#and 50 is an approximation I lost count

[wester-than-west]

Writing a 50 page fanfic during the exam season is peak clown behavior by me

[ineffable-suffering]

Aziraphale, I love you. But you lied. And here's why.

Okay. I’m not gonna beat around the bush for too long. It’s time now for me to also throw my try at a personal Good Omens Season 2 Magnum Opus into the mix of already existing magnum op..i? Opusses? (Smited? Smote?)

If I’m honest, it isn’t fully my own magnum opus, as I read this meta not too long ago that made me go: „Oh! My God! That’s it!“ And I’m pretty sure a lot of other people have clocked this too by now. Of course I’m not saying it’s the objective truth but after having mulled it over for many endless nights and days, wading through the onslaught of coffee theories, body swap theories, The Metatron re-writing the Book of Life theories and many, many more, this is the one I think is most plausible and, if you look closely, most obvious.

And it goes as such: Aziraphale lied.

To all of us. All of them. And most of all, to Crowley. He lied to him. Well, he sort of did and also sort of didn’t. He certainly didn’t tell the truth. At least not all of it. I hear you ask: “OP, what the fuck are you talking about”. I answer you: Let’s start from the top and under the cut.

(Small note: this meta ended up being way too large for Tumblr, which is why I will redirect you to an external doc at the end of the post, where I have written it all down nicely and accurately. It's about 35 digital A4-pages long, just in case you want to save it for later.)

(Word count: 12.831 | Approximate reading time: 50 minutes)

Let’s start with a short recap of what happens before the Metatron crashes the bookshop party and everything goes to shit. The proper visuals for this are in my Tumblr post but I am absolutely convinced that right up until when the Metatron comes to take Aziraphale away and talk to him, the angel is fully ready to get into Crowley’s Bentley-chariot and finally ride off into the sunset (or Alpha Centauri-set or whatever). You can see it in his face and body language. You can see when the penny drops for him that a) Crowley loves him b) he loves Crowley and c) they can finally start their happily ever after. Aziraphale realizes this all throughout said Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does. 

I mean, look at that. Look at it. This (very shitty recording, sorry, I'm not tech-savvy enough to avoid the Amazon Prime screen recording blocker) is the very second Aziraphale realizes hat Crowley loves him. When he hears him suggest Alpha bloody Centauri as a getaway for Gabriel and Beelzebub, as Crowley has done to Aziraphale for so, so many times now. He finally understands what Crowley was trying to tell him with that all those times.

Aziraphale realizes this all throughout the Brielzebub reveal in the bookshop. And he’s such a lost cause once he does.

Right when Crowley suggest Alpha Centauri as a nice getaway spot to the two, Aziraphale looks at him and he gets it. That Crowley has loved him, has been loving him for millennia. Truthfully, they've both known that for a long while now. But there's a difference between knowing, wanting, craving and actually being able to finally have something. And that's exactly what we see on Aziraphale's face here. This is it. This is where it all starts working out for Crowley and him. This is were they can start their eternity together.

So from that second on, Aziraphale only has eyes for Crowley. He keeps physically pawing at Crowley with complete heart eyes, as if to say „Look, look, that’s gonna be us too! Finally!" He’s actually so smitten that he doesn’t even hear what Crowley is saying when he asks Shax if he can have back his apartment now because he’s sick of living in his car. (Also, what way to drop that bomb right in this moment Crowley, lmao). 

Once the Metatron comes in, the first thing Aziraphale says is that they don’t need to talk because „he’s made his position quite clear“. He doesn’t even want to talk to the Metatron, because in his mind, he’s already made the choice. Actually, he made the choice way before the bookshop showdown. For starters, I’m convinced that the Jane Austen Ball actually never was for Maggie and Nina but for Crowley and him (you can read more about that here). And apart from that, for this whole season we have seen Aziraphale trying to advance his relationship with Crowley romantically and domestically and move them to the literal next base (our car!). And after everything he just witnessed with Brielzebub, the final nail in the coffin of ethereal-infernal romance being possible, his choice is absolutely crystal clear: It’s Crowley. It’s always been Crowley and it always will be Crowley. And now it can be Crowley. They can be an us.

The whole of Season 2 is such a massive learning curve for Aziraphale’s character, with him remembering all those important pivotal points of his past,  and this very moment is the peak, with him not only understanding that Crowley loves him (because he certainly knew for quite some centuries now) but accepting that love, letting himself have that love, being allowed to want that love and taking that love and starting their new and final chapter with it. Nevertheless, the plot clock ticks for them. The Metatron saunters into the bookshop, evil and stinky as Metatrons do, and urges Aziraphale to come with him with his whole Take The Coffee schtick, which I will get into later. And Aziraphale, immediately sensing there’s Something Up, does. Can’t really turn down someone as high-ranking as the the voice of God, after all. Even if you were currently already planning how you were going to elope with a certain red-haired serpent of Eden. 

he next time we see Aziraphale on screen, it’s so painfully evident on his face that he is neither happy nor excited. Not even the slightest bit. We’d know if he was, thanks to Mr. Michael master-of-microexpressions Sheen. None of the usual “Aziraphale is happy”-signs are there. No blinding eye-smile, no giddy wriggling, not giggles and gasps. No, when the Metatron tells Aziraphale to „go tell your friend the good news“, his expression looks like this:

I’m gonna go out on an entire limb here and say: That does not look like someone who’s absolutely tickety-boo hyped to tell his demon soulmate that he just got the juiciest promotion and that they can both be angels and live happily ever after in ethereal eternity now.

This, folks, looks like someone who knows exactly that the news he has to break right now, are going to be tickety-shit awful and very upsetting to said demon soulmate. And already, from that very short snippet of conversation, we can tell that Aziraphale isn’t really given a choice by the Metatron. Because while the Metatron does tell him that he doesn’t have to „answer right away“, he immediately follows it up by: „Go ahead and tell your friend the good news!“ Very distinct and definitive choice of words here. It’s “good news” because it’s already been decided. Because it’s already a done deal. There is no “yes, no, maybe”. This is the only choice he’s giving to Aziraphale. Because it’s ‘Coffee or death’. 

And he already gave him the coffee. 

***

Tumblr won't let me continue this over a certain character limit and I am not even remotely done yet – so, I feel like this is a good moment to redirect you to the continuation of this insane meta before we're in too deep. You can do so right here!

I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions about this once you've fought your way through it. Hope you have a good time with it!

[chocolate-gore]

Here’s a thought:

"The Mother Gooseberry Hour" is very probably lost media and an urban legend in the Outlast universe, with many people actively debating whether or not it actually existed, or if it is merely creepy pasta bait.

[this is a long one]

Because "The Mother Gooseberry Hour" ran locally and only during the early 50’s [1951 until 1955] there are probably only a select few people remembering it who are also - as of the main series time setting of 2013 - OLD and maybe even dementia ridden. That not only counts for the adults of the time, but the children too, if you consider that the last time it aired was in 1955. Assuming the oldest child watching would be 12 at MOST, the audience members would approximately be between 60 and 70 in 2013. And they certainly would not discuss their hazy memories of a strange TV show they watched on the internet, but instead relay these memories to their own children and grandchildren, who would at first dismiss it because…they never heard of it. Maybe the interest of SOME is peaked, but it’s so obscure that they can’t find anything about it. But then some come to discuss the topic online, only to find that they meet other descendants of people who have ALSO been told about "That strange Dental Goose Show".

Why would I assume the show is lost media though? Phyllis crimes were well documented in contemporary media after all? Well, her crimes may have been, but not THE SHOW.

I do not think that actual tapings would have been preserved because of 1, the reputation of Phyllis herself and the late show’s tone, and 2, not even the moon landing’s broadcast was entirely preserved due to a practice where TV broadcasters would repurpose old tape and record over them to save money. Storage of film was also not ideal with the materials being highly flammable. I’d even go as far as to assume that the earliest broadcasts of "The Mother Gooseberry Hour" didn’t even exist anymore, while the show was still on the air, because of that practice. If you’ve stuck your nose into the lost media rabbit hole, you may know about the whole Doctor Who debacle, which is very similar. There would have been no interest in preserving a niche, localised tv programme for children back in the day. The ONLY way that ANY tapings could still survive until 2013 would be through Murkoff. I would bet that they would have been the only ones with an interest to acquire tapings of such a show, you know, for archival and research purposes on Phyllis’ life and psyche. MAYBE the Philadelphia PD would have them in their archives but like…that’s a stretch. Who knows.

Anyways, so some may argue that "But there is Doctor Futterman merch in the Trial environments though?" Well yes, but I think that this was simply done to immerse Phyllis into the idea that she is still a successful TV show host. The merch [and all the Dr Futterman brand sex toys btw] is not real merch from the outside world, it’s just props like everything else in Sinyala. Yes, the show was popular, but it was also - again - localised to Philadelphia. If there WAS merchandise, it would have been limited in number, and limited in distribution because…why would you want a plushie of a character from a show you’ve never heard of? In that case, merch would have been obscure too, and dismissed as bootleg Disney plushies.

Anyways, SO:

Early 2010’s in the OL universe. Creepypasta culture is alive and well, and Miles, Lynn, Blake, Waylon & Lisa being media literate adults because of their professions have at least heard of the story of "That strange Dental Goose Show". Neither of them is from Pensilvania though, so they only know of if through online accounts. For shits & giggles [assuming the all of them were friends pre canon, a headcanon which I fuck with HARD] they one evening get together and - with the power of god and journalism on their side - they come across an obituary of a Dentist, one Dr. A. Futterman, through which they come across old articles reporting on Phyllis’ Futterman’s arrest that mention her being the host of a show that seems rather a lot like "That strange Dental Goose Show". What is weird though, is that after her commitment to Holmesburg…the paper trail on Phyllis Futterman just…stops: No Obituary, no patient files mention her after 1956, the only hint of what has become of her is when she is being mentioned offhandedly in a correspondence document about patient transfer in 1956. It’s never mentioned where she got transferred. Who is the man who visited her in December of that year, shortly before her alleged transfer? Why is that man’s name redacted? What did they talk about?

Instant Intrigue.

Miles and Lynn are SO tempted to look more into the Holmesburg lead, while Blake and Waylon are hung up about that show. Because Blake found something…strange. Most people who remember "That strange Dental Goose Show" are from the Pensilvania area. That’s what connects all accounts and is consistent accords the board. Maybe the descendants of those who remember moved to a different state, but the "rememberers" themselves were ALL Philadelphia residents…except…there are accounts from people that sound fabricated at first glance, but then Blake and Waylon find more that are eerily similar, and feel entirely earnest:

Accounts of relatives or friends from people who all died under strange circumstances. People who lived distinctly OUTSIDE Philadelphia. People who don’t remember the show, but the "Mother Gooseberry" character. Except in these versions she is a nightmarish murderer who hunted them down with a drill inside her hand puppet. Her face mangled and decaying, her breathing laboured and heavy with each heavy step. Engaged in strange conversation with her goose puppet, as if it was a real person. An effigy of someone. They described their incredibly hazy memories of her like…a dream, a distant memory. But it’s consistent every time.

