I am constantly thinking about food in the zones and going INSANE at the missed opportunities in like 90% of fanfics where they're surviving solely on power pup like. NO. do even five minutes of research I beg you there is SO much food stuff in the desert. I guarantee you no killjoy is eating power pup daily that shit is kept in the cabinet for emergencies and the friendly coyotes that come by every once in a while!! If anything they use it like we use spam.

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.

I just want to see killjoys enjoying zone life and culture and not starving!! Becuase they wouldn't be!! They would not fucking eat the dog food!! The desert provides!!!

Girl help im crying over androids in the city again and their concept of souls and how they love and exist and fight or not fight and the graffiti bible and destroya and their belief in gods and soul and thought versus programming and having bodies that are only meant to last for a couple years and being so temporary but also eternal living on in the energy grid and destroya and your best friends coding your essence etched into their very mainframe a bit of your code downloaded so you live on forever and ever and how they dream of freedom and of the world and yet remain so loyal to the city they were made in, not to their masters not to who runs the city, but to the bones of the city itself from ancient bursting pipes and cracked streets to neon highrises and power lines and subway tunnels and and and how in our dreams we can be complete AAH

Currently thinking some thoughts about the Jet Star and the Kobra Kid traffic report and how ‘killjoys never die’ and how there’s canonical powers. The killjoy’s different powers in national anthem, the girls power, the energy in the desert that Cherri does his weird focus thing with to never miss a shot that he tells her about. If they all have powers, why can’t the Fab Four? Maybe their power is that they never die.

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.

The other body bag wiggles, muffled curses sounding. All the killjoys turn to stare at it. Poison rushes over, unzipping it and pulling their somehow alive brother up into their arms.

what if the Phoenix Witch but... horror. horror of the loss of self. body horror. you know how i do all my Creature Witch art? That. but what if she wasn't always inhuman? no, at some point in war and radiation and prayers to make it out alive feathers started sprouting, her bones started shifting and soon she became something completely unrecognizable- and then somehow the creature she turned into became something to be worshipped. and if she remembers who she was at all, if she's mourning that- how do you deal with the malformed Thing you've become being known and loved more than the Person you were?? how can you possibly cope with being forgotten and reinvented against your will? And how do you follow through with it? okay, so you're seen as holy, now how can you possibly become that? since you can't go back. since you cant be what you want to be anymore, since you're not even human anymore, well, you might as well become what everyone sees. but even if you've sprouted wings and are the definition of an angel, how can you be happy as that, when in your extra eyes, you're the most unholy, wretched thing to ever exist? you could try to pretend that you're not a monster, but you can only pretend for so long. you're not human anymore but you are. you've lost your body and your smile but at your core you're still a person even if you don't think that anymore. you're not human but just as miserable. and you're mourning. you're mourning yourself and the world and the life you lived, the life you should still be living. you're a monster but you still have a human heart beating somewhere inside you and you want to become what they all see but you cant do that without shedding your humanity, without becoming the abstraction, the all-knowing, selfless god they see. and how can you do that when even if you don't think so, your humanity is all you have left. and how can you distance yourself from your inherent personhood when you're so scared still?

Okay so I had an idea. A zones daycare. A zones kindergarten. No way there ain’t one. A school in the zones in general thats open to anyone not just kids because we all know most killjoys didn’t get any advanced schooling. And the Fab Four are have been like trying to teach the girl some stuff but at some point they’re like okay out of the four of us only one of us can read and write(poison) one can read and not write(Jet) and one can’t read or write(ghoul) and one has shit vision in general and no glasses and is also dyslexic(Kobra) also none of us know how to do long division. Or ever graduated high school. Actually we don’t know what a ‘high school’ is. So instead of dragging the girl to every clap they’re in(dangerous.) and having her blow shit up(dude she’s like six do not give her a rocket launcher Jesus Christ), well she still does just not as much because they start dropping her off at daycare.

