Chapter Text

Journey For Fame

Business Is Booming (For Everyone But Me)

Akita Neru - or, rather, a version of herself people lovingly (?) called Flop - awoke for the fifth morning in a row with her own frizzy golden ponytail in her mouth, choking her awake to the glorious sound of absolutely no notifications on her phone. A month or so ago, she'd finally released her namesake, "FLOP ERA", which had set her apart from all the other clones that worked around the city still waiting for inspiration to strike them and grant them a breakthrough moment.

It just so happened that said breakthrough moment was due entirely to her personality and bad luck, which she herself didn't much enjoy, given that to get it she had to put all of herself on true display - that was to say, an attention-craving, rather whiny depressed sad-sack who made no friends at all (until she had, of course, by finding another person who was also obsessed with getting famous - but that was post-release).

FLOP ERA had been the cure for itself though - as much as nobody liked her personally, everyone suddenly did because of the song. Finally she had her Fame, not to mention on her first try - but just as quickly as it had arrived, it ended, chiefly snatched by one of the accursed Tetos - always so popular, those leeches (except for one) - and then her pride and joy had its hype abruptly end.

And you see, she needed that Fame, that hype, to continue, or else... well, she didn't know what would happen exactly - given the Fame Point Registry, she'd probably lose her apartment - but she wanted her name on buildings. She wanted her own concerts. She wanted to be as popular as those creepy fast food workers or that lazy girl dressed like a chicken or to find the courage to sing like an overclocked computer as Disappearance had once upon a time. Flop... well, she didn't want to be forgotten. Hell, she hated the fact she was known as Flop now, but that was what set her apart from all the other Nerus, so she accepted that name begrudgingly.

Once she had her song, the thing that made her *her*, she could never really die until her music was played for the last time - well, with the exception of her being killed by another synth - but she could certainly end up being forgotten before, lost among the thousands of other cogs here in the big city and likely forced to live on the streets if her Fame truly ending up tanking further than it already had.

She did her namesake - in a more literal sense - directly out of her bed, and giving an annoyed face to the floor, as if the floor had feelings and could be insulted, rose up onto her feet again to open her apartment window.

What a view. Despite how dingy her living quarters really were, one thing her 5 minutes of fame had gotten her was a good view of the city, Vocatopia.

Vocatopia was most chiefly referred to as a parallel dimension which broadcast it's music to the beings - the viewers - on the "other side". If one wanted to be anything here, they had to have fame, clout, identity- have a song that influenced everyone and would stick forever, always noticed and relistened to by the Viewers. If they couldn't manage that, then away their social status went - no more shows, no more love, just going back to operating the city as a husk of what you once were. If they could, then they'd be permanently loved - not just by the viewers, but by their neighbors, permanently proving they were a cut above the rest. Faces on massive billboards hanging off skyscrapers, giant holograms in your image playing your songs over and over downtown...

That was what Flop was seeing now, in fact. Amid the pristine white, futuristic and electronic look of the city - cylinders of plastic or marble stretching far upwards, were the biggest stars both of modern times and for the entire period that their world had existed. A hologram of Miku - the original Miku, that was, which was impressive not many of the original versions of themselves were still popular in anything but the history books - sung that always popular song written in her namesake down in the park between her apartment building and the downtown area.

One day, that would be her, with her song instead. What song, of course, she didn't know, and how she'd push through when barely any viewers liked or even knew her, she knew even less. There were not very many Nerus in the world, and to it, she'd already had her moment.

But that could change. Here in Vocatopia, things worked a little differently than it did for the Viewers. For certain; being popular got you money and with that money you could buy food or transportation or so on - but more importantly, it got you Fame. Fame was the real metric Vocatopia ran on - who was the face on each of those holograms, who was potrayed on every billboard, the very apartment Flop was in right now, and even the algorithm that showed songs to the Viewers, all ran off a long list of every person in city and their fame rating. Living here was a contest, and everyone was a competitor, whether or not one was unkind enough to admit it. One could get Fame in many ways - being close to those already with it, doing public stunts in public areas, people could even give you Fame Points from their own ranking at great cost to themselves; but the real ticket for Fame was creating a song. Songs simply flowed out of synths if they had the right inspiration - the right DRIVE to allow music to simply form around one's self - and if you could find the inspiration to make a song which did well, then you'd become a real member of high society. She remembered a few months back when the city's top artist - whenever someone is the top artist they always had their song played nightly while their video was projected onto the tallest building in Vocatopia - kept fighting between the weird chefs - everyone called them the Mesmerizer Duo - and the even weirder Miku who she thought remembered had started running a casino now.

