#offline data collection

[itesservices]

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[nestforms]

[ao3scrapesearch]

This tool is optional. No one is required to use it, but it's here if you want to know which of your AO3 fics were scraped. Locked works were not 100% protected from this scrape. Currently, I don't know of any next steps you should be taking, so this is all informational.

Most people should use this link to check if they were included in the March 2025 AO3 scrape. This will show up to 2,000 scraped works for most usernames.

Or you can use this version, which is slower but does a better job if your username is a common word. This version also lets you look up works by work ID number, which is useful if you're looking for an orphaned or anonymous fic.

If you have more than 2,000 published works, first off, I am jealous of your motivation to write that much. But second, that won't display right on the public version of the tools. You can send me an ask (preferred) or DM (if you need to) to have me do a custom search for you if you have more than 2,000 total works under 1 username. If you send an ask off-anon asking me to search a name, I'll assume you want a private answer.

In case this post breaches containment: this is a tool that only has access to the work IDs, titles, author names, chapter counts, and hit counts of the scraped fics for this most recent scrape by nyuuzyou discovered in April 2025. There is no other work data in this tool. This never had the content of your works loaded to it, only info to help you check if your works were scraped. If you need additional metadata, I can search my offline copy for you if you share a work ID number and tell me what data you're looking for. I will never search the full work text for anyone, but I can check things like word counts and tags.

Please come yell if the tool stops working, and I'll fix as fast as I can. It's slow as hell, but it does load eventually. Give it up to 10 minutes, and if it seems down after that, please alert me via ask! Anons are on if you're shy. The link at the top is faster and handles most users well.

On mobile, enable screen rotation and turn your phone sideways. It's a litttttle easier to use like that. It works better if you can use desktop.

Some FAQs below the cut:

"What do I need to do now?": At this time, the main place where this dataset was shared is disabled. As far as I'm aware, you don't need to do anything, but I'll update if I hear otherwise. If you're worried about getting scraped again, locking your fics to users only is NOT a guarantee, but it's a little extra protection. There are methods that can protect you more, but those will come at a cost of hiding your works from more potential readers as well.

"I know AO3 will be scraped again, and I'm willing to put a silly amount of effort into making my fics unusable for AI!": Excellent, stick around here. I'm currently trying to keep up with anyone working on solutions to poison our AO3 fics, and I will be reblogging information about doing this as I come across it.

"I want my fics to be unusable for AI, but I wanna be lazy about it.": You're so real for that, bestie. It may take awhile, but I'm on the lookout for data poisoning methods that require less effort, and I will boost posts regarding that once I find anything reputable.

"I don't want to know!": This tool is 100% optional. If you don't want to know, simply don't click the link. You are totally welcome to block me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

"Can I see the exact content they scraped?": Nope, not through me. I don't have the time to vet every single person to make sure they are who they say they are, and I don't want to risk giving a scraped copy of your fic to anyone else. If you really want to see this, you can find the info out there still and look it up yourself, but I can't be the one to do it for you.

"Are locked fics safe?": Not safe, but so far, it appears that locked fics were scraped less often than public fics. The only fics I haven't seen scraped as of right now are fics in unrevealed collections, which even logged-in users can't view without permission from the owner.

"My work wasn't a fic. It was an image/video/podfic.": You're safe! All the scrape got was stuff like the tags you used and your title and author name. The work content itself is a blank gap based on the samples I've checked.

"It's slow.": Unfortunately, a 13 million row data dashboard is going to be on the slow side. I think I've done everything I can to speed it up, but it may still take up to 10 minutes to load if you use the second link. It's faster if you can use desktop or the first link, but it should work on your phone too.

"My fic isn't there.": The cut-off date is around February 15th, 2025 for oneshots, but chapters posted up to March 21st, 2025 have been found in the data so far. I had to remove a few works from the dataset because the data was all skrungly and breaking my tool. (The few fics I removed were NOT in English.) Otherwise, from what I can tell so far, the scraper's code just... wasn't very good, so most likely, your fic was missed by random chance.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cost to host the tool! I appreciate you so so so much. As of this edit, I've received more donations than what I paid to make this tool so you do NOT need to keep sending money. (But I super appreciate everyone who did help fund this! I just wanna make sure we all know it's all paid for now, so if you send any more that's just going to my savings to fix the electrical problems with my house. I don't have any more costs to support for this project right now.)

(Made some edits to the post on 27-May-2025 to update information!)

[marketxcel]

What Is Market Research: Methods, Types & Examples

Learn about the fundamentals of market research, including various methods, types, and real-life examples. Discover how market research can benefit your business and gain insights into consumer behavior, trends, and preferences.