Poison seeing kobra and ghoul kiss and being like. Oh no. I need to give Kobra the Talk dont i. Bc they sure as hell dont teach sex ed in Battery city and they haven't been in the zones That long and like thats his little brother Surely he still doesn't know anything.... meanwhile kobra has gone through puberty twice and is not innocent like party thinks in the slightest and party like calls him out to talk and they sit down and party goes okay. theres a few things you need to know. So when you're a teenager your body changes and when two people love eachother very much they- and kobra just. Stricken with horror goes WOAH. BRO. I KNOW WHAT SEX IS. EWW I CANT BELIEVE YOU WERE ABOUT TO EXPLAIN PUBERTY AND FUCKING TO ME and Poisons just sitting there like. World flipped upside-down going you do???? And maybe someone overheard this maybe ghoul and speaks up like really?? Dude kobra gets around you dont know that?? And now poisons the one horrified like choking out you. You what. And kobras just like yeah man. Mr gone through puberty twice here. Im not a virgin. And poison just fucking like dies.

Writing something in which i give Destroya the lovecraftian god treatment again anyway what do you think of an echo of something once great, now a splotch in the distance, a lumbering shape in the radiation beyond the zones where its running on fumes, moving oh so gradually, at a snails pace as it quite literally drags itself in circles, pulling itself forward with rusty arms and corroded claws scored deep into the sand. Every movement of its ancient gears fills the dead space with creaks and the scream of scraping metal and theres wires and cables like spilled guts that trail for miles behind it.

Just remembered my au where Fun Ghoul like sells his soul to the witch/makes a deal with her and so he can’t die but there’s a catch. He comes back but has to serve her and be a vessel for her for some time first, and that time gets longer each time he would have died. The first time he dies he makes the deal and she’s like okay but you must serve me for a week first and he’s like okay so fun ghoul who like just died is sighted wandering the desert and visiting battle sites and new graves and the mailbox in a gas mask looking ghostly and being followed by crows and then after the week passes he shows up at the diner just. Good as new and he’s like yeah don’t worry about it. And the next time he dies it’s like a month then a few months then several months then a year and so on. Maybe he’s been like this long before he even met the Fab Four so by the time he dies for the first time as one of them he’s gone for like three years as the witch’s vessel before he comes back or after spending so long and being her vessel a couple times the deal is changed and instead of a you must serve me when you die and I will allow you to go back they like are sorta friends?? And he’s like what if it’s is just always a mutual thing like. I’m out as me and if there’s a battlefield you can hop in the drivers seat and sort stuff out or like he just gets some of her powers and is like I’ll do this for you or like during the day he’s a killjoy during the night he works with the witch and they’re just.. soulmates. It’s a much deeper and emotional story then this post makes it seem but basically it’s like his role as her vessel was fate and he channels her through him and they’re lovers but not in a sexual way. It’s like. Their souls and minds combine like in an all their molecules and atoms intertwining way and they know eachother on this deeply personal spiritual and physical level that’s beyond words and human comprehension. And he serves the desert and spends so long as her vessel that he kinda forgets he’s human but then he meets the Fab Four and starts being a person again and falls in love and like he’s in love with the witch in some sort of way but it’s more like they’re one in the same so in the physical world when he truly falls in love for the first time that’s like an actual physical love he’s never had before, it’s grounding and real like the sunlight and so once he’s with the Fab Four his physical and spiritual side are balanced for the first time in a long time.

Meanwhile Poison is The Witchfucker lmao Fun Ghoul was like btw like touching me is touching the Phoenix Witch. I am her and she is me. and Poison was like fucking BET

Kobras the cook of the fab four and I will die on this hill. Because Poison dragged them out of that city and they are NOT a cook, they were making Kobra fucking rawdog power pup because they didnt know you can just like. walk into the desert and harvest cacti or fucking make traps and stuff. and Kobras autism said no sir and so learned how to cook with what he could find out of spite he was let outside for an hour and already making cricket skewers and building a hare trap and like scrambling an egg he stole from some nest in the sun. He met someone that taught him how to harvest prickly pear stuff and he like starts whipping up a little skillet with power pup basically as spam and chopped up cacti and wild herbs and then like jet and ghoul come along and he learns their recipes also just. cooking is so satisfying he'd be the cook because its a special interest

The fabulous four were dusted years ago, but they still haunt the zones. Their names are spoken in reverence, like the Witch's, but sometimes in spite too, because nobody likes heroes anymore. To most zonedwellers, at this point martyrdom is nothing but suicide, an easy way out. You can say you died for your cause all you want but at the end of the day theres four less pawns on the board and if they were still here maybe they'd be overthrowing the king instead. It's different, running to Battery City instead of from it, many still think the faulous four were insane for it. Sure, they had a reason, but many argue it wasn't good enough. You don't just trade four lives for one like that, not in war. It's bad strategy. 