Anyway, the Fame Point Registry was VERY important to everyday life - from where they lived to how well-respected they were and how much they could get away with. If your fame points were very high, you got basically everything. If they were low... well, she didn't want to think about that, but she'd seen homeless Synths before, so she could make assumptions. Oh well. It was going to be another day of monotony and hoping to find inspiration wherever she could, she supposed. How boring. Flop grabbed her fashionable modern flip-phone, sat on the side of her bed, and opened up her feed. This was precisely how she'd started her day for the past... well, she didn't really know how long it technically had been? Probably years, but time was weird here - Flop was assuredly a young adult but probably hadn't lived for as long as she would've needed to in the real world with the viewers to get to that. Anyway, she always checked her phone before she went outside to find something she could upload and get some views of off. Seeing the daily news and trends told her what she could ride on the coattails of, which was one of the ways she'd been struck with the inspiration to make FLOP ERA in the first place.

So what was good today...?

Birdbrain... Birdbrain... yellow background... 'have you heard this old song'... Miku animated... Birdbrain... obscure song with a dark meaning... yellow background... how to get virality... yellow background... Miku cover of a Teto song, Teto cover of a Mi- hold on, what was that one a second ago?

It turned out she would not get to see, as a knock on her door drew her attention for a few crucial seconds.

"Flop!! Open up!! We're trying to copycat together today, right? Viewers love collabs right now!! We just have to do something together!!"

"Ugh- Ori, I woke up 20 minutes ago! Give me a second!"

"Okay! I'm going to be on the ground floor trying to work the vending machine! Be down there in 5 or you're slacking!" Ori was Flop's rather pushy friend - and quite possibly her best and only, given the circumstances. A Teto - which alone was rather surprising, given how many other Tetos always tried to push her down - Ori got her nickname from her song, "ORIGINAL VOCALOID SONG", which while more on the nose than her own shared a similar purpose. While Flop wanted fame, Ori wanted cash - or 'bands', as Ori would put it - which Flop considered understandable. Both of them studied trends and piggybacked off others' successes, and indeed she had promised to walk around Vocatopia with Ori today for inspiration, so for once her phone would have to wait. Still though... what was that mention of virality? Was that even a word? It didn't matter as long as whatever magic trick for Fame they were selling worked, Flop supposed.

She raised up again and tossed on her shoes and pink bow, slipping her phone into a pocket on her dress before emerging outside. She lived in an okay apartment building - not dangerous, but a little run down, on it's third and highest floor. It was open air for the most part up here - to her right was a concrete pathway that let her lean over a similarly concrete barrier to peer down at the ground below, and to her left another walkway that led to a more enclosed area with stairs to the other floors.

As she walked left, she came across a familiar Miku leaning on the barrier, staring at a closed door. The not-stalker's eyes flicked to Flop briefly - or rather one eye did, given that the other was in an eyepatch.

"Hello, Flop," she said gently, with that same gentle yet hopeful yet sad tone she always had. "It's a nice day today."

"Yeah, I guess so. Won't be a real nice day for me until I'm popular again..." Flop said with a frown on her face and a quick huff.

"Well, one doesn't need to look inside you to know that's true for you. But nobody can do anything alone. I'm glad you have Ori, at least. I'm sure you'll get there eventually!"

Flop sighed. Normally she was angry at everyone, but she just couldn't be with this dear neighbor of hers. After FLOP ERA had stopped trending, Moni brought Flop flowers every day until she finally stopped wallowing and left her apartment again.

"Thanks, Monitor... no luck with Roll, huh?"