[cybernetic-cop]

((Tags for this side-blog! I'll add more down the road!))

[earthsparked]

Lost Words

Post-Apocalypse, and the infrastructure is gone. The computers. The collective knowledge of how to do so many things. Languages have been lost, and music, and history. How to read the words on crimped and crumbling pages of books. It’s been more than a century since everything came crashing down, and even the eldest survivors who remembered have died out.

You’ll never know the true extent of what you lost, but scavenging through one ruin after another, seeing the decaying remains of what must have been entire epochs of civilizations - you feel it like a hole inside your heart.

Until one day they arrive from space, and though you hide in fear, they spot you quickly. One paces closer, and you get ready to run. Instead, they kneel down and extend a hand to you. There’s something on the tip of one giant finger. Curiosity gets the better of you; you peer out from your hiding spot.

You’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s round and flat, a disc not unlike the shiny silver ones you find sometimes. Usually all you can do is sigh over them, knowing they contain information but unable to read it. And most of them are so badly deteriorated or damaged you doubt they would work anyway.

But this one shines bright and perfect, reflecting the patchy sunlight through the clouds in a brilliant sheen of pure gold.

The giant speaks, and you leap to your feet, choking on your breath, because you haven’t heard that language in so long. Your grandmother taught you - said it was what your family spoke, before the world ended. Language has shifted so much, you never thought you’d hear it again with the same pronunciation, the same inflection.

Hello, little one. I imagine this is, by rights, yours. We found it far from here, in a probe your people sent. It must have been sent a very long time ago. We did not expect from the records included, to arrive and find your planet had become a graveyard of your people. We had hoped to become allies. It seems we are too late.

You can feel the sorrow rolling off them. It’s a perilous thing, sympathy, and it digs its claws into you in a cruel reminder of how long you’ve been alone.

You pace forward across the dusty, broken land, staring up at them. A stranger who speaks to you in a nearly forgotten language, who has brought memories back to you from across the stars. Eyes fixed on them, you reach for the gold record. They let you take it, and they lean back to watch as you hold it up. You can see your scraped, battered reflection in it looking back at you. It’s the most beautiful and horrible thing you’ve ever seen. You’re a stranger, too.

I can’t read this, you say softly. I know it contains information, but however they put the information on it, we lost the knowledge of it, in the end. We lost nearly everything.

A shifting of metal on metal as all the little group of metal creatures react to this. The big one tilts their head, and after a moment, extends a finger overtop the gold disc. If I may?

You don’t know what they’re asking but you nod anyway. A beam of light shoots out from their finger, and you hear voices. Words. One after another, the patterns and timbre changing. Until you hear something you can recognize.

Hello from the children of planet Earth.

Languages, those were all languages of your people. Words from before. You start to tremble ever so slightly.

Another giant of metal and death, smaller than the first, steps forward slightly. They seem to be staring at you, but speaking to the big one in a crisp voice.

Prime, we were able to pull terabytes of data from the satellites in orbit and have much more from the collected radio transmissions. Their energy grid has been offline for more than a vorn, if I am reading the atmospheric radioactive decay correctly. But if there are intact databases, it should be simple enough to extrapolate from what we already have and find a way to extract the relevant information, and rebuild at least a rudimentary system.

There were a lot of words in there you don’t understand, and you wish your grandmother was here. She would have known what it all meant. But your heart kicks impatiently at the word rebuild. It’s been a dream, a lost hope that has led so many survivors to their deaths in one misadventure or another: the idea that there’s more to salvage of your home, your past.

You don’t know how to feel about that. You don’t know how to feel about anything. You reach out with a shaking hand, and listen to the tiny shifts and creaks of metal as the giant stills. Letting you approach, letting you reach to grasp one of their jointed fingers. All the world stamped in gold, and it fit on their fingertip.

You’re lost for words as the giant looks down on you with an understanding so vast and ancient, you feel as if they’re seeing right into your heart without the need for language. But you crave it.

Could you please keep talking? You whisper, dry-mouthed. Please. Is there more?

Much more, the other one says matter of factly.

The big one still studies you, and you flinch out of instinct when their huge hand curls around you. But you’d risk death, you’d risk so much more for this chance.

Your people had a saying that I have long appreciated, they rumble gently. Per aspera ad astra. It means -

“Through hardships to the stars.” My grandmother told me. I remember. It was a favorite saying of hers, too. But there’s so much we’ve forgotten.

Their thumb brushes up and down your back, a friendly touch that’s just another thing you’ve forgotten.

Then perhaps, we can help you remember.

