Here are some things about the end of the world: It’s amazing how much normal life you can fit into it. How many silly jokes and dumb mistakes and strange half-baked cults can happen while it’s crashing down around you. You can spend an hour watching the moon grow closer and think it’s beautiful and this is the end of it and mean both things. Even as the earth tears itself up, there are more things to build, and more moments to cradle in your hand.
Here are some things about creating: It never ends. There is always one more detail to add. One more thing you wish you could have done. You go around and add those candles, fix that block that’s been bothering you. You take a step back to see what you’ve made and you can’t say it is finished, because it never will be. But you say it is good and you mean that wholeheartedly.
Here are some things about goodbyes: They’re not so bad. You look around at the world you’ve made and the things you’ve poured yourself into. They are pieces of you, pinned to a map. They are your friends in stone and clay and mountain. And it’s so bitter to leave, but so sweet to see, and it feels like something sad and kind. There is love, here, in this world, and that’s why it hurts to leave it. Better, you think, to leave what you love than to never have loved it. You have played the game well.
Here are some things about the Void: It loves you. It has loved you since you opened up the crust of the earth and invited it to be a centerpiece in your home. It’s taken you back into the embrace of stars more times than you can count. It has consumed you and returned you again and again and now it cradles you.
Void should mean emptiness, but this is anything but empty. After all, you are here, and you are not alone. Here lies the heart of the universe, the place between worlds, and it promises that you are love and you are held, and then there is another world waiting for you.
Here are some things about waiting: It’s better with friends. Waiting is hard alone, but easy with a hand to hold, and you have so many hands here willing to hold you.
And here is a thing about home: you are taking it with you. And here is a thing about home: you are leaving it behind. You can do both. The universe is built on paradox, and you are not separate from the universe.
You close your eyes and you know when you open them, there will be a blue sky, and a new adventure, and another game.
They are both already legends when they meet. Maybe that’s part of what pulls them together, like two magnets. In the end, it was always going to be Philza and Technoblade, the angel of death and his blood god.
Phil meets a man (not quite human) who should still be a boy, with voices in his head, and chaos in his soul, and he took him under his wings, and never let him go. And Techno finds a man (not quite human) with a blade drenched in blood and kindness in his eyes, and he vowed to offer him the world if that’s what he wanted.
They rotate around one another, a dangerous double-sided weapon, as they conquer countries and bring kings to their knees and move on and you can only fight so many battles side by side with another person before you are more than allies. And you can only save one another’s lives so many times before you are more than friends.
By the time the Antarctic Empire is a name that inspires terror, hatred, and awe Phil and Techno are something more indeed.
**********
Phil is the first person Techno tells about the voices.
Phil finds him, late one night, when they both should be asleep, slumped against an icy corridor wall, eyes too wide, staring out into nothing, breath shallow, trembling like a leaf.
Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god----
“Techno? Mate?”
Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god----
Techno’s nails are digging into his arm, breaking skin and drawing blood as he tries to ground himself back into the present, and he can barely hear Phil’s concerned voice over the ringing chorus in his ears. It’s too much and Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god. Blood for the blood god----
Gentle hands slip into his and restrain his clawing fingers, and he clutches them gratefully, tethered by the touch, gripping so tightly he feels certain he must be hurting Phil. But his friend doesn’t flinch.
“Techno,” he says in a voice as soft and quiet as snowfall just outside, “Techno what is it?”
He crumbles, and the words come pouring out of him, telling Phil everything, about the voices, the way they scream into his ears and eat him from the inside, and how they push him and pull him, how he feels trapped in a tug of war with himself and the voices fighting control of that space between his ears, how he can’t remember what silence sounds like--
Somehow the act of saying it calms him, and he’s no longer panicked. Now he’s simply afraid, afraid of what Phil will think. He peers out from behind tangled pink hair falling over his face, trying to read his friend’s face. Phil is looking at him, into his eyes, like he’s trying to see something on the other side.
“Phil?”
“Hey,” the older man says, “I don’t know if you lot can hear me, but if you can, give my friend a little peace.”
Oh.
Is it his imagination or do the voices quiet, just a bit?
