#butcher's army

[thy-valhallen]

i don't think we talk about what an absolute BANGER of a line Techno dropped on Quackity before their fight, post-execution

imagine: you're Quackity. you've been through fucking hell. you fought tooth and nail to get this country, traded sides as many times as you needed to, all to end up on the winning side. you finally are a part of L'Manburg, the real L'Manburg, a country of people and love and loyalty.

and there's a dark cloud hanging over your heads, one that cups wither skeletons in its hands and echoes with laughter and the sound of TNT. Technoblade is out there, and could come back at any second to ruin everything you've built. you fought for this, you've schemed for this-- hell, Tommy got exiled to protect this place.

so you decide to be proactive. you put together the Butcher's Army, you prepare for a fight and to kill a man because you'll do anything for this country. you push your young, stressed president into a bloodthirsty plan. you harass Philza, the grief-stricken father of your old rival and fallen president, and rob him, lock him in his home.

you track down Technoblade. you strike with the force of four men in full netherite, and you're losing. you get desperate, you threaten the horse that he loves, and it's the only thing that saves your lives. and you did it-- you've captured Technoblade, you've brought him in, and set him under an anvil. months of planning have paid off, and you're finally going to have retribution, the peace of knowing that's one less person out there who wants you and your home in ashes.

except you don't succeed. except a mercenary and the true ruler of the Greater SMP destroy your plans and Technoblade has a Totem of Undying and your execution is now a battle-- a battle you ignore, rushing through the smoke and blades and screams. because you saw Technoblade run.

you rush into the caves after him-- full netherite armor, axe drawn. you're going to end this yourself. this can't have all been for nothing.

and standing against him, declaring your intentions, he laughs, and simply asks:

"Did you really think... you could kill me that easily, Quackity?"

Like all you did, like all those months of planning and hours of scheming, all of your blood, sweat, and tears, weren't the best you could give? like everything you did wasn't with the full intention of ending this decisively? like all your work was nothing more than a rough few hours for him?

and you fight. and you lose. you lose to a man in iron armor and a pickaxe-- a pickaxe he puts through your face.

and nursing your wounds, staring at the ruins of a execution stage, you know he'll be back. and now, you know exactly how futile your efforts to stop him were-- and how much harder you have to try anyway, because there's nothing to do but desperately raise your shields against the falling of the axe, even when it's doomed to strike again

[mertan-fake]

Tubbo)

[lennjamin-o7]

What if they had the Lady of Death's protection forest before the Butcher Army showed up?

The Butcher Army, following the compass with the intent of bringing death, not knowing as they enter the dark foliage that death now surrounds them.

And it's up to HER if they ever make it out alive.

[fernlessbastard]

Day 3. Gashes

Felt like doing some gore thee hee

Prompt list by @/on.going.crisis on Instagram

[simplepotatofarmer]

i'm having strong feelings

[metrixnos]

blood tw// happy bday to this moment specially

[mmavverickk]

I “love” the betrayal fics where the entire camp suddenly believes that this new guy has actually accomplished all of Percy’s achievements and Percy lied to all of them, like camp didn’t literally witness half of those accomplishments and like Percy actually outright says “I did X.” Percy says almost nothing about what he does, Camp hears about most of his achievements from others

oh, we've all seen those fics. new guy shows up, he's actually Percy's half-brother. Annabeth suddenly only has eyes for him, everyone suddenly hates Percy because new guy does too, Poseidon may or may not disown Percy, and then Percy runs away and joins Chaos.

it's been copied and pasted thousands of times in hundreds of ways.

not a single one of those fics has Percy's departure from Camp happen realistically. it's not even impossible to grow resentment between Percy and the campers, which is what these writers seem to want. but the way they go about it? a cookie cutter asshole pied piper OC who steals the spotlight and turns Camp into a hostile mob of angry demigods? Unrealistic. 0/10 trope, literally 50% of why i will not read fanfictions with OCs.

have some realistic ways of turning Camp against Percy or vice versa:

- Percy could be captured. The area he was taken from is drenched in blood. no one could survive that, Percy's gotta be dead, so Camp doesn't look for him. after [x amount of time] of captivity and probably torture, Percy gives up hoping for a rescue. he discovers darker uses for his powers, frees himself, and doesn't go back to camp, because they abandoned him. opens the road for angst and emotion and tearful reunions etc.

- Camp is attacked. maybe it was a lazy beach day. no one is ready, only a few campers have their weapons. they're outnumbered and maybe surrounded and definitely out of options. Percy won't let anyone die. two ways to go about this one:

A) percy destroys the attackers single-handedly, using every tool in his arsenal, every fucked up thing he can think of to make sure his people survive. he controls poison and blood and drowns monsters and, i don't know, freezes them into ice cubes or boils their skin or stops their hearts. Camp is terrified of him now. he leaves. or B) the armed campers fight back, but percy isn't fighting. he's busy keeping the injured from dying. how? he's controlling their blood. he won't let it deviate from its normal path. Camp is terrified of him now. he leaves.