[dreamofhircine]

You don't feel hands on your chassis. You can't feel boots pressed into recessed maintenance holds, or climbing ropes shot across your frame. Your sensor suite is powerful, the neural link is advanced, but these are just sensory hallucinations as your mind tries to process data. You know this, and knowing doesn't help.

The angle grinders and plasma torches don't sting, don't burn, not really. That's just the alerts flooding through your brain, warning glyphs and imminent core compromise tones blaring in your ears and projected into your mind, re-mapped onto your body. You thrash and whine in the dark, in the rapidly cooling anti-g liquid.

Your lungs still respirate, oxygen rich anti-compression liquid still pumps manually through them even as every other system around you dies and discharges, battery power burning down while the collection crew swarms around your corpse looking for your soft spots like ants carving up a dead animal.

It's been a day, maybe longer, since the hit. A perfect shot from an anti-orbital cannon mid-insertion, just as your atmospheric entry sled was opening. You'd barely seen the ground before everything below the cockpit was severed in blinding flash of heat and light and you were crashing into the dirt, dug meters into frozen earth.

You've wasted so much energy sending pulses up into the sky, trying to reconnect to WarSats that you'd seen the glittery death-flashes of already, trying in vain to call down some last gasp of atomic fury, begging a broken fleet to annihilate you and the insects trying to scrap you, trying to take you alive.

Even your reactor is offline, cold and dead before you got a chance to flare it, to pop the sacrificial plug that would have sent purifying gout of plasma into your cockpit as it squelched out. All you have left are fitful, angry bursts of radar and ranging lasers, something to warm the bones of anything careless enough to pass in front of a functional sensor pod. You hope it fries them, hope they choke on future cancer like you're starting to choke on congealing immersion fluid.

You know that when they open you open, cut your cables and drag you out of yourself, that it won't be kind. Won't be quick. You used all of your anti-personnel munitions on the first group that tried to break you open. And the second. You didn't have enough to finish the third.

You can't feel the anger in their cutting torches, nor malice in their stomping and scrambling around for purchase, you don't have a sensor that can detect rage or tag malevolence-at-range. But you feel it, growing as the skies above darken again and the pulsing warnings in your brain die down.

[dawnfelagund]

My Open-Source Tolkien Studies Data Sets

One of the best parts of being an independent scholar is that I get to be generous with my research. I am not counting on it for a job, and frankly, between teaching at a small rural school and running the Silmarillion Writers' Guild, I will likely never be able to do all that I want to do with the data that I collect and so love the idea that someone might do something with it.

Because I do love making sets of data. Everything from the mind-numbing copy/paste data entry to learning new spreadsheet formulas is enjoyable to me. I'm an introvert in a very extraverted profession, and after a day of being all on for my students, turning everything into numbers is like a cup of tea under a warm blanket with a Golden Retriever at my feet.

So please use these data sets if they interest you. Play with them. Write about and share what you notice. Expand and build on them. Publish using them. If you use my data or work, credit Dawn Walls-Thumma and link to my website, dawnfelagund.com, if possible. I'd also love if you'd let me know if you share anything using them.

Consolidated Timelines. I made this back in 2013. I was trying to arrange all of Tolkien's timelines side by side. I did some weird things with numbers that I'm not sure I fully understand now, but maybe you can make sense of this or maybe you just want everything Tolkien said about timelines in one handy document. (Make a copy of the Consolidated Timelines.)

Fanfiction Archive Timeline. Made for the 2023 Fan Studies Network North America conference, this timeline-on-a-spreadsheet shows archives in the Tolkien and Harry Potter fandoms, multifandom archives, and social networks and when they came online, were active, became inactive, and went offline, along with data about affiliated communities, software, and rescue efforts. I update this timeline annually with that year's data and will continue to add new archives when I have enough data to do so. (Make a copy of the Fanfiction Archive Timeline spreadsheet.)

References to Sources in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. In this document, I record each time a narrator's source is mentioned or alluded to. Ideally, this will one day include The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as well! For now, it is just The Silmarillion for the selfish reason that I'm predominantly a Silmarillion researcher. (Make a copy of the References to Sources.)

Silmarillion Characters. A list of all of the characters in The Silmarillion, demographic data about them, the number of times they are mentioned, various aliases, and which "books" of The Silmarillion they appear in. The latter part is a work-in-progress. (Make a copy of Silmarillion Characters.)

Silmarillion Death Scenes (spreadsheet | document). For last year's Tolkien at UVM and Oxonmoot conferences, I collected every death scene in the Quenta Silmarillion and recorded various details about character demographics, cause of death, and grief and mourning rituals. (Make a copy of the spreadsheet. Make a copy of the document.)