**********
And when, a month later, Philza awakens to find Techno at his door, he recognizes that look in his eyes.
They spend the night in silence, but he braids Technoblade’s hair, working through the tangles with a comb, and weaving it into complicated patterns, and at some point the hybrid falls asleep slumped against his shoulder, and Phil suddenly feels whole.
************
The voices like Phil. That’s one thing they and Techno can agree on.
*********
Their names echo across worlds, and if people turn to Techno’s blade in war, and Philza’s kind eyes in peace, they don’t seem to mind.
And when Philza says “you’re like one of my sons,” Techno does not say you are a father and a brother and the only family I’ve ever had, and I would bring the world to your feet if you wanted it, and I would do anything for you because he knows Philza understands. So he just nods and they keep on walking across the barren snowy expanse, snowflakes caught in their hair, and a thousand stars spinning above them, bright as lanterns.
*************
Eventually, the Empire ends. It’s not exactly planned. But Techno says one day, “I think I’m ready to keep moving,” and the next morning he’s gone.
Phil isn’t worried. He makes his arrangements and packs away the beautiful blue cloak and goes home to his sons.
There’s a bit of emptiness there, but Phil isn’t worried. He and Techno are something more, two twin soldiers, two halves of a whole, two kings of an empire. Phil isn’t worried, because he knows he’ll see his friend again.
*******************
The next time Techno meets Phil, at a tournament, he’s with his sons. They’re like their father, children of chaos, and Techno likes them for it. When, at the end of a long day, dizzy with the euphoria of triumphant victory, Wilbur lets slip that he thinks of Techno as another brother, he’s flattered, and his heart lights up like a smoldering ember in his chest.
Phil didn’t quite realize how barely-more-than-a-child-he’s-Wilbur’s-age-oh-god his ally was until he sees him next to his oldest son, and they’re laughing together. Suddenly he’s thinking back to all those battles, to those torturous nights back in their frozen fortress when the voices were too much, and he resolves to be something more for this young warrior who has grown up far too fast.
**********
Techno likes Philza’s children, and so it’s for their sake as well as his old friend’s that he comes to their aid when the local government needs some of his signature anarchist chaos.
(“How does one go from an Emperor to an anarchist?” Wilbur asks, late one night, as they sit around the fire in Pogtopia, eating baked potatoes)
(How does the son of an Emperor become an exiled ex-president who just wants to watch the world burn? Techno wonders)
***********
He does not speak to Phil again, until that terrible, beautiful morning, the sun rising across a very different snowy plain when Phil knocks on the door of the little cabin. He looks different than Techno remembers, shattered. It’s not just the wings, feathers burned into crumbling ash by explosions, it’s the broken expression in his eyes that Techno doesn’t recognize.
“Come in,” he says.
And Phil does not say I saw my son again today, and I didn’t know him anymore, and I killed my son, I killed my son, Wilbur is gone--
And Techno does not say They used me, they used me, I was nothing but a weapon to them all, in the end, I didn’t matter, and he doesn’t speak the bitter taste of betrayal on his tongue.
They don’t need to say it. They know.
But Techno holds Phil tightly in his arms when his friend breaks into fractured sobs, and later that night they sit by the fire, and Phil re-braids Techno’s hair, gently smoothing about the tangles, and the voices quiet.
And they do not point out that their tangle of allegiances means that technically they are enemies. Because, when the lines and swords are drawn, they know exactly where they stand.
“I think I’m going to retire.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
They are two soldiers, twin blades, and they know they never really rest.
But it’s nice to pretend they have a chance at peace.
Phil leaves with a compass in one pocket and an emerald in the other, and though he’s going back to L’manburg, his heart’s home is a small cottage in a snowy field.
They know where they stand. Phil and Techno will stand with one another.
After all, dual blades should be wielded together.