Waylon thinks they’re totally fake, and Lynn agrees but…Blake disagrees. See, the "rememberers" relayed accounts almost PERFECTLY describe how she looked after the Holmesburg experiments, instead of how the "rememberers" of the show described what she looked like on air. And the former group - again - were never in Philadelphia, not to mention anywhere near Holmesburg prison.

And…all the "rememberers" who recalled that monstrous version…are dead now. Having passed on in a year that is weirdly consistent every time: 1973. Miles has a suspicion. It’s something he researched just recently. He scrolls through pages and pages of links until he finds the article he remembers containing exactly that year too: In an article about the closure of Mount Massive Hospital he rediscovers it: It’s the year of the official discontinuation of MKUltra.

Either this is a STUPIDLY elaborate ARG…or something is wrong here…VERY wrong…

[dsudis]

My cross-stitch nemesis (in a very Kate Beaton sense of nemesis)

Scarlet Quince's rendition of the horse painting from Lascaux, which is fully stitched 208 by 142 stitches (a bit over 29,000 stitches total) on 18-count aida.

The beginning: March 6, 2021

June 23, 2021, approximately 11% complete by total stitch count.

One year on, March 2, 2022, approximately 18% complete.

March 28, 2022, the top twenty rows are complete all the way across and it's 22.5% complete by stitch count.

July 13, 2022, the top thirty rows are complete and it's 27.7% complete.

October 8, 2022, 40 rows complete and 35.6% complete by stitch count.

50 rows complete as of today, July 16, 2023! Very crumpled and no stitch count percentage because I last worked on it while I was on vacation and it was long enough ago that my phone browser lost all my pattern data and I have to rebuild it from the last backup, which I cannot face right now because UGH, NEMESIS.

(The lighting mostly does not represent how absolutely impossible it is to distinguish all those gray/beige/blue colors that are forming the background, and I was Very Clever and did this project on cream-colored fabric that doesn't show through gaps so obviously, which means it... blends together and is Worse, Actually.)

[veluni]

So apparently Futaba, Mahiru, and Nana are the only ones who haven't done professional theatre work before coming to Seisho... We need to have a fic where the gang marathons each others' embarrassing child acting stints.

Claudine has lost count of how many commercials she did as a kid. She regrets doing this marathon approximately 24 hours later, when her friends won't stop singing commercial jingles in broken French.

Maya: "Oh, Arrie? I have the limited platinum edition with two discs of bonus features, we can watch that"

Claudine: "Please tell me you didn't just spend $50 on a dvd because you found out I was in it."

Maya: "No, I've had it since I was 12 years old. My childhood dream was to marry Arrie :)"

Junna: "wow I did not know it was possible for her face to get that red"

Once they get past the slough of commercials (and Arrie), watching the rest of Claudine and Maya's performances is fun for exactly no one save Claudine and Maya themselves. See, these two have (coincidentally! No, really!) acted in a lot of the same roles, and cannot resist using this rewatch to stoke their rivalry.

The gang is fucking floored to see that Dignified Class President Hoshimi Junna has her face plastered all over a glasses ad (this is canon)

She's not even ashamed. They give her a discount on all nine of the new frames she buys yearly.

(Junna doesn't even need different glasses for reading/distance or anything like that. She just has to make her glasses frame align with The Vibes of the day.)

At long last, Kaoruko is on the recieving end of embarassment. Don't forget, she's actually pretty shy! She would be hiding her face in her hands when her friends start talking about how cute baby Kao is with her teeny little fans.

Hikari puts in her footage. It's an unmarked dvd. The screen blazes to life to show that she was apparently frontlining an idol group, and a not obscure one if the size of the crowd is anything to go by. As the footage continues, the gang is in shock as they realize they've heard this song.

Kaorkuo: "Hikari what the fuck why didn't you tell us you were Stella~⭐!?"

Hikari: "it never came up."

[malewife-overlord]

Six Cycles Later -- Part I

Hello and welcome to the start of Six Cycles Later! SCL is an OC fic based in a bit of a G1/IDW continuity soup. It will feature TF OCs, but there will be a few canon character mentions and appearances. Mostly, however, it will focus on original characters, so if that is not your thing, you probably shouldn't read this fic.

SCL takes place after the 1984 movie. Optimus and Megatron are dead, Unicron is vanquished, and Rodimus Prime has stepped up to lead the Autobots, while the remnants of the Decepticons hide on Chaar, awaiting the return of their leader. But what about the two Cons left behind on Earth?

This fic will follow those left behind, but not just on the Decepticon side. A lost ship has crashed onto Earth, and the single bot inside of it has been missing for the past four million years. Worse still, he wasn't alone when he disappeared...

This is the first chapter, and thus contains two perspectives: that of Invert, a Seeker eager to prove she's worth something to her cause, and Luster, a mysterious Autobot stuck in a world he doesn't belong in.

If any of that sounds interesting to you, feel free to read on! Trigger warnings will be placed at the beginning of every chapter if it contains any. Chapter below cut! If you want to read the whole hulking fic in it's original state, not fucked by Tumblr, you can find it here. If you're intrigued and liked this start, the next chapter can be found here.

If you like these characters, art was done for Luster and Uptick by the amazing @scarlettaagni! Now go follow her!

Word Count: 7494

Orbital cycle: 6.3. Approximately 182.5 solar cycles since initial launch for attack on Autobot City. Diagnostic report: no structural damage detected. Energon levels: 27%. Energon levels of 50% recommended for full functionality. Defense systems: offline. Offensive systems: offline. Cloaking systems: online. Communications: partially online. Power saving mode recommended at Energon levels of 25%. 

She records the report in her datapad down to the final recommendation, which really was not necessary, considering any proper engineer would have understood that by now, the ship should have entered power saving mode eons ago. If it had been placed in that mode when the other Decepticons had initially left, the current Energon levels would sit comfortably at the recommended 50%, and she would still have the long distance communications beacon up. But that was in the past, where they were supposed to have returned after a few solar cycles. 

It had been dozens now, and Invert was starting to wonder if her brethren were going to return. A far more patient bot like Shockwave would not have felt any doubt up to the first double digit million years–how else had he held down Cybertron for so long? By comparison she was young, having barely lived for over a million. The hundreds of solar cycles that had passed as she was left alone on the Victory were now starting to seep into her processor, bringing with them questions of uncertainty.

The raid was supposed to last barely a few days. They’d brought everyone in the local system with them. The greatest warriors the Decepticon cause had were deployed. With all of them attacking at once, even the heavily fortified Autobot City should have been leveled in under a deca-cycle. 

And yet there was silence. No cries of victory. No chaotic messages on the airways calling for aid. No declaration of retreat. Just silence. 

They couldn’t be defeated. If they’d been defeated they would have retreated back to Victory. If they’d gone back to Cybertron on Astrotrain, then surely Shockwave would have contacted her on earth. He knew her name. He knew he’d sent her there orbital cycles ago. He’d know they’d left her behind to hold down the fort. 

There was, of course, one other option. Silence was begetting of only a few characteristics when it came to the living. The Autobots, surely, wouldn’t. They were too soft-hearted. But if the attack had truly gone so badly, and they’d deigned it necessary–

Total obliteration. Total razing. Total loss. 

She pushed the thoughts swirling in her processor aside and focused back on Victory’s main computer, typing in a few commands. 

“Victory, run an internal scan. How are your habsuits looking?”

A map of Victory’s internal structure appeared on the screen before her. Dozens of rooms were selected and zoomed in on, each of which specifically served as living space. One by one they started as black, then turned white as they were provided the all clear. 

Structure: stable. Living conditions: adjusted. Doors: unlocked. 

“Alright, that’s good…” she muttered to herself, swapping to the cameras on the outside of the ship. They revealed an empty sea around her, dark and creeping with small organics. Their crude forms made her cringe, even in the restricted view she had of them. “Gross…Victory, illuminate your external hull.” 

Victory obeyed, revealing a vast expanse of metal currently covered in the earth version of space barnacles. The white-shelled creatures had opened their filthy maws, extending forth feelers characteristic of some kind of horror show. Invert grimaced and swapped the camera views, checking instead on the door to the airlock. It was immaculately clean unlike the hull, though a few many legged organics crawled across it. 

She checked the back of the ship, its thrusters, its scope, and finally its body. Making a note of each location that needed proper cleaning, Invert tapped the information into her datapad and closed the camera system before issuing another command. “Victory, check the wavelengths for any signs of communication.” 

The screen before her went black, turning to a single unmoving flat line. She stared at it in silence, waiting for a peak, a leap, a blur, a single beat to indicate that anyone was out there. 

Nothing happened. 

Frowning to herself, she tapped a button on the keyboard before her–the one for “broadcast”. 

“Fellow Decepticons,” she said, “if any of you are out there, I am Invert of Cybertron, broadcasting from the Earth base Victory. I am alone here and have been so since the attack on Autobot City. If you are hearing this message, please respond.” 

Her servo left the button and she waited. And waited. And waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

And nothing came, as it never did. 

She vented and focused back on her datapad, the frown perched upon her face seemingly eager to make it a permanent home. There was her chore list, plain and simple. It would take her several megacycles to complete: clean the habsuits, clean the storage vault, clean the weapons vault, clean the hallways, feed Victory, scrape away the organics on Victory’s hull, manage the outside of Victory, air another message after seven megacycles, spy on the Autobots if possible.

If possible. The last one was becoming an increasingly harder task to pull off. She was no Soundwave, and Victory’s listening equipment had been down for a while now to preserve power. Furthermore the equipment in Soundwave’s habsuit was either completely foreign or off-limits to her. He may not be here now, but he would return, like the others would, and if he found out she’d been messing with his items, well. She was only a lowly foot soldier, and he was the head of communications of the Decepticon cause. 

She’d be lucky if only her wings were broken off and used to decorate his sparsely covered habsuit. 

Speaking of her wings…she cast a glance down at the inverted things, which pointed towards the ground as opposed to the air. They would do her no favors in navigating the outside of the ship and certainly no aid in reaching the higher spots in the larger habsuits. Her boosters were functional, but the Energon they’d consume to keep her airborne would drain her at twice the levels of a normal Seeker. 

She’d have to use them sparingly if she wanted to continue her present consumption rate of only one Energon cube a day. If she offlined from low power, that was fine; eventually her brethren would return, find her, and bring her back. But without her, no one would feed Victory, who would eventually offline from low power. Victory had to stay online, no matter what. 

