[OPEN] We do this every time...

[vosseeker]

WHO: Starscream & OPEN
WHEN: Throughout July
WHERE: Garage, R&D Labs, Library, various
WHAT: Starscream is keeping busy this month. And hopefully staying out of trouble. Maybe.
WARNINGS: A corpse? A corpse! Otherwise, just his normal sour disposition...
NOTE: Will match prose or brackets, your choice!

A. Garage & Mechanic Shop

Starscream goes outside of the colony regularly, every few days. He has less to fear than most from the radiation, and the thin atmosphere doesn't bother him since he doesn't need to breathe. Of course he's just as susceptible to the red shifts as anyone, but he counts himself fortunate that he's only fallen afoul of them a couple times. Usually he returns with a crate of glowing energon crystals to convert to fuel, but today he's returned through the decontamination process dragging something very, very different: the rusted out corpse of another mech.

The body is unmistakably the same species as Starscream, although their body structure isn't too alike: this is (was) a land-based frame, shorter and stockier than the Seeker's narrow, lanky physique. Though the corpse is heavily rusted, even on the less corroded patches the dead mech is unnaturally, uniformly grey, as if all the colour had been sucked out of them. They're also considerably heavier, if the way Starscream is huffing and heaving to get the body up on a flat slab usually used for vehicle repair like it's an autopsy table in any indication.

... it appears he is absolutely planning to use it for an autopsy table.

B. R&D Labs

This is most often where Starscream is found, having converted one of the larger but unused indoor rooms to his own housing. Old equipment has been shoved aside, the door repaired, the lighting upgraded. It's not much to look at, to glimpse inside: what appears to be some kind of nest in the corner, a
low metal table that he's pillaged from one of the labs, a slowly growing stack of refined energon cubes piled in the corner.

Sometime later after he has dealt with the other mech corpse, he's back in the R&D section with a new crate of energon crystals from the crevasse out in the wastes that he'd located some months ago. Lacking the resources (and the cooperation) to undertake any kind of mining operation, he'd been making do by retrieving small batches for processing. The distiller looks... well, exactly like a distiller, with an unrefined chunk encased in the top portion and a slow drip of liquefied energon — blue and luminescent — slowing trickling down into the lower tank. It's a tedious process, but it has to be done. That doesn't mean Starscream isn't tapping one frightfully long bladed talon shiing-shiing across the workbench surface, leaving little curls of metal piling up like shavings in boredom.

C. Library

When he needs a change of pace however, he takes on a project which — for anyone who knows him — would probably not have been expected. After surveying the collapsed portion of the library, making some notes for himself (literally he'd just carved the notes right into the nearby wall), Starscream starts digging out the toppled area. He doesn't offer any explanation, nor request (or demand) assistance.

It's still slow going, even with his size and strength. Sometimes he'll start on a section and it'll be unsteady, so he has to move off and try somewhere else. The removed debris has to be carried out and dumped in an unused corridor, so there's a lot of going back and forth, dragging material that easily weighs several tonnes. He grumbles a little, low and pitched, but it's not the theatric complaining that one would usually expect from him.

Still, progress is being made. When he finally stops for a break, perhaps just noticing that he's gained an audience, he flicks his wings irritably to knock the dust from them. "What?"

D. Wildcard

Anything that doesn't fit in the above prompts, or poke me on Discord or at sojourney for other starters!

Comments

[vosseeker]

Starscream doesn't keep any semblance of normal hours. Even if Cybertronian day-to-night ratios were the same as humans, which they weren't, the erratic nature of Anchor sometimes threw everything off routine. The other part of it was... Starscream rarely hangs around anyone whose schedule it would make sense to match to. He hardly hangs around anyone at all. Logically one would think it would be hard for a 25' mech to avoid most people, but that's exactly what he does.