A comic I made at the end of last spring, when I finally got my back x-rayed and found out I have some chronic spine problems. I’m in a much better place now, in many ways (though it’s still hard to live with). But this comic helped me process a lot of my anxiety and frustration with my new way of living.
soldiers and spirits series: The first fic, and as he fell (you walked away) is a Minecraft Manhunt AU staring the muffinteers on a quest to collect a bounty on the elusive forest spirit, Dream. The second fic in the series, vengeance of the risen is still incomplete (and unfortunately will remain so for a bit yet) and is a follow-up adventure/political drama stuffed full of all my favorite troupes.
a garden of thorns (Dream SMP one-shots) contains mostly character studies-- there’s lots of Tubbo and Tommy.
and sometimes home simply means being together (sleepy boys drabbles) series has something for everyone, with one-shots full of fluff, angst, or both. It includes some of my most popular stories including:
i'd shoot a demon for you son: Philza is a specialist at dealing with the paranormal and he’s got a big job tonight. Unfortunately, he also can’t find a babysitter.
Dual Blades: A reflection on Technoblade and Philza’s friendship through the years, and it’s follow-up Starlit Dragons where Techno and Phil confront the aftermath of Wilbur’s death, and Phil’s destruction, both physical and emotional.
The songs and stardust sons series also revolves Techno and Phil, and is in my ways a continuation of Dual Blades. It includes i was sleeping in the garden (when I saw you) a prequel explaining how Philza met his wife, got his wings, and became the Angel of Death, and wrapped up in pure gold (tenfold) a Technoblade origin story.
The heart of the series is the words of an emperor (verba amici) a 5+1 fic that continues to explore Techno and Philza’s friendship, starting with their first meeting to their rule during the Antarctic Empire, and the reunion during the Dream SMP era.
Finally, the touch-tone telephone series:
don't hang up yet, i'm not done is a modern AU where Tubbo, an ambitious young intern for a genetics research facility in London, discovers a strange creature kept prisoner in the laboratory, and is forced to confront his ideals while figuring out to protect his new friend, Ranboo. i'm rehearsing what to say (when the truth comes out) is a short, fluffy follow up that deals with the character’s struggles in the aftermath of the events of don’t hang up yet. i'll get it right (but maybe not tonight) follows Sapnap, Karl, Techno and Quackity as they go on a international adventure to find Dream, and some answers, in a buddy-cop style roadtrip tale.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
In light of Grian and Scar’s latest episode can I recommend my own fanfic which has similar vibes to watching the two of them dig their own graves as fast as they can while pleading for Docm77 to spare them.
The wash of blue-white light beneath his eyelids makes him think he’s in Snowchester. Moonlight and lantern light reflected off snow is such a specific, chilled brightness. But when he opens his eyes, they catch on the outlines of cabins and the sheen of a beacon. He can feel the magic of the beacon thrumming beneath his skin, warm as a blanket. Outside he can hear animals; the quiet yips of the dogs, and the huff of a bear, the soft footfalls of a cat, somewhere in the house. Some quiet intuition tells him it’s early morning; maybe two or three, those hours before dawn, between the end of one day and the beginning of the next.
Beneath his arm, Michael stirs, snorting gently. Right. Tubbo lets the panic of the unknown fade. He’s at Ranboo’s house, in the Arctic. The cabins in the distance belong to Technoblade and Philza. He’s curled up in Ranboo’s bed, Michael tucked against him, stirring softly in his sleep.
Suddenly his eyes catch a silhouette at the end of the bed, freakishly tall and faceless, and for a moment the panicked jolt sends his hands scrambling for a weapon. Then, the next second, he sees who it is.
“Oh my gods,” he says, whispering sharply, trying not to wake up the baby. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry!” Ranboo-- Ghostboo-- says meekly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Were you watching me sleep? Fucking weirdo.” There’s no heat to the ribbing, but Ghostboo shrinks back a little anyway. In the half light of the wintery moon, he does look frightening, faceless veiled, a gash through him that seems suspended in a state of dripping unreality.
“Sorry,” he says again. “I heard you wake up and I wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll go now.”
Tubbo tries to make himself relax. Deep breaths, let your breathing even out, let your heart rate return to normal. “It’s okay. I’m gonna get up.” He’s not gonna be able to fall asleep again, he doesn’t think.
“Oh!” Ghostboo waffles by the stairs a moment. “Do you want hot chocolate?”