Whatever. In reality, most zonedwellers just don't care anymore, those legends are legends now, all thats left of them are their names, heavier in some places than others.

Like here, at the crash track, everyone knows of the Kobra Kid. His name is traded like a dietys among the racers, as if hes some god that can grant you luck in a race if you leave the right offering by the starting banner or whisper the right words under your breath. More than the rest of the fabulous four, Kobra Kid carved out a place for himself here, a trench of a legacy through zone four that everyone that races or watches them knows, the fastest 'joy to ever grace the tracks, they say, and even dead, the Kobra Kid remains such, standing tall as reigning champ in what remains, the records that no racers yet to beat. 

It seems that out of respect, no one even tries. It's become a superstition, that if you try to break one of Kobra's records, it's bad luck, like shattering a mirror or walking under a ladder, they say that on your next race you'll spin out or pop a tire or break a leg for real, that you'll be luckier than usual if you don't break your neck. 

Hardly anyone that hangs around the crash track anymore actually knew him, but everyone still knows his story, its whispered in the stands like gossip, killjoys discussing the kid that came along and grew up fast, watching races first, then one day showing up with his own bike he had saved up carbons for, then he made a name for himself quick, because the kid was a damn natural. He could race the track like an ospery flies, cutting through the sand with a grace unlike any other. Eventually he didn't just master the track, he became it. Older joys say you had to see him racing to believe it, the jumps he could make, the turns he could spin, the times he could set. They say that after he was ghosted with the fab four, the crash track, a place so full of life all day and night, was empty for a week. 

Barren. Nobody raced, crews didn't hang out, for a week there was no life, no music. It felt more like a graveyard. Some sat in the stands and watched the tumbleweeds blow across the track, waiting for a race that never started. It was a long moment of silence, and by the end of the week, apparently candles lined the track, the whole track, one big altar to the lost racer. 

Then, everyone came back, as if they had all unspokenly agreed to, and people raced again, seeing that red motorbike in the corner of their eye, keeping speed with them, they say, until a bend, then it will dissappear, and they know that if they turn to look, it will disappear too. Maybe its actually him, haunting the track, maybe its just a mirage, because he may be gone but the desert remembers, the crash track remembers. Nobody knows, but those older joys, the ones that knew Kobra, that raced with him, hardly any of them race anymore, they're fully able to, there’s just no fun in crossing the finish line and being neck to neck with a ghost.

Ao3

Something something um Ghouls scar being made by Kobra because they fucking hated eachother for a while not for any particular reason. and one day no one was around to stop them from going too far and one of their fights evolved and they hated eachother but theyre crew so despite it all, they know eacother, and they both say some horrible things that hit where it hurts, and theres a knife, and then ghouls on the floor, cheek slashed open, and kobras probably concussed and his nose is broken, the break that made it so crooked, the one he could never set right, and it hits them both at once, that theyve taken this too far. And they hate eachother but again, they're fucking crew, so Kobra runs inside for the first aid kid and stitches up the wound he made, and they talk, for the first time, and theyve both left marks on eachothers faces that will stay with them for the rest of their lives and theres something kind of meaningful in that. And thats the day they stop hating eachother.

Cursed t-shirts and the killjoys that would wear them:

Bonus!!!! Doctor Death Defying

Okay so you know how the trans am and dd stuff was/is(not sure if it still is) all on display at that one hard rock cafe? Well I'm having thoughts rn. Bc the trans am was left in Bat city after the events of SING and BLI undoubtedly took it into custody and it would be sooo evil corporation of them to put it and the fab fours guns or whatever on display as an example of what happens to killjoys. So the trans am is in the lobby of some fancy building or bli history museum and maybe someone gets in and steals it at some point, but I just think it'd be really cool if this is in a the fab four are alive au and theyve been brainwashed or stuck in the city, and they wake up and realize their car is just sitting around like begging be be stolen and they're the ones to get to the trans am and steal it back from under blis noses and escape the city in it, busting out the same way they busted in back in 2019.

