several breathless moments before responding. "Very well," he assented. "When shall I expect your return?"

"Within the next few rotations or so," Echo replied as he handed over the promised payment. 

"That is not very specific." 

Echo almost smiled. "Now you know what us rebels are like."

Nu shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't matter, as I have no plans to relocate anytime soon."

Echo nodded, even as the thought flitted across his mind that he hoped there might be reason for plans to change in the near future. 

He wasted no time in contacting Omega, opening comms as soon as he stepped into his ship. As usual, he couldn't help but smile at the sight of Omega's bright face, though the shock of the recent revelation must have still weighed heavy on his face, for Omega instantly furrowed her brow. 

"What happened?" she asked. 

Echo sidestepped the question for the moment. "Have you completed the Sindoni mission yet?" 

Omega huffed out a breath. "Not yet. All of our attempts have failed."

"There's someone I'd like you to meet who I think will be able to solve the problem." He took a breath, preparing to reveal the news, but Omega spoke first. 

"You're a lifesaver, Echo! Where should I meet you?"

"I need to get this intel back to my people, but we can meet in a few days on the planet Tintha, in the Torus system. I'll send you the coordinates. And... Omega? The person you'll be meeting? It's... Tech." 

****

Omega landed next to Echo's vessel, briefly closing her eyes and taking a deep, calming breath.

She knew Echo would never tell her anything he wasn't sure of... But the idea that Tech had survived and was still alive had been so difficult to grasp that even now, after acknowledging that the evidence Echo presented led to one distinct possibility, she couldn't accept it. 

She had agreed with Echo that they should wait to tell the others - partially because she herself still couldn't believe it. 

She had always been an optimist, hoping for the best - but THIS hope seemed so far beyond the realm of possibility, it was wrenchingly painful to even consider. 

Perhaps this disbelief was why she had remained so calm the past few days as she had prepared to meet her rebel brother on Tintha. Now, however, the butterflies that had woken in her stomach threatened to steal her composure. These weren't the slightly anxious yet giddy butterflies that accompanied significant but relatively low-consequence events like first dates or public speeches or talking to her brothers about getting her own ship. No, these were far more violent butterflies, doing wild acrobatics that made her stomach awfully queasy and her head woozy and her legs weak.  

She wasn't her brothers' kid for nothing, though: no matter how on edge the anticipation was making her feel now, no one looking at her would ever guess how she was truly feeling as she steadily and confidently strode off her ship to meet Echo, giving him a warm hug before letting him lead the way down the quiet, dusty street to the cabin workshop that apparently housed Tech. 

Tech, possibly found alive after all these years of being presumed dead. 

"Just go with the flow," Echo said in an undertone as they neared their destination. "We're just here for me to introduce you and for you to ask if he can help with your squad's problem. Remember, he goes by the name Nu now. I don't think it's time yet to tell him our suspicions."

Omega nodded - she and Echo had been over this several times, but she knew her brother was still processing this turn of events just as much as she was. 

She didn't realize just how tightly she was wound, bracing herself for disappointment, until she caught sight of Nu... And the sudden shocked hope that welled up inside her nearly made her knees buckle. 

"Hello again, Echo," the engineer called to them. 

The face, the features, the voice, the frank and clear gaze... Even the clear evidence of serious past injuries only served to bolster the theory that this man was...

"Hey, Nu. This is Omega, the pilot I was telling you about," Echo said casually. 

Her brain was screaming ECHO'S RIGHT; outwardly, however, she greeted the man who was very likely her brother as she would a new acquaintance she was meeting for the first time, which was rather easy to do given that he approached her the same way. 

She had developed such a strong bond with Tech... but right now she was meeting Nu, and Nu didn't know her.

What if he wasn't Tech...?

If he wasn't, the universe was as cold, cruel, and unfeeling as Crosshair often claimed it to be. 

She swallowed her heartache and the sharp disappointment that so closely followed the surge of hope, managing a friendly smile as she grasped Nu’s proffered hand. "Pleased to meet you," she said in a tone that thankfully came out as calm and even as Echo's had been. 

"Likewise," Nu replied. "Now, what was this project your colleague described as 'complicated'?"

Omega cleared her throat. "We need to find a way to tap into an Imperial communications relay undetected."

"Almost any droid could do that," Nu returned somewhat dismissively. Looking openly at Echo, he added, "Given your cybernetics, you could likely do that."  

Omega shook her head. "We need to install the software for the data tap remotely. All our infiltration efforts have failed; this is our last and only option. And the target is a major relay hub processing intel from multiple sectors, so there are more than the usual layers of security and encryptions to breach..."

"Ah, that is a challenge," Nu said; and Omega's spirits sank when his eyes, which had been gleaming with interest, now took on a faraway look.

"Are you saying it can't be done?" she faltered.

The distant look faded as Nu's attention snapped back to her. "Oh, it can. Though it will take me a day or two. And you must be aware that chances are high the program will eventually be discovered by Imperial security sweeps, though I can assure you it will take quite some time for them to detect it." 

Omega grinned, relieved; she had come here to verify Echo's suspicions that he had found Tech, but accomplishing a major mission objective that had frustrated her entire division for months was also a win. "That will be fine."

"I assume you have more information regarding the location and security details of the relay in question?" 

"Yes, I do," she assured him as she passed over the datapad with the requested intel. "How much do we owe you?" 

Nu, suddenly hesitant, glanced somewhat helplessly at Echo. "I was under the impression that you may be able to assist me in discovering my former identity," he said stiffly. 

"And so I can," Echo replied promptly. He had already discussed this plan with Omega, and she was happy to let him explain the details.  "A blood sample and a scan of your wrist will be a good place to start." 

Nu glanced down at his wrist. "I've run my blood sample against a few databases before, but I never considered the possibility that I would have any implanted identifiers..." he said thoughtfully. 

"We're not sure you do," Echo answered. "There were some populations pre-Empire who had identifying chips as a standard, though. Worth a shot to scan for one. Even if you have one, it might take a while for me to run it through some of the older databases." 

"Very well then. Shall I provide you with the required samples now?"

"No time like the present," Echo replied. 

Only a few minutes later, Omega found herself following Echo back to his ship. Nu had indeed been implanted with an identifying chip, though it would take Echo some time to access the old clone databases and run the chip data against the entries. Her brother strode along as calm and confident as ever; she, on the other hand, was caught in an excruciatingly uncertain limbo between hope and despair, and it was leaving her feeling drained. 

"Echo, what if it isn't him? And what if it is? He didn't even recognize us at all," she blurted, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice. 

Echo paused in the middle of the deserted path leading to the outskirts of the village, turning to look at her. "Steady, Omega. One step at a time. We need to verify his identity first. No point focusing on what ifs."

Echo was so much like Tech in this regard: taking everything in stride, adapting so readily to any and all surprises, and so rarely getting flustered. She admired this about him, especially since she didn't fully understand how he managed it. 

"How can you take this all so calmly?" she sighed. 

Echo paused, considering her question. "Because whatever the results of these tests, we're going to have our work cut out for us later to help him," he replied, before resuming the trek back to the ship. 

****

Omega hadn't been planning on returning to Nu's until tomorrow - he had said he would need at least a day to complete the job, after all, and she didn't want to bother him - but after several hours of fruitless waiting on Echo's ship, then trying unsuccessfully to catch a nap on her own ship, followed up by some time wandering aimlessly around the tiny village and smiling back at the curious and overall friendly residents, she found herself walking through the threshold of the little shop again and looking around for the owner, stepping to the side to dodge a young boy exiting the cabin holding what appeared to be a power coil for a stove. 

She spied Nu seated at the corner of one of the long workbenches, various apparatus having been pushed to the side to give him room for his current project. Omega saw her datapad was connected to two other pieces of equipment she didn't know the names for as Nu studied another screen, occasionally tapping on a second datapad. 

Nu didn't look up, but he must have noticed her, for he now spoke. "I take it you have memorized the layout of the settlement? Hedi was telling me just now that you made no fewer than three full circuits of the village."

Omega chuckled a little self-consciously. "I think it might have been five. Your village is rather... small, and there's not much else for me to do right now."

Now he looked up, considering her for a moment before saying, "This job will be completed sooner if you feel inclined to assist. It will also help pass the time for you."

She hadn't been expecting this, but she needed no further invitation. Pulling a stool up to the workbench, she sat and faced him. "How can I help?"

Nu slid several tools and a small rectangular gadget towards her. "This adapter needs rewiring to be compatible with the computer model you specified you will be using to upload the spike. Do you know how to do that?"

She picked up the adapter and examined it for a moment before nodding. "Yes."

"Good," and with that, Nu returned to his work. 

She set to work herself, while thinking back to the countless times before when she had helped Tech with his projects...

This was so similar, yet so different. Tech, prone to being equally absorbed in his work, had still passed the time they spent working together fielding Omega's sundry questions and keeping up a steady conversation with her. Nu, on the other hand, was so quiet, hadn't yet shown any hint of Tech's quick wit and sardonic humor and tendency for banter, and was somehow intently focused on his work while simultaneously distracted. He seemed... lost.

Nu was so much like Tech, yet not quite Tech... He couldn't be, he didn't remember any of Tech's life - or at least, as he had told Echo, the very little he did remember made no sense to him.

She didn't want to interrupt him, but she couldn't help speaking.

"Echo says you lost your memories."

"Yes, I had assumed he told you."

"You... You had no idea who you were when you woke up from your accident?"

"Well, I intuitively had a general idea of my identity as an adult human male, and I knew how to talk and perform basic mobility functions, but I had no recollection of my name or family or skill set or previous life. My general knowledge of facts about the galaxy returned with very little prompting, and skills such as these" - gesturing vaguely around the room - "seemed to come naturally to me. I assume I acquired them before I was injured."

"But... No idea of your name? Your home? Your... Your family?" 

"No."

Something seemed to shift in him with this admission, the sense of loss becoming almost tangible, and Omega's heart nearly burst with sympathy. Whether he was actually Tech or not, Nu had somehow managed to regain so much of himself, but it wasn't enough. There was still something missing. 

"You don't just want to know your former identity. You really want your old memories back, don't you?" 

Nu paused but kept his eyes fixed on his work as he replied slowly, carefully considering his words, "I am who I am. Recalling my previous name or place of birth or prior occupations will be welcome knowledge - it will be a relief to no longer be ignorant of such an extended period of my own life. But that knowledge likely won't change my nature or who I have grown to be. However, there were people in my old life who were important to me - of that I am certain. Above all else, I want to remember them. I want to discover if they are alive and well now. The tribe on Eriadu cared for me, the people here on Tintha are welcoming; but what family I may have had, I want to know them."

She looked away to hide the tear that escaped down her cheek, but she needn't have worried: Nu didn't look up. Taking a few moments to steady her voice, she finally said, "Well, we'll find out who you are, and then you'll be able to find your family. I'm sure of it."

Shaken out of his reverie, Nu straightened and refocused his attention on the apparatus in front of him. "You're an optimist, then," he observed mildly. 

Omega couldn't help but grin. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Well, let us hope your optimism proves to be reality."

She smiled somewhat sadly now as she turned back to the adapter. 

Indeed, all they could do was hope. 

****

The results left no room for doubt: both the blood tests and the chip scan matched the identity of one particular clone. 

"Oh Force, it's him, it's really him," Omega breathed - and suddenly the dam burst.

She was weeping, sobbing so hard she could barely catch her breath, as the flood of emotions - ecstatic joy and fully realized hope and the relief of certainty, mingled with sorrow and regret for lost time - filled her to capacity and overflowed. 

Tech was alive. Her brother was alive! And, all things considered, he was relatively well, and had managed to recover enough to build a life for himself. This was nothing short of a miracle. 

 But... he had been lost for years. He was respected here and had some caring neighbors - of course he did - but no family. And despite the life he had built, he had clearly struggled with the knowledge that there was so much he didn't remember - so many people he didn't remember. 

And while she and Echo knew who he was, there was no guarantee this information would help Tech remember who he was and who had been important to him. 

Forcing the flood of tears to subside with no small amount of effort, she managed to speak again. “We found him. He lived, and in this whole wide galaxy, we found him. It’s… it’s a miracle.” She actually chuckled a little. “When we help Tech get his memories back, I’m going to ask him to calculate the odds of this happening. Well, what do we…” The question died on her lips as she turned to Echo and saw the stricken look of remorse on her brother's face. 

"Echo, what's wrong?" Why wasn’t he happy about this? He set his expression back into its usual stoic lines. "Nothing." 

"Yeah, that’s a lie."

He shook his head. "Really it’s nothing. I'm fine."

She fixed him with a stern look. "Echo, you trusted me enough to invite me to join the Rebellion. You can tell me about this. What's wrong?”

He gave her a small smile, which softened his features just enough that she decided to stop pushing him. “Nothing is wrong. Tech is alive – this is impossibly good news.” He sighed. "Now we just have to figure out how to break this news to him.”

Omega shook her head slowly - it didn't feel right to just walk in to the shop and tell Nu that he was a deviant Fett clone named Tech.  "He doesn't just want to know facts about himself. He wants to remember his family."

"It's like you said, Omega: he didn't recognize either of us."

"Well, we have changed a bit since he last saw us," she pointed out, willing herself to ignore the painful clenching in her gut that always accompanied the memory of Tech falling out of sight...

"Hmmm..." Echo rubbed his chin in thought. "Do you still have Tech's old goggles with you?"

"Of course," she said promptly. "They're in my ship, right on the piloting console. What do you have in mind?"

"If the goggles themselves aren't enough to jog his memory, ask him to help you recover the recorded data.”

She frowned. "But I already recovered... Ohhh!" she broke off, grinning as understanding dawned. "Echo, you're brilliant!"

"Well...."

"Give me a minute," she said, already picking up the devices Nu - Tech - had given her and making her way toward the ramp. "I need to ask Anton to come here to pick up the materials for the communications tap, and tell my commander I'll be on leave for a while." 

"Won't your division need your help with the mission?" She could hear the frown in Echo's voice, and turned back around to face him while walking backwards off the ship. 

"This was the hard part," she countered, waving the gadgets at him. "If they need my help to install this program from the safety of our own base, we're in a lot more trouble than I ever thought. I'll be right back, don't go to Tech's without me!" And with that, she ran off. 

****

Echo, sitting on the narrow wooden bench set along the wall and watching Omega and Tech pull up more recordings on the holoprojector, marveled at events of the past few hours. 

Somehow, the goggle suggestion had worked. Just seeing the old Clone Force 99 picture had been enough to help Tech recognize Omega, and this had been enough to open the floodgates to memories of his life before the catastrophe on Eriadu. One would think this would be overwhelming, but Tech had taken it all in stride. 

Then again, this was Tech. Of course he had taken it all in stride. 