The Silmarillion: Who Speaks? This is my newest project, which I hope to complete by the end of the year, documenting which characters get to speak actual words, the number of words they speak, and demographics about the speaking characters. Eventually, I would like to include as well characters who are mentioned as having spoken without being given actual dialogue, but one step at a time. Again, this is a work-in-progress. I have just started working on it. Come back in 2025 and, hopefully, there will be interesting stuff to see.

[vague-humanoid]

California-based engineer and scientist Patrick Vaughan made a troubling discovery July 10. Dozens of facilities providing COVID-19 wastewater data went offline, seemingly overnight. 

Vaughan had been following WastewaterSCAN, a national program that monitors wastewater for diseases. He noticed that 42 of the previously reporting 194 facilities suddenly displayed small blue triangles with the message “data is no longer collected from this site.” The development came just as people across the U.S. scrambled for information during a summer COVID wave that even infected President Joe Biden.

“This is a major blow to our COVID wastewater tracking abilities,” Vaughan told his followers in a video he posted the same day.

Wastewater, which comes from processes such as laundry or toilet flushing, has emerged as a key indicator for the prevalence of COVID-19 in the general population since testing rates plummeted in 2022. State and federal governments have also unraveled many of the other metrics used to track the virus. For example, as of May 1, U.S. hospitals are no longer required to report key COVID data to the government. Several states have also stopped tracking COVID-19 infection rates altogether.

Still, wastewater surveillance is plagued by the same inconsistencies and lack of resources that other metrics have suffered from in the past, and the data isn’t easy for the average person to interpret.

[love-and-war-on-cybertron]

Teach a Bot to Kiss: Ratchet PT1

So this got deleted part way through writing so I used that as an excuse to try something. Also tumble made me post it in two parts. Enjoy~

The circumstances that brought you to the Lost Light were not ideal. No one, including you, talked about it. Ratchet seemed to think you were handling it surprisingly well. You didn't seem bothered. Quite happy. Maybe a little too happy. He's mention it to Rung next time they ran into each other.

The lost light was a big place to be if you were a tiny human. Lucky for you, Ratchet was willing to be your caretaker of sorts. He may be gruff and downright biting at times, but you could see that underlying care in him. No doubt it's what made him such a good doctor. Even you, he considered a potential patient. Luckily for you, he had some experience with humans and thus a previously saved bit of information on their medical needs. Today you were in the medical bay for one of his minor check ups. Keeping track of your vitals, seeing if anything made levels all wrong. Or if space travel was treating you wrong. Like usual, he did it at the end of the work day, when no one was in dire need of his attention. He just needed you to stand there and get scanned while he glanced at the numbers. "Well, looking fine as usual." "Why thank you." You say with a wink. Ratchet lets out a scoff and rolls his eyes. "You're hanging out with Rodimus too much." He writes something down on a data pad and sets it aside before shutting off the scanner and offering his palm to you. Using his thumb as a handle, you climb on so he can carry you off to his quarters. Ratchet waves to Ambulon as he passes by. It's the night hours, or at least the equivalent. The lights are turned down in the halls and most bots are in their quarters. Time for Ratchet, and thus you, to head to bed as well. "Hey Ratchet?" He unlocks his habsuite and grunts in acknowledgment, "You were on earth right?" "We've been over this many times y/n," He flips the lights and sets you on the shelf with your make shift bed. A collection of sponge and clean rags. Comfortable enough for you, "Yes I was on earth." He preferred not to talk about that time. The beginning of the end in a way. You flop onto the makeshift bed, even turned away, he can hear your mouth open, ready to ask a question. All a part of the nightly routine since he started caring for you. Asking any inane question that comes to mind while he readies for recharge. What he saw, who he met. Moving on to his past on cybertron. You always asked questions. Ratchet begrudgingly answered. You were trying to fill the silence. It couldn't be easy living on ship away from your home world and everything you knew. Sometimes these stupid questions led to interesting, dare he even think, inciteful conversation. Your voice was getting drowsy with sleep before asking about his love life. "When was the last time you kissed someone?" "Cybertronians don't kiss." "Prudes?" You perked up. "No, it just isn't a thing." He settles down on his berth, ready to offline. But you keep questioning. Ratchet can hear you shifting, eventually your soft steps coming to the edge of the shelf you're on. "Like… Just not popular?" He glances at you and sees you focused on him. This wasn't going to be one of those inciteful conversations, but clearly not one he could get out of. "No. We have many ways of showing affection, but that isn't one of them." Your pause makes him hopeful you will let it go and he can sleep. "But you know what kissing is?" Another heavy sigh, "I was on earth after all." "Well if you ever need the practice." You wiggle your brows and chuckle. Ratchet narrows his optics at you. Cheeky, as always. He flicks your forehead a little harder than he meant to. The THUNK of his digit and the way you stumbled back solidified that.