GO HERE GO HERE COME TO JETPOISON WORLD!!!! 🚨 🚨 🚨

Ooookay killjoy suitehearts masterpost here we go, been putting this together for a while now since everyone started posting their suitehearts stuff..

So I kinda have two versions of stories for them, i mean thats the great thing about writing and headcanons is that they can varie from story to story but anyway! this is like their main story and what I'll write if I ever get to writing a story focused on them, and varients of it will be similar with some like little changes if theyre more like background characters in something. But the two versions rn are just this main one and a slightly differing one for some other stuff in my drafts bc this main one is focused in the city bc the suitehearts are just such an underground rebel crew to me versus loud and proud killjoys in the desert, while the variation story is one where they are in the desert, or at least theyre like split between the city and desert, you'll see.

Some like basics before I get into their individual stuff, yeah they have, well mostly have their crazy looks, they're a crew of theater kids lol, not really they just have a sense of whimsy. I'll post art of each of my designs for them eventually their outfits arent as crazy because they have to like be able to fight and run and shit in them, but they stick with the colors and facepaint, because facepaint throws off facial recognition scanners so that the cameras cant track them, so they might as well have fun with it, and they turn it into part of their killjoyesque personas, the facepaint becomes them, marks them as crew and their personas kind of become characters in urban legends that everyone in the citys heard of.

ANYWAY

Dr. Benzedrine

Dr. Benzedrine? More like Mr. Medical Malpractice. Kidding. Mostly. He grew up in a wealthy family with parents that were good citizens and he always wanted to be a scientist or a doctor, to help people, and he was smart and they had money, so he was able to get into school and be just that. To learn all about science and medications and surgery and over the years he moved up the ranks, until he was one of the best surgeons in the city, and one thing about doctors, especially surgeons is that they have to be clear minded, not drugged up and foggy headed. And one thing about being good, about being a respected professional? Its like being an exterminator, you're never off the hook but the people in charge? They dont care as much about the state of your head, as long as you're loyal. So Benzedrine has benefits, and one of them is getting clean, of the decidedly mind altering stuff at least. But with clarity of mind for the first time in his life comes horrifying realization, because as a respected surgeon, he sees shit, because hes working in places that screams echo down the halls of and he can just tell that somethings wrong. He snoops and learns of re-education and of what happens to captured killjoys, interrogations and experiments and those are people and hes sickened. The more he digs the more he learns and the more he develops an intense hatred for better living and maybe he starts.. doing experiments of his own. Beause he works on a lot of respected folks, a lot of higher ups. He never botches a surgery but he starts messing with things, fucks with something while hes at the operating table, something that can't be traced back to him but that'll take the patient out in say, a couple months.

He's never disgusted by what hes doing, only finds pride in it, and maybe his hatred has twisted him but he likes himself better that way. The officials catch him snooping, though, eventually, but luckily they don't expect a thing, especially not when hes grown a master at lying. Because he's a respected doctor that has in their minds proven himself loyal, and when he bullshits his way through them finding him snooping about the lower levels of the hospital, they're nothing but happy at the fact he's grown curious about re-education, in fact they show him around, tell him all about it, their words are all propaganda and lies about how they're helping the people there, of course, but he smiles and nods along and makes comments like he agrees wholeheartedly. They say if hes interested in helping these people too, they can get him a position. He asks of he can still be the top surgeon if he takes up this position too and they say of course! As long as he doesn't overwork himself theyd be glad to have him assert himself in different fields of research.

So, he starts working with the prisoners. Because thats what they are. He sees them come in beaten up and hissing and spitting and he gets to see them grow complacent as they forget their whole lives in favor of some made up sob story and how theyll be so much happier once they're introduced back into society after their treatments. They'll only go on to be sanitation workers or office nuts at best, maybe scarecrows if they seem smart, but half of them will probably be plagued with nightmares once thyre released, broken memories trying to break through the chemical haze. They'll relapse, snap, do something drastic and they'll either be dracced or sent right back here to repeat the process all over again. Re-education isn't a complete fix, a guarantee of normalcy. It'll never be, not as long as they're just traumatizing people and praying they stay comatose long enough to get work done.

Hes there when a new batch of them come in, delinquents from the rebel underground, he learns, which flips his world upside down, theres a rebel underground? And they're apparently dangerous enough to be treated like captured killjoys. He sees these new patients come in in bonds, theres five of them captued, some silent and glaring and the others screaming until theres a needle shoved in their neck.

