FAULT: an SCP SBI AU

This is an au that has consumed me. This blog will just be a terrible mess of whatever I’m stuck on for the week, likely with little explanation and heavy spoilers. Anyway, the general vibe + anomalous properties are below cut:

Commissions: Writing and Art. Starts at 5$

All Nom commissions are prompt gifts for donations to charitable causes, such as the environment, social justice rights, or victims of wars. I will not cover topics of romance, sex, or write about George, Dream, or Wilbur.

Writing: Base 5$ gets a minimum of 300 words. 10$ 1,000 word minimum, 20$ 3,000. I also have no self-control, and there is no additional payment if the prompt is amazing and I break the world limit.

Drawing: Base 5$ gets a drawing in full color. 'Animatics' start at 40$ for a verse, and the price increases for color.

Project Guide

The tag 'crumbs to tide you over' is how I organize ficlets, wip sippets, and fic announcements. Personal tag is something to nom on. Wilbur tags are noms Wilbur or scp Wilbur if you want to block tags, and my PR response to that is here.

Ao3 fics:

Fault. The titular SBI SCP AU. SBI trapped in the Foundation. Lots of angst, large exploration of trauma, dehumanization, moral philosophies, and messed up found family. Tags are fault au, fault memes pog, sbi scp au, fault analysis, etc. This is a whole series and has many associated works. Long Fic.

>Also Where, then, do your loyalties lie? for AU where human Phil works for the Foundation and tries to free kid SCP Tommy. Complete.

Mandatory Family Reunion. Techno kidnapped by criminal dark SBI and handles it very poorly AU. Heavy dark em duo. Explores different types of abuse, motivations, delusions, and how love causes harm. Tag is Mandatory Family Reunion, sometimes mfr. Long Fic.

The Lambs Wolves Wear (Ficlet is here; starts at the Reveal and currently goes further than the ao3) Fully dark SBI where Philza's children were replaced by monsters. Demon "Tommy", changeling "Wilbur", and ghost army "Technoblade" are violent and traumatized, their tensely conflicting infiltration motives jeopardizing the lives of everyone in a twenty mile radius. As they experience love for the first time, will the wolves in sheeps clothing be tamed? Tw for abuse and horror. Long Fic.

Way more below, those are just my main projects ^-^

Techno and Tommy had always been bickering in the early days, Tommy insisting they were a super hero duo (not sidekick! I’M not a kid sidekick!) while Techno was adamantly refusing to entertain the notion. Because who wanted to babysit a middle schooler in the middle of a villain attack? He had bad guys to beat up! Er, civilians to rescue!

Techno had been yelling at Tommy to go home in between power blasts (to little success) when suddenly realizing a rando civilian was just wandering around the craters like he wasn’t even noticing the evil bank robbery going on. There were obvious sirens going off and everything! Techno shielded him from a baby robo-minion, and struck gold. “Tommy! You wanna be a hero so bad, then protect this civilian!”

Tommy picked up the whole grown adult easily, cursing a storm as he ran, complaining about having to babysit civilians and how Techno just wanted him out of the way. 

The guy he was carrying tapped him politely on the shoulder. “Perhaps it’s not him doubting your prowess, but because he, as a hero, feels responsibility for your safety as well?”

“But I can’t get hurt! I’m not a baby!”

“Does he know that?” Well…technically they’d only ever spoken in shouts across a battlefield, and mostly Techno trying to convince him to leave. Techno seemed a lot more frazzled in person than all the cool videos of him that made Tommy want to be strong and clever and awesome too. Tommy blinked at the blond civilian. Reconsidered that Techno might not be a condescending jerk, but a worried jerk.

But- they didn’t have time for those conversations in the middle of battle! And Tommy didn’t have time to have a ponder now, either, because the cyborg villain was still attacking. But…maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, to try to follow Techno after and have an actual conversation?

Bumping into him on patrol was unexpected. Normally Techno would just move on, but Tommy lit up upon seeing his favorite rescuee. Techno tried to melt into the shadows, but Phil definitely saw them cause he couldn’t actually patrol at night anymore thanks to Tommy’s bedtime. And Tubbo’s, too, don’t ask Techno how it transpired, as soon as he relented to having a team mate Tommy under went mitosis or something. 

