Work Text:
They're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books
To make a citizen out of you
Because they sleep with a gun and keep an eye on you, son
So they can watch all the things you do
Because the drugs never work, they're gonna give you a smirk
'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean
They're gonna rip up your heads, your aspirations to shreds
Another cog in the murder machine
Dear journal,
Wait, that sounds fucking stupid. This isn’t meant for only the page to keep, this will be a written record of my life changing.
Dear diary,
No.
Dear you,
I think that works well enough.
Today was the day my life ended. Not literally, obviously, I am holding a quill to paper right now spilling black ink across the page but it may as well be my blood.
I ran from my own nation’s soil, away from everything I built cause our competitor exiled Tommy and myself. Schlatt stood on that tall stage, grin splitting his cheeks, while he cast us out of the thing I built from the ground up.
Day 1 of Exile.
Tommy sleeps in the bag across the pine-scented campfire, deep in the ravine we now call home. He looks so much more raggedy than the beginning, his enthusiasm getting him into constant conflict resulting in scars spilling across young flesh. Dried tear tracks shone in the crackling light, reminding me just how much his youth had been stripped away in our war for independence.
He was one of the first people I met in this world when Mother sent me here; his boisterous personality and loud laughter charmed me, he made me happy. We grew close quickly, often I saw him as the brother I never had, a rambunctious younger one but still. He grew on me quickly, perhaps like a ferocious fungus.
He would hate the fact I just called him that, which makes that even better. But this book isn’t meant for him.
He screamed insults as we ran, his anger burning aloud where mine settled in my gut, hot and fierce. A small spark of something, tiny for now but with some thinking, perhaps I could direct somewhere important. I could fan the flames into a wildfire to torch all that lay in our path until the President’s chair was open once more.
This deep valley we now sleep in is literally the lowest I have ever been.
What the fuck do I do from here?
Dear you,
It's been a week since the Exile by that bastard J. Schlatt, another has joined us here in Pogtopia. Technoblade, someone with a horrifying reputation of battle-tested skills, has come to give his assistance. This hulking bastard of a warrior had arrived, bringing the strategy of thousands of eras with a sarcasm I remember fondly and a practised hold of his blade.
He showed up wielding an axe and thirsting for blood, after some convincing I managed to lower the expectation from immediate death to observing from afar. I wanted to learn how Schlatt thought and worked so we could bring him down with grace, with the words my nation once boasted were stronger than steel.
Then a few days ago Niki reached out for help, her bakery raided and most of her belongings stolen. An outspoken supporter of us, she had been punished many times over but didn’t have anywhere else to go, her message appearing on my communicator before I rushed to her aid with Techno in tow.
I really wanted to help her, she is one of the strongest people I know, but we don’t have the supplies to support someone else. The look in those caramel eyes when I refused her, Goddess above, stabbing myself would have hurt less.
When she spawned in this realm, I found a kindred spirit. She was kind and sweet, with a stubborn will we butted heads with smiles constantly. So many mornings were spent within her bakery, myself stealing dough when she wasn’t looking and stuffing myself full of fresh bread. Niki would force supper into me on the long days, not leaving my deskside until I ate at least half a plate.
On the cold nights with stars twinkling above when I sat outside with my crutch, cigarettes, she would sit beside me and let me vent. She held me when my fingers shook, scared of what exactly would happen next. That woman patched so many of my wounds after I would come back from an outing beat to hell, she would stop what she was doing to make sure I was okay.
And I couldn’t return the favour.
Maybe I never deserved L’Manburg, what kind of leader can’t protect his people? Who can’t give them a roof over their head and a sword fighting at their side?
Who can’t even protect the wonders of youth from the destruction of greed?
Before I became blinded by thinking I knew what was best for a large group of people who put their lifeblood into that soil, sinking deep within the ground where roots once remained strong.
Do I even deserve the position I once held?
Dear you,
I now know the feeling of betrayal by your own flesh. Feeling the scorch of ocean blue eyes I once loved, snarling as he sided with the very thing that changed my life forever.
It’s been one week and one day since we were exiled and so much has happened in the past day. Niki’s bakery was torn to shreds, so in a righteous rage she burned the flag she once pain-stakingly sewed for hours. Ashes left of a nation now only known in history, L’Manburg is now dubbed Manburg and I hate it.