His new position is that of a twisted sort o psychiatrist, they gave him a whole slideshow to get ready for it. It told him to get in their heads, learn the secrets that interrogations couldnt get out and replace them with better living propaganda, until theyre nothing but smiling citizens ready to be let back into society. It's fucking brainwashing, nothing but, he fucking hates it. But they trusted him to do it and now hes here, but since he's here maybe he can help. Not brainwash these people, but help them, and if theyre really part of a rebellion, maybe if he helps them get out they'll take him with them and he can help people that probably actually need it, not just rich assholes from the center city.

Thats his plan, and it works, it takes a while to get the patients to trust him but once they do, they all get out. Sandman, Crab, and Donnie were all part of that group and its how the four meet and bond and start becoming a crew. Dr Benzedrine picks his name and quickly becomes a very valued member of the resistance because theres medics, but no professionals, let alone surgeons.

Mr. Sandman

Street kid, his parents were ritalin rats that stirred up too much trouble and got dracced when he was pretty young. He was hiding under a bed when it happened and Better Living didn't find him, but they didn't bother looking because he was a poor autistic little kid that they saw no use in. So they left him to his empty shitty little apartment in the slums. They never kicked him out, so hes luckier than most that he still had a place to sleep, but once he ran out of food he had to head to the streets, figure out how to either get food or money to survive. He learned and he grew up dealing illegal merchandise, not as low as you could stoop, but pretty low, low enough that if you're busted you could get dracced. But it kept him just afloat enough to not starve.

Illegal merchandise is stuff like outlawed music and media, cds he burned himself off the originals, cassettes, vhs. Just whatever he could get his hands on. And when he could get a signal, he'd play the stuff over the old radio equipment in his basement, making sure to scramble where the signature was coming from, because he'd definitely be dracced if they found out he was putting that stuff on air. Not like it got out of the city, bli has shit that doesn't let any signals in or out, but once in a very rare while, he'll get some faint killjoy frequencies and record whatever he can onto cassettes.

But even though he was dealing in secret and even though he didn't want to be a cog in the machine, even though he wanted to be one of those juvie halls, the rebels on the streets that you can hear hollaring at night, throwing bricks at scarecrows and running off before facial recognition gets them, he strived to get into the Better Living Academy, because it hasn't crosed his mind that he might not be stuck in battery city yet, like most people that rebel, he doesn't want to be on his streets his whole life, so he tries getting in to learn anything, even to get some shitty cubicle job, as long as it means maybe he could actually afford more than the shit slum slop he pawns for. But at he end of the day, he isn't on his pills and he knows they won't like that if they find out, and they keep turning him away anyway for his temperment, for his oddities, because he's still autistic and the bright lights and white expanse of bli spaces make his head scream and he just doesn't get half the questions they ask him and if he has his own questions, they dont explain things furthur for him.

So he gives up on that plan, whatever, at least he's still got his shit to deal out, at least he isnt drugged up like everyone else he saw in the screening rooms for the academy, all empty in the head. He can think, at least. And he has his music, he likes music.

Then he meets Horseshoe Crab, a really weird fellow who takes most of his stock for a hefty handful of carbons that'll get him along for a couple weeks, and the guys so nice he's suspicious, until their deal is interrupted by an ambush, a patrol scarecrows that must've gotten a tip about them, and Horseshoe pulls out a fucking gun, shoots the two closest ones and takes sandmans arm and has him run. At that sandmans convinced the guys not nice at all, hes just fucking crazy, but he runs away after him anyway because the guy just shot two fucking crows, he knows he'll probably live to see morning of he sticks with him. Turns out Horseshoes a juvie hall, like an actual one, not the brash gangs of kids that run around and say they are, actual juvie halls are untraceable, a solid underground, a real rebellion, well hidden from Better Livings watchful eye, its something you have to be smart enough to find and brave enough to join. And sandmans thrust right into the center of it, just a street dealer that followed a crazy guy with a gun that pulled him into a safehouse in the slums that was down a maze of dark alleys, and theres so much illegal shit inside he kind of wants to call it in just for the hefty reward he could get, but he also kind of wants to drop to his knees and worship it all. Theres books, weapons, color. And a few rough looking people that at their sudden entrance, scan them and one goes. "Dammit, Crab."