Tech had asked about Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, Rex, Phee, Shep, Lyana, and a few others from Pabu; beyond revealing the basics regarding Crosshair's return to the family and reassuring him that everyone was safe, however, Omega had opted against inundating Tech with more details. "Let's focus on you getting your old memories back before we fill you in on the last decade," she had said; and when Echo had agreed with her, Tech hadn't argued further.

Echo now saw Omega stifling a yawn, and he leaned forward. "Omega, we've been at this for hours, and I don't think you've slept in days. Go get some rest." 

Omega shook her head stubbornly, with an expression that highlighted her resemblance to her equally stubborn brothers. "I don't need..."

"Perhaps it would be best for me to take a brief respite, too," Tech put in mildly. 

She sighed, relenting reluctantly. "Fine." 

"There are some cushions and blankets in the other room," Tech continued. "You can rest there, if you decide against returning to your ship." 

"I'll do that," she smiled brightly. "Thank you, Tech!" And she bid them good night, leaving her brothers sitting in pensive quiet. 

Tech was the first to break the silence.  

"Did you and Omega join the Rebellion at the same time?" 

Echo shook his head. "No. I worked with a rebel cell for several years before mentioning to Omega that the Alliance needed pilots. Hunter might forgive me for that, someday," he finished gruffly. 

Given Tech's small smile, Echo guessed he remembered how protective Hunter had always been of their sister, and was perhaps relieved to know that some things hadn't changed. 

"Given what Omega said about your success on Tantiss, I assume you were also involved in the events that have become known as the clone rebellion,'" Tech said now. 

Echo raised a brow. "How did you...?"

"Tintha may be sparsely populated and well outside the notice of the Empire, but we are not entirely cut off from news of happenings in the wider galaxy," Tech responded dryly, to which Echo chuckled. "Was Rex part of that uprising, too?" 

Echo nodded, but somehow the mention of Rex and the clone rebellion brought to the surface the needling remorse he had tried to hide from Omega, and he found that he couldn't speak as several seemingly unrelated events coalesced in his mind. 

Rex and Tech had been the ones to free Echo from his captivity, the first friendly faces Echo had seen upon being released from cryostasis. Tech had been the one to take the lead in convincing Hunter to allow the squad to join Echo in infiltrating Eriadu to find Hemlock's base, arguing that they didn't leave their own behind. The lesson Echo’s original squad had learned as cadets, never leave anyone behind, had become an integral part of him; and his drive to do more, to help all his clone brothers as much as he could, had led him to not only free the prisoners on Tantiss, not only help Rex save those they could from being trapped in service to the Empire, but also be a key driver in the push for clone rights that had led to a full-scale uprising. 

He had done all of this for his brothers; and all the while Tech had been abandoned, left behind to recover as much as he could from a fall that had stolen his memories, left behind to fend for himself, all alone with no familiar face, no one to help remind him of who he had once been.

Echo knew his guilt was unreasonable, his shame misplaced, knew he wasn’t to blame for Tech’s loss, knew no one in the family was to blame for Tech’s loss. And yet… when Tech had fallen, they had left, they had all assumed the worst and Echo had recognized the futility of going back later to check and therefore had said nothing of it, and then they had taken Hemlock’s word for it – Hemlock, a man who had every reason to lie to them – they had just accepted his proof, no questions asked.

He knew that if he had shared these feelings with Omega, she would have pointed out that he had never and would never hold Rex culpable for assuming he was dead and moving on, especially in the middle of a combat zone; and she would have been right, which is why he hadn’t bothered telling her. Before now, he had never understood why Rex had felt any measure of guilt over Echo’s captivity – after all, it wasn’t his brothers’ fault for concluding he had died in an explosion that definitely should have killed him, and as soldiers they knew how to honor the dead while moving forward.

But all these truths were not enough for Echo to rid himself of the guilt he now felt for all Tech had suffered. 

"Tech, I'm sorry." 

His brother looked nonplussed. "For what?" 

"For leaving you behind." 

Tech blinked. "I expected nothing else." Realizing, likely from Echo being unable to hide a wince, that this remark hadn't been reassuring, Tech sighed and continued on in the tone he had always used when he was explaining something he thought should be obvious: "I fell and took the rail car with me so you all could live and escape, not so you could be captured trying to retrieve my remains." 

Echo gave an involuntary shudder. "You... you really expected to die?"

"I knew it was the most likely outcome. The fact that I did survive would seem to indicate that at least one of several plans I had devised in an effort to escape the inevitable proved successful. I cannot recall what the plan was, but... perhaps that is for the best." He was quiet for a moment before regarding Echo again. "You did what I wanted you to do, Echo. You lived. You helped the others live. You ensured the risk I took was worth it. If you hadn't escaped... well, it's quite possible we wouldn't be here, together, right now."   

The ghost of a smile crossed Echo's face. "Omega said she'd be asking you to calculate the odds of you surviving and us finding you." 

"That's easy," Tech instantly replied. "Approaching infinity to one, against." 

"I guess she's right in calling this a miracle." 

"I would consider that an apt description," Tech nodded solemnly. He briefly fell silent again, before adding, "Though, considering what happened on Skako Minor, I would term it a coincidence - an unlikely one, but a coincidence nonetheless - that you in particular are the one who found me."

This observation – two clones, both presumed dead, both inexplicably surviving, each playing a significant role in finding and rescuing the other – left Echo stunned, and he was silent for some time as Tech returned his attention to the holoprojector. 

Echo had once heard a Jedi say, "The Force works in mysterious ways, far beyond our ability to comprehend." Echo wasn't sure any Force was actually at work here, but he did know many occurrences in his life were far beyond his ability to comprehend, and this was one of them. 

However, regardless of how circumstances had aligned this way, he found that he was grateful. Grateful that Tech had given them the chance to live, that his sacrifice hadn't been in vain. Grateful that Tech himself had survived the fall. Grateful that others - strangers - had cared for his brother enough to allow him to recover and thrive. Grateful that he, Echo, had come to Tintha to seek the services of a relatively unknown yet respected engineer. Grateful that he had heeded the feeling to probe for answers rather than convincing himself to stay silent. Grateful that Tech had wanted to remember, and now remembered. Grateful that Tech still loved them. Grateful to have Tech as his brother. 

And with so much to be grateful for, he found there was very little room left for guilt. 

Tech had been found, and he wouldn't be left behind again. 

****

Echo had joined Omega in the other room to rest several hours ago, but Tech was still wide awake. He had long since stopped going through his own old recordings, though, opting instead to take some time to sit with the recollections he had regained thus far. 

They hadn't all returned yet, but the flashes of memories he had had before, suddenly given context, now made sense, were recognizable; and the more he sat in thought, the more the details of the memories became clear and connected to other threads of memories that began to expand in their turn, bringing with them the meaning and purpose and need to know that he had been seeking for so long.  

Memories, his memories, filling with light and blazing color a space in his mind that had been achingly dark for some time, filling with warmth and comfortable serenity a void in his heart that had belonged to those loved ones whose names and faces he had forgotten but now remembered with blessed clarity. 

What's more, those loved ones still lived. He had calculated correctly; his gamble had paid off. 

He had told Omega that knowing his name wouldn't change his nature, and he had been right. Knowing now who he had been before, he recognized that over the years since Eriadu he had somehow managed to reclaim himself, much more successfully than he might have ever hoped; on a fundamental level, he had always been himself. But hearing his name, Tech, spoken by one of those individuals whose kinship and familial love he had held most dear - not only had this been the spark that reignited his old memories, it had indeed wrought a significant change in him.

For the first time since he had woken on Eriadu, he felt whole. 

[duckapus]

Nicktoons: Fractureverse

An idea based on FusionFall.

The Mawgu somehow returns, seeking revenge on the nine (technically eleven but for some reason Cosmo and Wanda don’t count as separate from Timmy for the purposes of the prophecy) Chosen Heroes who defeated him on Volcano Island. To that end, he tears the space-time continuum asunder, linking their worlds and many others (so every Nickelodeon universe I can think of) with unstable portals called Fractures, and then exploits the ensuing chaos to stage an invasion. He manages to do a lot of damage, most notably conquering Bikini Bottom and transforming it into his new base of operations, causing Fairy World to crash-land in the desert just outside of Retroville (it’s still mostly intact but it’s stuck on the ground afterwards), and stealing about 40% of the Irken Empire, but is met with resistance far sooner than he anticipated.

It turns out that Jimmy was aware of the possibility of the Mawgu escaping and had been working on countermeasures, creating weapons specifically designed to destroy his ooze’s unique chemical makeup and sap the energy his true self consists of. They’re not enough to defeat him outright, not yet, but for now they’re enough to turn this into a war instead of a slaughter. It also helps that the Mawgu’s powers don’t work well on machines (and that he doesn’t really understand them, though the Irkens now under his control do mitigate that somewhat), and that he’s somehow developed a weakness to weaponized ectoplasm. By contrast, his presence (and probably the whole shattering spacetime thing) now severely weakens Fairy magic, hence the quite literal Fall of Fairy World.

A war as unconventional as this requires an unconventional army, and one is formed by the various heroes and altruistic oddballs of the newly dubbed Fractureverse, as well as their allies, a handful of their enemies who can see the writing on the wall, and anyone else willing to step up and help. They call it the United Dimensional Defense Force, or UDDF, and its main headquarters is in a newly built part of Dimmsdale called Dry Atlantis, which is where most of the Bikini Bottom refugees are staying. As you’d expect, the actual Nicktoons team (particularly the Chosen Nine) end up as key players in the war, with Timmy in particular somehow ending up as the leader of the entire UDDF.

And then, of course there’s the villains. While a few of them either joined the UDDF or are still acting on their own, most of them have joined the Syndicate. However, there’s been a divide there. The New Syndicate, led by Plankton, have decided to put aside their antagonism for now and cooperate with the UDDF while remaining a mostly independent faction, seeing the Mawgu as a greater threat to their plans (and lives) than the heroes could ever be. The much smaller Old Syndicate, led by Professor Calamitous, were unwilling and/or unable to curb their ego and ambition, and are trying to exploit the war for their own ends. Interestingly, despite the name, Calamitous is the only one of the four founding members of the original Evil Syndicate to be part of the Old Syndicate, with Crocker serving as Plankton’s head of R&D and Vlad being too busy as the mayor of one of the Mawgu’s biggest targets to join anyone, though he has been financially and politically supporting the UDDF, and supplying the NS with his ghost research and knockoff Fenton Tech. Also the GIW isn’t working with anybody since the NS and UDDF have ghosts on staff and aren’t even remotely willing to hand them over, the OS is literally a war profiteering criminal organization, and they’re too Xenophobic and patriotic to even entertain the idea of betraying earth and siding with the Mawgu, which is good for them considering they’d either get turned into puppets or just destroyed. The Irken Empire isn’t getting involved (aside from a few individuals like Zim, Tak and Skoodge) despite the heavy loss they were dealt because Red and Purple, as per usual, don’t give a shit.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How tech changed global labor struggles for better and worse

The original sin of both tech boosterism and tech criticism is to focus unduly on what a given technology does, without regard to who it does it to and who it does it for. When it comes to technology’s effect on our daily lives, the social arrangements matter much more than the feature-sets.

This is the premise behind my idea of the “shitty technology adoption curve”: if you want to do something horrible to people with technology, you must first inflict it on people without social power and then work your way slowly up the privilege gradient, smoothing the tech’s rough edges by sanding them against the human bodies of people who can’t fight back.

Thus we see the rise of all disciplinary technology, especially bossware, which started off monitoring forced prison labor, then blue-collar workers, then pink collar workers (like the largely female, largely Black work-from-home customer service reps who work for Arise):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/22/paperback-writer/#toothless

The pandemic saw the spread of bossware to affluent, “high-skilled” white-collar workers, from doctors to teachers to IT workers, as the idea of being monitored continuously in your own home, from camera to keystrokes, was normalized by the lockdown:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

And yet, what matters about bossware isn’t what it does — a keylogger that you control is just called “undo” — but who it does it to. When gig workers “seize the means of reproduction” and hack the apps that boss them around, they can turn the tables. That’s what’s happening in Indonesia, where Tuyul apps are produced by worker co-ops and small software vendors to give drivers direct control over their working conditions:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

This is true disruption, where tech isn’t just used for regulatory arbitrage (as when gig-work apps are used to avoid labor laws by misclassifying workers as contractors):

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

That’s what makes Rida Qadri’s research so exciting: the premise that if workers can hack their employers back, bossware can become laborware:

https://www.wired.com/story/disruption-mobility-platforms-politics/

In the USA, companies like Para are creating apps that sit on top of the gig work dispatch apps, monitoring all the offers from all the different apps and auto-declining offers that are too low, forcing the algorithm to bid up the labor share of the companies’ income:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

Writing for IT for Change’s outstanding inaugural “State of Big Tech” issue, the Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy’s Jai Vipra presents “Changing Dynamics of Labor and Capital,” a deep, essential look at the way that tech affects labor struggles around the world:

https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/changing-dynamics-of-labor-and-capital/

Vipra’s report is fascinating not just for the eye-watering new ways that capital uses tech to inflict pain on labor, but for the ingenious, effective mechanisms that workers use tech to answer power with countervailing power.

For example, when workers delivering for the Swiggy app were unable to get the company to respond to the ways that the app was driving them into unsustainable and dangerous working schedules, they staged a “log-out strike” and collectively withheld their labor from the app, triggering a crisis that management couldn’t ignore.

Likewise, drivers for Ola began mass-cancelling rides to protest the company’s policy of not showing drivers their destinations and pay until they accepted a job — the resulting chaos forced the company to let drivers see all the details of an offer of work before accepting it.

These direct actions are driven in part by the platforms’ relentless pursuit of a reduced wage-bill, which sees them laying off swathes of back-office workers who once stepped in to mediate between gig workers and their algorithmic managers. When you can’t get anyone on the phone or a livechat to complain that your app wants you to drive off a pier and into the deep blue sea, collective digital power swings into action.

The Shitty Tech Adoption Curve means that we find the tactics of gig drivers working their way up the privilege gradient to white-collar workers, and sure enough, in Mar 2021, Goldman Sachs bankers coordinated a threat of mass resignation over the bossware monitoring them in their homes 24/7, complaining of 105 hour (!!) work-weeks:

https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2021/03/28/goldman-sachs-overwork-accusation-hits-nerve-as-pandemic-blurs-work-life-line-.html

But ad-hoc coordination has its limits. Spinning up a new organizing group to counter each new bossware fuckery exacts a terrible price from already overstretched, precarious workers. That’s where unions come in. On the face of it, unionizing gig workers presents an insurmountable challenge: they are atomized, geographically dispersed and lack even a break room.