“...Sure,” Tubbo says. “Why not, boss man.”
He follows Ghostboo down the stairs. The house is small, but not uncomfortable. There’s a kitchen, and a couch, and the windows overlook the rest of the commune. There are no lights on in Techno’s cabin, and Phil’s is quiet as well. Peace reigns over the tundra. It feels…safe. Genuinely safe. The wind sighs across the snow as he sinks into the couch, listening to Ghostboo rattle around in the kitchen. A black cat hops over the back of the couch, and with a little prompting, curls up in a circle on his lap, purring as he strokes its silky fur.
The scrapes of a whisk in the pan makes him look over. Ghostboo is stirring a saucepan with vigor and he-- he moves just like Ranboo does, same awkward motions, like the world wasn’t built with him in mind. Same enthusiasm. It makes something ache in his chest, as he watches the ghost pour the steaming chocolate into a mug and carry it over with a whispered “careful, it’s hot.”
“Thanks.” Tubbo accepts the mug. Ghostboo hangs back, hovering between the kitchen and the couch until Tubbo says, “come sit down, boss man, you’re making me nervous,” and laughs awkwardly into his mug.
Ghostboo drifts over and settles lightly on the cushion. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted me…uh…yeah.”
“Why not?”
“Most people think the ghost thing is weird. But honestly, it’s pretty great! Being dead. It’s all pretty neat, yep!”
The hot chocolate burns at his throat, the mug gently searing his hands. He balances it on his knee. “Why didn’t you come sooner? To Snowchester?”
Ghostboo hesitates. Tubbo stares out the window. If he doesn’t look it sounds just like Ranboo. He can’t even tell the difference. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “I’ve been…floating, for a while. Like ghosts do! And then I looked out the window, and there was Michael! And you!”
“Do you remember things?” Tubbo asks. “You remembered us?”
“Ranboo,” he hesitates, and then plows onward stubbornly. “Ghostboo. Is-- is he in limbo, now?”
“No idea!” says Ghostboo, with aggressively forceful cheerfulness. “I don’t know. No clue.”
Tommy had talked about limbo. Blank, eternal, nothingness, a pack of playing cards. Wilbur, a scratched-up underground station drenched in red. Tubbo wonders with a disattached brokenness, what Ranboo’s version of a personal hell is. He can’t let himself think on it too long, or it will break him, so instead he says. “So this is where you’ve been staying this whole time?”
“Ever since doomsday. Phil invited me here,” Ghostboo shifts awkwardly. “I’ve been part of Techno’s…book club.”
“Was he good to you?”
“The best. Except you, of course.”
That’s all Tubbo had needed to hear, really. “I think I get why you came here. It's really nice here, y’know. Peaceful, kind of. Besides, I think it will be good for Michael to be around Techno. Piglins and all that. Tomorrow I’m gonna go back to Snowchester and pick up some of our things. And stay here, until…yeah. If you don’t mind. We kinda took your bed and all that. Do you even sleep anymore?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” he looks down at Tubbo. His eyes are visible, now, somehow, in holes in the sheet Tubbo is almost certain weren’t there a minute before. “You can stay as long as you want. Forever. Tubbo, stay with me forever?”
Tubbo snorts. “You’ve already proposed, bro, you don’t need to do it again.” he leans back. “I’ll stay. Are we still married then? I was getting all excited about being a widower. Inheriting all your stuff, y'know. I married you for the money after all.”
“Til death do us part is kind of a dumb rule anyway.” Ranboo says. “But… promise me you’re gonna try and get him back, okay?”
“M‘kay,” Tubbo says, a little distracted. He’s sleepy and complacent and for the first time in so long he feels genuinely safe. Even though the ghost sitting next to him isn’t really his husband, even though Dream is lose, even though the last time he was here it was to hand out a death sentence, he feels safe. “I will.” He feels his head lolling back on the couch cushions, sleep pulling at his eyelids.
“Can I?” Ghostboo asks, and when Tubbo nods, drowsy and unafraid, Michael upstairs and the winter wind knocking at the door, Ranboo wraps a ghostly arm around him, and Tubbo sleeps.