Long story short, they're members of the fucking rebellion and theres a short but terrifying debate of whether or not to shoot him, but Horseshoe defends him and it turns out the rebellion likes people that risk their lives to deal rock and roll, because he basically gets an invitation. And well, that was his real dream, the one hes had since he was a little kid, wanting to be those unapologetic rebels in the street messing with bli for shits and giggles. This is obviously more than that, but still. So he accepts, and hes thrust into the center of it all. He has to prove he can be trusted by going on so many missions or passing along packages and illegal goods, but once he's proved hes no rat hes showed the base, how to get into the rebellion underground. Its a scattered maze of random apartments that are safehouses, and then the actual underground shit, the tunnels and whole rooms and shit, the stuff from what Battery City used to be that bli just built over and forgot about.

He and Horseshoe become quick friends and he learns that crabs not just a juvie hall but a zonerunner, that he risks his life sneaking in and out of the city to deliver news and supplies to the killjoys out in the desert and vise versa. Sandman turns out to be quite useful, because hes good with computers and especially, radio equipment, since he grew up with that stuff in his basement and copying all that music and playing some over the frequencies when he could, and he fixes up their old shit and becomes the radio operator of the underground rebellion, the voice of the voiceless. He's basically the cherri cola of battery city, as in hes given the task of feeding news to the juvie halls on the streets and so he's always on the air and monolauging what is just weird poetry or random stories to any untrained ears, but while cherri colas thing is actualy just poetry, sandmans is actually speaking entirely in code that only juvie halls will be able to pick apart, because PAX AM isn't some far off station in the zones like WKIL, no, it broadcasts from inside the walls of battery city and better living could always be listening in. Did I make this his thing entirely to play into the lyric all the walls lean in to listen? Maybe.

Hes actually known as Mr Sandman now, took the codename when he became their radio operator, but the suitehearts aren't a thing yet, no, thats still a long way off. Benzedrine isn't even part of the rebellion yet. He also gets his distinct style, encuraged by the juvie halls who just like killjoys push for everyone to be an individual and fuck the citys mandates, so goth gnc bitch it is. The longer hes in the underground the more disconnected from gender he gets.

There's a raid to the underground, someone must have tipped bli off. A solid blow is dealt to the rebellion in the form of a good number of juvie halls being captured, sandman one of them. Now being some low level dealer can get you dracced, but being a real juvie hall gets you something much worse, re-education, because you have to be smart to be a rebel and have survived this long, and bli can use those smarts, as long as they tear you down to a blank slate first. Thats what re-education is, picking you apart piece by piece, drugging you up and pouring propaganda and altered history down your throat until youre a 'functioning member of society'

He's assumed dead or beyond saving from the mindfuck of re-education by the remaining rebellion, who after this bust has to move base to a different part of the city. But about six months after he was taken and the radio went silent, his voice mysteriously reappears, speaking in code about the old base, where the escaped suitehearts went back to and found abandoned as they expected it to be, but had hopes of scrounging old supplies or this, broadcasting their return.

The juvie halls find them and bring them and the radio equipment to the new base, and Mr Sandman is officially the voice of the voiceless again, now with a crew.

Eventually they get fancy tech or an antennae or something thats just strong enough to get a signal out to the zones, and theres always been a slow feed of news between the killjoys and the juvie halls via zonerunners, and the cnnectiom can still be stratchy, but now on the good days Sandman can talk directly to doctor death defying to get news out to the zones and vice versa.

Horseshoe Crab

The only sand pup of the suitehearts, grew in the zones with his dad, who was in the helium wars, but he was dusted when Crab was about eight and he went right to gravel gerties, where he stayed until he joined a group of the older kids when they left gertie to go on their own, and let him tag along even if he was the youngest of them by far. They were all crash queens and glitter brains and he put up with them for a while, but eventually drifted off on his own, and was sixteen when he forst got hired by Tommy to meet with some runners in zone one when they cane outta the walls and to help them get their supplies back to his shop. These jobs always paid well, with either his share of supplies or a handful of carbons, so he kept doing them and eventually tagged along with the runners to go in-city to the rebels there. He liked it there, oddly enough, liked meeting so many different types of rebels, because killjoys are.. killjoys. Theyre all gearheads and glitterbrains but juvie halls tend to be more serious while still having fun. They understand the risk of what they do. Killjoys are just kids with guns, they have growing up to do or things to lose before theyre level headed enoughfor Crab to feel lile he gets them.