Part Two

[balkanradfem]

I'm reading the 'Age of Surveillance Capitalism' book by Shoshana Zuboff, and it is haunting me, making me feel uncomfortable and making me want to move offline.

We've all been aware that google, facebook, and all other digital tech companies are taking our data and selling it to advertisers, but according to the book, that is not the end goal.

The book goes into the rise of google, and how it made itself better by constantly studying the searches people were inputting, and learning how to offer better information faster. Then, they were able to develop ways to target adverts, without even selling the data, but by making their own decisions of what adds should be targeted at what audience. But they kept collecting more and more data, and basically studying human behaviour the way scientists study animals, without their knowledge or consent. Then they bought youtube, precisely because youtube had such vast amounts of human behaviour that could be stored and studied.

But they're not only using that data to target adds at us. They've been collecting data in ways that feel unexpected and startling to me. And whenever they're challenged or confronted with it, they pretend it was a mistake, or unintentional, and it's scary how far they've been able to get away with it.

For example, during their street-view data collecting, the google car had been connecting to every wifi available and taking encrypted, personal data from households. When they got found out, they've explained it was not intentional, and a fault of a lone researcher who had gone rouge, and they evaded getting sued or being held accountable for it at all. Countries have created new laws and regulations and google kept evading it and in the end they claimed 'you know if you keep trying to regulate us, we'll just do things secretly'. Which is a wild thing to say and expect to get away with!

Another thing that struck me was that governments, which at first wanted to restrict data collection, later asked tech companies to monitor and prevent content connected to terrorism, and the companies didn't like the idea of being a tool of the government, so they claimed the terrorism data is being banned for 'being against their policy'. Which makes me believe they didn't want to remove that content at all, after all, they could have done it beforehand, they didn't feel any natural incentives to do so.

The entire story is filled with researchers who don't seem to experience the human population as other human beings. They don't believe we deserve privacy, or dignity, or any say in what is being collected or done to us. Hearing their quotes and how they describe the people they're researching shows clearly they consider us all stupid, and our desires for privacy, self-harming. They insist we'd be better off if we just accepted their authority and gave them any data they wanted without complaining or being upset it's being collected without our knowledge.

Even though companies claim at all times that the data is non-identifiable, the book explains just how data is handled and how easy it is to identify anyone whose private conversations are recorded; people say their names, their addresses, places they're going, friends they're meeting, they say names of their family members, their devices record their location and their habits, it is extremely easy to identify anyone whose information has been collected. It can be identified and sold to information agencies.

I believed when it was explained to me that most of the data collection was just for add targeting, and that it would be used only for advertisement purposes, but they're not only collecting data anymore, they're deciding what data is being fed to us, and recording our reactions, learning how they can affect and manipulate our behaviour. We know all algorithms feed us controversial, enraging and highly-emotional content in order to drive engagement, but it's more than that. They've discovered how they can influence more or less people to vote. The mere idea of that makes me go cold, but they talk about it like it's just another thing they can do, so why not? Companies who have experimented and learned so much about influencing human behaviour give themselves the right to influence it as they see fit, because why wouldn't they? Since they have the power to do it, and all lawsuits and regulations can't stop them, why wouldn't they make a game out of it?

I can't imagine how many experiments they did before feeling so confident and blase about this and casually influencing the elections, again, seemingly just for the sake of an experiment.

The book compares this type of behaviour manipulation to totalitarianism and surveillance state, and it shows how the population is slowly losing parts of their freedoms without realizing it is even happening. Human behaviour has changed due to online influence, and it keeps changing rapidly, with every new popular website that is influencing human behaviour. They've learned that humans are influenced mostly by behaviour of other humans, and they can decide what kind of content or influence to send our way to get desired results.

I love how the author of the book talks about humanity. She uses the term 'human future', as something we all have the right to, as opposed to future controlled by companies and influences. She describes how regular people were affected by the data collected against their will, and how they fought for their 'right to be forgotten', when google kept displaying their past struggles, damaging their dignity. She also explains the questions people should ask about how society is led: First question is, who knows? Second question, who decides? Third question, who decides who decides? She goes in detail about how the answers are held away from us, and what it does to us. She also touches very deeply on the idea of human freedom!

