#corvidscrap

I think a killjoy's jacket can tell a story. Look for the wear and tear, the laser burns, the patched-over holes, the parts that have started to fray. That alone can be a life story. Your jacket is wearing your interests and personality literally on your sleeve and being proud to show it, that you're there and you're alive and unique in spite of the world you live in. You wear your heart stretched proudly across your back, your destiny a mantel on your shoulders, and all your friends and all your enemies can see who you are and what you stand for, what you believe in.

There's so many different ways your jacket could come to be Yours. You find one one, make one, personalize it, but I think you could take it a step further, donning a dusted friend's or crew member's jacket is a vow, saying I will avenge you and honor your memory, and that memory, that legacy, that jacket becomes yours over time as your blood and sweat stains it instead, and the holes in it get patched with your colours now. Or maybe your jacket didn't used to belong to a friend, but an enemy. Maybe some killjoys take the jacket of the first scarecrow they stand against, fight and win, as a trophy, as proof to yourself that you're a survivor, you're a killjoy. Its a Fuck You to Better Living, its telling them my legacy with the grave of yours, its taking their sterile white and butchering it, tearing the city down in the form of personalizing your new jacket. Nobody in the desert wears white, but if you see a killjoy that is you'll know instantly its because they've fought and survived, and they're only wearing that white because they haven't had the opportunity to go buy some paint yet.

And then there's making a jacket for someone. A show of trust or devotion or pride above anything else. Its a love letter, a graduation certificate, a medal of honor. If someone's wearing a jacket that was made for them, then they've earned it somehow. It means you're worthy as a killjoy, as a friend. Wearing a jacket that was gifted to you, probably by an older 'joy, or a mentor, a friend, means they're dear to you in some way. You would die with their work, their name on you. It's wearing their heart on your sleeve right beside your own. Gifting a jacket to someone means you want that. It recognizes them as a killjoy, as a part of your story, and you of theirs, now.

Realistically killjoys would be out roasting crickets and scorpions and collecting bugs for these super protein rich skillets and catching lizards and snakes and rabbits and birds and rodents and shit! They'd set up traps and go like hunting sometimes. They'd go foraging!! Theres so many edible plants actually cacti is edible! And you can do so much with it!! Theyre gonna be out there grilling it and making soups and salads in shitty old pots and throwing in natural herbs and spices! THEYD TAILGATE!!!! They'd have a shelf dedicated to jars of things you can make tea out of!! At least one member of every crew is practically a five star chef! You can literally make a gourmet meal out of materials found within fifty feet of your home base!

Not to mention there'd definitely be greenhouses scattered around with actual fruits and vegetables and some people would bake bread like even if there isnt power and you dont have like a stove or oven like. its not hard to just make your own. Out of rocks and shit and light a fire under it. And there'd be like a farmers market for all that kind of greenhouse grown stuff.

Like she’s just a killjoy and everyone has seen or met her at some point she’s literally just a dude but she’s always seen so in passing she’s become more of an urban legend than anything. Part of it is because she’s been around for so long she’s dr d’s age which most younger killjoys equates to old as dirt. Dr D is kind of a cryptid too but in the sense of how the fuck does he know everything that happens what the heck dude he’s like creepy if you think about it. But he’s just like the zones collective dad and everyone knows him bc of the radio the Witch meanwhile is That One Person you always see at the grocery store that you think is super cool because they always have different hair and fancy ass outfits but then you look at their cart and see they’ve bought out the stores entire supply of butter or something and it kind of scares you. And you like make a comment to your cashier when you check out and they casually drop some insane lore like yeah she does that a lot I hear she’s like the top axe thrower on the world?? yeah idk what the butter has to do with that tho. Like I said. The community cryptid.

They don’t know it yet, though. Maybe Doctor D does, maybe that’s why he drilled that phrase into their brains, maybe that’s why he always tells them that they can end this war, maybe that’s why he entrusted the girl to them, because he knows that they all have something magical in common.

But they don’t know it yet, if he knows he hasn’t told them, none of them have figured it out despite the weird close calls they all seem to have had, like when Fun Ghoul was young in battery city and woke up fine from an overdose that should’ve killed him or when Jet Star was bitten by that rattlesnake when she was a pup and got really sick and swore they couldn’t breathe. She says she must have passed out, because when Doctor D found her out back she was just waking back up and healthy as could be.

And then it happens. Kobra and Jet went on a supply run and didn't come back. Back in the diner, the radio was playing. Party was drawing lazily and Ghoul was fiddling with Kobra’s power glove that had been a bit on the fritz lately while they waited for the pair to return. Instead the song on the radio fizzes out, replaced by static and then Doctor Death’s pebbly voice.

Bad news from the zones, tumbleweeds…

They're frozen in shock but they quickly scramble to their feet, terrified and in denial. Poison makes a beeline for Kobra’s bike and Ghoul can’t make himself speak, a lump of horror lodged in his throat. It’s a silent, terrified ride down route guano for the two of them, keeping their eyes peeled for signs of a fight.

It isn’t hard to spot the bodybags.

They’re a startling black and white contrasting to the orange-brown tones of the desert sand. And there’s two of them.

When they’re unzipped, two familiar faces are revealed, their skin off-coloured, pale and lifeless. Poison shatters and Ghoul tries hard to keep it together for the one friend he has left

They take the bodies up to that one vista that Kobra loved because he could see all around for miles and keep watch over the desert and that Jet loved because it was the best spot to stargaze. The sun is nearing the horizon when they start digging. They work in silence and it isn’t hard to hear when the movement starts.

At first it’s a shifting of fabric that goes unnoticed, then it’s perplexed mumbles and then it’s a zipper sliding open. Poison and Ghoul have both stopped digging to stare at the body bag thats now open and the person that’s sitting up.

“What the fuck.” Jet Star says, looking from the two of them armed with their shovels and then down at themself. She looks at her hands and then at her stomach, where her shirt is matted with dried blood. Her hands press at where she can remember there being a wound but where there’s now no pain, no fresh blood, no nothing.