But tech taketh away and it giveth back. When Uber Eats bait-and-switched drivers into signing up in 2016 and then slashed their wages, organizers connected with other workers by placing small food orders with Uber Eats and then had organizing conversations with the drivers who delivered the orders:

https://www.ft.com/content/88fdc58e-754f-11e6-b60a-de4532d5ea35

Bosses push back. They’ve convinced gutless labor regulators to ban the use of work email addresses for union organizing; they send infiltrators to monitor private Facebook conversations, they plant spyware on phones and laptops to crack open Whatsapp group-chats. Location-aware ID badges let bosses follow workers around and target potential union organizers for retaliatory firings.

The same monitoring tools let bosses nickel-and-dime their workers, clocking them off while they’re “unproductive” (peeing, driving to pick up their next passenger or delivery, or only paying retail workers while a customer is in the shop).

It’s a mixed bag: in China, independent workers’ rights centers work almost exclusively through social media, “for both direct consultations and mass dissemination of information, and this use is contributing to the organizing of labor as well.”

And ironically, monopoly helps labor organizers: the rollup plays that have seen most CloudKitchens gathered into the hands of a few firms means that their workers are more likely to be physically proximate and able to organize labor resistance to their monopolist bosses.

A common labor complaint in the age of digitalization is that their bosses monitor and discipline them for their off-hours activities: think of Deutsche Welle and the AP firing journalists who used their personal social media accounts to express support for Palestinians’ struggle for justice.

Bossware vendors boast that they can monitor workers’ personal online activity “to help them stay focused” — something 72% of workers object to. It’s easy to see how this can become a focus of labor activism, especially as employers announce that they will fire any worker who refuses to supply a full list of their social media accounts for monitoring:

https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/watching-the-workers.aspx

The next level of personal surveillance comes from “voluntary” health monitoring in which employees are required to wear Fitbits or other biometric tracking tools, or face increases to their health care premiums and other penalties. This is bad enough, but these biometric companies are choice acquisition targets for the biggest surveillance companies in the world, which means that you might one day wake up and find out that the data from your employer-mandated tracking cuff is now in Google’s hands:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/google-fitbit-merger-would-cement-googles-data-empire

Neoliberalism got us into this mess, and tech was its willing accomplice. But Vipra makes a good case that tech can “increase the negotiating power of labor over capital.” For Vipra, this starts with access to data: in India, “analog” workers have the legal right to know their employers’ profit margins, which is key for collective bargaining. But digital workers don’t have this right:

https://medium.com/tech-people/new-labour-codes-explained-48a4679d4a29

Giving gig workers the right to their own performance data would help those workers secure competitive bids for their labor — denying workers access to this data is anti-competitive:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/workplace-data-rights-regulation/

This same data can be used to make the case for regulation and unionization: when it’s your word against your boss’s, it might be hard to interest public officials in protecting your working conditions. But when the data shows that gig workers are putting in 12–18 hour days without overtime, the case is harder to ignore:

https://www.justjobsnetwork.org/wp-content/pubs/reports/transformations_in_technology_report.pdf

Modern employers collect vast amount of data about their workers, but share almost none of it. Again, the important thing isn’t what the tech is doing, but who it’s doing it for and who it’s doing it to.

Vipra also singles out the one-sided nature of the platforms’ use of payment technologies. Modern payment systems mean that gig work platforms collect their customers’ money in near-realtime, but despite this, gig companies are the most delay-prone employers, paying workers after totally unjustifiable delays that give bosses free cash flow and force workers into precarity.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/08/former-head-of-mint-raises-4-5m-for-lean/

After this critique, Vipra proposes “a substantive agenda for labor” in five areas: algorithmic regulation, data sharing, remote work rights, financial rights, and “emancipatory automation.”

Algorithmic regulation: Algorithms should have “a minimum level of explainability”; “minimum performance levels” (error rates, transparency, etc); and “human involvement in decision making” must be mandatory (so you can get prompt and effective redress when the algorithm misfires).

Data sharing: Don’t just “data minimize” — “reorient it towards goals that are worker- and society-friendly.” Collect and share data on labor safety, and mandate that companies “collect, analyze, and share big data to protect workers’ rights.”

Remote work rights: The right to disconnect from work; the right to be paid for work equipment, including chairs, internet access, etc (I would add here, the right to have those devices configured to block employer monitoring).

Financial rights: The state should mandate financial interoperability and use account aggregators and open banking to “minimize[] the information asymmetry in favor of people for whom information is collateral.” Force platforms to disclose the commissions, fees, incentives, etc they offer to workers. Provide source-code for these systems to regulators.

Emancipatory automation: “Automation should mean less drudgery and fewer working hours overall.” This is what I’m getting at when I call for technologists to become full-stack Luddites:

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

Overall, Vipra presents a bracing, challenging view of the way that tech can serve both labor and capital, depending on how it is configured and used. I don’t agree with everything she says (the privacy section in data rights could use its own article of equal depth and critical analysis), but reading this made the hair on the back on my neck stand up (in a good way).

This is more or less what I had in mind back in 2009 when I was writing For the Win, about how multiplayer games could serve as organizing platforms for an international labor vanguard (the Industrial Workers of the World Wide Web, or Webblies):

https://craphound.com/category/ftw/

[Image ID: An altered version of J.C. Leyendecker's Labor Day 1946 cover illustration for Hearst's 'American Weekly' magazine. The original features a muscular worker in dungarees sitting atop a banner-draped globe, holding a sledgehammer. In this version, his head has been replaced with a faceless hacker-in-a-hoodie, and his sledgehammer has been filled with Matrix code-waterfall characters. Leyendecker's signature has been replaced with an IWW graphic depicting workers with upraised fists all joining together to form a gigantic fist.]

[leguichettravel]

To support the preparations of the anniversary of CtM, I have decided to draw all four major factions in THSC along with their operators working with their respective allies. Normally, I would have just posted it on Twitter/X, but since Tumblr is likely a new territory to me, I have decided to use this artwork as my first official post here.

This artwork shown here is based on my own AU: Serving the Foundation.

Now, it's time to mention the allied operators shown in those pictures:

Pls note that since I can't do human based designs, I have to compensate it through numerous references.

Top left: SCP Foundation MTF Commander without NVGs.

The MTF Commander is the current leader of all MTF squadrons serving only to the MTF Director and the O5 Council themselves. Most of them are likely commanding their task force squadrons effectively back in base in containing anomalies and taking down any hostile incursions they see. Seeing them in the field is a rare sight for any operative to encounter since they only appear in any major operations or high-risk scenarios.

In my AU, only a small number of MTF commanders are residing in FOB Alpha (the name of the base given to the Foundation when mentioning the Government forces main basecamp) where most of them are assisting officers and commanders in planning future operations. Oftentimes, they would also help out in training both the Government and Foundation recruits in numerous combat and hazardous-based scenarios.

Top right: Chaos Insurgency assault operative with new gas mask variant.

Rising out of a splinter group rebelling against the Foundation back in 1924, the Chaos Insurgency was born by rouge Alpha-1 personnel, since then it has become a major player in the world stage and the main enemy of the Foundation by trading in captured anomalies, weapons and intelligence, and conducting raids against Foundation Sites.

The CIs mostly appear wearing camouflage uniforms and tactical equipment with the gas masks with red lenses being the most featured in the Insurgency. They are mostly armed with superior weaponry and heavy firepower. Despite that the CIs are oftentimes underfunded, they compensate that through superior manpower.

When it comes to their tactics, as their name suggests, they will use whatever mean they have at their disposal to complete their goals, hence that explains their ruthlessness in nature.

Since some of the CIs formerly have backgrounds connected to the Foundation, dealing with certain anomalies sent by other factions has become common to them during combat.

In my AU, they are mostly allies with the Toppat Clan by providing them a handful amount of weaponry and few Insurgency contingents to assist them with some of their missions along with raid operations and heists, if necessary. Rumors from both groups mentioned that they are establishing a unique specialised unit for counterattack and raid purposes with a word rising out that the Govt forces are having a mutual alliance with the Foundation.

Bottom left: United Nations Global Occult Coalition Commander.

Born in the aftermath of WW2 by defecting priests, psychics, and scientists from both Allied and Axis nations, the GOC's mission is simple and has remained the same since it's inception: The complete destruction of dangerous paranormal phenomena, achieving this through extremely high tech gadgets and weapons. They are mostly neutral towards the Foundation.

The GOC are mostly armed with massive weaponry and experimental technology in order to achieve their only known goal is to get rid of dangerous anomalies or "parathreats" as the GOC refers to those entities. That means the next time, if some dangerous creatures would dare try to attack them, they will be met with a hail of bullets resulting in their own demise through their cold blood. But sometimes, the GOC relies on thumathurgy along with the support of other anomalies in order for them to eliminate highly powerful parathreats.

In my AU, the GOC has become allies with the Centre for Chaos Containment or the CCC but still retains its neutrality towards the Foundation. They mostly act as security forces in some of the CCC's sites, with some GOC strike teams like Strike Team 1102 designated as "Broken Dagger" assisting the CCC in providing the on-the-ground security force by giving some of its members weapons and equipment given by both the Foundation and the GOC hence you can see the CCC Security Operative using a riot gear given by the Foundation's Security Department.

Bottom right: New Wall assault unit, based on this picture below.

As for the Wall, I did not give them a specialised ally to work with since they have become massively unaffiliated with any major and minor factions out there. Since they have top-of-the-line gear and heavy military equipment there, hence why you can see tanks and Humvees in their complex, I have decided to give them a special winter combat outfit, just in case they are dealing with a heavy prison riot or face heavy incursions on the complex. However, since this is a winter uniform shown here, it won't be used on other terrain except for snowing areas.

[elsa16744]

The Business Case for Sustainability: Balancing Profitability and Environmental Responsibility 

Investors have embraced responsible portfolio management strategies to encourage sustainable enterprises and support socio-economic development. Meanwhile, customers refuse to buy from a brand that fails to curb labor malpractices, pollution, waste generation, and petroleum consumption. This post will describe the business case for sustainability to increase awareness about these trends. 

What is Sustainable Business Development? 

A company engages in sustainable business development when it revises its operations, product design, and resource allocation to contribute to social and environmental problem resolution. It is not about pretending to be eco-friendly or slowing industrial progress. Instead, sustainability for business ensures companies can thrive without harming social harmony and Earth’s resources. 

Today, business leaders leverage sustainability consulting services to navigate modern regulations demanding more responsible corporate approaches. Besides, several pressing matters range from safekeeping consumer data to making workplaces more inclusive. 

At the same time, multiple compliance guidelines have overwhelmed managers. So, it is imperative to embrace a tech-led strategy. It will help increase your firm’s compliance across all the major frameworks, like the ones described below. 

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting, 

Task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD), 

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), 

And the EU taxonomy. 

How Can a Business Balance Profitability, Ethics, and Sustainability? 

The older the organization, the more challenges you must overcome to go green. An excellent method is multistakeholder brainstorming. Let customers, suppliers, employees, business associates, and investors chime in and provide improvement ideas. 

Another indirect approach involves extensive data gathering, insight extraction, and reporting. Using automated computing systems, companies can monitor the policy dynamics in the target markets and improve specific operations in realistic stages. 

They do not need to transform all practices and risk productivity loss. Since they will utilize data from authoritative sources, their decisions will also have a sound foundation. Available technologies can involve ESG data solutions tailored for private companies, financial materiality estimates, controversy analytics, and risk forecasting tools. 

Finally, leaders, board directors, and the rest must periodically evaluate their business sustainability initiatives. If they notice some strategies becoming obsolete, they must devise appropriate action plans to rectify such issues. 

Advantages of Business Sustainability 

1| Efficient Resource Consumption 

Pollution and carbon risk mitigation require brands to replace conventional energy systems with greener alternatives. This renewable energy transition allows companies to rationalize how they allocate resources to operations. Moreover, they can reduce dependence on public infrastructure for power and water using modern technologies. 

Treating and reusing water might not be suitable for all enterprises. However, the scope of these practices encompasses offices, factories, and post-sales product maintenance. In other words, you want to consider the entire product lifecycle to increase your ESG ratings and positive impact potential. 

Integrating green technology to fulfill the efficient resource consumption requirements makes you more competitive and attracts more investors. Therefore, business profitability increases thanks to sustainability accounting compliance. 

2| Resilient Supply Chains 

Socio-economic and ecological threats limit your enterprise’s growth potential. They endanger the well-being of consumers and supply partners. Consider how environmental problems, political chaos, or social issues hinder free transportation, making timely product delivery more arduous. 

However, brands can voluntarily work toward building a peaceful, green, tolerant, and resilient community. They must collaborate with employees, educators, policymakers, and local stakeholders. After all, most corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects aimed at literacy increase, women empowerment, and cyber safety awareness create opportunities to create a more stable world. 

Aside from social disharmony threats, your supply chain is often vulnerable to fraud, region-specific quality norm inconsistencies, and controversies. You cannot eliminate these risks, but you can reduce the harm they might cause using predictive analysis and contingency plans. Many sustainability frameworks address these aspects in their reporting guidelines. 

3| Long-Term Stakeholder Relationships 

Responsible consumption and a solid supply chain increase an organization’s reputation. Socially conscious customers prefer companies that realize the cost of human-caused industrial activities. Therefore, they want leaders to embrace business sustainability, transparent communication, and ethical human resource practices. 

Simultaneously, social networking sites (SNS) have empowered individuals to voice their disappointment with brands that fail to improve compliance. So, customers will likely stop purchasing from you if you lag behind competitors in sustainable business development. 

Conversely, corporations with adequate CSR programs get loyal customers, free press, positive value association, and investor goodwill. They become leaders in establishing new industry norms while others struggle to understand sustainability accounting principles. 

Precaution: Greenwashing is Not a Business Case for Sustainability 

Consider the following: 

What can anyone do if companies manipulate their financial and carbon disclosures? 

Will investors, regulators, and customers trust other brands who also report on sustainability or ESG performance metrics? 

What types of green claims can an organization include in its marketing campaigns? 

How do we verify that a brand’s reported CSR outcomes are genuine and tangible? 

Can ESG disclosures backfire and expose your company to controversies and misinformation attacks?  

These are legitimate fears expressed by many because of the greenwashing cases. The perpetrators use deceptive verbal and design tactics to boast about on-paper CSR achievements with no on-ground impact. Some claimed they use 100% renewable energy by cunningly omitting crucial reporting elements. Others had suppliers employing child labor in life-threatening working conditions. 

Greenwashing hurts stakeholder trust in ESG, TCFD, and GRI documentation. When one company receives greenwashing allegations, others in the same industry also attract criticism. Sooner or later, the media picks up the story, and the hard-earned brand reputation evaporates into infinity. 

Avoid greenwashing and disassociate with partners, municipalities, and suppliers doing it. 

Conclusion 

Leaders who recognize the significance of sustainable business development are visionaries. They know their business can thrive if the consumers, employees, investors, and regulators are happy with their work. So, the world has witnessed a rekindled interest in ethics-driven corporate attitudes and investment strategies. 

