Broken Rhythms is a Dream SMP fanfiction published on Archive of Our Own by user AreusWritesFanfic
. It takes place in a modern world. It can be read here on Archive of Our Own.
The fanfiction focuses on Technoblade, a university student who begins receiving mysterious phone calls of someone playing notes on a piano. This sparks a quest for Technoblade as he relates it to his childhood kidnapping and he vows to find his presumed dead younger brother, Tommy.
Tropes which Broken Rhythms provides examples of:
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die:
- Technoblade believes Tommy's (presumed) death to be the fault of his choice to leave Tommy behind.
- In chapter four, Technoblade explicitly says to his mother "I did that. No one else, I made the choice to let [Tommy] die."
- I Will Find You: Technoblade spends the majority of the fanfiction on a quest to find his missing brother, motivated out of guilt and a desire to recify his past decisions.
- Missing Child: Tommy and Technoblade are both declared missing upon their kidnapping and are searched for for around two years. Tommy's missing person's case is reopened for several years following Technoblade's escape.
- Past Experience Nightmare: The majority of Technoblade's past, specifically his kidnapping, his told through his nightmares and dreams.
- Properly Paranoid: Technoblade suffers from paranoid delusions, however he is correct in believing that Tommy is alive.
- Soulless Bedroom: Tommy's bedroom in Dream's house is very bland and tells nothing about his character. There is only one imperfection that can be found; a bullet hole in the wall by the window.
- Survivor Guilt: Technoblade feels immense guilt over leaving Tommy behind in order to escape his kidnapping.
- The Runaway: To escape his abusive kidnapper, Technoblade crashes Dream's car and flees into the nearby woods.
- You Did Everything You Could:When Technoblade blames himself for Tommy's death and says that he should have acted differently, Kristin tells Technoblade that there was nothing else he could have done and that he was saving himself as he was being abused
- You Have to Believe Me!: In the prequel fanfiction, Abiding Loyalty, Tommy tells Quackity, Karl, and Sapnap that he was kidnapped and abused by Dream. He loses track of what he is saying and begins to break down. The three of them do not believe him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dream repeatedly abuses his kidnapping victims, breaking Tommy's leg at one point.