Where else would the Decepticons go when they came back, if they didn’t have Victory? 

“I’ll keep you going, girl…” she whispered as she left the control room, reaching a hand out to run along the walls of the ship. Victory, as usual, was silent. It always was. 

Perhaps none of the other Decepticons had shared her sentiment, but Invert had always thought of The Victory (Victory for short) as a fellow ‘con. It was a crashed ship, yes, but it was alive and functional, and it provided them a home within its body. Victory could respond to commands and hold conversations if it so wished; just the majority of the time, it preferred not to. For all she knew Victory was just trapped in permanent stasis lock, and would perhaps free itself one day. 

As such, it was important to take care of Victory, for more purposes than just maintaining a Decepticon earth base. Victory was an ally with much greater might than her. If it fell, everything was lost. 

That was why they’d left her behind when the entire cause had prepared for the assault on Autobot City–it had to be. Someone had to take care of Victory and it was for the better that that someone was her. Perhaps it had been said to her in a less kind way, but the others had had a point when they said that someone who couldn’t contribute properly to a fight would be better off staying behind. 

Okay, they’d said it a lot less kindly. More so, they’d chided her that a flightless Seeker was utterly useless on the field despite whatever “special talent” Shockwave had promised she possessed. And for the battle of Autobot City, they needed soldiers who were functional, powerful, and wouldn’t prove dangerous to their allies as well as their foes. Besides, for swelling their numbers, they had the Insecticon clones. So someone like her, broken, glitched, and more of a liability than anything else, would only be good for ensuring that Victory didn’t somehow miraculously break while they were gone. 

Because really, if Victory was invaded, it wasn’t that big of a deal. The ship was equipped to deal with invasions. Its defensive systems were more than adequate for dispatching invaders both inside and out. Invert was only present within it to mop up the Energon remains of whoever was fool enough to try. 

No one had been–but that could also be attributed to the fact that the Autobots didn’t seem to know where the Decepticon base was. That, or they just didn’t care. Invert preferred the former. Why would it be inconsequential to know where the enemy’s base was, where they were likely to crawl back to and lick their wounds? And surely they were licking their wounds somewhere out there, weren’t they?

So why hadn’t they come back?

She pushed the thought away again and threw open one of the few cleaning closets the ship possessed, grabbing all the equipment she’d need to properly clear out all the habsuits. Nowadays it was more dusting than anything else, but she still brought along a mop and bucket, just in case. 

The habsuits would start with Starscream’s, of course, because if she cleaned anyone else’s first and he found out, he’d throw a fit. And a fit from her commander was not something Invert wanted to sit through. He always treated her with more vitriol than any of the other Seekers, no matter how inconsequential her mistakes might be compared to theirs. She had an ounce of resentment towards him for it, countered only by the fact that, no matter how awful Starscream could be, he was deserving of respect for his flight abilities. 

But that was a low bar. Any winged Decepticon could fly circles around her while all she could do was watch and seethe. 

She vented and tapped the passcode to his habsuit’s door into its keypad, the double doors opening to reveal a pristine and lavishly decorated room. Starscream was nothing if not dramatic and narcissistic. All the valuables and self-care items stored in his habsuit spoke lengths to just what he’d do for a decent polish. Cleaning it was always a nightmare, even after all the times she’d done it before. If even one item was an inch out of place, she’d hear about it later. 

A tiny chuckle escaped her at the thought–when was the last time she’d heard Starscream’s voice for any purpose? Be it admonishing her for attempting even once to be a proper Seeker, bossing her around, treating her as his personal slave, or verbally abusing her to let his Megatron-induced anger out, it had been so long she almost found herself forgetting how cruel the insults had been. 

Almost. She entered his habsuit with her cleaning gear and checked everything over–berth, vanity, table, overly expensive one of a kind statue in his image, all the data-pads he pretended didn’t contain failed plans to assassinate their great leader, full length mirror that somehow hadn’t been broken, each and every one of his polishes and maintenance equipment, and of course, the additional weapons he kept on the wall. 

There wasn’t a speck of dust on anything nor any indication of water damage. The berth was made perfectly.. The floor was clean save for her own pedeprints. And the metal of the walls gleamed like it’d been treated with the same care as Starscream himself. 

There was nothing to clean, but she still gave everything a dust off, just to be safe. Giving everything one final look over for rust, Invert confirmed there to be no contamination on any of Starscream’s immensely precious belongings and left his habsuit, locking it behind her.

One down. At least fifty more to go. She vented again and moved to the next.

—-----

Maintenance was finished by the time the Earth’s sun moved high into the sky. Her internal clock read 16:23, a new method of telling time that had been adjusted for her when she’d arrived on Earth. The planet operated on a twenty-four megacycle basis, working around when the sun would orbit to the other side of the planet. The absence of the sun was named “night”, and could occur anywhere from 17:00-21:00, sometimes later. Having spent much of her time on Cybertron, she had been unaccustomed to Earth’s time, and figured it to be useless for the majority of her stay on the planet. 

“Night” had its benefits, though. Its darkness concealed well, and most organics chose to enter recharge when it came on. It was the perfect time to enact plots, schemes, and occasional terrorist attacks on Autobot City. 

The season Earth was presently in was dubbed “summer”. That meant night would not come until 21:00. She had time. After finishing with the habsuits, Invert focused on maintaining Victory. 

At 16:28 she scraped away the organics on the outside of the hull, using her thrusters to properly climb up onto it. Finishing the front at 17:34, she headed to the side, then the back, ending at 18:20. Once back inside, she accessed the Energon vault and took stock before feeding Victory. 

92 cubes left. Victory sufficed on ten per day. Power saving mode was beginning to look tempting now, if not for the risk that it would cease cloaking. And considering how often she had to transmit, the loss would be nothing short of catastrophic. 

More Energon was needed, then. She’d have to ration herself more. She fit eleven cubes in her arms and brought them to Victory’s engine. As they were tossed in she held the one extra up. 

“To another cycle, Victory.” It was brought to her dermas and promptly consumed. 

Victory gave no response, as always. Invert stared at the empty cube in her servos for only a second before turning to take it back to storage. 

At which point Victory’s system suddenly lit up. The screen turned on behind her, displaying a map of the planet and pinging a specific point somewhere in Asia. Invert looked back and raised her brows. 

“SOS signal of Decepticon origin detected,” Victory stated in its monotone voice. “Displaying coordinates on screen. Incoming message. Playing now.”

Before Invert could even brace herself, an unholy buzzing suddenly sounded through the speakers, so shrill and constant that she collapsed to one knee, instinctively slamming her servos over her audials. Gritting her dentas she opened her hub and turned her audials all the way down, which made the buzzing just tolerable enough for her to reach Victory’s main computer and slam her fist on the OFF button. 

The sound stopped so suddenly it left her processor ringing. She blinked several times, then knocked a fist against the side of her helm, shaking it a few times to properly orient herself. 

Victory had gone silent again, but continued to display the ping and its coordinates. Invert looked up at them, transcribing them in her memory. What kind of distress signal had that been? Victory’s audio systems must be going, perhaps from too much time spent under the Earth’s water. An SOS signal usually captured the sound of blaster fire, of desperate voices crying for help, of bitter regret as whatever ‘con was on the other end laid aside his pride to admit he needed back-up. 

That thought made her uneasy. Buzzing. Why have an SOS signal that was nothing but buzzing? 

“Victory…” she paused, winced, and told herself that it wasn’t going to hurt as badly the second time. “Play the SOS signal again. At a decreased volume!” 

It complied, the loud, painful buzzing sounding over the speakers once more. Invert increased her audials this time, even though the sound made her want to rip them out of her helm. Listening closely, she focused on differentiating corrupted audio from what might be beneath, be it voices, blaster fire, or the sound of fleeing pedesteps. 

But the clip ended without any differentiating sounds. She found that odd, and replayed it in her processor again and again, trying to filter through it. Nothing. Just buzzing.

“Victory, run a diagnostic on your audio systems,” she ordered. The screen changed as Victory did just that, then returned several cycles later with a clear report: nothing was wrong. 

The Energon she’d consumed sat uneasily in her tank. Invert grimaced. “Display the coordinates again,” she commanded, though they were already saved to her memory. Seeing them on the screen solidified her doubts. 

Bali. There was a ship in Bali that she knew about, one that had harbored several unsavory occupants of the Decepticon cause. They, too, had disappeared after the attack on Autobot City. 

Insecticons. Members of the cause notorious for how untrustworthy they were. She hadn’t been around for all the cases where they’d proven themselves to be nothing but hassles who only cared for endless consumption, but she’d read reports of actions and abilities. They were a self-contained group and stuck to their own–why would they call for help now, several orbital cycles after their last appearance in Autobot City?

Buzzing. Their entire signal had just been buzzing. She frowned, thinking it over. Their alt modes were based off of filthy organics, and as such, carried some characteristics of the ugly things. Was the buzzing a possible side effect of that? But they could speak, so why wouldn’t they?

Unless they weren’t able to, for some reason? During an SOS signal? 

An SOS signal from a self-contained, proud group, perfectly capable of surviving on their own, that contained an off-putting buzz likely made to avoid speaking.

Just what were they facing out there that would cause such behavior?

“Victory, open a comm to the Insecticon ship,” she said, leaning over the control panel. “Insecticons, this is Invert, speaking to you from the Decepticon base The Victory. Come in Insecticons.”

Silence. 

“Come in Insecticons.”

The ping repeated itself again and again. SOS. SOS. SOS. 

No one was going to answer. Her frown deepened and she stepped away from the control panel. The only Decepticon here was her, the last on Earth, for all she knew. If they weren’t answering, they could be offline for all she knew. Or worse, it could be an Autobot trap, and she’d be playing right into their hands. 

But if it wasn’t, and someone was there on the other side, waiting for help, desperately trying to reach any other Decepticon on this planet…

Even if they were gross Insecticons…

Rescue would fall to her. And though she would be taking a huge risk, with no guarantee for results, with the possibility of capture or permanent offlining…

It was, finally, something to do. Something beyond just maintaining Victory. Something that was a real mission. Something that could get her honor, respect, and maybe even a friend!

Her frown gradually gave way to a grin. Her first real mission. Her first real rescue. Her first chance to make a decision on her own, with no one ordering her what side to choose. 

Oh, she was excited. It didn’t matter that her jet mode struggled to fly and that she’d need to pack away six cubes of additional Energon for the journey and her weapon–she was getting out, and she was going to rescue those Insecticons. 

“Victory, open the weapon’s vault,” she eagerly commanded, taking off down the hall. “And prepare the hangar for take-off.”

—------------------

“I think you’ve had enough, bud.”