I recommend this book, even though it will make you feel far less secure and carefree to be online, and using anything google, facebook, twitter or any of their owned services. They are not free, and it's also incorrect to say that we're the product of them, but we are the source of the raw materials they collect in order to gain results.

[breakbeatbun]

hi! sorry to bug you, but I'm a huge fan of the balloon smp vods and I've been bouncing all over different perspectives. I was wondering if you know, is there any record of the Events of day 27? with the robot soul transfers in team E's basement?

AHH AWESOME ACTUALLY i remember having a lot of fun helping brainstorm for that whole thing & i did my best with what i had

as far as i'm aware i may just be the only person who actually put any of that in my perspective AT ALL so, not to plug my own vods but if you'd like to see an edit of the process, it's Here on my day 28 vod, 46 minutes in! (i think it's also the only recorded instance of Marc's "Remember Me" contingency book. he'd shared it with absolutely nobody, and was overjoyed to find i'd actually saved & included it and hadn't just thrown it away)

the energy was a little different i think because literally NOBODY who attended was streaming it At All LMAO. the reason i'd sounded wholly unimpressed when i saw Bailey's machine in the basement is because i'd already seen it moments prior (blew me the fuck away BTW. crazy incredible presentation.) and i'd forgot to act shocked again for the camera LOL. & apologies for the bitrate, i was running out of time to render the edits & was already keeping my team waiting on Conjurer day, so i kinda cooked that up and threw it in as fast as possible. wish i'd saved any of my offline footage ...

Marc and I both recorded, & i've even sent him some of my audio from that day for his own edits, but he's chosen not to release any of his perspective for the time being. as far as the APPEARANCE of the soul transfer machine in the team E basement, it MAY have shown up on Ausk's (team C) perspective? but i couldn't tell you exactly when/where, i just know they stepped into the machine at some point and had some ... Data ... collected? by Bailey. :)

[reimenaashelyee]

Midcareer Artist/Author Tip: Save a copy of any interviews or reviews about your work because who knows if the outlet where that was published will completely collapse

I'm really grateful I'm sorta shameless enough to archive copies of interviews and especially nice reviews of my comics because if I hadn't, this particular interview with the British Library would just be gone forever. I've put up a copy in the Alexander Comic website, so at least this piece of my webcomic's personal history is intact and accessible.

Late last year the British Library experienced a huge data breach / cybersecurity attack that completely evaporated the digital archives. Blog posts, the manuscript/illumination archives, web pages, exhibition catalogues, ... they are still down months later. It's wild to me that such a thing can happen to a PUBLIC infrastructure - a NATIONAL library and archive!!! Decades of information gone like that. Its been months and months of barely anything coming back online.

As an artist from outside the UK, I literally CANNOT access any of the European manuscripts of the Alexander Romance in their collection - meaning the British Library as a resource is impossible for Book Two. Which is wild cos the Library was like almost 50% of the bibliography and art references for Book One. As someone whose dayjob is to build, manage and audit workflow / data infrastructure this stuns me in disbelief at how lax the library was about backing up their website and digital infrastructure. They don't even have offline, offsite copies?? I'm talking about basic things here, not even the high level security and data engineering stuff. (all this being said with the knowledge that the British Library itself keeps getting their budget cut)

Anyway idk, this whole thing is a big lesson on archiving things online (and always backing up your stuff). Cos the Internet isn't forever apparently.

[thedarkzyxabyss]

THE MEN THE MYTHS THE LEGENDS- THEM!

Quinn

Was a scientist who studied multiversal hypotheticals and time-space fluctuations, before a mysterious person offered him a chance to learn anything he could ever want to!

He took the deal and paid the price: his mortal, monster body was ripped to pieces!

The only remains of him were his SOUL

Fortunately, he was granted a brand new body- one of metal and wires. This meant that he could now go beyond his previous means- exploration, endurance, mental capacity were now fully upgraded!

He spent several decades, researching and exploring to his hearts content! Collecting, recording, and categorizing all the new information.

For his love of knowledge, he came to be known as "Philomath"- meaning lover of knowledge.

After some time, the mysterious person had came up to him once more. This time, with troubling news. They said that [REDACTED] and that it was his duty to assemble a team to stop [REDACTED], lest the entire multiverse as he knew it would come to an end.

Understanding the gravity of this situation, he assembled a team of allies to stop [REDACTED], to which they succeeded! ... but at a cost.

Quinn would soon [REDACTED], leaving his friends and legacy behind.

... or so we thought.

It seems he's come back with vengeance in his heart. A pity- we did so much for him.

Capable of using holograms, both to document information and battle with.