- [x god] sends Percy on a quest. but, surprise! it's not a quest! it's a trick, to lead Percy to his death! Percy survives, but can't go back or he'll be revealing he's still alive before he figures out why [x god] tried to have him killed and if there's anyone else behind it. fun conspiracy vibes.

- percy adopts a new pet, except this time it's a drakon. "Percy," Chiron says very patiently and not-at-all exasperated, "you can't keep a drakon as a pet. it will eat your friends and we don't have the space." Percy flips authority the bird and strikes out with his new pet to find somewhere they can settle. kinda cracky but written right it could be funny.

- Percy pisses Zeus off. not surprising. Zeus wants to kill Percy. not surprising. for his own good, Chiron sends Percy on a roadtrip/changes his name and sends him to mexico along with multiple witness protection agents/quest to keep Percy out of sight for a while to allow the king of olympus time to cool down, because we like when percy is alive and also the war poseidon would wage at his death would kill us all.

are all of them 100% realistic? no, but neither is Percy leaving Camp. Hera had to literally kidnap him and erase his memory to keep him away. the point is that they're different and plausible, and not the same exact trope repeated over and over again until i can tell you the plot of hundreds of betrayal works in one sentence.

[cherryskeletoncake]

Techno and ghostbur. When your dead frend only remembers the ‘good times’ you had, and they come to hunt you about it constantly.

[waitingawhile]

saw a post headcanoning ghostbur as having dog vision / color blindness and I had the thought “how would Quackity and Tommy look to him?” —ended up making pixel art ☆

[boygirlctommy]

so the plan is simple: we find and we kill technoblade

reminder my commissions are open ^_^

[legendsofentity]

i look at the man who gave up on his humanity and accepted his darkness and i see hope for the future

[wildissylupus]

What I always found irritating and hypocritical of the exile arc is that immediately after c!Tommy was exiled c!Quackity, c!Tubbo and c!Fundy started making plans to straight up kill c!Techno. Like Tommy greifed George's house with no intention of taking a canon life, while the Butcher Army did have that intention.

Cause all three of them gave Tommy shit for provoking Dream by stealing from George and burning a couple blocks of his house. Which was fixed in the stream after in under 20 mins and Tommy was given the actual appropriate punishment of being greifed back. Then immediately after that punishment of exile is given they start making plans to kill Techno.

And while yes, Quackity and Fundy disagreed with the decision to exile Tommy, that doesn't negate the fact that they still gave Tommy shit for it. When at least Tommy had the knowledge and experience to know that Dream could be overpowered, there was no evidence of that with Techno and as we see with the Butcher Army, Techno can't be overpowered like Dream can. This is also something Tommy knew cause I distinctly remember him saying that he did want to go after Techno but could right now cause he knew they would loose (though I might be misremembering).

At the end of the day, do I think this would have mattered? Do I think the outcome would have changed if Tommy wasn't exiled? No, Tommy was likely already spiraling after Wilbur's death, and if Niki is any constellation on how New L'Manburg acted in that regard, I don't think anyone would have checked in on Tommy regardless of exile. Tommy's downward spiral was an inevitability no matter what happened with exile, Dream and exile just sped the process up. I also don't think Tommy's reluctance to immediately go after Techno would have changed that outcome either. It would have at best lead to Tommy not being informed of the situation and ending up in a similar situation to Ranboo, or at worst Tommy also being put under house arrest cause he tried to stop them from making a very obvious bad decision.

Though none of this is to say I hated this arc, in all honesty I think it's a good example of how the different perspectives of the characters affected them. Tubbo, Quackity and Fundy all had mainly negative interactions with Techno and Techno never got the chance to know them outside of L'Manburg's government up to that point like he did with Tommy. Honestly I may be of the opinion that a lot of things would have changed if the plot happened differently but Doomsday is one of the only circumstances that I think were unavoidable.

I just wish the hypocrisy of the Butcher Army happening right after Tommy was exiled was addressed at some point (If it was addressed though please tell me cause honestly don't think it ever was).

[mew2late]

[miauta]

Butcher-maid army here to save(?) the day!

[skylilywolf]

The Butcher Army in the style of Butcher Vanity by Vane Lily

Another style study. Ended up doing full color instead of limited since the skin tones felt off if I left them all white or only did one.

Time spent: 5h 10m

@mcyt-jukebox-bonanza

[simplepotatofarmer]

we don't talk enough about how horrific the butcher army was, i'm sorry. when c!techno talks about not being seen as a person maybe he means the fact his enemies reduced him to a pig for slaughter.