I hate everything it has become, what was robbed from my grasp by that fucking goat and his chuckling sidekick with a charming smirk! That bastardised version of what I died for, a country I no longer recognise in less than a moon cycle.
What so many people died for; Tommy, Tubbo, my own son then me in a box deep within the earth! At the hands of the one who wishes to control all, to have everything under his ruling. Someone I thought I had made peace with, before he convinced one of our own to betray us.
Fundy, who followed suit, strayed from the path he was on right into the clutches of Manburg’s walls and strings. After raising him within the walls that once kept us safe, after everything I did for the only reminder of Sally I have, he turned his back on me!
On us!
He even rebuilt the flag, but this time of cold stone and empty emotion. Of the iron fist Schlatt now ruled with, instead of the unity of several others all under my careful watch. It was flat and dark, unlike the bright shades of my flag. Of the one my father helped me design through letters, the once Niki spent days mending together. The one we all had given our first chances for, and now he worked for him.
I want it back. If anything, I can finally have a purpose again instead of pacing in this deep stone cavern, often my voice is the only company I have echoing back. My thoughts turn more savage as time goes on, the burning rage in my stomach now a constant broil fueled by the anger I feel about existing and seeing what my pride rots into.
I just worry by the time we get it back, the buildings won’t be the only thing unrecognisable.
Perhaps I won’t be either.
They said, "All teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed"
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me
Dear you,
I came to a realisation today.
I am playing the villain. I took the cloak of evil and buried myself within it. I tugged it around my shoulders and it fit perfectly, falling to the floor like the enemies I wish to see collapse.
I will take L’Manburg out of Schlatt’s hands, but I no longer care about the methods in which this goal is accomplished.
All I want is his blood on my sword and my nation out of everyone’s hands, no matter the price I pay nor who I sell my soul to, Manburg will end.
How fitting the day I plan to do so is a festival Schlatt announced, a poetic celebration for the death of an ideal.
It is a week away, and I am going to be a busy man.
Dear you,
If I accomplish what I want, I am dead.
I realise that now, the thought one I can no longer shake loose. If I am successful in my want to kill Schlatt, there are several people who would want my head.
If I do nothing? Schlatt will hunt me down and make an example of my execution. Showing all he rules over just why they shouldn’t rebel.
So why the fuck should I care about that tainted soil he presides over? If I am dead in a week anyways, what’s to stop me from doing what Dream did when he planted explosives beneath the ground only to set them off in an attempt to dissuade us?
I can’t trust anyone within these walls with this plan so I will only tell you. So it's scribed permanently long after my death, my plans can be learned by those who care. Maybe I will only ever be known as the bad guy, yet the title is fitting.
I can’t let them have anything to run home too, I can’t trust any of them! They exist only for me to use in the ways I see fit until I die in the most dramatic fashion, either as the spark or the explosion to the falling of my greatest joy, now my biggest regret.
I have three days until the Festival and a lot of sand to gather. I am signing off for now.
But hopefully the next time I write I will be sitting before the button of my demise, waiting to blow my stolen nation sky high.
The boys and girls in the clique, the awful names that they stick
You're never gonna fit in much, kid
But if you're troubled and hurt, what you got under your shirt
Will make them pay for the things that they did
Dear you,
That didn’t exactly go to plan.
I am not dead, obviously, as I am sitting here writing in this cursed book of my failures and shortcomings. I forgot where the fucking door was to my button room in the chaos after Tubbo’s colourful demise.
Schlatt did something none of us expected, found out Tubbo had been spying for me then called Techno to the stage to sweeten the pot of revenge he brewed. Trapping my worker in a heavy concrete box before instructing Technoblade to slay him, Quackity stood at his President’s side with an encouraging speech of his demands.
I whispered and prayed where Tom and myself sat the warrior wouldn’t do it, sending many messages to Tubbo’s communicator that he would be okay before the piglin drew his crossbow and fired a firework rocket at my Spy.
I honestly didn’t expect him to follow through with it, shock clouding my system as he reloaded and fired into the gathered crowd. In typical Techno fashion, he caused a bunch of disorder before fleeing to cause chaos another day.