He raised tired optics from the glass currently gripped like a lifeline in his servos, the pink Energon within rippling from how his arm shook. Upon the bartender, a shorter mech with a white and yellow paint job, did his gaze land. Whatever was in it seemed enough to cause them to flinch, but they held their ground, clearly experienced in dealing with the far more unruly. 

“Seriously. You’ve had five of those in the past Earth hour. How you’re not horrendously overfueled by now, I dunno, but you’re on your way to an early grave if you keep that up.” They gave him a hard frown, narrowing their optics behind their visor. “I’m not havin’ it on record that someone died at my bar because of my negligence.”

Luster didn’t answer them at first, letting his gaze drift back down to the Energon swirling in the glass he held. How it hadn’t cracked yet spoke to its quality, or perhaps how weak he’d become. Either worked. 

The glass was half-drained. It hadn’t tasted like anything in particular. He never ordered for the flavor, since anything they could provide him would be irrelevant. His glossa didn’t taste like it once must have, even if the memories of what had been felt like they existed just beyond a fog barrier. And besides, no matter how much he drank, his tank never felt full. 

Not anymore. 

He pulled up a report on his tank capacity in his hub–93% capacity. Ignoring the bartender, he brought the glass to his derma and promptly chugged, feeling his frame protest against more. Another tank report came in–100%. If he consumed anymore, he’d have to purge. 

There was still a drop at the bottom. He forced it down despite the warnings and slid the glass forward, looking just past the bartender, never at them. 

“One for the road,” he rasped, venting harshly. “Please.”

“Absolutely not. If you’re not at capacity by this point your sensor’s faulty.” They took the glass with what almost seemed like disgust. “Aren’t you supposed to be here with your guardian, anyways? Where is he?”

Guardian. He coughed at the word, not because he wanted to, but because it reminded him of what his life had become. The motion jarred the Energon inside of him and he felt sick. Swallowing down the urge to purge, Luster moved to shaky pedes, gripping the bar for support. 

“I don’t need him,” he grumbled. “I’m not a Sparkling. I’m not a protoform. I’m…I was someone, before, I don’t need a guardian.” 

The bartender grimaced. “Luster…look, buddy. I didn’t know you before the war. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of your work. I know Magnus says you did somethin’ important before the retreat from Cybertron. But all that’s in the past now, aight? This is Earth, not Cybertron, and we all know whatever it is you were lookin’ for, you…”

They paused as his cold optics finally focused on them, reconsidering their words. 

“...We all know you had some tragedy while you were out there. Real sad. No one here wouldn’t feel bad for you. But you can’t keep drinkin’ yourself to death over it. And I know you’re a grown ‘bot, but considerin’ the memory problems and all…well…course we all think you could use a guardian.”

A low rumble escaped from somewhere deep within him. Tank capacity at 99%. He needed more Energon. 

“One more for the road,” he asked again. “Please. I’ll pay you double for it.” 

Their frown tightened. “I’m calling Uptick.”

“No.” It came out harsher and faster than he intended, sounding like the warning growl of a tiger. His optics widened and he closed them, the gentle lighting of the bar suddenly too much. “Please. No. Don’t call him.”

They had their hand to their helm as they grimaced at him. Luster growled and turned away, almost falling over as he did. His balance equilibrator was off courtesy of overfueling, and focusing on what was normally a clear beeline for the door was difficult. One pede in front of the other. One pede in front of the other. 

“Luster! You’re not goin’ out alone?” The bartender called after him. He ignored them, turning down his audials to focus on walking. 

Spilling out of the bar, he stumbled for the nearest wall and rested a hand against it, leaning on it for dear life. His head was spinning. Standing was becoming increasingly difficult. 

Tank capacity at 98%. 

It wouldn’t stay there long. He needed to be back in his habsuit before that happened. Which way to his habsuit? He focused on his internal map, pulling it up in his hub and searching the coordinates. A small box lit up on Metroplex’s form, his tracking systems illustrating a path for him to take milliseconds later. 

It was late. Autobots didn’t sleep, not really, but it was likely that, due to the time of the planet, he wouldn’t run into anyone. Luster vented again, feeling warm Energon slip out from between his lips as he did so, and began the journey back to the place he was temporarily calling ‘home’. 

The path his systems had picked took him through some of Metroplex’s tighter corridors. On Cybertron, back before he had launched on the fateful mission that took his memory from him, he would have once felt nervous. Now he felt nothing, nothing besides urgency, urgency that did not originate from fear of being attacked or robbed. 

No, it was urgency that sprouted from the deepest recesses of himself, telling him to hide for his self-preservation, for if he did not, the symptoms would soon manifest, and in his present state, he didn’t know if he could take them. 

He made it about halfway before his proximity sensor went off. With his audials turned so low, he realized he hadn’t picked up the voice of whoever was calling to him, and they’d approached, their presence now close enough to seemingly reach out and touch him. 

He turned his helm, uncaring, for whoever it was could not be worse than–

Him. 

Uptick was following within grabbing distance of him, his dermas moving as he ranted on about something Luster was glad he couldn’t hear. He paused in his movement and Uptick did the same, though he didn’t once stop talking. Of course he didn’t.

Slowly, Luster turned his audials back on, just enough to make out the slew of Uptick’s commentary like the gentle, cooing sound of a cyber pigeon. 

“--and furthermore you are in direct violation of your curfew, which states you aren’t to be out beyond the Earth hour of 21:00; it is presently 01:20 and here you are wandering the passages of Metroplex like a lost turbofox!” He put both hands on his hips, glaring Luster down. “This is your second warning. You know what happens if I have to issue a third.”

He shuttered his optics and stared blankly just beyond Uptick. “You lock me up in the clinic until I’m completely fixed or I don’t function anymore?” 

“What?” He sounded incredulous. “No! I’m not here to–do you consider this some kind of torture? Luster, I’m trying to help you!” 

“Then can you leave me alone?” He grumbled, turning away and continuing on his predetermined path. “I’ll be fine…I just need to go back…”

Back to where? The habsuit? The ship? The planet of fog in his memories? Back, back. Always back. 

“You need to stop drinking,” Uptick scolded, grabbing his shoulder and bringing him to a halt. “And stop these late night wanderings. Everyone’s concerned for you because of them.”

He let his shoulders slump. 

“That’s a lie and you know it. The only ones who still care about me are the medics who want to poke my processor. Now can I please go back home?”

The buzz was starting to fade. He didn’t get that nice warmth from Energon overfueling for long anymore. Balance was restoring. And worst of all, the reports were coming in. 

Tank capacity at 95%. Fuel proficiency at 20%. Uptake at %$^&&*^# levels. Seek alternate methods of refueling. 

Uptick let out a long sigh. “Let me walk you back. There’s no point in you getting lost and scaring others again.”

He didn’t fight the offer. There was no point in it. Once Uptick was convinced of doing something, he wouldn’t stop until it was done–especially if that task regarded protecting someone else. 

So he trudged along, the ‘bot slated as his “guardian” trailing just behind him. “Guardian”. “Caretaker” was more like it. Uptick followed him everywhere, kept an eye on how much Energon he was consuming, tracked his recharge cycles, kept a close eye on just what activities he engaged with on a daily basis, and probably had a tracker installed beneath his aft to keep him from ever having an ounce of privacy. 

Of course he did, though, after that night with the other ‘bots. He knew what he had been doing and why he had been doing it. He just didn’t know why he’d stopped.

The Autobots he’d frightened were significantly less green than he was. That wouldn’t keep them safe. They’d returned to their habsuit to begin a cycle of “enjoying one another’s company”. That was why he’d picked them. Two for one. It would have made the whole situation easier on them all.

Except it hadn’t been easier on anyone, especially him. They’d both become creeped out when, upon discovering him in their personal quarters, staring at their recharge slabs with optics more devoid than a moon, he’d purged his dinner and collapsed, whining like a sick turbofox. 

That was when Uptick had been assigned as his caretaker. There wasn’t anything wrong with Uptick, by any means, and he didn’t hate him. He was, like all Enforcers, large and imposing, and tended to play by the rules too much. His paint was cheerful colors of blue, green, and white, meant to match with the new planet he was eager to call home. And his personality was surprisingly forgiving–for being the sucker stuck with the mental patient, he had quite a tolerance for nonsense.

No, Luster despised Uptick’s company for an entire other reason. One that didn’t have to do with how closely he watched him, how constantly he reminded him to attend his appointments, or how constantly he changed his curfews and rules.

It had to do with his sparkbeat. With how close he insisted on staying, Luster could hear the damnable thing’s constant pulsing despite the layers of glass and metal and wires separating them. It was loud and full of vibrant life. 

He could feel the solvent building in his mouth. 

Tank capacity at 93%. 

—-------------------------------

The habsuit allotted to him was at the very end of Metroplex’s furthest row. It was close to the wall, away from any streets or alleys. The original request put in regarding a space for him had placed him near the clinic, where other Cybertronians would be passing by. His vehement rejection of the idea had only been approved after the arguing had made him purge. 

Uptick brought him right to the sliding door, inputting the code to open it on its keypad. The metal let out a quiet shff as it slid open, revealing the small space within. He turned, giving Luster a look. 

“Your visit tomorrow is at 09:20, Earth hours. I’ve already sent you the data package. You seem to have ignored the first four.” There was a hint of annoyance in his voice as he raised a servo to his helm. “I’ll send you another. Be there on time, please, so I don’t have to come here and convince you, alright?”

“Convince”. Luster almost scoffed at the word. The heaviness that came with overfueling had left him by now. With its cloud gone, he found himself choking on bitterness again. 

Instead, he vented, giving a tiny nod. 

“Alright.” Stepping past Uptick, he paused in the threshold of his habsuit when a hand suddenly landed back on his shoulder. 

“Luster. You know these visits are for your health, right? No one here wants to hurt you. We don’t see you as a processor to be poked.” 

“I know.” He didn’t turn around. The lights in his habsuit, motion activated, had turned on, illuminating the sparse few belongings within it. 

“I mean it.” His grip tightened ever so slightly, then released. “We want to help you. All of us.” 

“I know,” he repeated. “Now please leave me alone.” 

Uptick said nothing as the door slid closed, sealing him, and the outside world, away. Luster stepped fully into his habsuit and paused, gaze fixed on the berth. 

It was a recharge slab, standard issue. They’d tried to pull a better one for him due to his circumstances–the medic’s had posited that he may have recharging terrors. They’d been right, of course, but he knew it wasn’t the fault of the slab, so he’d let it lie. They didn’t need to know about the terrors that plagued him, for they were meaningless, and besides, if they knew, they’d want to keep a closer eye on him. 

Who cared about terrors that only consisted of strange humming noises, anyways?

Besides, a closer eye was the exact opposite of what he needed on him. If they watched him more closely, they’d take him away from the bar. They’d take him away from his quiet habsuit. They’d take him away from his place at the edge of their world and draw him right into the middle. 