That doesn't mean he's never about, though. And he's startlingly quiet, for his size. He stands for quite a while outside the area, listening to the scales and chords that eventually move into full songs. He doesn't recognize any of them — he's never really given human music more than a passing data byte — but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate an apparently advanced piece.

When Gokudera emerges and says nothing, Starscream lets the silence stretch for several moments. Finally he queries, "The songs... do they mean anything?"

[bakudan_bambino]

Gokudera would notice Starscream, but he completely misses him. One would think it would be hard to miss a 25' mech when they're literally right in plain sight, but Gokudera does. Amoi had been full of towering structures, and the law enforcement had often been accompanied by AI with weapons that could not only stun or destroy their targets, but to disable even the powers of Gods. He'd fought some large hulking metallic figures, been taken to places in the Golden City of Tanagura that most lower-caste mongrels could never dream of.

So when Starscream breaks the silence, Gokudera pivots and pulls out several sticks of dynamite from... thin air? They're not lit, and he's not even sure who his target would be until he looks up.

"Shit..." okay he's jumpy, and hopes no offense was taken. The silver-haired boy tucks away his weapons and lights his cigarette, taking a drag before answering through smoke, "Depends on the composer." He looks up, stares thoughtfully and seems to be mulling the question over. His answer is probably unsatisfactory.

"Most are written to convey emotions, and evoke them from the listener. Others are meant purely for entertainment... or noise to fill in silence, to create an atmosphere." And boy oh boy do Italian mafioso love their private performances and events. His skill would help him blend in as a talented pianist if he ever needed to get in and witness an 'accident' with a rival or enemy family. Not that his boss would ever have him do something so dirty. At the very least, he could blend in and talk to the right people... keep enemies close while appearing harmless.

[vosseeker]

Starscream has never seen a human materialize something quite like that before, and he stares for a moment. "I didn't think humans had anything like subspace," he says finally. "How did you do that?"

But the appearance of the weaponry doesn't seem to cause affront — in all honesty, people pulling weapons on him is a pretty regular part of Starscream's life — and he doesn't push Gokudera to answer at any faster a pace than he seems to want with thinking the question over.

"What about that last one?"

[bakudan_bambino]

It's amazing, and something Gokudera is very good at being secretive about. Why, in the anime not only does he pull dynamite out of thin air, but it lights on it's own! In the manga, he lights then with his cigarettes, and just keeps the weapons "all over his body" and even if someone were to pick him up and shake him, frisk him, or go through any kind of search, the dynamite never shows up. He creates it himself, though no one has seen him do it. "Hm? Practice. For half my life." Maybe more than that. Is it all strapped to him? Does it just materialize with his will? No one knows. He clearly has to have a free hand to make it appear, though.

"The atmosphere? It's just background noise, not meant to communicate anything, but provide a sense of comfort. I think it's repetitive." He used to play in a bar on Amoi. There was nothing special about it.

[vosseeker]

Starscream is certainly thinking more along literal lines, but ultimately he doesn't press the issue. It was more surprise that prompted his initial comment on it, since mecha had an actual version of hammerspace.

"The last song you played," he clarified. "It was... interesting. What is it called? Is it well known?"

[bakudan_bambino]

"The last one? Oh! Yeah..." He scratches the back of his head in mild embarrassment. "It was Bach's Fugue number two... in C Minor. Bach is a well-known Earthling, German composer who lived for sixty-five years and died two hundred and... uh fifty years before my time? I left Earth around two thousand.... something..." Gokudera sighs, seeming troubled.

"I'm sorry. I've got to be honest. I was on Amoi from eight-thousand fifteen until July eight-thousand seventeen. I'd say Bach is still well-known, but I'm not even sure what year I'm in now." Gokudera doesn't even know how old he is. Clearly, he's not an adult, but he feels like that may just be his body. He'd gone through two years worth of his life on Earth in Namimori after he'd been picked up from living on the streets. No one would celebrate his birthday, and so he just kind of... assumed he was the same age as his friends. Then there's the two years he'd been on Amoi, and his birthday falls in the beginning of September. He could tie himself up in knot trying to sort everything out.