So, Techno was dragged along to talk to Phil, who was innocuously feeding the birds on his lunch break. And, well, superhuman metabolism and puberty were a hell of a combo, so Philza ended up sharing some of his wife’s cooking.

Techno tried to remain vigilant because they were on PATROL cough cough Tommy cough Tubbo cough. Unfortunately Philza was rather funny, and his wife made amazing potato wedges (the third best potato shape) and so time slipped away until Phil startled at the time and had to get back to work. Oh and they had to get back to saving the world from devastation by the black hearted, or whatever. 

Tubbo and Ranboo had been walking Phil back to his house, just for safety, when the explosion hit. The fire blossomed, surging for Philza. Ranboo immediately teleported him out, but they were too late, conscious flickering out as the shock force hit. 

And in the inky black, the sudden drift of a voice. A hissed invective and Philza muttering this wasn’t meant to- at Ranboo’s groan and stirring at once the concern in his voice quadrupled. “Hell mate, don’t move you’re losing a lot of blood- that’s it, I got you. Don’t worry, it’s shallow, head wounds just bleed a lot.” 

Ranboo shuddered and curled into Philza’s lap as he gently wiped off the blood, assuring them it would be alright. And then- a sharp inhale. “Oh. Oh you’re a kid kid-“ 

Ranboo’s hands flew to his face, gut plummeting as their fingers found only blood and chilled flesh, their tattered mask hiding nothing. Philza ensnared Ranboo in his arms, and the hyperventilating teen vanished in panic. Philza was left with an armful of smoke. 

It took the heroes days to find Ranboo, eventually discovered hiding in a locked room, dissolving from hysterical tears. Everyone avoided Philza for weeks, since even an ounce of looking into Ranboo’s civilian identity would quickly find everyone else. Any hero activity was strictly regulated by Techno, forced to become subtle or risk retaliation. And yet, no news stories broke out. No sudden spike in villain attacks, either, subdued by how berserk Tubbo went when Ranboo was hurt. Just this overhanging doom that could swallow them at any time, the other shoe never dropping. 

Philza woke up in the middle of the night to find Tubbo ominously looming over him, demanding to know what his deal was and when he was going to hurt Ranboo. Apologizing profusely, Ranboo picked up Tubbo, the short boy’s hooves scrabbling uselessly in the air. 

Yet Philza was overwhelmingly relieved, worried Ranboo had been hurt in the blast and that’s why they completely vanished for weeks. The teen vigilantes blinked at each other as Philza began blubbering over how he thought Ranboo might’ve been fatally injured, and everyone stopped being heroes from fear, and how the whole city would plunge into villainous danger without them. Tubbo swiftly cut him off since Ranboo was a sympathetic crier, but Phil just got more and more confused why he was so on edge. “Don’t you get it!? You could ruin their entire life with this!”

“But- why would I hurt my friend? And wouldn’t that just jeopardize the entire city? I mean- you’re children. Actual children. Goddess I thought you were at least old enough to drive or something but-“

“We are old enough,” Ranboo lied, “I just teleport us everywhere.”

“Who had the right of lane at a four way stop?” Blank stares. “That’s what I thought.”

“It’s not really safe for you, either,” Tubbo muttered. “Getting so cozy with us. Were metas, we can handle danger. You’re just a civilian.” 

Tommy reckoned he was a retired hero. Super duper old, so no one remembered his previous persona. Niki argued he must be a vigilante, since he had lots of tips avoiding grouchy cops. Techno retorted it was none of their business. Philza never pried into their identities unlike everyone else, and so none of them would dare cross that mutual agreement. 

It just felt safer now they had Phil, and they weren’t going to risk it for the world. Plus having someone who could drive them to battles was convenient. 

At least, until the fateful day a battle went wrong. Like, really wrong. 