Reducing byproduct generation, enforcing anti-harassment policies, and adopting practical data governance standards make brands more sustainable. Their supply chain resilience increases while more stakeholders trust them. 

Nevertheless, greenwashing risks prevent organizations and investors from unlocking the full potential business sustainability use cases. Therefore, all the stakeholders must be honest with compliance reporting. It is okay if your ESG ratings are low because you can implement initiatives and work with experts to improve them. 

In the end, only transparency matters. Without it, sustainability reporting will become a worthless formality. However, with the proper oversight, the opposite will happen, and your organization will surpass all competitors while solving social and environmental problems.

[corpsephage]

Sonic Frontiers Pre-DLC-Three Whinefest

I couldn't really get much into Sonic Frontiers, and I thought the final boss and ending was a little lacklustre. Apparently the writers agreed with me, because they're releasing a new ending as free DLC tomorrow.

I actually had a lot of thoughts about Frontiers and this'll likely be the last time I can air them before The Final Horizon comes along and makes me eat humble pie with how good it is. But I don't want to rip on it too hard because I know a lot of effort goes into making games like this.

I think Sonic Frontiers works best for me when I look at it like a tech demo for a future open world Sonic game. Compared to the variety of stages you get in other Sonic games - here's a casino with giant pinball machines, there's a European city full of balloons, here's a mineshaft from Halloween Town - the Frontiers open zones kind of felt sparse and empty, and there wasn't much I could find to do except go from one bit of plot to the next. This is a trap a lot of open-world games fall into, when the world is wider than it is deep, and there's everywhere to go but nothing to do.

However, I did like the enemies. They kind of looked samey aesthetics-wise, but they were all unique and had their own abilities that cleverly played off from Sonic's own, like the enemy disguised as a bounce pad or the one that would steal a Chaos Emerald from you.

In terms of boss fights, I think I preferred the part where you were normal Sonic running up their bodies to being Super Sonic and frantically smashing buttons. I was a big fan of Shadow of the Colossus, so anything that reminds me of those bosses is a plus.

Plot-wise, well... usually I can take or leave Sonic game plots, but this is probably the most plot-heavy Sonic game we've had so far. It's been described as "melancholy", and while it's not exactly grimdark-edgy, I wonder if it's a good fit for a Sonic game. I think the tone that suits Sonic best would be “fun”; not necessarily “silly” or “goofy”, just “fun”. That’s not me saying the whole thing should be happy-go-lucky, I think it should take slow moments every now and then to add complexity to the story.

Sonic's friends have these character arcs where they learn important lessons, like Amy learns not to be creepy-in-love with Sonic, Knuckles learns not to be tethered to the Master Emerald all the time, and Tails learns to stand on his own two feet for the umpteenth time. Part of me feels like maybe they're overcorrecting things that don't need that much correcting - especially Tails, whose whole arc felt kind of like an apology for the whole "Sonic, help me!" throwaway line in Forces.

Then there's Sage, the new character for this game, honouring the SEGA tradition of adding at least one new character every game. Truth be told, I kind of like them adding new characters, as long as they aren't just re-skins of the same "tutorial fairy" archetype (I think that's why Blaze and Silver had the staying power they did, being headlining playable characters in their debut games and all).

Sage had a lot of potential that I didn't think they got to explore. It's an interesting idea that she unconditionally loves Eggman like a father, but learns more of her morals from Sonic, which has the makings of a really tragic character. But they didn't really go in-depth with this my-two-dads-hate-each-other hook, and when they tried to do the whole Toy Story 2 bit with her (you know the part I'm talking about) I just couldn't take it seriously.

The main villain of the game turns out to be a big purple rock, which left me quite underwhelmed considering the build-up it got. The Sonic wiki reckons it's the ultimate overarching evil in all of Sonic ("Oh my God, I should have known! The one behind all this! All this time it was a big purple rock!") which is big talk considering Eggman is right! There! I get they were trying to go for a whole Azathoth/Yog-Sothoth thing, but I think Sonic-style dark gods need some more meat on their bones than the Lovecraft "it's indescribable, just trust me bro" style. I've seen some impressive fan designs for the big purple rock that make it look a lot more malevolent.

Honestly, I think Sage should have been the final boss. That’d really put her feelings between Sonic and Eggman at the emotional core of the story. Imagine once the towers were finished, Eggman comes out of cyberspace and the first thing he tries is to kill Sonic and his friends there and then - maybe he orders Sage to do it - but poor Sage can’t bring herself to kill her Uncle Sonic or disappoint her beloved dad, so she has an emotional breakdown which allows the evil cyber-force to enter into her mind, and the final boss ends up being her piloting this super-titan made of all three of the other titans. And maybe at the end Sonic knocks some sense into her – telling her to be her own person and all that – and she uses her free will to sacrifice herself and stop the cyber-evil. Or something. Look, I still can't believe the final boss was a QTE against a big purple rock, alright?!

But if there's one thing I do like Sonic Frontiers for, it's for being ambitious. If you look around the Sonic Fanon wiki, you'll see a lot of pretty detailed Sonic game ideas, and a lot of them have pretty high stakes and expansive stages - open-world designs featuring ancient evils from ancient civilizations and stuff like that. The first thing I thought of when I saw Frontiers, right when it was nothing more than a teaser, was that it reminded me of those fan game ideas. And in a strange way it works. Kind of. Sorta. I didn't hate it. On reflection.

If nothing else, Frontiers proves that an open-ended Sonic game can work. If the open world was more lively, it'd be a magical experience. Picture Sonic running through the countryside at night, over hill and dale, past streams and forests, the flickering lights of cities in the distance. Slaloming through traffic on the interstate, running up the sides of skyscrapers and springing from the rooftops, pedestrians down below wondering what that blue flash was. That kind of freedom and openness suits Sonic down to the ground. Split the world into denser and busier areas for fast-paced reflex-testing, and wider, quieter areas for taking it all in - that's a true Sonic simulator right there, looking into his world of worlds.

The new DLC also gives SEGA the chance to prove itself with other playable characters, like back in the days of Adventure yore. I actually like the presence of other playable characters - like I say, you don't make a fox with two tails who can fly and not have him playable - so long as they're fun to play as. Honestly, I hope the new DLC does it well, because if it's a success, then the next game might be willing to expand upon all this potential. You never know, we might be looking at a proper Sonic the Hedgehog RPG in a few years, and it could be the biggest Sonic adventure since... uh... Sonic Adventure.

So, yeah - Sonic Frontiers - didn't dig it - could've done better - and I hope it does do better, because it has a hell of a lot of potential, and I'd love to see an open-ended Sonic game taking place in a living, breathing world with the groundwork Frontiers has laid. And if we can play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy and all the rest, so much the better. Bring on Grand Theft Sonic, I say.

[talesfromthetraproom]

The Stage Techs Play Electrician for a Day, and Encounter the Wall That Eats All Things

Setting:

Concert Hall. 12 noon (the trouble apparently began before this, but I came in at 12 because my morning involved falling asleep in a computer science lecture and getting my toilet fixed).

Cast:

The student crew (Me)

The union crew (Grumpy, Twin, and Loud)

The supervisors (PM, LX, and Video)

Today's Tale Brought to You By:

A Highly Suspicious Amount of Silence

An Overengineered Game of Snakes and Ladders

The Prospect of Spiders

Really Bad Building Design (and No One is Surprised)

The object of the game: take these ethernet cables, and run them from one side of the audience to the other through the wall that separates the grand tier from the orchestra. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? Right? Wrong. When I arrived on the scene, Video, Loud, and Twin were already mostly defeated and staring at the wall like they might suddenly develop XRay vision.

Several Hours and a Multitude of Plan Bs later, we have the following collection of highlights (in no particular order):

Twin: "Quit telling me about the habitat preferences of venomous spiders when I have my hand shoved halfway up an electrical box!" Me: "I thought the warning both timely and necessary, excuuse me"

LX: [Shop Teacher], you have to understand that University students are complete idiots. Not you though, Wynn. Me (flipping him off over my shoulder): You still wouldn't trust me with a welder, to be fair. Shop Teacher: I would! LX: You shouldn't. She frequently threatens to murder people.

Video: "While I truly appreciate that PM found our missing conduits, is no one going to point out that he also ripped the entire cable box out of the wall? No? Just me? Is anyone thinking about how the cable box is gong back into the wall? No? Just me?"

Loud: "I suddenly feel the need to point out that I told you I could rip this box apart. At absolutely no point did I tell you that I could put it back together and I am in no way liable for what PM decides to do with that information."

Video: "Hey LX. Can we cut one of your network cables and use it as a guide wire?" LX: "That would be an incredibly expensive mistake." Video: "On the contrary I'm willing to bet it's about the least expensive mistake we've made today."

PM: "What's going on out here? Wynn said my presence was requested, and I believe she used the word 'shitshow' so it's gotta be serious." Loud: "Yeah. How mad would you be if we cut a slightly larger hole in this wall?"

LX: "Wynn, go turn off the footlights before PM blinds himself. They're the switch backstage that is labelled 'DO NOT TURN OFF'. Don't give me that look."

PM: "Hey Wynn you have little hands, come feel around behind this box and see if you can find the conduit." LX: "What, so we can now have two cables, a broken pull line, the retrieving snake, and Wynn's arm stuck in the wall???" PM (ignoring him): "Out of curiosity, when was your last tetanus shot?"

LX: "Oh Grumpy? Watch out for the fire alarm sensors up there, an evacuation is the last thing we need today. They're white and look like laser emitte-" *BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.* LX: "....yeah. Those ones." There are certain perks to being located directly across the street from the University Emergency Services building.

In the end and thanks to dumb luck, we did get the cable run all the way through the wall and out the other side. The concert hall, rather than being recording-ready for tomorrow, rather looks like a tornado went through the grand tier. LX got absolutely nothing done that he needed to do today. Half of the face plate screws went missing in the chaos. But I got away with only a few scrapes on my arms, and nobody encountered venomous spiders (though I'm not sure Twin will ever forgive me for that one). I think we all learned a few lessons, and gained a new level of respect for our fellow tradesmen.

[chuuyrr]

what if there's another scarlet witch!y/n out there who is out to harm gojo? she then teleports to the current au world and tries to harm him for k-wording geto?

"love is the most twisted curse of all" — scarlet witch! baby fushiguro! reader

jujutsu kaisen x reader

masterlist of the series

warning(s): major anime/manga spoilers for jjk, mentions of death, mentions of wanda maximoff's powers and slight parallelism to wanda's scene in the endgame against thanos, no comfort angst, and use of strong language

thank you so much for requesting anon dear anon, i love me some multiverse-esque requests, enjoy reading <3

before you read: the wanda! y/n that is trying to get revenge is different from the other! wanda! y/n that also happened to be geto's s/o. both of them had two different fates and are not related to gojo nor the fushiguros in any way.

just how far are you willing to go?

are you willing to stain your hands with blood in the hopes of completely filling the void?

as many as the stages of grief are, the very manifestation of grief can come in a variety of forms, one of which is revenge.

your other self was more than willing to burn the world and paint herself as the villain in hopes of being able to feel the warmth that her lover had given her once again. 

you were at tokyo jujutsu tech, watching your father, gojo datoru, conduct the sparring of the first-year students in the grounds because nanami, utahime, nor the second-year students could babysit you, when all of a sudden you felt something strange. there was something ominous yet familiar at the same time. it wasn't until a red mist had come to be and before you could alarm gojo and the first-year students, a large red blast of psionic energy came in their direction that all you could do was scream in horror. 

from the immense energy that was coming from a distance, tremors scattered throughout the area. as soon as the red mist had dissipated, you looked up to see a levitating woman clad in dark red robes and a cape, as well as a two-pointed intricate tiara. it was you, another alternate version of yourself, except something was wrong with this one. she lacked the warmth and smile that you and your other variants had. 

fortunately, gojo was able to activate and use his technique right on cue before they could get hurt. he now stood in front of you in a protective stance with the first-year students beside you. the five of you watched as your splitting yet older image landed on the ground. her eyes glowed red with malice. you couldn't see anything but a red haze of anger in her eyes, and oddly enough, it seemed to be directed towards gojo, your dad.

"you.. took.. everything.. from me." the woman enunciated every word scornfully. what was your other self talking about?

gojo was baffled at your other self's statement. the woman before him was terrifying. although she exactly resembled you, gojo and the first-year students could feel her raw power choking them with its weighty and heavy pressure.

your other self didn't give him and the rest of you time to react. she immediately began launching massive amounts of her black-streaked red pisonic projectiles at gojo, as well as massive pieces of debris that she simultaneously picked up to throw. you activated your own magic consequently and generated a force field to protect the five of you, but gojo disappeared and went head-on towards the other scarlet witch.

"listen, there must be a mistak—gojo began talking in attempt to stop her from wreaking havoc, but to his surprise her chaos magic had found it's way around his infinity and effortlessly got a hold of him.

with a sinister grin plastered on the other scarlet witch's face, red psionics attacked the limitless sorcerer, who was left without a choice but to fight. the dispute between the chaos sorceress and the limitless sorcerer was a blur to the naked eye. you and the first-year students breathlessly watched, almost helplessly. the other scarlet witch's attacks were aggressive and very personal. the red psionics just kept coming one after the other at such a speed. gojo satoru, on the other hand, was barely able to keep up and narrowly dodged all the attacks that rained on him.

hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

you closed your eyes and used your chaos magic to read her thoughts, only to feel her pain physically, causing you to gasp and fall onto your knees.

"[name]!" megumi, nobara and yuji cried out in unison, immediately running to your side in concern.

megumi's eyes became frantic when you started gasping for air and clutching the awful, awful feeling that was clawing at your chest. "what's wrong? are you okay?"

"what's happening to [name]!?" nobara looked at the older fushiguro in a worry as yuuji rubbed shapes on your back in an attempt to sooth you down. "why is she doing that?"

you didn't think that would even be possible. her entire being was consumed by grief and rage. you saw in her very eyes how geto suguru's death and the lengths she had gone through to get revenge poisoned her heart.

the grief was painful, more painful than any gunshots, heart attacks, or poisons combined. it felt like you were being drowned; it felt like you were being cut by a thousand knives; it was just nothing but agony. furthermore, it was unnerving to see your uncle cruelly end up with the same fate in your other self's world.

the state of your other self that all of you were seeing right now was the very manifestation of her grief. right now, she wanted nothing more but to avenge her lover.

you immediately exited her mind and sighed in relief, almost wheezing, when the painful weight on your chest left.

"[name]?" megumi called out to again in concern.

you sputtered out, tears glazing your [color] eyes. "i read her thoughts.. i know why she's angry at daddy. she's mad at him for killing uncle geto. she wants revenge."