700 words of angst inspired by @thechannelwithoutaname
Phil doesn’t know what woke him up.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe the smell of smoke. The old cabin, despite its electric lightning, and recently installed dishwasher, doesn’t have smoke detectors.
He’ll never stop regretting that, but Phil doesn’t know it yet.
All he knows right now is that he’s awake now, lying on the burgundy couch, his face illuminated by the flickering TV, trying to figure out what is wrong. Because something is wrong. There’s something tickling at his lungs, and the smell of a campfire is suddenly strong and acrid. His brain is muddled by the nap he was just taking, and it’s a long minute before realization clicks his mind together like a puzzle.
(Philza will never stop regretting that minute either.)
There’s a fire in the house, and now that he’s thought it, it’s obvious. There’s waves of heat pouring from the old kitchen, and now flames, licking up the brittle wood of the little cabin. Already it’s beginning to push into the main room, and Phil knows he’s only got moments before the door is blocked by the flames.
In different circumstances Phil would already have run out that door, pulled out his cell phone and begun calling the fire department. Not that they’d arrive in time to save the house, probably; he’s miles from civilization. But at least the surrounding forest could be preserved.
But the circumstances aren’t different. And Phil is already halfway up the stairs, not even bothering to glance back at the creeping flames.
“Wil!” he screams, and curses when he doen’t hear a response, the words turning into a cough halfway through his throat. The smoke is worse up here. “Techno!”
Will was editing in his room, right? It’s at the top of the stairs, and Phil pounds on it desperately. The heat’s getting bad. “Wilbur!”
“Dad?” his son’s voice is almost downed out by crackling flames. “What’s happening--”
“Fire!”
The knob rattles, and there is genuine fear is Wilbur’s voice when he says “the door’s stuck.”
The smoke is getting thicker now, and Phil is coughing. If he looked back he would see fire, obscenely bright, beginning to dance around the base of the stairs. The whole house groans like it’s coming apart.
But there’s no time to look. Phil throws himself against the door. The wood cracks beneath his shoulder, and his hands desperately fumble at the knob, trying, trying, please let me reach him, until finally the door splinters and creaks and falls open, and Wilbur collapses into his arms.
(The fire is halfway up the staircase now)
It’s hard to see in all this smoke. Who knew houses burned so fast?
“Techno went to bed,” Wilbur said, but he’s wheezing the words instead of speaking them.
Phil can’t think anymore. His mind is flames and smoke and Wilbur and Techno, and all that’s left is the knowledge that, he must keep his sons close, he must reach them.
He wraps an arm around Wilbur and they stumble down the hallway, toward Techno’s room. The heat is blistering Wilbur’s skin, and the floorboards beneath their feet, almost hidden by dark smog, seem to sway. Or maybe that’s just Phil?
They’re halfway past the bathroom, nearly there, when Wilbur collapses, choking for air, and Phil knows they won’t make it. It’s too late. He doesn’t think of all the things he could have done differently-- he doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll have years to analyze, to wonder, to wish. Instead he takes his son in his arms, trying to make it a few steps further, his head full of fog, retching as the smoke tears at this throat and lungs.
It’s too much. Phil sinks to the floor and holds Wilbur tightly. They cling to each other, gasping for air that isn’t there anymore, heat searing their skin.
(The fire is already on the second floor, but smoke kills faster than flames, and there is no way out now)
Please, Phil thinks, or prays, or screams out into the universe, please, please. Not my boys. Just not my boys. Take fucking anything, anything, but not Techno and Wil.
But whatever is out there isn’t listening to Phil.
It’s cold out, with no rays of yellow sunshine to give the illusion of warmth, just the lightest of snowfalls and a biting breeze, and the palest spattering of stars. Techno is living here, in the cold, because the howl of the winds holds memories of a different time, some of the best years of his life encased in a sheet of ice. And now, with Phil here, those grey and black feathers catching in the breeze, he’s hit with a dizzying sense of déjà vu.
