Months After The Prison, The Plan, The Half-assed Apologies Everyone On The Server Had Given Each Other

months after the prison, the plan, the half-assed apologies everyone on the server had given each other in order to move on, dream adopts a cat.

he calls her patches, because she has patches over her face and body and okay, maybe he isn’t the most creative, but shut up, punz, it’s a nice name, and it suits her. patches seems to like it: when dream hangs a loose little name tag around her neck, she nuzzles against him, blinking sleepily up at him. drizzles of sunlight spill across her body from the open window. dream lets her lie on his chest that afternoon as he sleeps — he never sleeps during the day, no matter how tired he gets, but somehow, with patches, things are different. she’s small and soft and sleepy and it feels like a crime to put her somewhere else to rest.

it’s with patches that dream feels like he can trust himself again. since the prison, he hasn’t trusted himself with nice things — living or otherwise — and maybe it has something to do with the pets that came and went in the prison, he’s not sure, and he doesn’t want to think too deeply about it. but patches is so unafraid of him and so affectionate that dream can’t help it: he trusts himself, and only himself, with her, and okay, maybe ranboo and techno from time to time.

not punz, though. punz and patches maintain a very healthy rivalry, in which patches scratches punz every opportunity she gets and punz attempts to persuade dream to adopt a dog instead. but dream caught them both playing together when they thought he wasn’t looking, so, smugly, knows punz loves patches as much as he does, even if they pretend otherwise.

and maybe it’s through her teasing of punz, or maybe just through her staunch love for dream, that patches learns… just a few tricks, as the months pass.

she learns to paw at dream’s face when he’s having nightmares in so specific a way that he doesn’t lash out when he wakes up, and instead is greeted with a face full of fluffy cat. nightmares now dissolve in light of his baby, and where dream used to pace the floor for hours after nightmares, he now drifts off back to sleep, patches’ purring soothing him into better dreams.

she learns how to diffuse tension between her loved ones — whenever she senses dream being stubborn or punz being abrupt or one of the syndicate members being infuriatingly secretive, patches will find her way in between the conflict, staring up with big yellow eyes and meowing plaintively. arguments and brewing fights are forgotten in the wake of patches being demanding, and are resumed later when emotions have calmed and logic kicks in.

“i think she’s just learned to stop fights because she knows uncle techno will give her, like, a ton of fish for being good,” dream grumbles one night, eyeing patches sitting smugly with a full bowl of food, “you’ve pavlov’d her, techno.”

“whaaaat,” techno drawls, dropping an extra fish into patches’ bowl that’s almost larger than her whole body, “what’re you talkin’ about, i would never.”

“you spoil that cat,” philza calls as he enters the room, shaking snow off his coat and wings, “and you say you’re not soft, mate.”

ranboo chuckles while techno scoffs.

“soft? no, no, phil, you don’t understand. we’re raisin’ a warrior here. she’ll be the best one of us all, wait and see.”

…and dream isn’t sure whether or not techno really is training patches, but he starts noticing some suspicious activity that leaves him squinting at patches in a new light.

the way unfamiliar footprints in the snow approach the cabin, and heavier, hurried ones leave very abruptly, almost as if chased away by something. the way shadows seem to shrink off of walls whenever patches looks at them. the way sam and quackity seem very loathe to ever approach the house, and the way patches is always very threateningly chewing something red and tentacle-like whenever one of the eggpire appear for a visit.

bad actually brings it up to dream, one time. “i think your cat’s possessed,” he says nervously, eyeing the closed door like he expects patches to float through with glowing eyes, “i’m not even memeing around. i think she’s possessed or something, dream.”

“patches?” dream chuckles, warily. “she’s harmless. literally just last night she, um, got stuck in a two block hole in the ground and sat there meowing for ages for us to free her. she’s just a baby.”

“a baby demon.” bad shifts uneasily. “maybe she plays the innocent card in front of you! but i dunno, dream… quackity was telling me—”

“well, that’s quackity, of course patches isn’t gonna like him,” dream scoffs, “she probably picks up on his horrible, horrible vibes.”

“it’s not just that! he says some… creature chased him away from the cabin one night. okay, so— he admitted, he was having like, an awful day and he wanted to come and pick a fight with techno— which is stupid, and he was a jerk, but this was ages ago— and all of a sudden, a huge, cat-like creature with glowing red eyes and tendrils of black magic appeared in front of him, hissing and yowling— he thought he was gonna die.”

quackity is more stupid than dream had originally thought. still… dream thinks dubiously of his baby cat, who hasn’t learned not to hiss every time she goes out in the snow because she’s still surprised how cold it is and who acts like she’s dying every time she’s forced to bathe. “and he thinks that’s patches. my patches. what, was he drunk or something? or, like, i don’t know, out of his mind? patches is a baby. and her eyes don’t glo—”

he’s cut off by bad’s screech and stumble back. hands raising protectively, dream whirls around, ready to fight, but instantly relaxes when he sees who it is. “oh, patches!” he says, scooping her up. patches offers him pathetic eyes and a whimpering little meow. “oh, come on, now, i’m gonna get you lunch soon, i promise. you literally had breakfast an hour ago, how are you hungry?”