Philza’s head jerked up at the familiar pop of Ranboo’s teleportation into the base. Back early- had the villains really been so simple to defeat? Pride surged in his chest. His kids were getting so strong. 

He launched into a run at the first shriek for help. Philza found a concussed Ranboo unconscious in Niki’s bruised arms. She barely help back tears, hysterically babbling about the villains they’d foolishly taken on too soon. Philza’s heart flooded with ice as he got them into the medical room, trying to assure them they were safe now. 

Techno limped in next, carrying a blood soaked Tommy who couldn’t stop crying. And Tubbo- Tubbo never got back. A shaken Techno explained in whispers that the boy had been kidnapped for his technological prowess and the villains gloated about forcing him to build mass death weapons. Not even inators. All the excitement and whimsey stripped bare into something ugly and terrifying. No matter how much Techno’s quiet words choked and faded into aching air, Tommy only cried harder at the mention of his stolen friend. 

“I’ll get him back,” Philza said grimly. “Code Blackout. No signals, no leaving. You will be safe here.” 

The heroes blanched with fear, flashes off of the brutal battle blurring in their hearts. Techno caught the edge of his coat. “You can’t, you’ll die!”

“I’ll get him back.” 

The door locked from both sides as Philza shut them out. And then only quiet, fearful waiting. Hours drawing out with no knowledge beyond the base walls for fear of attracting attention. 

And then Philza returned carrying a blacked out Tubbo. Everyone was safe once more. 

It took a week for everyone to heal. Long nights nervously watching over Philza’s shoulder as he stitched up wounds and gently stroked through sweaty hair. 

And then it took a week for everyone to get antsy. Technoblade adamant they had to storm out and get revenge, Niki worried the city was unprotected without them, Tubbo desperate to not look weak and scared from the encounter. Yet Philza was so, so scared, begging them to stay where it was safe. 

It worked, for awhile. The kids were incredibly rattled by the violent escalation of their previously minor skirmishes. And it felt safer with Philza. 

But teen heroes are unruly bunches, eventually uncontent to remain stationary. And Philza’s excuses to keep them run them, beyond his quiet grief and wish to keep an eye on them at all times. When they finally open the door, it’s not hard to find their way to the villain base that kidnapped Tubbo.

Because a canyon was carved through the city to get to him. 

……..

This line chokes me up. The distance of calling your past self with a third person pronoun, marking how far you’ve come, the progress of healing simultaneously making the past seem foreign, distant. And yet at the same time there’s this unending grace for that past self, giving mercy to a younger you for being hurting and scared and lashing out. Looking back having grown so much it can be easy to loath that distant, other you. But instead you show that past you kindness he because he wasn’t given kindness then, either.

what’s your favourite fic or project you’ve had to give up? What’s your oldest already finished fic? How do you think your writing style has change?

For abandoned projects: there was this story idea I had in middle school that never started bc it seemed too complicated. It was a sci fi story told out of order, about a robot starting to become friends with a rebel type girl only we opened the novel in media res to see a scene at the end where the robot is reprogrammed to erase their memories and ordered to kill her. And so the reader has the hectic feeling of collecting snatches of their developing enemies->wary team mates->friends relationship through very different points in the time line. Like having a scene really far at the end where the girl is opening up about trauma, the next scene being early time line where the robot does something that triggers it causing the relationship to explode a bit, later an apology scene. Stuff like that. This whir of piecing together what the robot’s memories were all the while knowing it’s going to be destroyed. Glimpses of the present show the robot scrambling in its data banks trying to get the records. It’s implied that the robot is getting the same out of order montage the reader is going through.

And then we’re finally in the present again, the order to kill the rebel ringing in the air. With the reader now having pieced together exactly how they got to this and the full emotional weight that wasn’t there in the ‘first’ scene.

And the robot shoots her. The reprogramming worked. The empire continues.