So it becomes his thing, zonerunning, getting supplies out to Tommy's and news into the city and vise versa, he makes friends in the underground and eventually meets sandman, then gets caught with him and meets the others too. He isnt around all the time, still does runs, and takes Benzedrine in and out with him if theres someone in the zones that desperately needs a real doctor.

Donnie the Catcher

Hell of an engineer, even figures out robotics, he grew up working in a garage in the neon district, and as he got older, started helping out androids that needed repairs in secret. Its looked down upon to help androids, simce theyre not human and not seen as human, and thats what their service hubs are for, to request repairs, but he knows theres no real help there, not if they're an older model or anything other than some high ups customized pornodroid. Most droids just end up recycled in the incinerators or rusting in the streets, so he does what he can to help when they start falling apart.

He doesn't agree with bli, with how he treats these people, and when a service droid named Jenny that he's helped a handful of times invites him to the underground, because droids can be juvie halls too, theyve gotta be fukin brave to be, because where human juvie halls will be reducated or dracced, rebelling droids will just be shot for going against their programming. Donnie tells Jenny he has to stay and support his family at the garage, but if he can help out he'd be glad to as long as he can get back to the garage at the end of the day. Thats how he becomes a juvie hall. One day down the line he heads to the base and he was there for maybe a half hour when the raid happened and he was captured with the others. He was newer than sandman and crab and had never really crossed paths with them since he didnt spend a whole lot of time in the underground, so hes meeting them for the first time when theyre brought in for re-education. He was one of the ones that stayed quiet and glared, mostly worried about Jenny, that they were there and maybe caught in the raid, becaue she may be all metal but they totally kissed a couple times.

When they all escape he becomes a full time resident in the underground, knowing he can never go back to the garage a fugitive. But not seeing his family is better than the alternative of having been reducated and torn apart at the seams. Besides, once he's got the suitehearts, they're all inseparable.

That's it, once they're a crew, all their experiences and skills combined, they're a unique group for sure. Sandman and Crab already have their own looks and weird relstionships with gender, but Donnie and Benz have never put much thought into the individuality stuff, Benz a slave to Better Living his whole life and Donnie focused on working and surviving. Eventually they find their weird styles, colors theyre fond of as a fuck you to bli, and then the facepaint, it marks them as a crew and as people ready to fight for their cause. Anyway what if I said Donnie transfem she/he(and yes. rocking the beard) :3

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As for the second version, its mostly the same, its just like.. the zones version for stories where they know they fab four. They're all younger and they're basically split between the city and the zones. Their backstories are pretty much the same except Benzedrine got out before he was even really a surgeon, hes still a damn good doctor though, and Sandman left to be a killjoy instead of sticking around the underground. Crabs still a zonerunner that gets Benz in and out to help people and when hes in the desert he bunks with sandman in his concession stand turned weird little trailer in the outskirts of zone two. And Donnies zoneborn too instead of Mrs androidfucker in the city, shes Sandman's good friend and mechanic when he gets into racing at the crash track. They're all good friends and still very much a crew, theyre based out of he zones, Benz too, theyre just still a bit spread out at times when someone in the underground needs help.

Ugh man is there anything missing idk well if there is I guess I can add it later. Okay the end 👍

Thinkign about kobra and his preference for hand to hand combat like he can shoot but.. karate.. sword.. and i headcanon that he'd also have a bunch of throwing knives for more ranged enemies and just a shit ton of knives on him(he has knife and sword autism) but like. The things that come with a headcanon like this(knife kink ehem um i mean what) like.. he's totally stabbed himself in the fucking foot before when he was trying to flip a knife and he couldn't catch it and it fell on his foot and he probably still has a bit of a limp or weird gait from it. Just imagine. You're in the diner and the silence is broken when you hear Kobra Kid loudly shout FUCK from outside and you run out to see that there is a knife sticking out of his foot and he doesn't even look bothered by it tbh. Just disappointed. Idiot.