“you— you didn’t see that?!”

dream blinks, bemused. “what, patches?”

bad’s mouth is agape, and he points a trembling finger at patches. “you didn’t— her shadow grew on the wall and her eyes glowed, all her fur stood on end— dream,” he babbles, “you’ve literally adopted a demon. a demon cat. patches isn’t normal!”

“…that’s mean. look, she just— sometimes when she’s hungry or in a bad mood, she gets a little agitated, but she’s a sweetheart.” patches purrs affirmatively. “see? she’s not— a demon cat, bad. look, you’ll see. let me get her food, and then you’ll see she’s calmer.”

but it’s as dream leaves the room that the lights over bad flicker and go out completely, leaving the spooked man in the dark. when he turns around to leave, all he can see are patches glowing eyes, looking down on him evilly from dream’s arms as he exits the room. a gust of cold wind hits bad out of nowhere, and if he’d been outside, he would have seen the lightning strike right above his head.

instead, he just hears an imprint of words in his head, like someone — something — is speaking directly into his mind. it’s nowhere near as evil as the egg, but it’s ten times more powerful, and ten times more scary.

don’t tell my secret, badboyhalo.

bad gulps, and hurriedly follows dream into the kitchen, where patches is being given a generous helping of fish. as she wolfs it down, she blinks up at bad, and bad shivers. there’s ancient wisdom in those eyes, the very forces of good and evil reflected back at him.

but dream is smiling fondly at his kitten, and bad hasn’t seen him smiling in a long time. so, he ducks his head in understanding at the benevolent god cat eating fish in front of him, and patches — whisperer of worlds, echoer of eons, guardian of realms and bringer of dreams — purrs softly back.

More Posts from Chaosinciter and Others

chaosinciter

3 years ago

AU where the Dream SMP is literally just. Dream’s house, and everything else is the same. He invites his closest friends to be roommates. He invites a few people over for a party and they don’t leave. Wilbur announces the attic is claiming independence and won’t move out. Tommy and Tubbo steal Dream’s i-pod even though it only has two songs and become outraged when he tries to take it back. Dream can’t make anyone leave but he can exile Tommy to the spare bedroom closet. Jack Manifold has somehow been stabbed, buried in the garden, and crawled back out alive and well. Snowchester is the kitchen and Las Nevadas is the room with a pool table and Techno and Phil sleep in tents on the front lawn. Sam and Quackity conspire to lock Dream in a shed they built out back. It doesn’t occur to anyone that they shouldn’t murder each other over a house

i had to write something for this LMAOO this is such a fucking funny prompt - that being said, enjoy absolute crack and c!dream having enough!! please send me more asks like this because this is the funniest fucking thing KJEFKJNL i love writing crack i miss doing it so much

tag for this au is > l’houseberg au !!

warnings: fire, violence, fighting, alcohol + smoke mentions, pure crack LMAO

“Hey man,” his neighbour says conversationally, “so how’s things?”

Dream doesn’t even wince at the sound of screaming coming from his house. He’s used to it by now. “Oh, hi Techno, uh, you know-” He ducks under a flaming book thrown at the back of his head by a yelling Tommy, watching it land in his lawn and start burning freely. “Uh, things are a little quiet recently-”

“Quiet?” Techno’s eyebrows fly into his hairline. “You’re callin’ this quiet?”

“Um, well, things are better than they were last week,” Dream says optimistically, “so, um, the attic has been taken over by some guy I let into my house because he said he was homeless and had two kids with him, but you know, I’ve decided that’s fine. A few other people have showed up, for some reason, I don’t really know who they are, but-”

“Is- Is that the guy that stole your attic?” Techno points to Wilbur, who saunters by with a peanut butter sandwich from the kitchen while two others scream at him. “Wilbur Soot?”

Dream blinks. “You know him?”

“Yeah?” Techno scoffs. “Dude, he’s not even homeless. He lives with Phil. You know, like, the guy who lives next door to me?”

“He’s not homeless..?”

“You’ve been exiled!” A man in a beanie yells at Wilbur. “That means you can’t come into the attic again! Stop trying to break back in!”

“Let me talk to Schlatt,” Wilbur demands, “he’s been keeping the peanut butter from my people. I want to talk to him. He needs to treat my people better.”

“He’s passed out drunk in the attic, dude, I don’t know what you want from me-”

“Dream.” Techno interrupts their listening with some concern. “I hate to pry, but when was the last time you slept?”

“Oh, you know,” Dream laughs, voice cracking, eye twitching at the sound of something being smashed from the inside, “uh, like, a week or so ago!”

So that explains why he’s so calm. Techno winces, and then eyes the blanket and pillow in his hands. “I didn’t wake you as you were tryin’ to sleep, did I?”