In tandem, both of the two looked at the locked door of their neighbor, before Monitor shook her head with a sigh.

"Ah, well. Keep it up. I'm sure they appreciate it..."

Monitor shrugged.

"I just hope... no, nevermind. Thank you anyway for the encouragement. I won't stop until everyone's happy again!"

Flop grinned, then Monitor did in response before Flop moved on, calling out 'have a nice day' as she walked down the steps to the ground floor.

Ori was already waiting - leaning against the concrete wall of the apartment with a small pack of clearly-vending-machine-bought fruit gummies in her hands. The notably flashy packaging read 'FEAR GARDEN HAND TREATS', and each small, different-colored gummy was indeed in the shape of an outstretched hand. Flop... thought it was a little in poor taste for someone to make such a product basing itself off very real grisly murders, but nobody had seen the Fear Garden Killer in years. Whatever one needed to do for the money and Fame in this world, she supposed. Plus, it wasn't like they weren't really good...

... the gummies, not the murders!!!

Ori tossed her a separate package, and began to speak again as she tore into hers.

"So, are you going to stream this too?" Ori asked.

"This what? All we're doing is walking around Vocatopia trying to make a second song. Plus, my views have dropped so hard... We'd basically be streaming to nobody."

"So 'hell yeah' then?"

"Of course I'm streaming, Ori, I'm not an idiot. What ELSE would I be doing?"

"Keeping moments of life to yourself? *Not* having to interact with digital names all day for recognition? NOT raking in that sweet, sweet ad revenue?"

Ori's voice got more and more absurd and sarcastic with each sentence she said, clear what her take on this was as she fished out her own phone out of her dress - she always supported Flop's constant recording of her life for the sake of more Fame, per as long as Flop vice versa supported hers.

"It's not like I even get viewers to get ad revenue anymore. Back when my song was popular and I posted all those shorts about it, maybe, but now I'm back to zero viewers and zero money," Flop admitted.

"All the more reason you should stream. If we find something really cool today, then your reaction is live on camera and you end up with a viral clip before you release your next song! Easy, right? Or maybe we just record other people recording and then piggyback off of them?"

Flop shrugged, annoyed. No way they were really going to find anything today - any more inspiration. She and Ori were both lucky to have had the first inspiration to make their initial songs, let alone something else that they specifically could sing better than any other yet-to-be-defined Neru or Teto could.

Ori rolled her eyes, then gestured to the parking lot of the apartment building - or more specifically, a place off to the side of the parking lot where one could park bikes or electric scooters. Both Flop and Ori had one of the latter; both bought with - to state the obvious again - the limited but at the time extravagant fame and money they'd had from their songs. Each was a necessary purchase, to be fair, and not a regrettable one - with these, they'd turned the 15 minute walk to the downtown end of the city into a 5 minute cruise.

The downtown area of Vocacity was a bustling place full of local business, loud voices, and as was probably expected, music. Covers of songs new and old, newly inspired synths showing off their newly made music, and the old popular songs that had gotten so large they had singlehandedly made more viewers start listening to their world by breaking through that barrier where viewers actually recommended them to friends and so on. Flop normally had a sneer on her face, but it was redundant to have one in such a bright and happy area, full of such culture.

That said, as her one concurrent stream viewer, "IdTTPRiWO" - she didn't know what that stood for - had already leapt in chat to remind her that nobody could really hear her at the moment and they needed to find a place to go.

"So what should we do?" she shouted at Ori, who shrugged.

"I don't know! We're just looking for inspiration! There's a new meat shop that opened up around here if you want to go there! I'm pretty sure they teach Japanese lessons too. Weird combination, but maybe something interesting, right? Plus, have you eaten an actual meal today yet? 'Cause- 'Cause I haven't!"

"Yeah... I don't think I'm going into a butcher shop to get breakfast... what else?"

"There's the casino, I guess, if you wanted to try that," Ori said with an unimpressed expression. "As much as I like money, I don't think gambling's something we should be doing."