And then there's the whole brainwashing he's still trying to snap out of.

[vosseeker]

Starscream's already figured that any place which could draw people from multiple worlds would also draw across various timelines, so this isn't terribly surprising. "You'd likely get different answers to that question depending on whom you asked," he comments.

"Although if it worth the data point, it was two thousand thirteen by the Earth standard calendar before I was brought here."

He tilts his head. "The Earth informational packets which Soundwave curated for crew usage didn't touch on major musicians of previous centuries," he replies. "And I never saw the point in pursuing such irrelevant minutiae. I do know where and what Germany is though."

It might have come across insulting, if not for the matter of fact way Starscream states it. Then he pauses, head tilting to one side in concession. "The music was enjoyable... the tonal subharmonics were especially appealing."

[bakudan_bambino]

"True..." Good thing it wasn't a serious question. He'd just been uncertain, but it does depend.

"I want to say that's a time I have not lived through." Because it'd been around two thousand ten when Amano was updating the series and it was actually popular when I was home, then traveled ten years into the future." He wonders what two thousand thirteen would be like. "Do you think the world I came from experiences time the same without me? Or do you suppose this experience I'm having... you and everyone else, is all just like a dream until they return to their world?"

"Thank you for finding it enjoyable. If there are any other songs you would like, I'd be willing to try my hand at playing them."

[vosseeker]

That is a question Starscream has been pondering ever since he'd arrived in Anchor... given the state of things when he'd left, if the timeline has continued without him... what would be the state of the Decepticons right now?

Would they have obeyed Megatron's ludicrous order to stand down, without Starscream there to pick up the pieces? Had someone else taken command? He still had no idea where Soundwave had disappeared to, but Shockwave might have the faction clout, if not the drive — if it was someone else, that was a new leader that Starscream now had to assassinate to get his rightful place back. Which didn't bother him, except it was annoying!

"There's been no information about that," he replies with a frown. "Unless one of the more tenured colonists here has information about it, and it simply hasn't been properly shared."

The thanks clearly throws him for a moment. "You're... welcome. I don't know other Earth songs. If there are more like that however, I would listen."

[bakudan_bambino]

“No theories?” He asks and looks up, lighting a cigarette and taking a slow drag. “No ones come and gone from this place, and another version of them came here? Yamamoto and I came from different points in time, relatively. I don’t remember him leaving, and I was gone for two years after him.” Gokudera may be rambling a little, just thinking out loud. Starscream need not respond.

“There are a lot of classical pieces similar to that.” Though not the same. Gokudera does like a good challenge. “I may not play them as well.”

[vosseeker]

"If anything, I'm more interested in the fact that some months ago, the party thrown for us by the little drones included reference to this being the third Anchor colony and the 'longest lasting thus far'," Starscream glowered — that had shocked everyone in attendance.

"How would I know if you were playing them well or not?" Starscream counters, which is a fair point. Unless Gokudera just starts smashing keys, the Seeker probably wouldn't notice some notes out of tune on a piece he'd never heard before.

"We didn't have any instruments closely analogous to a piano," Starscream muses after a moment. "Though I wonder if some songs couldn't be adapted anyway..."

[bakudan_bambino]

"I wonder if the second colony were comprised of similar individuals, or just leftover settlers from the first... or how many people made up that colony. We may be lasting long, but what if we are so few in number and that's why... maybe it hasn't put such a strain on resources?" Gokudera says, brow furrowed some. That's not something he knew about. It does sound shocking, and just provokes more questions.

"If I played it, knowing I hit the wrong key, there would be a pause. The tempo of most music is fairly easy to predict, and so if a note isn't correct, I'd assume you could notice. I may be wrong." Gokudera shrugs. He wouldn't start smashing keys, but he also knows that he'd probably play the same set of notes repeatedly until getting it correct.

"What instruments did you have?"