“No, no,” Dream claps him on the back as he heads outside to a deckchair in the front yard, putting the pillow down and putting on sunglasses, deliberately ignoring the dismal weather and the fact his window cracks very suddenly behind him as someone is flung into a wall, “I decided to take a break for a bit. It’s like... vacation, you know?”

“Have you considered therapy?” Techno asks politely, as the sound of screaming gets louder. “This is pretty rough luck, man.”

“It’s okay,” Dream says absently, pulling the blanket over himself, already half asleep, “wake me up if they burn down my house, please.”

“TECHNOBLADE!”

Techno finds himself being yanked inside, and by the time he gets his bearings, the door is firmly shut and locked behind him. Heart sinking, he turns round to see a hyperactive TommyInnit and a very tired looking Wilbur Soot, one of them beaming, the other scowling.

“Hey,” Techno greets warily, “what’s goin’ on?”

“We’re taking back L’Attic,” Tommy says dramatically, throwing his arms out and shattering a photo of Dream and his friends that had been on the wall, “and you’re going to help.”

Technoblade glances upwards, where he can smell the faint stench of alcohol and smoke. “You mean Dream’s attic?”

“Revolution,” Wilbur stresses, crossing his arms, “we’re rebelling against the government, Technoblade. Are you in?”

...Techno turns to the door, still very firmly locked, and then to Quackity and Tubbo, who are yelling at each other over Dream’s bills.

“Yeah,” he sighs, resigning himself to his fate, “yeah, I’m in.”

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chaosinciter

3 years ago

soooo today i learned that back in the early 90s, coca cola tried making this thing called “ok soda” as a marketing stunt to beat out pepsi since they had way more of a hold on the “younger/rebellious” generation at the time, and their way of doing that was naming it “ok soda” so that they could copyright the word “ok”, the most popular word in the world, and at the same time brand it as an…ironic soda??? like the whole thing with it was that they tried to brand ok soda as a counterculture soda but instead of making it about typical 90s RADICAL EXTREME!!! fodder the theme of it was uh. unsettling capitalist brutalist dystopia. instead of being bright and colorful the color scheme was only stark whites, grays and reds and the cans looked like this. bold shapes and labels stating ominous, robotic things with a figure always staring dead into you on the front, no coca cola branding on it at all.

sometimes there would be “prize cans” of this stuff where instead of having soda inside it there would be hats. and they didn’t sell this option in boxes by the way they just put prize cans in random vending machines. and put like 25 cents in it so hey. you could get an actual soda that isn’t just hats. maybe.

did i mention that this soda also had a fucking MANIFESTO??? because yeah it sure had that printed on some cans and it goes as follows

and there’s these things called “coincidences”, which… yeah it doesn’t make it sound any less ominous

and you might be wondering how the soda itself tastes like does it taste good? ok? well apparently it was just a regular “citric” tasting soda but somehow they fucked it up so bad that it was compared to “carbonated tree sap”, and instead of trying to make the drink taste better they included that it tasted like shit, INTO THE ADVERTISING SCHEME ITSELF. they would literally advertise that it tasted like ass as a part of the ironic marketing, no i am not kidding.

but if you thought that’s where it ended there’s one more curveball and without any exaggeration, you will not expect what i am about to tell you.

take a look at this guy.

this guy is the “face” of ok soda, as in he was printed on the most cans and technically served as a mascot of sorts for the entire thing. his face was a major part of the branding, and this design for the cans was one of if not the most common.

okay. cool. no issue there right?

take a guess on who this guy is based off of.

the artist’s coworker? a generic guy? the artist himself? a relative? some random reference model they hired?

CHARLES MANSON. YES, THIS IS REAL. MEANING FOR A BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME, CHARLES MANSON’S FACE WAS USED AS A MEANS TO SELL COCA COLA.

the lead artist himself has even come forward to say this is the case. and now you may be asking wait. how’d he do this? how’d he possibly get away with this, years after the crimes had been committed?

well according to him, it was simple. apparently none of the contracts he signed said anything against putting a mass murderer on the can. so. there’s THAT.

unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, ok soda never really caught on since *surprise surprise!* teens really don’t want to buy soda that looks like a brutalist art museum, and it never had a wide release so it was only a thing for like two years between 1993 and 1995. but from what i’ve heard there’s still people who are giving this soda a small modern following, collecting all the cans and merchandise and even coming up with stand in recipes for the soda formula itself.

so yeah! that was ok soda.

what the fuck

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chaosinciter

3 years ago

Hey all I created a discord server for Transgenders (that includes people who are nb! 💞) in the she-ra fandom! https://discord.gg/Aprt4Ab - This server is welcoming to anyone who identifies as transgender! You id as trans? You like She-ra? Your invited!  - Can work as both a place to talk about the show and your experiences as a transgender!  - Open to all ages!  - no truscum please! This is a safe environment for everyone who identifies as trans dysphoria or not!