******
The night he’s remembering is lighter. There are more stars outside their fortress, up on top of a mountain that seems to almost touch the Milkyway. Technoblade sits on a blustery stone terrace, wrapped tightly in his cloak, a wing draped around his shoulders, feathers tickling the side of his face. Phil is so still could be asleep, except for his eyes, open wide with wonder, gazing up at the constellations in their delicate spirals.
The sun will rise soon, light already caressing the horizon, but neither of them has slept. It was one of those nights when the voices in Techno’s head grew angry, or bored, or simply loud and too much, too much for sanity, and he had found himself outside of Phil’s door.
What a wasteland this place would be without an Empire. And what a wasteland Technoblade would be without Philza. He sighs, his head gently butting against Phil’s shoulder.
“What is it?” Phil asks, returning to earth with a glance. “You alright? Are they--”
But the voices are miraculously quiet, soothed into what is almost silence. Perhaps they too know exactly how sacred this moment is.
“Phil,” he whispers, and for once he feels like a child, wistfully ridiculous. “Phil, fetch me a star.”
Phil laughs. “Sure mate,” he says, and then he’s standing, those great grey wings reaching out, a canopy of feathers, and suddenly he’s nothing but a speck in the sky, a silhouette against the stars. Like a dragon, or an albatross, flying forever across an ocean of glittering diamonds.
It’s nothing Technoblade hasn’t seen before. He and Philza have been a pair for a long time now but at this moment the wonder of it all is caught in his throat. He can’t speak, can’t breathe, just watch. Snowflakes dizzy him and catch in his eyelashes, and for a moment he too feels like a small speck lost in the heavens.
With a rush of feathers Phil is back, breathless and laughing, his cheeks pink from cold and wind, his hat pulled tightly over his eats, hair windswept. “Sorry mate,” he says, giggling a little, “they didn’t want to come.”
“What did they say?” Techno asks. He’s half-asleep, and Phil must notice because he hauls the piglin to his feet and begins to guide him indoors, to where a warm bed is waiting.
“The stars said hello,” Phil’s grin is electric and mischievous. He looks like he got the starlight caught in his eyes when he went to greet them. “And also some things I can’t repeat in good conscience.”
****************
Phil is standing on the roof, looking away towards a pale horizon, and he has grey and white wings and they’re wrong. Technoblade feels sick looking at them. Ragged and eaten away, exposed quills and blackened pinions, skeletal and shattered. There are gaps and missing bits, and they’re not the most broken piece of Phil, but they’re the most obvious.
Techno pulls himself out of the hatch in the roof and stares at his friend. “It’s gettin’ late. You gonna come in?”
******************
Phil is balanced on the rooftop, feathers ruffled by a sharp and angry breeze, and he is thinking.
Once upon a time, Saint George slew a dragon. It was a long fight and the dragon breathed fire and burned Saint George. The hero faltered, and he fell, but he was a brave warrior, and he returned. Some say that he collapsed into a quiet brook, and the burns were healed.
And once upon a time, there was a dragon, and Saint George slew him. He snatched the knight up in his claws and went flying up and up and up until he and the hero were both near blinded by the sun. But Saint George had a lance, and it found its place in the wyrm’s heart, and they both fell back to earth, spiraling endlessly down, down, down, for when a dragon is no longer made of flame and life he is simply a dead weight, the lead in his blood pulling him back to earth.
Philza has been both Saint and Dragon, and he spreads his wings to the wind, and fire has burned them (though there is no healing spring to save him) and his son has pierced his heart (though death does not claim him and offer relief).
*************
And Techno comes to stand beside his friend, and Phil stares out at the horizon, dark feathers framing his face. “Phil,” he says. “What is it?”
And Phil wrenches his eyes away from the skyline and says, in a voice like shattered glass and more terribly shattered wings “I really can’t fly.”
**************
Phil falls to his knees on the wooden shingles of Techno’s roof, and he gasps out a single strangled sob, because no bird is meant to be pinioned, and no dragon should be pulled back to earth and forced to stay.
Techno touches ashy wingtips with reverent hands. What foul world do we live in now, where Phil cannot speak to the stars? he wonders, and feels like something in him has died too.