"It's not something you should be doing," Flop corrected. "I can take a loss. Sometimes. Do you remember when your song got popular and because it got popular with *cringe* people you shut yourself in your apartment and said you were never making music again? I can't imagine what you'd be like betting and losing."

Ori looked hurt, but seemed to dismiss the idea of the casino all the same, having been thoroughly convinced.

"Okay, well, then you get an idea then, if you're so smart," Ori said with a roll of her eyes.

"I don't know, there's a- a university?"

"-You wanna hang outside a university? Creep."

"NOT what I said, I'm just trying to find a place that we haven't been to that might have *anybody* who knows current trends or something!"

"Let's... maybe get breakfast first."

"Fine..."

Turning on their scooters again, they manuevered deeper into the city and adeptly through crowds of fellow synths all on their ways to various places as well. Any one of these people could hold the key to Flop's next inspiration, and if she were alone she'd stick her camera in the face of each one of them for an interview. But she didn't want to mess with Ori's plans - or hunger - so she restrained herself.

The peoples of Vocacity were strange and many. A lazy Teto in a business suit smoked a cigarette outside the door to an office building, leaning back in her bench. A Miku in a similar suit eyed her like a hawk, as if planning a rather forceful business takeover. Down an alleyway, she could see the ragged form of a long and messy haired Yi Xi in a grey shirt exchanging money for something - one couldn't really tell what, but at the same time Flop totally could. What else?

From a distance she spotted another Teto, this one in a solid color bright red and white dress - a horribly tied white choker in the shape of an 'x' on her neck - with her phone perched on top of a stack of schoolbooks, clearly watching something more entertaining than her education. How such an easily distracted synth had actually gotten herself to sing a song and get distinction, Flop had no idea... lots of pressure and self-deprecation, she guessed.

Finally, they arrived on a street in which restaurants both chain and local were known to be on, and once more Ori slowed down her scooter to address both Flop and her modest chat of 3 - herself, a bot, and that one dedicated user she'd read a message from earlier to be perfectly clear.

"Okay, so, what are we thinking specifically? The obvious and cheap choice is the Big Burger, because Flop is really basic-"

"Hey!!"

"- you know it's true, but you know, I heard another Teto opened up a maid cafe near here if you actually want viewers for once. Although... I heard it's weirdly political? Like all the meal names are a bunch of- you know what, maybe we should to Big Burger after all."

"Oh- yeah, I actually heard about that, I think? Weren't there a lot of ads for it on the TV? Chat, do you know anything?"

IdTTPRiWO: it's not bad I went there once but yeah drinking a voter suppression vanilla shake kind of makes you feel weird IdTTPRiWO: they had ads but it was only for late night shows and mostly on comedy channels. like the ones that were lax about being edgy. their theme was catchy thouvh IdTTPRiWO: hope this helps love you flop :heart:

Ignoring that last part by choice, Flop looked away from hee camera and back to Ori.

"Yeah, uh, Big Burger it is. You chose this though, not me. Let the record show that. So next time we're picking and I pick that place, you can't tell me I always pick it - so do you!"

"Whatever... hey, it's just there's nowhere else to go, really- or at least anywhere normal, apparently," Ori said, rolling her eyes.

A scooter hitch and a short walk away and the pair was entering the local iteration of the regional chain known as Big Burger. It was one of those modern, almost brutalist buildings with jagged edges and brown or grey tones - the only thing reminding you from the outside that if was a fast food joint and not a bank was the poor soul trapped in a mascot uniform spinning a sign out front. Inside, it was about what you'd expect from a place like this - what more was there to say, really? Already in the various booths were a fair few people - a busy day, it seemed, or perhaps given it's proximity and cheapness Big Burger just always brought in a consistent flow of college-age synths. A Miku with white hair and a coy side-glance here, a Len with a white button up shirt there - even a Miku and Gakupo eating together... of course everyone knew that last one was Melt; considering their love alone had basically exploded this city into the packed place of population it was now.

"Are you going to ask for an auto-" Ori began.

"NO!" Flop whisper-shouted back. "I'm better than that. One day I'll put even them to shame and they'll ask me for mine."