Buuuut I never tried it. So I guess for projects actually started and then abandoned, the main one is Grey Soul that I got like 10k into. Everyone had glass-like orbs called souls that show emotion via colors, but the patterns and color associations varied by person + base soul color so it was more you could interpret someone’s emotions really easily if you knew them. MC Caleb had a broken grey soul that showed no emotion so ppl thought he was faking expressions/accusations of sociopathy. So bro basically goes through life with a flat affect mask, super autistic coded but I didn’t know I was autistic yet. Under the depression Caleb was a dork believing in the universe’s equivalent of horoscopes and looking up color names for fun.

Anyway beginning was super slice of lifey with him starting to make friends out of the sheer dedication that only a girl avoiding her own problems by fixing others can manage (Phoebe). Half of the story is Caleb getting to open up to her strays, other half is an encounter with a doctor (Jason) who helped him after a bad mugging. Jason’s group is working on making a synthetic soul to replace defective broken shattered ones, hooks Caleb up with a new soul which really boosts his confidence in becoming friends w Phoebe’s group. It’s all about exploring the stories of a large ensemble cast which in turn help heal Caleb’s own issues. Not that there aren’t problems of course. Like Phoebe’s friend Rissa who is super wary of Caleb and gives him a lot of crap cause she took advantage of Phoebe’s helping coping mechanism. Or a lab accident where Caleb’s hands get scarred and he had to cover it up so the operation doesn’t get shut down.

The entire story explodes when Phoebe’s soul goes missing. And then Caleb finds an exact match in their ‘synthetic’ souls. He pieces together their operation is actually stealing souls from people, specifically Caleb’s cool older brother figure doing it, sometimes with casualties. In the classic fashion of a Nom protagonist, Caleb proceeds to fake platonic/familial affection while terrified out of his mind of being murdered and secretly beginning to sabotage the operations.

As for fics: I feel bad about stopping Lighting Lanterns to Bring You Home since I just adored how unique the archaic style was and the pure loving tragedy of it. Buuuut it was Wilbur centric in a way I couldn’t deal with after the truth came out. I dunno, I feel very inconsistent about Wilbur, in some fics he felt like a different enough character (like Fault, MFR, incredibly literally Lambs) but ones like Golden Apples (literally set in the dsmp (but also abandoned for Dream reasons before)) and Lanterns (Wilbur centric, focusing heavily on his angst) it was way harder to form that separation.

My oldest complete fic is Where do Babies Come From? and it’s a one shot. My second fic was a multi chapter! ….but it’s also Fault so we all know how that’s going. As for oldest completed project, that would be Dragon Blood, my novel. Which is a nice segue into writing style changes, because I do love Dragon Blood and it certainly has some Nom trademarks like multi povs and mixed ending, but I think many of my usual flourishes aren’t there due to style development.

Over time I’ve gotten a lot more into character internalities and descriptions so that both the scene and mental states are more vivid. I’ve also gotten stronger at stepping out of my usual style too, such as Golden Apples diving deeper into architecture history expositional ramblings than I tend towards, or the more archaic fanciful prose in Lanterns or The Altars We Sacrifice Our Futures On.

Another big change is in less style than the writing process. When writing epoch 1 for Fault, I realized quickly I’d reach a point in a story where brain wasn’t wording, and started the supplementary stories/What Happened In… series still set in the Fault universe but at different points or characters povs. It taught me how to maintain writing output while switching tasks, which was the beta for now how I juggle 1-3 active stories with a number of back burners rotating. Near the end of the first Fault epoch I also started working on it less linearly. It gave me a lot more freedom and the scene hopping is a staple of my process now.

Phantom Riders

A couple close ups below :)

A dark sbi drabble inspired by egg mimicry and the mafia hypothesis. Tw for death, stalking, dark!Kristin and reluctant dark!Techno. Elytrian Philza is super-duper excited to raise his first family, incredibly in love and ready to be a dad. Counting each egg, lost in daydreams of what each chick will grow up to be like. At least, until he notices he has an extra egg. Each identical to the next, but infiltrated all the same. 

Phantoms are the scourge of Elytrians, an infamous brood parasite. The eggs and chicks may look identical, but unless rooted out they quickly become the only chick left, killing the others one by one until all the resources and attention centered upon them. That, or become a drain, demanding more and more while his own chicks starve, hostages for Philza’s good behavior. And Philza cannot afford to let his family get hurt. 