And if they did that, he had no idea how long he could ensure their safety. 

He stepped over to the slab, observing his reflection in it. They’d taken away the mirror after he’d shown distress staring into it. Something about his frame just didn’t feel right, and the more he looked at it, the more out of place he felt. 

His paint was blue, a gaudy blue, one with a sheen to it that made him literally shine. One of the medics had stated his color was particularly reminiscent of a bird known as the “peacock” on earth. He’d never met the thing, but from the way they’d snickered, he assumed it was excessive. 

On his chassis were diamonds, which, according to the doctors, had been placed there, willingly, by him. He couldn’t imagine why he would have ever reasoned to do such a thing. The stones weakened the integrity of his armor, and furthermore, they drew attention. Cut into varying shapes, they were arranged into delicate patterns that continued on his faceplate, where several more had been embedded just below his optics. Had been. When they found him, all that were left were the indentations of what had been. They now felt like ugly scars. 

The gemstones were gaudy enough, but worse, in his opinion, were his drills. Their blades rested comfortably on his arms, with the largest sitting on his back as a heavy extension. His treads were on his legs, which, combined with the weight of the drill, made even lifting the damnable things a chore. According to the medics he hadn’t even been a miner back in the day, but a scientist of sorts, so why he was so equipped for drilling, he couldn’t even say. 

All of this shaped up to make his frame bulky and uncomfortable. His steps were heavy. His pieces tended to bump into things. And his excessive decorations drew gazes and snickers alike from other mechs. 

He hated the face that looked back at him. The optics were green, a gaudy green, because apparently, he’d once been obsessed with fashion, and made himself a different pair of colored optics for every day of the week. The others were lost, but the green he’d been wearing when he disappeared weren’t. 

His faceplate was a pale gray, like most mechs tended to be. Pale, with those intricate, delicate etchings, designed to make him look ‘beautiful’. His helm had a sharp point in the middle, reaching about halfway down, and of course, in the middle of it was another gemstone. This one, however, was cracked. 

A cracked gemstone accompanied by diamond shaped holes that had once held something supposedly precious. That was all he saw when he looked at himself. 

He tore his optics away from the visage and sat on the berth, keeping his pedes on the floor as he turned to look around his habsuit. It had a desk, a window, a few datapads, and a small storage shelf. That was all. 

They’d offered to bring him some of his surviving “collection”, whatever that meant. He’d declined.

The ceiling lights dimmed as he tried to lay down on his back, found it impossible, and instead did so on his side. He’d never get used to the damnable drill on his back, he just knew it. It wasn’t supposed to be there. It hadn’t been there before. Why did he have a drill on his back? He couldn’t ever remember a time where he did. 

But that was the problem with remembering. He couldn’t remember much of anything. 

It had been only three Earth “months” (solar cycles?) ago that he had landed on the planet, in an unmarked spaceship that had been dated back to the middle of the war. The bots who had discovered him found his frame locked in a stasis pod, almost offline from how little power he’d had left. Taking him back to Autobot City, an emergency transfer of Energon and a strong shock to his processor had brought him back online. 

And that was when the trouble had begun. He’d awoken in a room he didn’t recognize, in a time he didn’t know, in a place he’d never been before. He still remembered coming online. For so long it had been just darkness, darkness and the very hum of the universe, the electrical pulses that dictated the existence of life, making up the entirety of his world. When he’d come online, that hum had ebbed, becoming less than background noise. 

It had felt like being cut off from a lifeline. His optics had onlined, and he had been greeted with the sight of one of the Autobot medics, First Aid. There was celebration to be had as he had groaned and tried to sit up, confused, delirious, and wondering just how he’d gotten to this strange place. They’d insisted he stay down until his energon reserves were replenished. 

But even when his tank hit its safe capacity, a feeling that should have left him satiated and energized, he hadn’t had the strength to properly move. He’d known in that very instant, as the question arose as to why, that something was wrong with him. 

Another electrical shock had returned the ability to properly move to him. They’d released him from the medical bay after he’d demonstrated he could walk–right into the hands of their Enforcers. For according to their records, he was not to be alone, and the question of just what had happened on his mission was hanging heavier than a spaceship in orbit. 

The issue of his memory had arisen almost immediately. They’d asked him his name. They’d asked him why he had been alone. They’d asked him what had happened. 

He couldn’t remember any of it. 

“His processor seems to have been damaged, sir.” He remembered one of them saying, looking over the scan that had been provided from the medical bay. “They’ve found evidence that a code was written to delete some memories, but even more than that…” The datapad had been handed over, and the interrogator sucked in air through his denta. “How is he even still functional, with scrambling that bad?”

It looked like his processor had been ripped out, smashed, and placed back into his helm. He had no recollection of any of it. 

“Do you remember why you left?”

“Do you remember the name of your ship?”

“Do you remember the research you’d been engaging with when you’d decided to leave?”

“Do you remember what you found?”

“Do you remember Solace?”

“Do you remember what happened to him?”

“What happened to Solace?”

Who’s Solace?

The interview had ended shortly after. 

He vented, watching the lights in the ceiling turn down. Uptick’s data package pushed at the edge of his internal hub. He accepted it because he had no other choice. 

Solace. The name haunted him like a specter. Solace. Who was Solace? Solace had been someone he’d been very close with, apparently. Solace had been someone so important to him that he’d left Cybertron with him, in search of something mysterious to help the Autobot war effort. They’d been joined at the hip all their lives, apparently, 

And he couldn’t remember a single thing about the mech. But why?

He shuttered his optics and tried to think back to the day he’d left Cybertron. It had been sometime in the middle of the war, apparently. He’d made some big decision and gotten a ship somehow. He was going to prove something, or save them all, or change the tide of the war. Something heroic, or whatever. They’d said he had once been outgoing. 

He tried to picture himself standing on Cybertron (did he even remember Cybertron?), chassis puffed out, engine revving, the diamonds on his faceplate and chest glittering. A huge smile was on his face. He stood before the ship he’d arrived on, except instead of its decrepit state, it was a fully functioning spaceship, fresh off the factory line, without a single chip on the paint. 

Before him was a crowd of Autobots. They were cheering his name. Optimus Prime himself was there to see him off. 

He looks them over and grins widely, holding his arms out. Yes, he was going to save them all. He was going to travel far away, find something, and help end the war. He would be so full of hope, nothing could dampen his spirits. 

And there, beside him, would be Solace. Solace, his best friend, his one in a billion, his greatest ally. 

But when he looks beside him, there is no Solace. 

There was only fog, and blank space, and when he looked back, the planet of Cybertron was empty, a barren wasteland of gray. The sky was dark velvet blue. Stars glittered like diamonds overhead. 

There were stars in his chassis. He blinked once, twice. The planet was empty, and he was full of stars, and he was alone. 

And here, alone, in the emptiness of space, he floated, watching all of existence fall away and turn into the hum of electromagnetic pulses indicating life. Life that he could not see or touch. Life he could only listen to as he lay dreaming, drifting through the universe alone. 

In his cradle of stars, dead $^%#%&* waits dreaming. 

Not alone, really. He had not been alone while he was dreaming. He had heard something else in the hum.

He replayed the sound again, the hum he was so familiar with. It was millions of years worth of noise, stored within his processor because he had nothing else to comprehend for all of it. 217 gigabytes of nothing but humming. His processor ran through all of it in mere minutes, then ran through it again. 

There was something beneath all of the noise, something explicitly subtle. He opened his internal hub and pulled up a spectrograph. The noise was replayed again. 

The waves showed up as nothing in particular for a long time. Then, slowly, they began to form a curve. One by one, each contributed a single line, through millions of years, until finally, he reached himself now, still intuned, just barely, to the electromagnetic pulses of life. 

The image looking back at him was in the shape of a crescent. It was the very shape which he saw in his recharge terrors, the one which, ever present, hung in the background, watching him like a cybercat would a mouse. 

His spark felt cold. He closed the spectrograph and opened his optics, staring at the gentle light of Earth’s moon shining in through the window. His internal clock beeped a warning to him–five hours until he was designated to be at the clinic. A pop-up recommending he enter recharge appeared. He moved to close it.

Tank capacity at 68%. Fuel uptake at &%#$^*(&%$$%&&%$%^^^&* Seek alternate fuel source. Seek alternate fuel source. Seek alternate fuel source. 

Dozens more appeared at the death of the one. He pushed the notifications away. 

Seek alternate fuel source.

They came back, one after the other. His frame felt like it had been starved of Energon for years. 

Seek alternate fuel source. 

He forced his optics to shutter, letting the notifications drown out the fear he felt. 

Seek alternate fuel source.

It was going to be a long recharge. 

[cinderella-ish]

JuJutsu Kaisen Story Structure: Prologue

To get ready for my series on JuJutsu Kaisen's story structure, I want to establish some basics.

First of all, I'll be using three-act structure as the primary basis of my analysis, but I might also look at some other formats, like Blake Snyder's Save the Cat, Dan Harmon's Story Circle, Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, Freytag's Pyramid, Kishotenketsu, and some others.

Second, it's important to know that the three acts of three-act structure are not of equal length. The first and third acts are 25% each, and the second act is the middle 50% of the story. For this reason, I'll be breaking the story down into quarters like so:

Act I

Act IIa

Act IIb

Act III

Last, timing obviously plays a big role in three-act structure! I don't want to talk about certain plot points until I've established where they fall in three-act structure, and what's *actually* there in JuJutsu Kaisen. To that end, here's a list of story arcs in JJK, and the chapters where they fall:

Fearsome Womb arc: chapters 1-18

vs. Mahito arc: chapters 19-31

Kyoto Goodwill Event arc: chapters 32-54

Death Painting arc: chapters 55-64

Gojo's Past arc: chapters 65-79

Shibuya Incident arc: chapters 79-136

Itadori's Extermination arc: chapters 137-143

Perfect Preparation arc: chapters 144-158

Culling Game arc: chapters 159-221

Shinjuku Showdown arc: chapters 222-271

Now, here is a list of major plot beats in three-act structure, and the point at which they typically fall in a story:

Hook: at the very beginning

Inciting event: 12%

First plot point: 25%

First pinch point: 37%

Midpoint: 50%

Second pinch point: 62%

Third plot point: 75%

Beginning of climax: 88%

Resolution: 98%

Note: because the midpoint is the second plot point, the next one is called the third plot point.