"but, gojo-sensei isn't the same gojo-sensei in her universe." megumi furrowed his brows.

all four of you turned your gaze towards gojo upon hearing his pained cry. your pupils dilated at the sight of red psionics that were now beginning to constrict and tear him to pieces.

"GOJO-SENSEI!" "DADDY!"

you immediately reacted by disappearing into a red mist and appearing in front of your other self. with your hand over the other, you enchanted "ryoiki tenkai!" and released an immense turbulence of red psionics that matched your other version's level. it engulfed the entire area, trapping everyone in your power and nullified every single cursed energy and magic before she could end up killing gojo. if anything, only a witch can take on a witch.

the seething anger on your other version's face subsided into confusion as soon as she felt every single ounce of her chaos magic disappear. she raised her hand only to have no red psionics trail from it.

"what is this? what did you do?!" she cried out in frustration.

"it's my domain expansion. i'm the only one who can use powers in this space." you responded calmly in a quiet manner, standing—or more like levitating—in front of a shocked gojo satoru.

"release it at once, you child! i need to kill that man behind you!" your other self screamed, thrashing from the hold of your chaos magic that was now constricting her.

you shook your head, "i can't do that! you can't kill my daddy!"

she scoffed, "he killed suguru! he took him from me! he needs to pay!"

"you have to understand that my daddy isn't same person that killed him!" you retorted defensively, your eyes glowed red in the process.

"suguru was my everything.." your other self broke down into tears. "he was all i have left."

"[name].. please.." gojo decided to speak up after some time, unable to hold himself at the sight of your other version bursting into tears. the woman was still his daughter, somehow.

"why did you have to kill him? how could you take him away from me?" you other self muttered.

"you can't take my daddy from me. you have to listen to me. listen to him. please, it's not him. he's not the same person." you pleaded, tears filling the brim of your eyes.

"you don't have any idea what it feels like to have someone you love get taken from you." the other scarlet witch mumbled before her eyes flit to look into yours instead. "so, don't sympathize with me just because you and i are the same! i'll kill you if i have to just so he can understand what it feels like!"

"it wasn't easy for me either."

gojo flit his eyes towards your older, splitting image. "i had to kill my own best friend in this world too. i'm not your gojo satoru, but i'll take responsibility. i'm sorry you had to lose him, [name]. it's our fault that he's gone, so please don't bring my daughter into this."

"best friend?" your other self's eyes softened.

"we had different beliefs throughout our school life, but we were best friends. even until the very end, i couldn't curse him even if he told me i should have." gojo explained, "i don't exactly know what my other self is like in your world, but i'm sure it's the same for him, [name]."

tears welled in the other scarlet witch's eyes. you and gojo watched her break down into a sob upon realization. she had been selfish, too selfish for her own good, that she let resentment blind her. her lover wouldn't have wanted this. In the end, she got nothing from revenge. even when she managed to hurt your gojo satoru, her heart was still empty. there was no satisfaction, just grief and pain. it didn't bring her geto suguru back either. your other self just ended up hurting herself.

if only she listened to her gojo satoru, if only she tried to understand why he did that, but alas, regret always comes last.

after releasing your domain expansion, you made the three of you land back on the ground, and you didn't hesitate to run up to your other self to wrap your arms around her. you wanted to let her know she wasn't alone. you wanted to help her just like how the other, other version of yourself helped you once.

"i'm sorry." she whispered softly.

now this was the [name] you and everyone knew.

"it's okay, other me." you told her sympathetically, burying your face onto her neck. "i know you didn't mean to."

your other self pulled you away from you, cracking a smile before disappearing into a red mist, leaving your world without another word.

"daddy? do you think other me will be okay?"

even after you felt the pain and saw everything through her eyes, you still couldn't help but think about your other self. you've never felt anything like it, and it made you genuinely worry if she was going to be okay.

"i can't say for sure, kikufuku. i can't read thoughts unlike you, even with my six eyes." gojo sighed deeply, managing a smile as he caressed your cheek.

"it was really painful." you uttered, eyes faltering into a frown.

gojo blinked, looking at you in concern. "what was?"

you answered in response, "her pain. i felt it and it hurt more than the boo-boos i got before.

gojo fell into silence. for once, he didn't know what to say. he couldn't bring himself to tell you how love can be the most twisted curse of all, but you heard his thoughts. you heard it loud and clear.

"maybe it is, daddy." you simply answered, recalling how your other self was able to bring herself to hurt others just for the sake of love as she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"maybe love can be the most twisted curse of all."

[allzelemonz]

Don’t Go: Crosshair X Gender Neutral Reader Part 1

In honor of the return of Star Wars! I’m a little late... but Crosshair is in need of love. I want nothing bad to happen to him and I will likely be sad in the coming weeks.

It all happened so suddenly. One minute you were working with the resident Jedi on Kamino, then a clone asked for you to follow him. Then you heard the blaster fire. When you tried to turn back the clone grabbed your arm and kept you there.

“It would be best if you stayed with me, Commander.”

You stared at the expressionless helmet in shock. From the tone of his voice to the words themselves, this clone was not acting right. Nevertheless, he had a blaster in his hands and you did not. He released his grip on your arm and you followed him away. Nothing seemed right.

He led you to the Prime Minister who was waiting in his usual weird egg chair. When the trooper was gone you gave the Kaminoan a curious look as he calmly poured a drink for you.

“I’m sorry if you witnessed any unpleasant things today, Commander.”

“Do you mind if I ask what’s going on, Prime Minister?”

You tried to keep you cool in the presence of the Kaminoan, knowing that manners and politeness was their favored character trait. You accepted the drink from him with a small thanks.

“All will be explained in due time, but I’m afraid I must inform you that your employment in training the clone troopers may be coming to an end.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have come under a sort of new management.” The Prime Minister took a small sip from his cup. “An announcement will be made later this evening, I just thought it would be best to let you know of the threat to your employment ahead of time.”

“Thank you for that, but I’m still a bit confused.”

“We will speak more tomorrow, after the announcements. Everything will make more sense then.”

You gave the Kaminoan a nod and promptly exited the room. You were met with hallways full of troopers going in every direction. You took a shaky breath at the sight of an occupied stretch being carried to the med bay, seemingly for analysis. You had a sinking feeling you knew exactly who was on it.

You made your way to your barracks, changing your mind halfway there, and instead turning down the hall leading to the barracks room of Clone Force 99. You waited there for an hour or so, trying to distract yourself with cleaning one of Crosshair’s old rifles.

The door slid open to reveal Tech and Wrecker first. Tech going immediately to his workstation.

“Ah! Good to be back.” Wrecker exclaimed as he put his helmet down.

“The smell’s getting worse.” Echo commented.

“You’re still new. You’ll get used to it.” Hunter assured.

“Speak for yourself.” Crosshair pushed passed his brothers, finally seeing you.

The other boys went about their usual coming home routine as Crosshair sat next to you and took his helmet off.

“How was the mission?” You asked, mostly to gauge if he’d be acting weird like all the clones you’d seen today.

“Mediocre.” He mumbled.

He leaned over to you and placed a quick kiss on your head. At least that hadn't changed. The rest of the Bad Batch seemed to be acting like themselves. There was something about Crosshair’s movements that seemed different. He hadn’t taken his helmet off until sitting with you. He didn’t say anything about you cleaning his rifle.

“Not every objective” Crosshair said.

You tuned into the conversation, having ignored it until now.

“Hunter let that Jedi kid escape.” He continued. “Or do you want to keep lying to us?”

You looked between Crosshair and Hunter. Let the Jedi escape? Were all of the Jedi being killed?

Hunter stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the waters below.

“I don’t like to think of executing our commanders as a mission objective.”

“An order is an order.” Crosshair argued.

He wasn’t wrong, but killing all of the Jedi was a questionable order at best. And the Padawans, children, there was no way to justify that order. When you were first brought on to aid the trooper training you couldn’t believe that pre-teens were holding a rank that you didn’t earn until you were twice that age. You couldn’t imagine killing them.

“Since when?” Hunter fired back.

Even from behind him, you could see Crosshair become annoyed. The end of his toothpick flicking around and his shoulders tensing up.

“None of this makes sense.” Echo chimed in. “Those clones served alongside General Billaba for years. How could they turn on her like that?” The former reg hit his fist against the table in frustration.

“Because of the reg’s programming.”

Everyone looked at Tech as if he was crazy.

“What programming?” Hunter asked.

You recalled being told that the clones were made to be more obedient than the average person, but you never thought of it as programming. Tech explained what he meant and Wrecker laughed.

“Ha! We sure don’t” The giant clone slung an arm around Crosshair, stuffed toy in hand.

You could see Crosshair’s annoyance at the action go beyond his default level of only moderate annoyance.

Tech explained why they didn’t adhere to the same standards as other clones, which you could have guessed. They’re different. Tech made it sound more complicated than that, but really the short answer was that they were simply built different.

Crosshair pushed Wrecker off him as Tech continued his explanation. Wrecker began to softly hit Crosshair with his stuffed toy in opposition. Crosshair got away from his large brother and replaced his toothpick in his mouth. You could still tell he was a bit off put by the current topic of conversation. The boys continued to discuss why they didn’t follow the order that had apparently been put out. You came to your own conclusion about the Jedi and troopers you’d been with earlier.

Crosshair leaned against the wall next to his bunk, you nudged him lightly and asked silently if he was feeling okay. He didn’t respond as he usually did.

An intercom message gave the order to report to the staging area, interrupting the conversation.

The Bad Batch walked to the staging area. You followed with them, Crosshair keeping pace with you in the back. It was his form of PDA like holding hands, just walking with you in step.

You split from the boys to take your position at the head of your group of clone cadets. All of them acting strange, not a single one out of place or trying to talk to one another. All of them stood at attention as if they were clankers. Even your subordinate sergeant didn’t give you any more comment than an acknowledgement of rank and a curt nod. He’d usually at least crack a smile or a wink if he was feeling confident.

You watched the announcement with a bad feeling about what was to come. You tried to catch sight of Crosshair or Hunter, anyone of the batch, but they were too far ahead and blocked by too many other clones. You couldn’t even see Wrecker towering above everyone else. The news that all Jedi were to be executed for treason explained a lot, but it didn’t change your mind about anything. The clones around you cheered at the announcement of a new Empire. The cadets behind you included. Men that just a few weeks ago had been talking about their disgust with the authoritarian Separatists. Maybe Tech had a point about the programming.

After the announcement you were caught up in the chaos that was clone cadets. Your fellow training commanders all worked to get the cadet back into their schedules and you couldn’t slip away no matter how much you wanted to. You escorted your troops back to their training area and got them back on track, leaving them to the bounty hunter trainers they were working with.

You made your way back to the batch’s barracks to find Crosshair looking over the old rifle you had been cleaning.

“Where is everyone?” You asked. It was a rare case the barracks were only occupied by one member of the batch.

“Out.” Crosshair stated plainly.

You took his meaning. Everyone was doing their own thing. You sat by the tall clone and watched him inspecting the weapon.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been accommodating recently.” Crosshair said, breaking the silence.

“Since when are you accommodating?”

The sniper chuckled and set the rifle to the side, turning to you. He took your hand in his and met your eyes.

“I try to be for you.”

He leaned in and kissed you. The usual crosshair kiss, short and to the point, but exactly what you needed.

“Have you been feeling okay?” You asked.

Crosshair raised an eyebrow at the question.

“You’ve been picking at Hunter a bit more than usual is all.”

“He made a bad call.”

You nodded, not wanting to provoke him. Maybe Crosshair wasn’t as immune as the others. He was acting off, but not nearly as badly as the regs.

“Do you want to go to the mess?” You rested you had on his cheek, tracing the point of his tattoo with your thumb slightly.

“Maybe later.” He answered, leaning into your touch.

He inched closer to you, pulling you close to him. He wrapped his arms around you in a rare hug. You relished in the action, pulling him closer as well. You ran your fingers against his short hair. Crosshair never hugged you for more than a few seconds, but you sat there for a while before the clone pulled away to kiss you again.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Cross?”

“Just missed you.” He spoke softly.

He hugged you close again. It made you wonder what was going through his head right now. The stoic man Crosshair usually appeared as was fading the longer he held onto you. Something wasn’t right.

[seyenna]

Philza and/or Techno and/or Ranboo fic recs

just some of my fav dsmp fics, mainly phil, techno or ranboo bc i’m biased but also a bunch of sbi and others

this one goes out mainly to zablr discord my beloved

pls tell me if the links don’t work

all of these are on ao3

rating\status(complete/ongoing)\warnings\word count\misc tags

ichor flows free amongst the iron by summer_rising

T\o\violence\13k\series\gods AU

Summary:

A gods and goddesses AU of the Dream SMP, dramatized for all our benefits.

First work:

  "Two gods meeting on a mountaintop overlooking the stormy sea? Very classy, Dream, I appreciate your taste."

  Dream didn't turn to look at him, but the faint shake of his shoulders let Techno know he had heard.

  "Scar's healing up nicely, I see," Techno mumbled with a light nod of his head.

  "Mhm. Cut nice and clean. Not that I expected any less from you, of course."

   ~~

   The god of power and the god of luck meet on a mountaintop to discuss Luck's standing in the ongoing political disaster.

We're Only Young by ImperialKatwala

G\o\-\66k\series\Dream & Technoblade

It's easy to forget amid the chaos and bloodshed how similar - and how young - Dream and Technoblade really are.

And when the sun comes up, you'll find a brand new god. by SkyboxZoo

M\o\violence\19k\gods AU

Summary:

The wounds from the fight had healed nigh instantly, but the golden blood still soaked Techno’s shirt. His cloak had gotten torn off and his hair had fallen out of its pony-tail. Ichor pooled in his boots. The man left a trail of golden, bloody footprints in his wake.

old gods (new gods) by WriterWinged

T\o\-\9k\series\gods AU

Summary of first work:

Survival, Blood, Madness. Philza, Technoblade, Wilbur Soot. Three gods who have never cared for mortal life, who play with them when they want to, who kill their toys just as easily. How, then, did a mortal end up in their hands?

This House Is A Fucking Nightmare by SilverWing15

T\c\-\17k\series\sbi

Summary:

AU Where Phil isn't quite as willing to stand by while his sons drop like flies

Summary of third part (my fav):

Does lingering too long in the shadow of a god make you a god? The voices in his head seem to think so.

His brothers know he's older than them but they don't know how much

OR: Technoblade doesn't think his brothers realize how different they are from ordinary men. After all, ordinary men may fight the gods, but they don't win.

It's been a long day. by BecausePlot

G\c\-\3k\Philza & Ranboo

Summary:

Sides are bad: he knows that much. He’s seen it tear people apart time and time again, so when he decided to separate himself from Tubbo and keep his distance, he knew he was in the right.

Well. He thought he was in the right, at the time. Sitting all by himself on the steps to the Prime Path, he’s not so sure anymore.