"Well, I'm going to. You go on and order us some Big Burgers."

With Ori splitting away, Flop walked towards the counter, being manned by a purple-haired and positively dead-eyed Teto. The cashier - no, wait, manager, it said so on the nametag that also identified the Teto as being named 'Mini' - looked rather unreadable; and she seemed to be silently looking like she was going to cry, scream, die or hit someone, perhaps all at the same time. Flop recognized this look considering she herself had had it the past 10 times she'd uploaded videos and gotten no traction from any given algorithm.

Well, regardless, it sucked for Mini but it really wasn't Flop's problem to hold a line up and play therapist. That was more Moni's game.

"Um, two Big Burgers please. And two large drinks as well," she said. Catching Ori mime eating a fry in her peripheral, she added, "... and one large fry."

"Will that be all?" Mini replied with all the warmth of a steel dumbbell.

"Yep! You don't like your job much, do you?"

Please don't get dragged into a big conversation, please don't get dragged into a big conversation, PLEASE-

"I signed up two weeks ago, I've become the manager already, I dyed my hair purple to impress my now ex and the stupid dye won't come out, and I've had it up to here with everything going wrong. If one more customer complains I swear I'll just-"

"Ma'am, could you just, like, put the fries in the bag?" Flop stopped her rant, not really feeling like listening at the moment. It seemed this might've been the wrong idea. If looks could kill, Mini would've evaporated Flop into a pile of fine fame-obsessed dust. Instead, the overworked employee simply turned around on her heels, dove into a closet, and elicited what she probably thought was a very muffled scream of utter mental anguish.

It was not muffled.

In the slightest.

Flop didn't particularly care though, so she collected her bag from some other nameless another worker and brought it to the table Ori was now sitting at, finally stopping to check her chat. Oh, another viewer-! Wait, no, that was a bot. Damn. It had sent some weird spam message, and she barely glanced at it before deleting it - although, had that message had the word Virality in it again? Weird. Was this a widespread scam now? Was she out of touch on new social media safety? No... no, it couldn't be...

Ori broke her out of her sudden fear spiral.

"Sooo, I've got an idea. What if we're kind of looking too current for our inspiration? I mean, okay, doing what was popular worked for us the first time, but we were just abusing the algorithm working to our advantage. Both flukes. We gotta look... to the past," Ori said, motioning dramatically with her hands.

Flop blinked.

"To the paaaast," Ori tried again.

Flop blinked again.

"The graveyard! I wanna go to the graveyard," Ori huffed. "Am I really that hard to figure out?"

"Oh. Yeah, okay, we can do that. Plus; stream content. You guys want to hunt for ghosts?"

IDTTPRiWO: YESSS

"If stream wants it then we can go and do it. Even though stream is just one guy at the moment..." Flop looked at her camera in a somewhat glum manner, earning an immediate sympathetic smile from her companion - her companion who was now done with both a burger and more than half the fries despite them technically being sharing this meal."

"Okay! Now? Did you pay for our meal already - can we get going? I feel good about this, Flop," Ori said. "I really think something will happen and we'll gain back inspiration again - or at least get the algorithm in Vocatopia to like us, regardless of the viewers out there. If we can just get a little fame, you know? It'll snowball. Algorithms work like that."

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard your big plan about getting fame here so we collaborate with someone known and get popular off them. Who and where is this magic collab, again?" Flop huffed.

"I don't know, maybe we'll meet them at the graveyard. Can we go, now, by the way? Sitting around isn't getting us fame *or* inspiration, and the cashier keeps giving you side-eye like she wants to kill you. It's just a little unsettling...?"

It took only about 10 to 20 minutes from leaving the Big Burger to standing in front of the entrance of the Vocatopia Municipal Graveyard. Contained within would be the remains of synths and songs long gone, new ones butchered too early, and all the other special cases for when an immortal - but not invulnerable - being passes on. Not a single gravestone here was of natural or likely even peaceful causes, and despite the small size of it, the sheer emotional weight of every synth beneath the soil that should've still been living was heavy on anyone's mind - even Flop's.