With all that in mind, here's approximately where each of these plot points should happen in the chapter count:

Hook: chapter 1 (beginning of Fearsome Womb arc)

Inciting event: chapter 34 (near beginning of Kyoto Goodwill Event arc)

First plot point: chapter 68 (near beginning of Gojo's Past arc)

First pinch point: chapter 102 (mid-Shibuya Incident arc)

Midpoint: chapter 136 (end of Shibuya Incident arc)

Second pinch point: chapter 170 (early in Culling Game arc)

Third plot point: chapter 204 (about two-thirds of the way through the Culling Game arc)

Beginning of climax: chapter 238 (early-ish in Shinjuku Showdown arc)

Resolution: not more than the last 5 or so chapters (end of Shinjuku Showdown arc)

I think this is fairly accurate, though there are some points that I think are slightly off; for example, I think it's more likely that the first plot point occurs before Gojo's Past arc, and that Gojo's Past begins the second act.

So, for the purpose of this series, I'll be analyzing the four quarters as follows:

Act I: Fearsome Womb, vs. Mahito, Kyoto Goodwill, and Death Painting arcs

Act IIa: Gojo's Past and Shibuya Incident arcs

Act IIb: Itadori's Extermination and Perfect Preparation arcs plus part of the Culling Game arc

Act III: remainder of the Culling Game arc and Shinjuku Showdown arc

Read below the cut for the approximate timings for the other plot structures I mentioned:

Save the Cat

Opening image: ch 1

Theme stated: ch 12

Set up: ch 4-27

Catalyst: ch 29

Debate: ch 32-59

Break into 2: ch 61

B story: ch 73

Fun and games: ch 64-133

Midpoint: ch 135

Bad guys close in: ch 137-182

All is lost: ch 184

Dark night of the soul: ch 187-206

Break into 3: ch 209

Finale: ch 211-268

Final image: ch 271

Harmon Story Circle

You: the protagonist is in a zone of comfort (ch 1-34)

Need: the protagonist wants something (ch 41)

Go: the protagonist enters an unfamiliar setting (ch 68)

Search: the protagonist must adapt to the unfamiliar world (ch. 82)

Find: the protagonist finds what they wanted (ch 136)

Take: the protagonist must pay the price for what they found (ch 176-203)

Return: the protagonist returns to where they started (ch 204)

Change: the character is able to shift the world around them (ch 230-236)

The Hero's Journey

Ordinary World (ch 1)

Call to Adventure

Refusal of the Call

Meeting the Mentor

Crossing the First Threshold (ch 68)

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Approach to the Inmost Cave

Ordeal (ch 136)

Seizing the Sword

The Road Back (ch 204)

Resurrection

Return with the Elixir

Kishotenketsu

Ki: Introduction (ch 1-41)

Sho: Development (ch 42-170)

Ten: Twist (ch 171-243)

Ketsu: Conclusion (ch 244-271)

Freytag's Pyramid (will be using specifically to analyze Gojo's Past arc)

Introduction (ch 65)

Rising Action

Climax (ch 72)

Falling Action

Catastrophe (ch 78)

All Structures Plotted Together:

Hook, Opening Image, You, Ordinary World, Ki begins (ch 1)

Set up begins (ch 4)

Theme stated (12)

Catalyst, Call to Adventure (ch 29)

Debate, Refusal of the Call (ch 32)

Inciting Event (ch 34)

Need, Meeting the Mentor (ch 41)

Sho begins (ch 42)

Break into 2 (ch 61)

Fun and Games (ch 64)

First Plot Point, Crossing the First Threshold, Go (ch 68)

B story (ch 73)

Search, Tests, Allies, Enemies (ch 82)

First Pinch Point, Approach to the Inmost Cave (ch 102)

Midpoint, Find, Ordeal (ch 135-136)

Bad guys close in (ch 137)

Second Pinch Point (ch 170)

Ten begins (ch 171)

Take, Seizing the Sword (ch 176)

All is Lost (ch 184)

Dark Night of the Soul (ch 187)

Third Plot Point, Return, The Road Back (ch 204)

Break into 3 (ch 209)

Finale (ch 211)

Change (ch 230)

Climax, Resurrection (ch 238)

Ketsu begins (ch 244)

Resolution, Return with Elixir (ch 266)

Final image (ch 271)

Note that these timings are all approximate! Upon analysis, they may shift but only slightly.

[greyeyedmonster-18]

mutuals marching pt. 2

part one can be found here

this second part goes out to the real ones

@elder-millennial-trash:

ali was one of the first people to speak to me on here, and she was also one of the first people who found my fics and started reading-- i vividly remember her and @squintclover finding Carry Me Away and gushing about it in the comments and here on tumblr. since then ali has adopted me into several discords, and has proven to be an excellent friend to chat with about shopping addictions, sparkly shoes and overpriced bags; conference woes and perks; family trials and tribulations and so much more. she is incredibly smart and kind and a queen of second chances, even to people who don't always deserve them. ali has also continued to be a cheerleader of mine for my writing and has pimped out ten reasons more than i can count. she also works incredibly hard and takes her time to rec-fics and show support to those around her. some of my favs? Thats Not My Name (a hysterical raising harry oneshot); Lost and Found (a heartbreaking grief one-shot ft. our fav sad boy Remus); and uhm BAR REVIEW (come on yall, if you haven't read this, what are you doing? i mean, really).

@impishtubist:

you know when you try to sum up how much you adore someone into like a paragraph and you just like...can't without getting choked up and misty and gushy about truly how much you love this person? yah. that's imp. my chaos brain twin. my favorite person on this hell-site. ALSO one of the first persons to come into my DM's and start shouting at me about raising harry hc's. imp is responsible for probably 50% of my fics at this point-- her creativity and prompt well is infinite. i would've never written fault lines without her prompt, nor some of the other raising harry drabbles sprinkled in my tumblr. Imp is still one of my fav people to chat headcanons-- i still chuckle about how many times we have ended conversations with and therefore harry should just have 8 dads. In addition to being a force of creativity and novelty and queen of rarepairs (starking is all HER fault), Imp is also just a joy to talk with. I trust her with my secrets and my scaries and she has kept them. I trust her with my good news and great news and tiny silly reasons i have to celebrate. we have bonded over our mutual love of Tall Sirius and bones in the human body and teeth jewelry and I will never not be grateful for her ambush in my DM's and never leaving (plot twist: you are never getting rid of me either). Finding Home is a must read for Raising Harry fics. I cannot count the amount of times i have read it and re-read it and circled back to it like its some kind of index for raising harry fics. Also, I have read Sirius/Rita hate sex for her and I wasnt' mad about it. And also, moonchaser. Moonchaser. The Trouble with Quidditch is the jock/nerd romance we all needed . But also-- imp doesn't miss. she simply doesn't. every thing imp does is done with intention (and one of my favorite parts about Finding Home is the care and backstory developed for Lyall-- how does one world build???). all this to say. i simply love you.

bestie andie! @femme--de--lettres

i don't know how we started talking. but i do know that it took approximately 10 minutes (or one all to well (taylors version (10-minute version))) for us to become obsessed with one another. from 0-10000000 in less than 24hours, which is so us, thinking back on it. Two people who have no chill magically run into each other on tumblr? Fate. here's our meet cute. From sharing personal writing to voice memos about our days; to the time you let me hear your music and I listened to it on a road trip the entire way; to co-modding a fest with you (something i wouldn't want to do with ANYONE ELSE), from work stories you would share around a water cooler to academia stressors to morning tea parties and sunday moaning sessions. in the words of Christina Yang from Greys Anatomy-- you are my person. you are my favorite. you are one of the only reasons i am still on tumblr and still occasionally write things. i am indebted to andie, i think. thank you for being 100% yourself all the time. for your silliness and your enthusiasm and excitement and your understanding. for screaming over taylor swift with me and being indignant with me (even if I'm wrong). I am excited for us to write a fic together one day based on reputation and i am excited to ruin everyone with it. Things Everyone Should Read by Andie:

Arsenic and Old Lace "murder, coffee shops, cozy sweaters" really sums up all of it. i am consistently inspired by Andies dialogue, and remus's inner dialogue steals the show here.

867-5309 (For a Good Time Call) fucking hysterical and also so sweet? the true ruler of meet uglies., and sirius's personality is so good here and we love when someone does our boy justice (also love the tribute to pizza rolls in this tbh i think about it far too often).

and i wouldn't be me if i didn't mention Grieving in D-Flat (which like first of all, how clever is andie to create musical movements and wrap it in a bow with the fic??? HOW. CLEVER.) but also this one broke me in half , and i love a good grief fic, and how andie depicts it in every stage of this fic is so cautious and careful and not without moments of levity.

one day i will read fearless liabilities and one day i will read amicus curae, and i am vastly looking forward to it (but until then i will blindly pimp them out because i know they're fantastic because it was made by the hands of one of the great ones).

[fowlblue]

ask game! Picking some to ask was actually kinda hard cause they’re all legit good questions BUT (and if you don’t wanna answer all these that’s totally fine):

7 - age/ height/ weight for Tim

9 - scene that first made you love them for Spiro

13 - dumbest thing they’ve ever done for Valentine

25 - 3 things they’d take with them if dropped in the middle of nowhere for Butler

Oooo yesss okay-

7)

So I’m absolute shit at guessing actual weights/heights, etc. (+ I don’t really wanna calculate what the exact loss of one leg would be for total body weight), so I’m just gonna go with approximate descriptions if that’s alright!

I imagine Tim to, at the point of his recovery in TEC, be around 50 years old! I’m sure there’s an actual age to be found in the series somewhere, but that’s what I’ve got. Build-wise, it really depends on which point in the series one is looking at, but given that most of my content is in a nebulous ‘just past TLG’ period, that’s what I’ll go with.

Tim in my mind is of slightly-above-average height, but he appears tall due to being long in the waist + his habit of looming over people (most of the time unintentionally). Over time, however, his near-perfect posture has loosened a bit, which means people are more often able to look him in the eye.

In terms of weight, Tim is pretty slim and built like a runner. He was a bit ‘stronger’ looking in his youth, but after his time in captivity, he thinned a lot and has struggled with building muscle back on.

9)

I’d have to say the moment when he outsmarts Artemis at the vault. Not only was it a total surprise to me as a kid, but it hammered home that, unlike many AF villains to start, Spiro wasn’t going to allow himself to be outsmarted by Artemis simply by underestimating him. He made a bet with Arno about it- Spiro knew that Artemis would most likely make it to the vault, even if he didn’t know how, and that’s more credit than most of Artemis’s foes give him.

Also- this line from his introduction is just 10/10 description-wise. I think of it every time my bracelets clatter.

(Is is cheating to also list a part of a fic? Does that count as cheating? Ngl while I liked Spiro a lot initially, his journey to being one of my favorites was 100% the fault of @orangerosebush ‘s fic Kunegetikos- two scenes in particular: His flashback to being told mythology as a child/packing after his grandmother’s funeral, and his conversation with Artemis towards the end in which he admits that he wants to believe magic exists, not for profit, but because it might offer him a sense of purpose. It was a really nice look what his history might be and ultimately inspired me to start fleshing him out a bit as well!)

