Archive of Our Own ^beta

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"Spare parts" noun — objects used for sexual gratification; sex toys. Derived from the use of castoff Porno-Droid parts; often derogatory. 

"Landline" adj. — stationary or sedentary; a crew that tends to stick to one location or zone would be considered landline. 

"Birdbrain" noun — devotees of the Phoenix Witch; often used derogatorily by non-believers.

"Leather pox" noun — traces of crumbling and disintegrated cheap leather, or worse, fake leather that flakes off at the first sign of friction. 

"Leather rash" noun — friction burns often found under ill-fitting boots and on more adventurous 'joys who wear their gun belts over bare skin.

"Stampede strings" noun — the straps or strings of a mask or helmet. Derived from the old term for strings on a cowboy hat. 

"Gorp" noun — stable, packaged, nonperishable food, usually in the form of rations appropriated from BL/Ind outposts. Hard to come by and heavily coveted. Derived from the acronym GORP — Good Ol' Raisins and Peanuts, though there's little of either in a typical gorp spread and the etymology is mostly lost to time.

"Security blanket" noun — can be either a tight-knit squad of killjoys rarely seen without one another, or the one crewmate who's holding everyone else together. Either way, you don't want to be caught without your security blanket.

"Polar" adj. — chilly behavior to the absolute max. More than just suspicion, if someone's polar, you all but have physical proof of their shadiness. Your partner coming into the nest later than usual and evading questions is chilly; your partner coming into the nest late with someone else's glitter on their jacket is polar.

"Itchy palms" noun — someone who has either amazing or horrible luck with money, particularly gambling; they're either rich or broke, no in between. Derived from the superstitions involving a spontaneous itch on one's palms as an omen of changing financial circumstances. 

"Holy Od" / "Holyod" noun/place — the few remaining letters on the hillside that mark the border of Battery City. Used as a landmark by those looking for a way out — if you make it past Holyod without getting caught by a Drac patrol on the way out, your chances of survival skyrocket, though that's not saying much. 

"Drum kit" noun — someone's heart. 

"Acid angel(s)" noun — a Zones drug dealer, usually one who'll get you quality product on the cheap in exchange for favors or trades, or something as simple as trip-sitting for them.

"Static fever" noun — the listless, unmoored feeling of long hours of driving in unfamiliar territory. The sand dunes are blurring together, and you could have sworn you already passed that cactus. Is there even road under your tires? Better check. 

"Karma kink" noun — someone who seems to constantly fuck up their own life, with disastrous but easily predictable consequences, could be said to have a karma kink. 

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"Lorem Ipsum": noun — an alias, or any name you go by between Battery City and settling on the name that fits you. So called because it's "placeholder text". 

"Treble" *: noun — excitement or anxiety for something you're looking forward to, or the shaky feeling you get when you're tumbled for somebody. 

"Tabloid": noun — a scandalous rumor without much basis - even less reliable than 'broken telephone' (a rumor that's been twisted by passing through too many people), a tabloid is usually completely made up to discredit or embarrass someone.

"Chaperone": noun — mocking name for surveillance measures put in place by Better Living, similar to 'Mom and Dad'

"McFly": adjective — for someone ahead of their time, too out-there even for Killjoys to hang with their weirdness. "Y'ever listen to Mad Gear? Yeah, he's a little McFly — thinks he has visions and stuff. Music's killer, though." 

"BoneZone": noun — a radio broadcast dedicated to easy-listening music and Zones gossip, with an infamous relationship advice hotline.

"Chariot" : noun — a getaway car or its driver; often used metaphorically, for someone who's often getting others out of trouble. 

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"Filet minion" noun — Zones nickname for Power Pup, based on the running half-joke-half-theory that BLi repurpose the bodies of dead Draculoids for dog food. The name is a pun on filet mignon, an expensive cut of steak. 

"Blast race" noun — a firefight that involves both parties shooting from separate moving vehicles. chaotic, dangerous for those involved and any bystanders, the type of event you don't want an invitation to.

"Standstill" noun — any firefight that involves stopping the car and fighting on the ground, as opposed to from a vehicle. Mainly used by a subset of motorbabies for whom chase-style blast races are the default.

"Laser rain" noun — when there's so much gunfire, it looks like a shower of bright, deadly rain.

"Ol' Faithful" noun — a killjoy's main mode of transport, be it a souped-up hot rod, a broken-down van, a motorcycle, bike, or a pair of roller skates. Sometimes given a special name of its own (though, unlike naming your blaster, not a strict fixture of Zone culture). Nearly always tagged with the name or colors of its owner. 

"Fingerprint" noun — for 'joys who want to graffiti their names on everything, the specialized tag they adopt — be it a symbol, phrase, or their name — is their "fingerprint". It's not uncommon to find a whole squad's prints on the side of a vehicle. Some brazen killjoys fingerprint the bodies of their kills — this is often considered tacky, try-hard behavior. 

"John HC" noun — another term for a killjoy's "name tag", the unique, customized jackets that are as individual as a signature. Confusingly, also sometimes used in reference to a fingerprint (see above), though this is archaic slang mostly used by rose dusters.

"Footprint" noun — not to be confused with a fingerprint, a footprint is the skid mark your wheels leave on the road, the ruts they wear in the blacktop outside your favorite haunts, the sand kicked up on your porch from your habit of peeling outta the place too fast, or broken glass from bottles thrown through the windows. It's the distinctive squeal of your engine that lets people know exactly who's coming, and the folks who see your colors at a distance from the bonfire and already know what name to shout. It's your mask goin' in the mailbox because someone cared enough to put it there, and it's graffiti on your gravestone, or someone spitting and cursing when they hear your name. All the traces you leave in travels through the Zones make up your footprint. It can be good or bad, and it don't matter how big it is, just that you put it there. 

"Troll" noun — zone rats who want everyone to know their business, but don't wanna tell ya. Talking to them is like trying to solve a riddle. "Crazy weekend, huh? You'll never guess what happened." "I don't know your life, Yo-Yo. Why don't you quit bein' a troll and tell me?"