Yes, the sides might have torn the others apart, might have made them so weak that they have no choice but to fold under Dream’s hand, but at least they aren’t lonely.

So are sides bad?

‘I don’t know.’

~*~

Or, Ranboo looks out at the ruins of L'Manburg, feeling more lost and lonely than he ever has.

But, as he soon finds, he's not as alone as he thinks.

the voices in my head, they say a lot of things by rosyasteria

-\c\violence\1k\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

Some days the voices didn’t listen. They didn’t let up. They screamed instead of whispered, relentless, assaulting his ears until they bled.

tell them i was the warmest place you knew and you turned me cold by rosyasteria

-\c\-\2k\Techonblade-centric

Summary:        

Technoblade cared. But in the end it just fucked him over.

For the majority of his life, Techno felt like less of a companion, less of a family member, and more like a weapon to be wielded. 'The Blade' they called him; never 'friend'.

It Leaves Little Time for Anything Else by mirandible

M\c\-\1k\part of series\Dream & Technoblade

Summary:

   A young man aims for the top, but fate has other plans for him. So does Technoblade, apparently.

   (Or: answering the question of “Why does Techno hide his scars if they’re supposed to be some sort of trophy? Why keep your point of pride a secret?”)

the best requiem is a bar of silence (and I'll sing it, even if I must hold back my tears) by jello12451

T\o\-\10k\Philza & Technoblade

Summary:

   He can’t help the noise of celebration that escapes him. Techno- this means that Techno’s free, and he got his horse back, and everything is alright-

  Tubbo, filled with rage at Phil’s cheers, turns and impulsively shoots an arrow.

   He doesn’t expect to hit his target.

---

  Alternatively: What if Phil didn't have a bucket of water when Tubbo shot him?

Change fate by being aggressively kind by sircantus

T\o\-\13k\sbi, Philza-centric

Summary:

   “You do understand that you’re caring for the thing meant to bring destruction and chaos to our world, right?” The woman asks, Phil looking behind him fondly as Techno grabs at the ends of his wings.

   “He’s just a child.” Phil answers distractedly, humming as his wings get gently yanked at.

   “He’s the first of three to destroy life as we know it! Shouldn’t we, well, get rid of him?!”

   “Oh, no.” Phil raises his eyes with a sharp glare. “Believe me, I have my own way of preventing the apocalypse.”

   ---

   Or, Techno, Wilbur, and Tommy are basically chaotic forces of nature, destined from birth to end the world and bring destruction. Most who hear of the tale of them are trying their best to track them down, and to end the monsters while they’re still young, still just children.

   Phil has a different plan.

   (In which Phil raises the minecraft equivalents of the anti-christ with love and support, so much so to the point where the world ending is really just a funny thought, and Phil has three kids who casually have powers that are bit more extreme than anything else in the world)

I promised you that everything would be fine by findingkairos

G\c\-\6k\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

   manifestation: (n.)

1.     an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something abstract or theoretical;

2.     a version or incarnation of something or someone;

3.     an appearance of a ghost or spirit;

4.     the Blood God.

When he's young and still alone, still establishing his reputation as the immortal warrior, Technoblade makes up an imaginary friend.

Years later, the blood god is very real and very much a god: one that is prepared to do anything for their first and only friend.

the inner mechanism of a black box by Bee_4

T\c\violence, self-harm\Technoblade-centric

Summary:

   Technoblade lets himself get imprisoned for Philza’s sake. He doesn’t plan on being there long. Unfortunately, he’s underestimated Pandora’s Vault.

   There are things that will make even the Blade fall apart in due time, as it turns out.

carry all my sins by BananasofThorns

T\c\-\4k\Ranboo-centric

Summary:

Ranboo swallows. “All my armor and weapons and stuff are missing. Fundy and I were gonna go looking for them after the festival, I think.”

“I see.” Tubbo smiles again, but this time it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine, it’s just a festival. We could probably find someone to lend you a sword or an axe or something.”

He starts towards the stage, waving at people when they call his name, and Ranboo follows. The original panic has dulled to a cold buzz in his chest, but apprehension still wraps itself around his body like chains. He doesn’t like being without his armor and tools; he feels too exposed, and if something happens, he’ll be helpless.

“Ranboo?” Tubbo calls, glancing back.

Ranboo shakes his head and hurries to catch up. “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” he repeats. “Everything’s gonna be fine."

Tubbo grins. “That’s the spirit.”

Rule 5: be loyal. L'manberg doesn't do well with supposed traitors. Ranboo deals with the consequences.

Sojourn by Lacy_Star

T\o\-\13k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

“Well…” Ranboo started slowly, “You see, uh… I kinda… don’t have a house anymore, obviously. Um… Phil found me in—“ He paused, cutting himself off and squinting at the floorboards— very discreet, “Phil… found me. And… um… He said I could stay by you guys. Like, um, by the dog house he wants to build?” He paused, then began to ramble, “But, uh, if you don’t want me here, I understand— and I’m sorry for coming in your house when you weren’t here, I swear I didn’t touch anything— it was just cold outside and—“

Techno just stared at him. And how, how was this the second time this had happened to him? How was this the second time he returned home after battle to discover an injured teenage boy waiting for him, seeking assistance with nowhere to go? And how badly had that ended last time, in nothing but betrayal and insults?

---

AKA: Phil drags a half-enderman home after Doomsday, and Techno decides that they can keep it. For now.

can an axe count as rent? by aboutfivebees

T\c\-\4k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

Ranboo’s struggling to settle into his new life on the Arctic Anarchist Commune, but at least he’s got bread.

or the struggles of an enderman hybrid to come up with a housewarming gift to give to his friends, who are just trying to adopt him

The Caged Bird Sings of Freedom by StarPrince_Punk

T\o\-\25k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

The Blade's stance was still tense, his body prepared to fight at a moment’s notice if need be. “What’s your name?” Phil asked “My… name?” The Blade asked. “Yeah. Your name isn’t actually The Blade, right? That’s like a stage name?” Phil tried to keep his tone light. “What’s your real name?” The Blade hesitated. “No one… No one’s called me by my name in a long time.” ------- When Phil comes across Ranboo in his panic room after L'Manberg's destruction, it reminds him of when he first met Technoblade. And just like when he met Techno, Phil's first instinct is that he has to help this kid. While living together, Techno and Ranboo learn that they're much more similar than they had previously thought, and Phil learns that it's not too late for him to be a better dad.

This already feels like more of a home by H3118ENDER

T\o\violence, death\18k\Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

As the ashes of L'Manberg settle the conflict continues to come to life setting the stage for a new wave of blood shed. Stuck slam in the middle of past and present friends Ranboo is coming to learn that even without nations to their names feelings and feuds don't die but people, people do.

A Shadow of a Shadow by unappetizingegg

T\c\-\4k\ Ranboo & Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

There were a few beats of silence, and then- “What are your plans, now? Do you need a place to stay?”

That caught him off guard. Surely he’d heard incorrectly. Phil was offering him a home, right after he’d orchestrated the destruction of his past one? It didn’t make any sense, none of it did. Why would Phil say that?

Then he remembered, he remembered Techno stopping him in the fight. He remembered being handed his book, the question in Techno’s gaze. He swore, in that moment, Technoblade, the Technoblade, had been worried about him. He remembered that he had been told to leave, to run, to get away and preserve himself. He had spared him, he remembered that Techno had spared him.

Techno had helped him. Phil had tried to protect him, to get him away from the danger.

They were there for him.

 ---

alternatively:

Ranboo is alone. But he really isn't.

Meritocracy by oddsbodkins

G\o\-\18k\Dream & Technoblade, sbi, medieval AU

Summary:

Dream is more successful than he'd ever imagined - but there's one thing that's been bothering him. Technoblade, his biggest rival, the Acolyte of the Blood God and King of the Arena, went missing last spring, just before Dream got the chance to duel him. Without that one achievement to pave his way, all the following victories have felt cheap.

So, Dream hired some goons to dig Technoblade up and pester him into coming back to the Capitol, for one last showdown. Easy enough, right?

Interlude I: "Promises to Keep" by Ozzyyy

T\c\-\1k\part of a series\Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

These woods are lovely, dark, and deep But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.

--

Techno has a plan. It's crazy. It's insane, it's actually just batshit bonkers. But if chaos cannot be enjoyed together, then what's it worth, yeah? There's a certain beauty in watching the world burn from the center of the flames. Phil intends to be there.

I Don't Want To Start A Fight (wouldn't you rather start a riot?) by KryOnBlock

T\c\violence, death\15k\Technoblade & Philza & Ranboo

Summary:

An universal ping rang out from behind him, the third and final he knew, and Phil sobbed, clutching the body tighter.

Techno didn’t move.

It always has been Technoblade and Philza, Philza and Technoblade. Take on half, and you shall never go back.

Sheltered by Lulatic

G\c\-\6k\Ranboo & Technoblade

Summary:

It was cold outside. But Techno never heard Ranboo complain.

That was the best excuse he could muster to keep him out.

Antarctic Princes 'verse by BirchWrites

T\o\-\15k\series\sbi

Summary:

Loosely-connected one shots set in an AU where the Antarctic Empire and the Dream SMP are in the same world. Ordered chronologically, but each fic can be read as a standalone thing

Summary of first part:

Oh shit. Forget arrested; Dream’s going to have to tell Wilbur that he watched Tommy get stabbed for being terminally stupid.

May we cross paths again by QueenLunaFreed

G\c\-\1k\Dream & Technoblade

Summary:

“Even if tomorrow it’s just us versus the entire server, Dream, I’m telling you right now - I have confidence.”

---

Dream couldn’t comprehend the pacing contradiction in front of him, the weakness he could clearly see, but would never comment on. Because this man has been defying Dream's expectations since they first met, because despite them not being friends and having no reason to trust each other, Dream knew that Technoblade is the only person who he’d trust to do this right. To destroy L'Manberg alongside him yet again, this time for real.

leave me your starlight by findingkairos

T\o\-\18k\Technoblade & Philza

Summary:

For you the world, Phil.

Once upon a time, Philza Minecraft is the only person who does not shy away from the bloody teen that regularly turns the tide of war.

This cements a friendship that will last wars, empires, worlds, and lifetimes.

 ---

(Featuring: Back to Back Badasses, healthy relationships, accidental deification, intentional world domination, and Phil's past coming back to haunt his best friend.)

[dragonsareourfuture]

Death Note as Stand-Up Comedians

Mello

- he’s allowed to complain about Near in front of an auditorium full of people as long as it’s in the form of a joke — of course he loves it.

- He has a lot of passion up on stage. The audience loves it because it makes them feel really immersed into the show.

- Mello has a tendency to get really loud when he gets really into a joke or bit, so the tech crew has gotten used to lowering the volume on his mic as the show progresses and he gets louder and louder.

- Mello has a harsh sense of humor, often using exaggerations and sarcasm to accentuate a point.

- He would tell stories from his time at Wammy’s house, mainly the chaos moments with Matt because the rest is pretty traumatizing for him.

- It’s his style that draws people in and his sense of humor that keeps them there. He has a very unique clothing style and, even when his managers suggested he dress down for the show as to not scare people away, he refused. He said that he would rather show who he is upfront and let the public decide whether or not to invest time in him than fake his personality for people he doesn’t know or give a shit about. They got the hint pretty quickly after that.

- He would sometimes do joined shows with Matt, which is quite interesting. Their dynamic works perfectly on stage and they even weave jokes that weren’t scripted into the show to keep each other on their toes.

Matt

- He’s a pretty chill guy, so I picture his sense of humor as pretty dry. Not in a bad way, of course. For instance, he tends to say the most hilarious things with a straight face and flat tone, which somehow makes the joke even funnier.

- He likes to involve the audience a lot, so gags where he (with permission) takes an audience member’s phone and reads their texts aloud are common. Somehow he can make jokes about the most mundane of text conversations and have the audience howling.

- Like I mentioned earlier, he and Mello’s contrasting senses of humor work for a perfect dynamic when performing, so shows where they’re together are the audience’s favorite. But even though Mello’s wild passion can take the spotlight at times, Matt is never overshadowed as they’re both sure to include the other in any bit or joke they do.

- For no reason at all I think Matt it great at imitations and impressions of different people. So, like when he’s doing a bit and speaking for someone else he can assign voices for everyone and the audience knows who he’s supposed to be speaking as in that moment. Usually these people are only known to him and Mello, so the audience can’t tell how exactly spot on he is. His impression of Near gets Mello wheezing, and his Mello impression gets the audience wheezing with Mello constantly claiming “I don’t sound like that, idiot!” With the audience shouting “YES YOU DO!”

L

- L’s sense of humor tends to require a specific taste, which is why he would probably be one of the least successful of the bunch.

- Don’t get me wrong, his sense of humor is adorable and one of the best aspects of Death Note in my opinion, but it comes in short and random bursts. He’d be talking about something serious and then crack a joke (“yEs tHat mUst Be dArK”), so it requires patience to really get to his sense of humor.

- The audience, I feel, wouldn’t have the patience to stick around and wait for his humor to surface.

- But L would have a cult following of a specific group of people that appreciate his talents.

- I’m picturing a show in which he starts off by talking about some cases, and transition to jokes from there. Due to his occupation, many jokes involve a darker sense of humor but also contain surprisingly innocent little remarks or comments. I can’t really explain it better, it makes sense in my head but I’m not too sure how to put it into words.

- Most of the show he keeps his straight face, but when he gets the audience going from something he said he can’t help but crack a little smile and chuckle into the mic pretty bashfully.

Near

- I’m sorry but Near doesn’t have too much of a sense of humor. But he does do or say some of the most hilarious shit on accident.

- It was actually Halle that convinced him to take up stand up comedy, as she got to spend tons of time just sitting and talking with him, cracking up at something Near said while he just stared at her in confusion.

- She had complete and total confidence that just plopping Near on stage and telling him to “just talk” would get the audience going, so she took him to a bar that did stand up comedy nights. Near absolutely killed it.

- Eventually he learns what the public finds funny through experimentation and tells those kinds of jokes more often, learning to perfect his craft. Through this method he is able to go from ‘accidentally funny’ to ‘intentionally hilarious’.

Light

- I wholeheartedly believe that Light has no sense of humor. Period.

- Sure, he’s accidentally funny sometimes but not enough to fake it ‘til he makes it like Near did.

- So he gets someone else to write his show for him. He’s just a pretty face, and the person who wrote his show is mentioned once or twice but who really cares about them? It’s Light who’s doing all the work, obviously. He’s the one getting sweaty up on stage.

- Honestly he barely has a sense of humor he’s probably just do it as a side thing for recognition or like most youtubers who write a book or start a podcast.

Matsuda

- Okay so, I definitely think that Matsuda would be one of the most successful stand up comedians out of all of them.