13)

Ohh, there’s a lot of stupid things Valentine does, but in terms of consequences? He rarely faces them. But he has absolutely, 100% shown up to at least one performance or interview completely wasted, lost his cool, made a spectacle of himself and promptly fallen off the stage, there is a video of it somewhere. Would he and his brand smooth things over quickly? Yes. Would he be reminded of if any time he happens to search himself on YouTube? Absolutely.

25)

The obvious answer is survival stuff cause c’mon, it’s Butler, but given that he would also not really need any of that stuff since he can clearly survive with just his own two hands and the clothes on his back, I would say-

- His gun. He cleans it when he’s stressed I’m 90% sure that thing is basically a fidget for him at this point.

- One trashy romance novel. Might as well have some form of entertainment if you’re roughing it out in the wild.

- Some form of communication with Artemis. Butler… he cannot seem to function well when he’s not sure that Artemis is okay or alive. At least give him a handheld radio.

[writereleaserepeat]

Both parts of gnashing of teeth are so GOOD ! I got a question How long has Sasha been fighting and how many times has he lost

Thank you so much for the ask, and thank you for reading!

At the story's beginning (where we are now in Chapter 2), Sasha has been fighting for about two and a half years. He personally doesn't know how much time has actually gone by, but his rough estimate of two years is almost correct.

The fighters average one fight per month, sometimes more, sometimes less. Counting his fights has given Sasha a decent idea of how far he is into his contract.

Of the approximately 100 fights Sasha has been in, he's lost around 35. This is considerably better than most fighters, who often end up with win/loss records of about 50/50, but it's worse than the prize fighters with an almost perefect record.

[crazypenguinwriter]

Character Creation

I wanna give my two cents on something.

So like, I've started to come across a lot of posts on Pinterest about creating entire lists on your characters from their name to their favorite plants and the way they count on their hands. And while there's nothing wrong with making lists for your characters, you don't need to know the favorite snack of every character you create. If you ask me, the most important things you need to know about your character are quite simple:

Their full name (including second, third, however many names they have)

Their age (you can do this approximately, if you don't know an exact number)

Their basic appearance (color of hair, eyes, are they tall/short/broad/slim). Do note the word 'basic', no details are necessary (though if a character has a trinket of some kind they always wear for whatever reason, this is included in the list)

Their personality, or what defines them. This helps you give them a correct voice (hotheads react and act differently than those with a level head) and can help you figure out how they'd interact with other characters. Now do note that this shouldn't be an entire essay or even a long list, as you should be able to see what's up with a quick glance.

Background. This includes family, friends, how they grew up... This one will be the longest, but shouldn't be too detailed either. Just enough to help you see where the character came from and what defines them, what goals they might have and what morals they gained overtime. These can tie back into their personality (and usually do, if I'm honest. We're a complex being filled with mannerisms that come from our history and culture we grew up in, so of course your character's personality is linked with their background)

Other things. Now this one is very, very vague, but here is where I usually put things that define my character but don't fit any of the previously mentioned things. Their favorite plant, if it's relevant to the story in some way (or you just got inspiration and wanted to put it in).

Do keep in mind that this is how I do character creation, and what works for me. If you're more inclined to fill in the essays and long lists of questions for each and every character go ahead, don't let me stop you. I just think that it's quite time-consuming, and I'd rather spend that time either writing the story or being busy with the world-building. Besides, characters change all the time, as we all do. Hotheads can learn to be calmer, level headed characters can learn to let lose and explode, naïve characters grow up and learn to be skeptical... The possibilities are endless, which is why I do my character creation this way. I also usually start with the most important characters (the protagonists, the antagonists) and add others when the plot demands me to. And I spend a long time plotting, so some characters get scrapped or rewritten so many times I've lost count, and I'm not going to spend every time that happens on the '50 questions I need to know about your characters' when I can be writing and rewriting the plot for the umpteenth time.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the topic. Have fun creating!

[3nderm1te]

5, 15, 25, 43!

Okay, I am only half-alive at the moment BUT 5. what color are your eyes? My official answer is hazel. My unofficial answer is blue-gray, because I once had someone point at a storm cloud - those ones that are just slightly tinted green - and tell me my eyes were that exact color. I think about that moment a lot.

15. are you a parent? (all answers qualify) No! I also never will be. I don't like the phrase "pet parent" either just because I think its weird, personally. No judgement to those that enjoy it. Its totally just a me thing. Anyway, I lost my own dog in February, but I'm the temporary "parent" to approximately 15 dogs and 50 cats at the animal shelter where I work, so maybe that counts for something.

25. perfume/body spray or lotion? I really hate scents like they drive me up a wall. It doesn't matter if its a nice scent or not it still makes me crazy, so everything I use is either unscented or I scrub the hell out of it until it fades away. I use a ton of lotion though, because the wood burning furnace we use to heat the house dries the hell out of the air.

43. what’s your take on spicy foods? Do not like. Lmao. I am ghost white, I'm sorry.

Thank you for the ask! ^^ Ask game from here if you want to join in.

[littleharpethcrossfit]

Thursday,  23  February,   2023 Warmup.......Power Cleans...... Met-Con.

Expect an unusually lovely afternoon.  And it was lovely, except just as we were sitting down at the festooned picnic table it began to rain.  We had to quickly move the party under cover.  Adapt and overcome. 

Warmup:

3  Rounds

10  Reps Each Exercise

PVC Shoulder Dislocates

Med-Ball Ground To Overheads

Med-Ball Thrusters

Scap Pull-Ups

Strength WOD:

Power Cleans:        5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 2 / 2

Go Light..........Touch & Go.     Please note that some didn’t follow the rules.  For many, this was their 2 Rep lifetime MAX !  FYI, real Olympic Weightlifting champions only do max lifts approximately 5% of their lifts.  The vast majority of lifts are meant to hone and perfect their movement with light weights.   

Timmy/Ed=175     Sam=165     Smoothie=155     Dyer/Paul=145     Herb=135    Tom=115      Joe/LSU=105     Sue=85     Shannon=75     Coach/Linda/Howard/Alicia/Elisa=didn’t post although they did something.     

Metabolic Conditioner

Row 1000 / Bike 2000m

THEN  5  ROUNDS

20  Perfect Push-Ups    (E=HR )

20  American Kettle Bell Swings     (E=70 / 53 / 35)

Row 1000 / Bike 2000m

Elites:

Ed=22:20     Timmy=22:50

RXers:

Sam=17:20     Herb=20:22     Smoothie=20:37

Scaled:

Coach=13:26 (1 Arm Cheater)     LSU=19:12     Sue=19:22    Dyer=21:09      Linda=22:35     Tom=22:52     Shannon=23:20      Joe=23:24      Paul=25:01

Alicia/Elisa/Howard did it.      

Notes:

Wine & Snacks to follow.

Yep, the rain tried to ruin it, but it didn’t win.  We just quickly moved indoors and continued on.  There were lots of cheeses, nuts, crackers, and fresh hot pizza delivered right on time.  I lost count of the wines...but Tom, Paul,Howard, Shannon, Herb, Coach, Ed  (and I hope I left no one out) all brought wine which was too much but somehow we managed.

Some of you are interested in doing the CrossFit Open 23.2.  If you are truly interested you will search and find a description of the workout and go do it where-ever Coach Butler is doing it.  Maybe he will post it on What’s App. 

Saturday at 0730 and at 0930.

[zazzander]

Let’s talk about life in New Rome

To start off, how many people actually live in the town?

In Son of Neptune, the number of people living in New Rome is said to be about three hundred. Now if we add the two hundred in Camp Jupiter, that leaves approximately 500 demigods. I doubt monsters, nymphs, and satyrs are included in that number, so we could probably round that out to 800 or so.

[The number is significantly lessby the end of Tyrant’s Tomb. Many veterans are said to have died. The legion has lost many demigods. ]

With this in mind, we have to assume that New Rome University is very small, likely between 20-50 students. We know from Percy they offer a four-year course, so that means about a dozen students (or less) are admitted to the college every year.

As far as I can tell, all students get into the university on a scholarship and there is no tuition. This is partly because Hazel seems very casual about admissions into the college and because of Percy’s comments in The Hidden Oracle.

“I’ve been guaranteed admission with a full scholarship to New Rome University, but they’re still requiring me to pass all my high school courses and score well on the SAT. Can you believe that? Not to mention I have to pass the DSTOMP.”

From this comment, I suspect Percy has given privileges equivalent of a legionaire who’s finished their ten-years of service. Basically like "you saved the world so that counts".

It’s unknown if they offer any post-graduate degrees, or if students go to Berkeley after that. I suspect with the close ties between the universities, as mentioned by Annabeth, the latter is more likely. However, demigod post-grad students probably do tutor classes at NRU like at other universities.

Looking at actual real-world universities. It’s more than likely NRU offers a liberal arts degree (Bachelor of Arts). One that is able to be modified for the individual student. This is further proven by the fact there is a music and poetry analysis section in the DSTOMP exam.

Percy mentions some classes for freshmen: English, math and history. My understanding is that’s pretty normal at US colleges (even though it seems redundant). So it really doesn’t give us much information.  

It’d say there’s a strong chance all these classes are in Latin (except for the English class, duh) – as we see evidence that Latin is the primary language of New Rome. English would be being just another language in New Rome (unlike Camp Jupiter), as all the signage is in Latin. Also, according to Apollo a dozen languages can be heard while walking through the forum.

So with the assumption that NRU offers an art degree, we know that some of Annabeth’s architecture classes can be studied at the university. But she probably couldn’t graduate with a proper Architecture degree just through NRU – which is why she dual-enrolls into Bekerley.

Considering Roman culture, it’s not surprising their arts course would have architectural leanings. These are the majors/minors/classes I’d say are likely to be offered: Greco-Roman Mythology, Philosophy, Political Science, Law, Mathematics / Engineering / Architecture, Ancient History / Art History (focus on Rome).

Obviously, Percy mentioned possibly studying marine biology or aquaculture. I think it’s important to note that he’s not decided this. It’s possible he hasn’t realised these aren’t options at NRU. But I think he’s smarter than that. So my theory is that he’s planning to transfer at some point but wants to study alongside Annabeth and stay in the safe-haven of New Rome for a while (these seem to be much higher priorities for him!).

The univerity has a big library, a belltower, and very boring dorms (which I think is just tragic because everything else in New Rome is super fancy, why are the dorms boring? Ten years kids live in barracks, they deserve nice dorms...)

Due to the limited number of people at NRU or in town, I suspect much of the university is maintained by the students themselves. As veterans of the legion, they would be perfectly capable of organising much of the operations of the university. Furthermore, I think post-grads might come to the university to teach the occasional class as a guest lecturer. This all allows for the university to offer a wide range of subjects without too many members of staff.