The eggs look identical. One wrong choice means the death of his baby, and the potential death of all others. Philza studies each one carefully. But after months of fawning over them, he knows every last speckle. A perfect imposter it may be, but it’s no match for a perfect father. Philza scoops up the imposter egg, and drops it off the nest, smashing on the ground far below. 

Cue Kristin returning to find the remains of her child.

So. When Philza's wife starts getting more and more scared about Techno hurting the other chicks and suggests quietly murdering him…in a way, Kristin is relieved. Besides, she'd infiltrated her stolen family perfectly when she was a chick so long ago. Surely no one will notice!

Philza goes numb, the moment he sees the Phantom. Hears his name role off its tongue. Feels its arms wrap around him. It feels like he is drifting through life, a free fall, or perhaps a glide, approaching the ground closer and closer yet his wings to leaden do anything but accept it. His wife is dead. His family is dead. He is dead. Or will be. All he has left is the gentle coast into an inevitable fatal crash.

The Phantom sits by him at dinner, some conversation washing over as she leans forward, a hand comfortably tucked in the crook of his elbow. He doesn’t even notice the chicks aren’t at the table until Tommy plucks up his courage to leave the fluff pile huddling in the corner.

“Dad, why is she in Mum’s seat? Where is Mum?”

Philza blinks slowly. His eyes scrap past the way Tommy barely holds back tears. To where Techno holds the other chicks behind him, maybe hostages, maybe protecting his siblings. To where the Kristin’s claws tighten on his arm.

This won’t last. So he gathers up his broken courage. And says: “Ah! Thank you for getting dinner tonight, honey. You’re so good at taking care of the kids.” He watches the phantom freeze, watching with its hollow eyes that don’t shine quite right. And in that beat of hesitation, he leans forward, pressing past the hiss in its throat, to brush a kiss against its bloodied lips. Kristin nearly flinches. And stays stone still as Philza slices up the prey and gives it to hungry chicks, the largest portions always for Techno.

Kristin remains still, never once lunging to maim as the family eats. Its claws trace its lips. 

Techno feels like he's getting good advice and feel like he's actually being seen and understood, so he tries to quash his conflicting emotions since he's gotten really attached to his family, unlike how Kristin describes her own infiltration family. And he's scared of messing up after Kristin tells the story of how Philza killed her last egg. So while previously he was just feeling increasingly isolated as he grew up too fast and all wrong, now he has the added fear of getting ousted to his dad as a fraud! And murdered!

Techno has absolutely zero idea, he just tossed out a half eaten hamburger one day and suddenly had a pet. And I’ve decided right now he doesn’t believe in supernatural stuff at all.

And Phil goes NO IT ISNT DONE! And it’s very much equal parts panic that his build isn’t complete ok he has a VISION that must be executed FLAWLESSLY, with the other piece being it has to be worthy of Kristin to properly court her blah blah I’m not here for romance it’s about the autistic bird rizz. Phil is very set about doing this properly and building the best mega build he can, which Kristin finds very flattering, but also, he isn’t going to live that long and she wants to marry him *now.*

Yes to hoarding shiny thing, very big part of the ‘provider’ display is that the build is made with fancy, hard to get materials. Legit has entire mountains of jewels for her, built in giant accessors that double as like, stairs (crown) or ring tower bracers that only Kristin can move around. But also!! Using lots of shiny mirrors to amplify his image so that she can see all his expressions.

Commissions are currently open! Contact me if you have any questions. Sharing this post also helps a lot o7

Promise this is the last time I'll reblog these in a while, but I'm really poor right now, help me buy Techno merch and I'll be forever grateful /lh

What does delayed mean? Usually, when I take commissions, I try to finish them ASAP - preferably within a few weeks at best. However, I want to be upfront about me being pretty swamped with IRL stuff lately. While commissions still take priority over practically ALL other fanfics, and I'll try to finish them as fast as I can, the wait might be slightly longer than my average

Not dressed for the weather

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*

*idea gets more complicated*