- He’s just so bubbly and kind and just genuinely a wonderful person so who could walk out of a show if his unsatisfied? No one. That’s who.

- My mans here has the opportunity to make so many self deprecating jokes due to how the task force treats him and how he’s just overall looked at as inferior to everyone he works with. And guess what? He doesn’t take that opportunity at all. He thinks self worth is the most important thing in the world and instead focuses his jokes around break room stories and observations of every day life.

- However if he ever does make a self deprecating joke, it’s never with any hatred towards himself. Like, he’ll joke about how his recklessness got him in trouble with Yotsuba, but instead of cursing the trait he has, he always expresses his hopes to get better and learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile the audience is dying at how he tells the story with so much energy and just— ...he’s wonderful.

- He just reminds me of John Mulaney when I picture a show of his.

- He’s pretty goofy by nature and you can tell that he’s enjoying himself up on stage, watching him laugh at his own jokes and beam at the audience with a smile so bright it could rival the spotlight shining down on him.

- He also really likes the attention, having been pushed to the side for so long.

- He’s just overall a really nice and positive guy while also being hilarious to listen to. 10/10.

Misa

- With her already existing music career and fashion career, people know her pretty well. Therefore, there is a HOARD of people waiting to see how she fairs at something so different from her previous career paths.

- And y’know what? Misa’s great at it.

- I’d like to imagine she’s out of her terrible relationship with Light in this au and realize how messed up he was, so I think she’d do a lot of clowning Light in her shows.

- She will kinda mix the comedy with valuable life lessons on relationships, so a lot of fans come up to her and thank her because they let their kids watch her shows and they’ve learned so much from her while being entertained for a good hour.

- Also her voice is so cute and pleasant to listen to I would gladly listen to her talk for a week let alone an hour.

- I imagine her style of show and humor to be along the lines of straight up ranting and just talking her heart out. You know that friend that can talk for hours but it’s okay because they make everything, even the most mundane things, sound dramatic and fun and lively? Yeah, that’s her.

[hellowkatey]

it's late night writing hours my guys. so here's a little bit of what happens before and after Echo gets absolutely wrecked by a cafeteria tray in Aftermath

2.6k words ~ CW: PTSD/panic attacks/medical trauma

For a glorious moment, Omega revels in the chaos she had started. She isn't quite sure what foodstuffs make up the greasy loafs that are served in the trooper's mess hall. Whatever they are, they make a satisfying splat noise when hitting armor, and get quite a bit of air when thrown.

Now, the revolting loafs are sailing through the air from every direction. Omega ducks behind Hunter as he decks one of the clones clear across the table. His other hand reaches back to lightly pat her upper arm, as though to make sure she's still there. Her heart soars at the gesture, and she grins as wide as her face allows while jumping on the table to chuck another handful of food at a trooper winding up to punch Echo. It smacks him in the cheek, distracting him long enough for Echo to land a left hook of his own.

Crosshair is still seated, ducking out of the way of projectiles while continuing to shovel food into his mouth. Omega watches with great amusement as Echo is kicked backwards— straight onto Crosshair's tray. His face begins cycling through the stages of grief, and ends on anger. She can't help but giggle at him slamming his fist on the table and whipping his ruined tray like a frisbee, hitting three separate troopers in the process. Though he seemed hesitant to engage earlier, he lunges at a clone that has Tech in a headlock, sending all three of them in a tangled heap.

Omega's adrenaline is pumping, heartbeat in her ears as she takes a running start and throws herself onto the shoulders of a clone. The room blurs as he whirls her around, hands trying grab her small arms. When he can't seem to whip her off, the clone suddenly bends forward at the hips, bucking Omega down onto the table. He obviously didn't expect her to be so light because she slips from his grasp and slides toward the end of the table, the air getting pushed out of her lungs. She lies still for a few seconds, breathing heavily.

What she's above makes her adrenaline high suddenly vanish. In the window that overlooks the cafeteria, Lama Su glares down at the food fight. Standing next to him is a military officer— high ranking by the looks of him. He sneers at the flying food and the troopers, saying something to Lama Su with his lip curled in disgust. She's seen his expression before on the faces of others that come to tour the facility. People revolted or offended by the very idea of clones. They're the type of people that seem little too interested in the decommissioning process. Omega has not idea who this is, but he looks official and that gives her a bad feeling.

With her breath back in her chest she rolls to her stomach just in time to see Echo sitting on the floor in the midst of the fighting. He also stares up at the officer and Lama Su, disgust across his own pale face. Does he know him? she wonders.

But as he is distracted by their spectators, the clone he knocked to the ground picks up an abandoned tray and raises it above his head.

"Echo, watch out!" Tech yells, reaching out to the cybernetic clone, but getting tackled to the ground before he can do anything. Omega's eyes widen in horror as the trooper puts his entire strength behind the tray as it swings, slamming into the side of Echo's head.

"Echo, no!" Omega screams as he pitches to the side, eyes already closed and mind dead to the world before he even hits the ground. She quickly presses a button on her commlink that alerts medical to her location and jumps off the table to weave through the troopers that have been momentarily distracted by the jarring sound of a metal tray hitting cybernetic implants.

Tech has fought his way to Echo's side, two fingers pressed against his neck as he yells out his name. The rest of the Bad Batch has taken notice of their fallen brother now, and suddenly the entire atmosphere turns serious. Wrecker isn't laughing anymore as he picks up clones and literally throws them out of the way to clear a path. Hunter and Crosshair, who were displaced to the other side of the caf, now run across the top of the tables, landing punches and throwing trays without breaking stride. Tech has hoisted Echo over his shoulder as the rest of their squad form a protective circle facing outward. Omega slips behind Hunter, unable to take her eyes off Echo's unresponsive face.

"We need to get him out of here," Tech says, his eyes flickering to every one of the cafeteria entrances. Probably doing a calculation of some sort for the quickest way to the med wing.

"Medical is on their way, we can meet them in the corridor," Omega offers, but the others don't seem to process that she's even there. She cowers at Wrecker's side, anxiety that they're upset with her eating away at her heart.

"Keep tight, let's move," Hunter says, and they all seem to know exactly what that means. Wrecker, Hunter, and Crosshair flank Tech on both sides and at his back as they run toward the exit.

They nearly pass the medical droid rushing toward the caf with a stretcher.

"Wait!" she yells, louder this time. Even if they're mad at her, at least she can try and make it up to them. This time, they actually listen to her. "This stretcher is for Echo,"

The boys look at one another and then seem to accept this. Tech gently places his unconscious brother on the stretcher as Nala Se comes rushing around the corner. The medical droid wastes no time and performing a quick scan.

"CT-1409 preliminary assessment: head trauma resulting in loss of consciousness. Patient is stable but require further testing."

"Echo isn't going to like that," Wrecker mutters.

Nala Se's blank eyes flicker from the unconscious clone to a food-covered Omega a she comes to a stop at the foot of Echo's stretcher. The medical assistant can already tell she is in for a big lecture after this stunt.

"Take CT-1409 to the medical-wing," the Kaminoan scientist says in her airy voice. "Omega, assist in the transport."

Omega places her hand on the side of the stretcher, avoiding the hard gaze of her mistress. "Yes, Nala Se."

The Kaminoan now looks at each of the others. "All clones involved in the cafeteria incident are required to be assessed for injuries," she says. "You will report to the lower level medical wing immediately."

A weak chorus of "Yes sirs," rings out and the Kaminoan continues down the hall toward the caf.

Omega starts pushing Echo's stretcher toward the medical wing, feeling the heavy footsteps of four shadows trailing behind her. Apparently a direct order wasn't enough for them.

"They won't let you guys in while he's getting tests run." Omega says while staring straight ahead. Looking at them now will fill her with too much shame.

"We're staying with him," Hunter replies as-a-matter-of-factly.

"You'll get in trouble."

"We're already in trouble, what's breaking one more rule?" Wrecker says.

Omega suddenly stops, forcing herself to look at them. They all have varying degrees of worry etched across the faces. She locks eyes with Hunter, hoping she can at least get him on her side. The last thing she wants is to be the reason they get in trouble again. "At least go get your check-up and clean the grease off your armor. If you show up with me, covered in food, then you'll have to change into medical gowns... and I'll get in trouble." Hunter's eyes soften slightly, but she can still see his hesitation. He doesn't want to get her in trouble, but this is also one of his brothers she's telling them to leave. She knows how deep loyalty runs for these men.  "I promise I won't leave his side until you come to see him."

"We'll be back in ten minutes," Hunter says after a heavy sigh. "If he wakes up before then, comm us."

"You got it," Omega nods in understanding. Though the others don't seem too happy about leaving Echo, he gives him a pointed look and their shoulders slouch with compliance. Omega starts pushing the stretcher again and is halfway down the hall when Tech appears at her side.

"Echo does not do very well with medical tests," he explains, staring at Echo's prone figure rather than directly at Omega. "I recommend, from experience, to wait until he is conscious and aware of what is being done to him before performing any procedures outside of contactless scans."

Her eyes wander over the complex configuration of wires and tubes that wrap around Echo's head and body. She looks back to Tech, nodding.

"Thank you for telling me. I will do what I can to make sure he's okay."

Tech gives her a small smile, turning around, but then pausing. "Oh, and when he does wake, he might start swinging. So keep your distance and remove any possible projectiles." With that, he starts jogging after his brothers. She cannot tell if he was joking or not.

Omega lets out a shaky breath, holding back the urge to cry as she pushes Echo into the medical wing. AZ takes over as she ducks into the scrub room to change her soiled clothes.

Somehow trying to stand up for her friends has turned into one of them getting hurt— she didn't want that to happen she just... wanted to show them she was on their side. For a little while she did feel that incredible rush of belonging. But was it worth landing Echo in the medical bay?

Of course not. They'll never let me be one of them now.

It was dumb. Provoking a room full of troopers that already have it out for the Bad Batch was a thoughtless act. Nala Se is no doubt going to remind her of that and use it keep her sequestered from now on.

Omega emerges in fresh clothes as AZ is completing the brain scan. Echo is still unconscious.

"Is he gonna be alright, AZ?"

AZ's bug eyes always make him look like he's pitying whoever he's looking at. "CT-1409's"

"Echo," Omega interrupts him. "You can call him Echo."

The droid pauses, taking a moment to process that request.

"Patient CT-1409, a.k.a. Echo's scans are clear of skull fractures or bone contusions. My preliminary assessment is that he has sustained a mild concussion consistent with blunt force trauma. He will require a brain tissue scan to ensure there is no bleeding or clotting,"

"Good," Omega lets out a sigh of relief. "That's good."

"Your services will not be required further, Omega. You are free to return to your assigned duties."

She glares at the droid, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm staying, AZ. I promised the guys."

"But mistress Nala Se summoned you to the sub-level medical wing. You must go."

"No!" There's no way she's taking orders from a AZ. Even if he is her friend. "I'm staying here until he wakes up."

AZ shakes his head, his unexpressive droid face somehow looking disappointed. He hovers over to Echo to begin performing the tissue scan, and Omega goes to look for a blanket or something to make their patient more comfortable.

The distinct whirring of the scan is interrupted by a sharp gasp. Omega turns as Echo starts to flail.

"No! Get them off," he gasps, his arms swinging but hitting nothing. There's a clouded look in his panicked eyes as they frantically search the room.

"But my tests are not yet complete," the droid tries to explain while continuing to move closer. Omega is already running across the room, shoving AZ to the side.

"Echo, Echo, it's—" his unfocused gaze shifts from the corner filled with bacta tanks to her. "It's okay. It's me, Omega." His chest rises and falls as though he's been running for miles, and she raises her hands so he can clearly see them. "I understand." As his breathing slows, she realizes that AZ must have attached a heart and respiration monitor to Echo while she was changing. She slowly reaches down to pull them off of him. "I don't like being hooked up to their machines either."

A few brief memories float passively through her mind. Wires and needles and tubes coming from various places on her body. The sticky feeling of bacta on her skin and gathering between her fingers and toes. Silent tears streaming down her face every time she saw the instrument cart was full for the day.

Omega releases him from the monitors and looks up at him. Echo is still coming out of his panic, but he seems calmer now. He looks at her as though she has seven eyes and two noses, but at least he finally sees her.

"Hello CT-1409," AZ pipes up.

"His name is Echo," Omega reminds him.

"My name is AZ-34521189..." as he drones on with his serial identifier, Echo and Omega exchange glances. She offers him a comforting smile and though he doesn't really react, he does scoot himself further from AZ and closer to her, which is good enough for now. When AZ finishes, his body spins around on its axis, and Wrecker's voice suddenly rings out through the med wing.

"Ha! Told you he's alive!" The rest of the squad, now clean of grease, stroll in. "You owe me two credits," Wrecker says, jabbing a finger at Crosshair. They seem surprisingly relaxed, most of them nodding or even smiling at Omega as they gather around the foot of Echo's bed. The fact they even acknowledge her is unexpected.

AZ turns to the rest of them to give his assessment. In the mean time, Omega turns her attention back to Echo. His eyes aren't glazed over anymore but he still seems uneasy. Definitely uncomfortable sitting on a medical table. Omega has overheard the rumors of what happened on to him— how Echo was an ARC trooper that got captured and experimented on. It's obvious from his chemically bleached skin and the complex assortment of cybernetics that he's been through a certain kind of hell. But judging from how he reacted to a simple scan and heart monitor, she cannot imagine how bad it must have really been.

She decides to take the risk and lays her hand gently over his. His wide brown eyes look from the rest of his squad to her hand atop his, and then finally to her. Echo gives her an appreciative nod and a slight smile. Warmth fills her body again, stronger than it was when they were joining her in her food fight pursuits.

The young medical assistant looks to the others now, only to find Hunter has been ignoring AZ's grand reveal that they are genetically defective and is instead watching her. The sergeant's lips form a curious half-smile as he watches her pull her hand away from their injured brother. The giddy warmth in her chest builds even more. They aren't mad at her after all. In fact, she gets the feeling that they might even like her. Or, at least, acknowledge her existence-- which is progress from earlier.

Omega realizes that maybe grand gestures shouldn't be her approach in trying to get them to notice her. Maybe just showing them how much she truly cares about them is enough.

Definitely no more food fights... unless one of the others is the one to initiate it, of course. If that's the case, Omega will be the second one to throw the greasy Kamino caf loafs.

[theforty7thgamer]

Nickelodeon All Star Brawl

... Is a game I am definitely excited for.

And I'm actually going to do a very big post to talk about things I am hoping to see in seeing in the game.

Characters I want to see in the game

Starting off, I want to say that so far the roster is looking good especially on the Nick Toon side of things, but one thing I'm going to talk about is that the game is called Nickelodeon (not Nick Toon) All-Star Brawl, meaning that we're going to see representation from throughout the Nickelodeon line up of properties.