As for getting into NRU, it seems to be pretty damn difficult. Even if you’ve been approved for entry, you still have to score high on the SATs and pass the DSTOMP. Percy mentions that he’s failed to get a high enough SAT score twice, presumably passing on his third try.

So that’s the university, next I'm going to talk about New Rome’s daily life and culture.

One thing that’s very obvious is that New Rome is flush with cash. The entire town is a mini-haven: gold, and marble everywhere. Pristine gardens. You name it – they have it. This makes sense since demigods are often very talented and when you have multiple generations of demigods living in the town, bringing in wealth…

The good news is that the Romans seem to have kept the tradition of the wealthy funding public works: festivals, civil and religious constructions, etc. Examples of this is the colosseum and racing track. This tradition is likely why NRU is able to exist at all. As the wealthy families can spare the extra cash to fund the place – especially with all the students on scholarships.

As far as I can tell, New Rome has very limited technology. According to Hazel this is because demigods tend to make technology go haywire. There are exceptions to this: Reyna, for example, owns a tablet. And we see the legion hire a fleet of SUVs to cross the country. However, daily-life seems to avoid technology. When celebration are on, the Romans decorate their town with multicoloured lanterns (potentially magic-based). Furthermore, there are no cars in the town – only chariots and wagons.

The locals of New Rome eat a mixture of old and new foods. Focaccia bread is mentioned, which is originally a Roman bread that''s still popular in modern times.

They have a thriving coffee culture! With the number of cafes mentioned, I have to assume coffee is very important to them. And it seems to align more closely with Italian coffee-culture rather than the American one.

One thing that is never mentioned is any kind of policing in New Rome. It’s idyllic nature invites the reader to assume there is simply not need – but we know that nepotism and corruption are present in Camp Jupiter. So why not New Rome as well? More than likely, what’s going on is that New Rome uses the same method of policing as Ancient Rome. That being a patron-client relationship (called a “sponsorship” in the books). Basically, wealthy and powerful families act as protection for those who serve them fidelity. So if you mess with a shop that’s own by “Marcus”, Marcus can go to his sponsors, the Lawrences, to get justice.

Anyway, I don’t have any like crazy conclusions or wild theories. Just wanted to put all this stuff into one place.

[furinana]

Year details in SMTIV&A

I’ve compiled here screenshots and my own calculations to make it easier to verify ages and timeline events, considering how convoluted it can get to remember everything in the games.

 • 201X is obviously 2013 (since current year = 2038 and God’s Plan happened 25 years before)

• If he would be 40 years old in current time, that means Akira was 15 during God’s Plan, mirroring Nanashi’s age in 2038. From this we can deduce Akira was born in 1998.

• Fujiwara and Skins, being 50 and 55 respectively in current time, would be 25 and 30 years old through God’s Plan.

*****IMPORTANT*****

• 1 day in Tokyo = 75 days in Mikado (and the rest of the world!)

• 80 years in Mikado = approx. 1 year in Tokyo. Akira was around 16 when he started excavating through Sky Tower.

• 300 years in Mikado = 4 years go by in Tokyo. Akira was 20 years old when he reached above the Ceiling.

•  I’m not sure how to interpret this Year 0 since in theory it shouldn’t exist in an actual Gregorian calendar. 

Do we add a year? So was Akira 21 when they start counting the years in Mikado?

•  13 years in Mikado = approx. 2 months in Tokyo.

•  Akira was either 33 or 34 when he got murdered (depending whether you add a year or not when they started using a calendar). •  Approximately 5 years and 2 months went by in Tokyo since God’s Plan which took place in 2013, which results in 2018 being the year that Akira died.

• Akira reincarnated as Nanashi in Tokyo after 5 years (or 333 years later in Mikado) since his death.

• The boy that sacrificed himself to become the ceiling reincarnated as Flynn in Mikado after 1474 years (or 24 years later in Tokyo) since his death.

• Navarre is 18 by 1492 -> Navarre escaped from Mikado as a 25 year old -> Navarre met Flynn again in 1499.

• At least 7 years in Mikado (or approx. 34 days in Tokyo) passed when Flynn rescued Navarre.

According to SMTIVA’s artbook, Gaston was 9 when Navarre was 18. 9 years pass when he finally has enough age for the Gauntlet Rite. That means Gaston became a Samurai in 1501.

• At least 9 years in Mikado (or approx. 43 days in Tokyo) went by from SMTIV to SMTIVA.

****TLDR**** 

2013 - Great cataclysm happens. 2393 - 380 years pass outside of Tokyo. These lost 380 years is the duration before Aquila founded the land known as the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado and started using the Gregorian calendar. 3885 - 1492 years pass outside of Tokyo. These years are what is actually registered in the Gregorian calendar used in Mikado. SMTIV starts. 3892 - 7 years pass outside of Tokyo, shown by Navarre aging from 18 to 25 years old in one of the final sidequests of SMTIV. SMTIV ends. 3894 - 2 years pass outside of Tokyo, shown by Gaston becoming a Samurai. SMTIVA starts.

SMTIV - Tokyo is 2038, Mikado and the rest of the world is 3885 (albeit Mikado registers as 1492).

SMTIVA - Tokyo is 2038 (43 days later), Mikado and the rest of the world is 3894 (albeit Mikado registers as 1501)

Might add more things as I remember later. Feel free to correct me if there are any mistakes.

(NOTE: Akira’s age (if he was alive) in 2038 is treated as “in his 40s” instead of a straight answer, so please take my age tidbits related to him as IF he’s 40. 

But let’s be real, past life parallels are such a key theme in this game that it’s the most fitting age you could go for)

[askmalal]

ARCHIVE M: Transmission 3

No. 3120

SECURITY STATUS: Absolute Secrecy

TYPE: Document/Bound/Book

RECOVERY: [REDACTED]M31

ACQUIRED BY: [REDACTED]

ACQUISITION CONDITIONS: Great Crusade, [REDACTED]

PROVENANCE: Human, Date Uncertain

PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR OBSERVATIONS:

Subject is a bound leather (Calfskin?) book, about twelve inches tall by eight inches in depth, with a thickness of approximately 24” non inclusive of bindings. Trace markings on the cover indicate title painted in gold or orichalcum leaf, but condition was too heavily damaged to make any conclusions regarding title.

Subject’s pages are vellum, very high quality, thick. No title page. No author. Ink iron based, greyish, but in this case quite legible. We have been unable to determine identity of the writer, but the language is Low Gothic/Late Albian, so fairly easy to translate. Writing style is at first neat, in same hand throughout, but neatness of writing degrades over time.

<<Archival Note #3120a:

Subject’s author may have aged over writing period, may have suffered injuries or mental illness impairing fine motor skills. Seems to be suggestion inferred by original investigating authorities, but with incomplete records, who knows? -K>>

This is essentially a gigantic list of names and/or titles. It begins with a a large heading in what is admittedly quite beautiful handwriting:

Being a Record of His Names

Each page denotes a series of names. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands. Every so often, a red “cross” shaped marking is placed opposite the last letter of the entry. We are unsure as to the meaning of this. [REDACTED] and I believe that this may indicate a “dispute” of sorts over the nature of the name/title.

Some names and titles are clearly recognizable from Old Terran mythology or from pseudo-Terran mythologies post First Empire. However, some are utterly foreign. Many have the “look” of human names, but of uncertain provenance. Civilian Archaeologist-Remembrancer [REDACTED] was permitted to briefly view selected, hand copied passages. She agreed with our assessment that many of these were “human like,” but admitted that even with her training in Archaeo-Linguistics she could not properly place them. Suggested they were corrupted names, perhaps lost in transliteration?

ABBERANT PROPERTIES:

Subject would, by all appearances, seem to have limitless pages. Over a dozen attempts have been made, at time of writing, to count full number of pages and record all content. In every instance, the number of pages seems to grow larger, and the “names” within seem to increase, or upon occasion, even decrease in number. At last count, there were well over one thousand names recorded, with the largest number being recorded, in Examination #7, at two thousand five hundred and eleven.

<<Archival Note #3120b: A list of the names most consistently present according to remaining records has been attached to this report.- K. >>

Research Note 1:

Repeat tests have shown that subject has no discernible psychic properties. Exact nature therefore disputed.

Encrypted Note #1a:

<broken code string> suggests likelihood, Warp origin. Most of <broken code string>gree.

Research Note 2:

Leather tests show similarity to extinct Terran bovine species designed #332y by Ministry of Agriculture, last sighted M22. Ordo Ceres has requested permission to use test strip for genetic sequencing.

Addendum 2a:

Request denied, Administratum.

Research Note #3:

Three individuals: two Legionaries (#01, #02) and one Mechanicum Adept (#03) were asked to select randomly numbered pages, marked via electronic tracking, noting names on pages selected. In all cases. A fourth individual, Control A, had last known pic-scan, all pages.

#01 reported eighteen names, pages 332-33. None varied from pages as recorded and referenced by Control A.

#02, a Chaplain, referenced pages 50-52. Reported pages 50, 51 blank. Does not match pages as recorded and referenced by Control A.

#03, Techpriest, referenced pages 500-510. Only forty percent of names matched original as recorded and referenced by Control A.

Encrypted Note #3a:

I did not track, nor did I record, a page 510 when the document was prepared for examination. Nevertheless, tracking device was present.

<ORIGINAL FILE ENDS>

ATTACHMENT 3120a:

Database Entry: Psi/ ETA

To: Praetor Gyges, 32nd Cohort

From: Optio Valens, Archives Cohort

Captain:

I have gathered the following data at your request. Research is ongoing, and will be updated as new data is gathered.

As of M39, the following names for the entity in question are the most commonly encountered on two hundred dataslates of information (and counting.)

Amatsu-Mikaboshi

Anansi*

Apep*

Asmodeus

The Black Pharaoh

The Bloated Woman*

The Bloody Tongue

The Bull of Chaos

Boethiah

Caine*

Camazotz

Chronus

Clavicus Vile

The Crawling Chaos

The Eleven Elevenths

The End

The Faceless

The Faceless God

The Faceless Sphinx

The Fifth Path

The Great Betrayer

Hundun

Hypnos

Ishku

Janus

Kali

Kronos

Malal

Malice

Medjed

Merenkantur

Mordred*

Morgoth

The Nameless

The Near and The Nigh

Nemesis

Nyarlathotep

Odr

She Who Betrays

Sutekh*

Tchuculca

The Thousand Faces

The Thousand Masks

Tiamat*

The Watcher at The Threshold

*=Disputed in some sources.

TRANSMISSION ENDS...

DOWNLOAD COMPLETING...

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? >>No.

ENCRYPTING...

>> >>

>>THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

"They have us surrounded.

Those poor bastards." (Vulkan)

>> >>

ENDS