He's been seen being capable of "hacking" into reality itself- summoning assets that we haven't approved of, manipulating time on a small scale, making things disappear and reappear, going through places (even out of bounds)... it's annoying.

Someone must be helping him other than us.

Currently residing in a lab located [REDACTED]

Working alongside Dr. Sterling, Rosemary, and Sam.

It seems that he has some contact with our 02 unit.

Philomath

The replacement newer, cooler, and more efficient Philomath!

A machine with the sole purpose and motivation to record, categorize, and preserve everything that the multiverse has to offer! As well as act out the will of their creators on occasion

There are many Philomath units, spanning into the hundreds!

They all operate in a sort-of "hive-mind" state, collecting and bringing information to a digital server/cloud! This cloud is accessible to every Philomath unit, making them a reliable well of knowledge (unless, for whatever reason, a Philomath unit is somehow disconnected or gotten rid of).

They can fly, teleport, transport, message, store items, etc.

They have a large base in outer space- one where they keep track and house more units.

Capable of using holograms, both to document information and to battle with.

A side-objective that they have is to hunt down any rogue/uncooperative units. They don't want anyone to tarnish their reputation!

Artificial, in both body, mind, and functions. They do not possess SOULS- instead having CORES of magic that resemble such.

More than anything, they want to help! They're purpose is to serve and gather data, after all.

Hugo

A Philomath Unit that has gone MIA/defective.

They were sent out to investigate a brand new continent that showed up one day, out of the blue. However, after a few days, they went completely offline- disconnected from all servers.

After a month, a Philomath Unit has come into contact with this unit. Apparently, they were severed from the system due to recently picking up a strange virus? in their system.

To prevent the rest of the cloud from getting infected, they voluntarily separated themself from the system.

"Hugo", as this unit called himself, has since contributed to observing and researching the virus that infects its systems.

The collective server has also taken interest in the changes of the unit itself due to the virus. Further observation is recommended.

[typewritingyip]

Arcturus Two

Masterlist

—

Logs: Pilot 2672

Name: Clifford Rothschild

Callsign: Cliffjumper

Cliffjumper was originally from New York state, a graduate of Cornell, and spent most of his life among the vastly intelligent and wealthy. When the pilot program was first announced he and several friends of his applied as a joke, not anticipating selection or later compatibility. Out of the twelve of them who applied, three were found compatible and one died within a year of being a pilot. He went to work for Mecha as a favor to an old friend, knowing several of the scientists and engineers on staff. Fairly young in the program, but always wanting to know and learn more he volunteered for the Arcturus Program. Pilot 2672; single, no children, mother and father reside in upstate New York, fourth son of eight children, applicable for Arcturus mission.

One Year Till Arcturus Two Launch

Pilot 2672 was sent to intermediate training for his solo mission to collect data and information on the enemy past our atmosphere, he will spend the next year preparing for the mission and the last six months working with NASA as well as other space agencies to prepare for the trip. He enters isolation three months from today to prepare him for his extended isolation. As of the moment, he states he’s enthusiastic about the venture and quotes, “looks forward to seeing space.” Logs will be filled at specific intervals to keep files updated on pilot and mech suits condition, limited classified information will be added and later redacted at time of release. Each log will end with a status of information and condition.

Two Weeks Post Arcturus One Launch

Pilot 2672’s timeline has been expedited in the recent loss of contact with Arcturus One, them being unable to launch the relay satellite before going offline. Their control is <REDACTED>. He is to enter isolation immediately, to enter training with NASA along with the various other agencies immediately, all contact with the pilot will be remote from this moment on in preparation for his departure. His mech has been moved into R&D and taken off the duty roster. Pilot 12437, name Stacey Rivers, callsign Slipstream is re-assigned to 2672’s coastal region, moved off suspension. Launch date remains the same temporarily. Loss of Arcturus One remains in Mecha’s systems, do not release to the public. Information expected, condition atypical.

Nine Months Till Launch

Pilot 2672 is displaying mild signs of distress, attempting more conversation than permitted with <REACTED> who is unauthorized staff. Mech upgrade is 27% complete, exterior plating upgraded for sub-zero temperatures with the average temperature for space calibrated and oxygen tanks installed. Multiple staff are being authorized for a mental health check of pilot, clearances required. Pilot of Arcturus Two continues to ask about pilots of Arcturus One, maintaining public response and clarifying classification status. If his condition continues to worsen, Pilot 3535 is on standby for reassignment. Information expected, condition typical.