I rushed for the button in hopes I could finish the plan I devised, tears blurring my eyes while I frantically searched for the entrance to my end game.
And failed.
Now Tubbo is dead, down another chance, all for a nation we still haven’t taken from Schlatt’s sinister hands. That bastard forced the boy to decorate for his own execution, thats a whole other level of fucked up I don’t have the time or page space to rant about.
I just want him dead then for that nation to burn once and for all. For there to be no more rulers of a land ravaged by power hungry demons with life-stealing addictions.
Manburg will be decimated, same with L’Manburg, I vow it.
Dear you,
I don’t often write more than once in a day but I was interrupted by Tubbo’s return to life. His respawn showed up on our communicators and Niki went to retrieve the battered boy with a rage-filled Tommy at her side.
The usual sunshine blonde who wouldn’t shut up was nowhere to be found after he watched his best friend die. A silent glare was all anyone received until notice pinged in Tubbo had arrived back, Tommy rushing to his feet and making for the exit from Pogtopia without a word.
I hardly recognised the smaller blonde boy when he came back in. Half his face was reduced to burn scars, a moon-white eye replaced the sky blue orb that once sparkled with mischief and joy. His flesh had peeled away like some horrible fruit, burned skin surrounding the upset tissue. Dusted with ash and soaked with blood, his gaze was a million miles away when Tommy led him into Pogtopia.
Niki swept him away to be cared for while Techno looked on with a blank stare, the tiniest bit of sadness deep within his crimson eyes. I walked away for just a moment to record this, to take a breather from the heavy air constricting all of our control right now.
Oh fuck, I will be right back. Tommy just started screaming, I might have to separate them.
Dear you,
Finally, everyone is asleep.
It took a long while, some fighting, and plenty of harsh words but people have settled down for the night.
Except me. I sit beneath the void that once brought me comfort and think just why I began that damned country at all. All it does is bring pain and suffering, gets ruled by those not mentally stable, including yours truly, and gives scars to those who should only know love.
Plan Unfinished Symphony has been pitched to the others once more, my TNT delight I have started placing that lays waiting for a simple button press. The moment I told everyone Techno gave his blessing and offered his hand with a wild smile, the other three glanced between one another before disagreeing with hard stances as to why not.
Niki, Tommy and Tubbo, for some fucking reason, still like that cursed country.
I will do us all a favour and sever the bonds I once fostered, creating a crater from which nothing shall return.
Maybe, they will even thank me.
They said, "All teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed"
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me, oh, yeah
Dear you,
I can drop the pretence on the last night of my life, if there was ever a time for honesty, it would be now.
Dear Philza,
Tonight finds me nursing a cigarette once more while I scribe in this book for my final time, under the stars my Mother watches from.
It’s only one night from my Unfinished Symphony now, before the conductor is silenced forever. I have spent the past several days gathering all the materials I need to rend L’Manburg to rubble beneath the shoes of those who ruined it. Thousands of stacks of sand and paper, crafted into the explosive boxes I carved deep into the earth to place. Lining redstone back to the button from which I wish to wave my baton, watching the thing I spent my life creating dying like the dreams I once held.
You will be disappointed in me, I know. Perhaps even upset but I will not be around to feel the wrath I will spark. I will finally be at peace with my L’Manburg wrought to the bones from which it shall never arise again. Ground to dust beneath the gunpowder I packed into those blood-red cubes of death, leaving a gaping maw of desperation that will remind all others of the absence of history once gleefully told before the ideals warped to something I could no longer control.
I can only hope one day, you can forgive me.
You will quench the fire that consumes my soul and give me the eternal quiet I desire, I will be freed from the afterlife where I will relive my sins until that forgiveness comes. I am sure my decaying soul is destined for somewhere horrific, Mother used to speak about the Limbo’s souls would be trapped in for the transgressions they committed. With the actions I have completed, decisions I have made and button I plan to press, I am sure a realm is being reserved right now for my twisted heart.
But it must be done, L’Manburg must fall.
For in the words of a once dear friend, ‘It was never meant to be’.
They said, "All teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed"
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me, oh, yeah
All together now
"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed"
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me
"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed"
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me