Characters I would like to see include

Ed from Good Burger

A live-action sit com charecter

Miko and Hector

The Game Shakers team (this will make sense later)

Rocko

Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, And Dawn

Marc Summers

A music artist/group

Po

Tigress

Skipper + The penguins of Madagascar

Otto

Timmy Turner

jimmy neutron

Henry Hart/Kid Danger and Captain Man

Harvey beaks

Nacho Libre

Rango

Otis

Tak

Dudley and Kitty

Making Fiends leads

Harriet the spy (maybe, it was the first Nickelodeon movie, so I feel obligated to put it on here)

George Lopez (also obligated because I can't remember any other original shows on Nick at night that could fit on this list.)

A Nick Jr character, probably Dora or Diego due to the movie coming out (also obligated because I feel like I should put in a Nick Jr character here)

The Thundermans or The X Family

The Supah Ninjas or Three Delivery

Kappa Mikey

Hugh neutron

Dib

Sway Sway & Beduce or Sanjay & Craig

Brendan and Evan

Adam Conover

CatDog

Squidward

Garfield

The musical versions of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy

Stages

Now, well I do know that characters are definitely a big part of a game, where they're fighting is also a big part as well

The hotel from "Hotel For Dogs"

The Irkin ship

The town from Rango

The city from Albert the Christmas tree

The Stage from the SpongeBob musical

Fairy world

The location from Rocket Power

A stage from a music concert

A location from at least one Nickelodeon licensed game

Either Retroville or the location where the climax set on Jimmy neutron the movie

The Wayne

Wayside School

A location from the Spiderwick Chronicles (I don't really know that much about the books but I do remember that the locations from the movie will be cool)

Either Double Dare, Nickelodeon arcade, Legends Of The Hidden Temple, The Crystal Maze, or Guts as a stage.

Nickelodeon animation studios

A Nickelodeon hotel or resort

Other stuff

In this game, I feel like we should have other stuff aside from the main fighting game, like mini-games and such

Things that should be included in the game, an obstacle course mode, a tournament mode, an arcade mode, a museum mode, clips from the cartoon, and lastly...

A story mode

A story mode is what I hope most for this game, something akin to the Timmy Jimmy power hour or subspace emissary. With cutscenes, a good story, and an epic villain.

Here's what I think a story should be

Throughout the Nickelodeon version of Earth, great chaos is happening, The world is slowly breaking apart due to an unknown force. It turns out this is being caused by the collector, a being who is obsessed with Nickelodeon so much in fact that he wants to take it over. Now it's up to the Nickelodeon characters to save their world before it can be put on The collector's shelf.

Now the collector is the villain I made up for this, but don't worry there will still be villains from throughout the shows but some of them will be willing to put their villainous actions decide to not be put on a shelf. I wasn't kidding when I said that the big plan is to be put on a collector's shelf.

One major part of the story is everything takes place in the same world for this game. That means that there are aliens fairies ninjas talking animals, glitched video games, and all that jazz.

A couple of examples of the world crossing over since the game has one big connected world are...

Professor membrane finally having to come to terms that the supernatural exists

Da Rules being broken causing fairy world to be revealed

The Glitch Techs in the Game Shakers forming a partnership due to the common ground of games (I said it would make sense later)

Callbacks to previous crossover events

Time travel and alternate universe shenanigans causing multiple versions of characters to coexist

How does Nickeloden exist as a Cartoon channel in Universe

In acknowledgment of how Eliza Thornberry's powers work, due to the question of whether or not you can talk to characters like SpongeBob, Garfield, the Tuff Agency or CatDog

And a solid timeline of events that happen within the show.

I hope this is pretty accurate but I don't mind some alterations to my ideas that I will happen for the final game and its possible DLC.

And that is all I have to say

Good day

[lala-ladybug]

Healing Hands: Chapter 2

I promise I’m not this fast at writing, I’ve just had the first few chapters laying around for a while lmao. Reblogs are appreciated!!

Jasonette Sword Art Online AU

Read here on AO3

Tag list: @iloontjeboontje 

Previous | Next​

Chapter 2: u guys r moding my night :(

There was chaos in the Wayne Manor. This was nothing unusual, of course, and today it even seemed to be surprisingly tame. But it was chaos nonetheless.

Timothy Drake-Wayne careened down the spiral staircase, catching himself with a well-timed front flip handspring, and skidded to a halt in the kitchen. Alfred briefly paused to look up from where he was preparing dough for a batch of homemade pasta, then offered the boy a smile and a greeting.

“Good evening, Master Drake. Dinner won’t be ready for another half-hour, I’m afraid.” Tim had opened his mouth to reply when a growl echoed from the nearby ballroom.

Jason Todd-Wayne sprinted into the kitchen brandishing a nerf gun. “There you are, replacement. You won’t get away with beating me this time.” He pulled back the reloader of the play-gun, making a threatening click ring through the kitchen.

“I’m afraid you are both late to the party,” Alfred calmly announced as he mixed ingredients together. “Miss Cain has been here for the past five minutes.”

Cass Cain-Wayne indeed poked her head out from where she had been perched beneath the bar. She gave her brothers a shit-eating grin and wiggled her fingers as way of a cheeky greeting.

Tim gave a groan as he and Jason begrudgingly handed some money over to their sister. “She cheats.” Cass stuck her tongue out at that. “Besides, racing you here was just an excuse to get my mind off waiting for midnight.”

“And because Alfred is the only one polite enough to actually listen to you rave about that stupid game,” Jason scoffed, sitting down at the bar to watch Alfred work.

“--thought I heard voices in the kitchen, oh there you are, little wing!” Dick Grayson-Wayne’s cheery voice came from the foyer, increasing in pitch as he spotted Jason and swept him up into a tight hug.

Barbara Gordon wheeled herself in not too long after, chuckling at the squirming Jason and delighted older brother.

Meanwhile Tim, who had taken offense to Jason’s insinuation, was reassuring Alfred that if he wanted the boys to leave him be he only ever had to ask. “It’s just that I’m so excited for the launch tonight, and you know B is too busy to hear about it.”

Jason had finally muscled his way out of Dick’s embrace as the latter’s attention focused on his youngest brother. “What launch are you talking about?” Dick asked, giving Cass a side hug.

“Oh, tonight is the release of this new VRMMORPG game called Mindscape!” Tim practically bounced as Dick came over to give him his hug too.

Dick gave Barbara a confused glance. “I know some of those words,” he nodded slowly. “So what’s got you so excited? Video games come out all the time.”

Tim rolled his eyes as he sat down beside Jason on the barstools. “Well yeah, but this game has groundbreaking virtual reality tech. Supposedly, the textures took five years and a team of almost 1000 artists.”

Jason put Tim into a headlock and said casually, “I’m surprised you haven’t heard replacement talking about this yet. He kinda won’t shut up about it.”

Cass nodded her head in solemn agreement while Tim struggled to get out of Jason’s grasp.

“Such are the woes of moving out.” Dick shrugged. “Sounds crash though, got room for one more?”

Tim finally shoved Jason off. “I actually bought enough passes that we can all play if you want,” he gave each of his siblings the biggest puppy-dog eyes he could manage.

Barbara snorted even as Dick pumped his fist in the air beside her. She wheeled herself up to the bar to pinch Jason, who was poised to jab his fingers into Tim’s sides. Jason yelped and glared at her as she said, “Sorry Timmy, I’d rather let someone else be the guinea pig for this new kind of tech. Besides, Dad will worry if I let myself get sucked into pouring too many hours into this.”

“Papa Gordon is a force to be reckoned with,” Dick attested earnestly. “Jay?” he prompted.

“Absolutely not,” Jason answered immediately. Tim was quick to protest. “But why? We could spend more time together! It’ll be good team-building.” Jason’s face soured at that.

Dick leaned in and stage-whispered, “Do I have to tell B to force you into family bonding? You know he’ll make you do it.”

Cass covered her silently laughing mouth with one hand as Jason threw his hands up in the air. “Fine, don’t get Bruce involved. I’ll play your stupid game,” he finally relented. Tim grinned at his win, then cast a hopeful look at Cass.

She pulled a face and signed No thank you. Better things to do than watch VR pornos.

Tim’s face blushed profusely as he opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Jason’s cackling. Even Alfred cracked a smile while he rolled the dough onto the ravioli press.

Once Jason quieted down, Tim crossed his arms and said, “Suit yourself. Looks like it’ll be no-girls-allowed anyway.”

“Guess we’d better tell Cassie that, Timbo,” Dick wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, which Tim elected to ignore.

“Speaking of suits,” Alfred said while seamlessly spreading filling in the ravioli and placing another sheet on top of the press, “aren’t you boys going to miss the premiere if it is indeed at midnight?”

Tim looked imploringly at the two girls. “You wouldn’t be willing to trade shifts for your favorite brother, would you?”

* * *

Wally West strolled out of the zeta tube and into the Justice League’s satellite, known to himself and the other heroes as The Watchtower. He was dressed in a casual NASA t-shirt and jeans, slurping a smoothie, and playing a game on his phone.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made him look up. He was greeted with the sight of his old team, Aqualad, Superboy, Miss Martian, Rocket, Zatanna, and Artemis, waiting impatiently. They were dressed in full hero attire-- he didn’t even realize Artemis still had her costume-- and looked to him expectantly.

“Hey guys, what’s poppin’?” Wally grinned and gave his friends a lazy chin jerk.

“‘What’s poppin’?’ Babe, are you serious? You told us to meet here ASAP for an emergency. So you can tell us what exactly is ‘poppin’.” Ah yes, his Spitfire. Artemis Crock still wasn’t afraid to give him a piece of her mind. But this time it looked like everyone else was on her side too, as they nodded in agreement with her emphatic air quotes.

“Oh, uh yeah, Mindscape is coming out tonight!” He set his smoothie down on the table. “I got us all passes and I’m super stoked for the launch. It’s got this super cool new VR tech that’s basically being released for the first time ever. I got the equipment through my internship, so we’re all set! You guys are totally coming right?” He made finger guns at his increasingly exasperated friends.

Artemis facepalmed. Kaldur’ahm raised his eyebrows in that I’m disappointed in you but I’m not going to say it way of his and said, “Wally, with you and Artemis retired from the life, understand that we took this to be a literal emergency and rushed to your aid. Do not abuse our good intentions.”

“Seriously West, I have a lot on my plate right now!” Rochelle Ervin was also, apparently, a little upset with him. “You could’ve said it was about a dumb game.”

The speedster tried to do damage control with some lighthearted humor. “Hey guys, stay whelmed. I get it, I probably should have given a few more deets about this very-much-not-dumb game, but do you know how many candy bars I had to eat to win these passes?”

“This is why you’ve been spending so much on junk food?” Oh, he was in big trouble with Artemis now. “You probably didn’t have to eat all of them, babe.”

M’gann M’orzz, Connor Kent, and Zatanna Zatara looked similarly annoyed. Well, the girls did. Connor just looked like his usual brand of annoyed, which was honestly a small victory.

“So...” Wally felt a little sheepish now, “who wants in?”

The rest of the group exchanged a look. Artemis was the first to speak up. “Well, you’ve already invested too much of our money in this to turn back now.” She walked up to him and poked a finger at his chest. “But you owe me so many dinners for this.”

He grinned triumphantly. “Deal!”

Rochelle spoke up next. “Me and my plate don’t need any more helpings, thank you very much. I’ll see y’all at the next team reunion!” She flew out through the zeta tube.

Kaldur clapped him on the shoulder. “If you need any assistance, I will be there. But for now I am running Atlantis in Aquaman’s stead while he is off-world, and I must return to my duties.” He then bid the rest of the team farewell and stepped through the zeta tube.

“Haha, he said ‘duties.’” Wally said once he’d left, then winced as Artemis smacked his arm lightly. Lightly for her. Rubbing his arm, he looked imploringly at his other friends.

M’gann and Conner looked deep in a telepathic conversation, which was just awkwardly intense eye contact for onlookers. Zatanna crossed her arms and sighed, “Fine, why not. I didn’t have plans for the weekend anyway. Lead the way to your chocolate factory, Charlie.”

Connor, having caught the tail end of the conversation, looked confused at the reference. He shrugged and said, “I’m in, could be fun.”

M’gann gave her friends an apologetic smile. “Sorry guys, my uncle needs help back on Mars. There’s tensions between the white and green martians again, and he really needs me there to get it under control.”

She gave Connor a peck on the cheek and left to board the nearby Bioship.

“And then there were four,” Wally said with a smile. “Now let’s go make you guys some avatars!”

* * *

Bart Allen could hardly contain his excitement. Scratch that, he couldn’t contain his excitement! “Bouncing off the walls” may be an exaggeration for most people, but he was not most people. Being the grandson of The Flash certainly had its perks, and being able to literally bounce off the walls was one of them.

The cause of his excitement, his friends Timothy Drake-Wayne and Wally West, had just called to ask if Bart wanted extra passes to the premiere of the biggest video game of the decade. And uh, yeah duh he wanted them! He already had one he’d bought for himself, but bringing four extra friends? So totally crash.

He opened up his phone and pulled up the group chat titled Badass Babes.

CrashBandicoot: hey bitchez n babez (u kno who u r), u ready 4 the best videogame of the yr to drop?!

BlueMenace: ese, do you HAVE to type like that?

WonderBabe: yea it’s super annoying

CrashBandicoot: gtta go fast babez

CrashBandicoot: now answer the question

GreenMenace: oh i heard about that! mindscape, right? isn’t it some vr game

CrashBandicoot: yes! nd i got extra tix, so come ovr to cave

GirlBoss: No can do, got research tomorrow!

MaleWife: you always have research bae. sorry little speedster, gotta drive the lady to work

CrashBandicoot: u guys r moding my night :(

BlueMenace: totally not a word but I’ve got you cariño, be there in an hour

WonderBabe: ah what the heck, I’ve got nothing better to do

GreenMenace: always down to whoop ur ass in video games

CrashBandicoot: u wish

CrashBandicoot: roy?

Ginger1 is typing...

WonderBabe: it’ll be fun! more ~mingling~ with kids our age

Ginger2: Hold on, give him some time

Ginger1 is typing...

BlueMenace: Roy, I can pick you up on my way in if you want

Ginger1 has stopped typing.

Ginger2: Um, he says he’ll meet you guys there

Ginger2: He may have destroyed his phone with his “non-typing” hand

GreenMenace: pog

WonderBabe: see u guys soon!

Bart pumped his fist, then ran at top speed to his boyfriend Jaime’s house, where it looked like he was doing homework. Seriously, on a Friday night? Bart had absolutely no qualms about whisking him into his arms and making for the nearest zeta tube.

“Woah Bart, I said I needed an hour!” Jaime protested.

Bart rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but you definitely don’t have anything due tonight, and we have to make your character online before the launch!”

Jaime just looked resigned as they sped into the zeta tube. He knew what he had signed up for.