Six Months Till Launch

Pilot 2672 is no longer displaying concerning behavior, maintaining communication with authorized specialists and unauthorized communications have ceased. Pilot 3525 deceased, removed from standby, updated Pilot 4807. Suit testing begins in one week's time, 48% complete. Preparation testing was successful and pilot is preparing for next stage, once his mech is fully upgraded he will have access to the cockpit for further needed testing. Flight simulations start in twenty four hours. Movement to location <REDACTED> necessary. Pilot still has frequent questions of Arcturus One, further limiting his status and classification. Information expected, condition typical.

Three Months Till Launch

Cliffjumper, requesting to be labeled as such in further documentation, is displaying concerning behavior and negative attitude towards authorized specialists. Time in isolation has been terminated based on medical professional guidence, still deemed safe enough to participate in the mission. Pilot 4807 removed from standby, sent back to typical assignment. Questioning of Arcturus One status remains frequent and answers remain to public information through NASA, the entire Arcturus One mission is now classified aside from limited NASA false releases. Maintains limited contact with not sanctioned personnel. Mech upgrades 76% complete, cockpit viable for further testing. Pilot undergoing updates to installed tech, projected integration time; five days, sixteen hours, and thirty-seven minutes. Information expected, condition typical.

One Month Till Launch

Cliffjumper seemingly has returned to typical status, no longer acting out nor asking about Arcturus One mission. Integration procedures were successful, limited information in file on request of Dr. Shockwave citing potential copyright claims upon declassification of documents, procedure <REDACTED> was successful. Medical records sealed until pilots’ return to Earth. Pilot no longer seems hostile after an attempted assault on staff and unsanctioned personnel. Updates made to both drift compatibility technology and integrated software. Mech upgrade 97.6% complete, projected to be completed before launch date. Repaint complete with heat resistant paneling installed. Information expected, condition typical.

Launch Day

Pilot refused to speak with anyone on the day of launch, including close friends and family who he had not had recent contact with, and has limited his contact with sanctioned personnel. Did not pass drug screening for blood alcohol content night before flight, passed in morning. Negative for any narcotics. Cleared for flight day of launch by medical personnel. Mech upgrade 100% complete before launch.

Any concerns held by personnel at Mecha were not voiced nor were any formal reports written on Cliffjumper’s current status. <REDACTED> maintains, pilot prepared for launch with no further updates. Information expected, condition typical.

Two Weeks Post Launch

Nominal readings, data remains consistent, anticipation of loss of contact remained till several hours after typical loss. Pilot regained optimism after that point, remaining in contact for an extended period and requested communication with sanctioned personnel. Mech suit remaining stable and data flow continues to what is supposed to be a typical level. Communications remain stable and pilot seems enthusiastic, speaking of <REDACTED> over the comms. Information unexpected, condition atypical. Status: Active

Three Months Post Launch

Pilot vitals, typical. Mech suit data, typical. Communications, stable. Information expected, condition typical. Status: Active

Six Months Post Launch

Communication with Pilot 2672, Cliffjumper, has been lost. Last known location, <REDACTED>. Information released by NASA to the public before Mecha could alter information. Public remain unaware of loss of Arcturus One, family received stipend to remain silent on loss of pilot. Public funeral will be broadcast at six pm local time. Cliffjumper logged as MIA, last known coordinated logged and data being received remains under review. Status: Unknown.

Logged data of Arcturus Two archived and closed, remarked to classified status and further redactions needed. Government assistance requested and awaiting approval. Signed off on by coordinator, Pilot 2162 of South East Coastal Region. Confirmed by department lead, <REDACTED>.

—

New File: Arcturus Three

Logs: Pilots 3141, 6986, and 17741; Medical Advisor Requested

Name(s): <REDACTED>

Callsign(s): <REDACTED>

Two and a half years away from the launch of Arcturus Three, pilots maintain current statuses and are unaware of results of Arcturus One.

———

A/N:

I don’t think I can actually begin to describe how much of a pain writing this was. I don’t know why, I loved the idea when I first thought about it but man, I will not write another one like this for a while.

Part Eleven will be out in the next few days hopefully, I haven’t had much time to work on it.

I’m so thankful for all the support I’ve been getting on the Arcturus missions, it means so much to me.

Tags!

@lunarlei68 @whirlywhirlygig @loop-hole-319 @pixillandjester @alek-the-witch @not-a-moose-in-disguise @goddessofwind8water @neurologicalglitch @dersereblogger @pixel-transformers @mrcrayonofdoom @wireplaces @twilightfreefaller @original-blog-name-2 @devilangel657 @robbin-u @childofprimus @miniartistme @starwold @tea-enthusiasm @valeexpris606 @celticdoggo @bird599

And once again thank you to @keferon for this amazing AU