"Okay, well, we're here. Mind... telling me how this is going to help us get fame?" Flop huffed. "I might've agreed to come here but that doesn't mean I don't expect a plan on how you intend to get inspired inspiration from a bunch of headstones."

Ori said something she didn't hear in response, a gust of wind that sounded suspiciously like 'Let's fall' overtaking her ears. Still, Ori walked through the gates and waved for Flop to follow, which she did. Another gust of wind that sounded like 'Like the best of friends' whispered again from nowhere, but after that, she was finally focused once more.

It was a quiet place, the graveyard - not many people came here given that family was a rare thing for synths to be, and in a rushed world such as this people tended to forget everyone else faster than they ever should've. If it wasn't for that dark, melancholic presence that hung over this place it would almost be meditative - assumedly that was probably the basis for why Ori had even lead her here.

Dark, quiet, slow and devoid of life, in one of the only places in Vocatopia you could touch grass and see trees.

All of that was what Flop hated, so instead she tried to focus on the gravestones; only for those to make her feel worse. On two she spotted the word 'worthless' carved into them, obliterating whatever name had been there. A group of graves sat together, all different synths, but death dates all from within the same few months - victims of the Fear Garden Killer, she mused, including the original UTAU-Teto and Meiko (the latter of which had been going downhill in popularity ever since the killings - it was very rare to see a Meiko around nowadays).

Another headstone mourned the host of a beloved TV show in Vocacity, Static, who had disappeared one day and so they were forced to bury a casket without a body. She'd actually remembered that event, having gone to it herself - it had been really sad, though she never was close or watched Static herself, given TV was a dying medium. The final two graves she saw before tearing her eyes away were unmarked but clearly very new, and lying in front of one of them was a pile of items: a note, a rose, and a few other trinkets - most alarming being a skull Flop couldn't tell if was real or not.

"Well, now that we're here, we look over the graves and maybe we learn something we missed from whoever they were. And that gets us inspiration which allows us to make another song and get viral again, right?" Ori said, clearly having already lost faith in her own idea - or perhaps she just hadn't expected the graveyard to be as dark and spooky as it was. Whatever ghosts were here, they didn't seem to want to give up their secrets of fame easy.

"Well, go ahead and tell me what you're learning, because personally I'm cold and more focused on looking for ghosts for stream - speaking of, have you seen any, stream?"

IDTTPRiWO: yeah actually i thought i saw an arm behind the tree to ori's left

Flop, not much the believer in anything necessarily supernatural - or, at least, not much a believer in ghosts - immediately went to check such a claim out. After all, if ghosts did exist, she'd get one on record, and she'd be famous - and if they didn't, well, at least she would be known as courageous enough to run towards the potential supernatural entity with no second thought.

Behind the tree was not a ghost, but she did jump back a little seeing that there was in fact *someone* else here who neither of them had seen or heard - and she did look fairly ghost-like all the same.

Hiding - obviously intentionally so - behind the tree was a short girl who looked to be around 14, though Flop couldn't tell for certain of course - synths had a strange relationship with ages; some had a permanent age they never moved from, like the original Miku, while some looked younger or older than they were, some aged slower, and some aged as Viewers did -, with long black hair, a vacant expression slowly morphing into surprise, donning a long grey sweater and black sweatpants. This was a rarer synth type to see in Vocatopia - and even rarer still was it to find a Kaai Yuki with a specification.

"Hey!!" Flop shouted. "Were you watching us this whole time? Weirdo!"

"Actually, you're interrupting me... I was here first, listening to my friends," said the new synth cooly, contempt and annoyance hidden under a mask of shyness.

"Your friends?! Are there more of you behind the trees or something?!" Flop said, checking behind her rapidly.

"No, you wouldn't be able to see them if you tried... it takes a traveler's mind... but we're the best of friends, and they understand things aren't always as kind as they seem. I come here sometimes, when I can. Today my train broke down, and I live on the other side of the city, so here I am... listening... maybe one day they'll tell me where my umbrella went..." the other synth explained in a way that explained nothing, intentionally.

"Hold on! I know you," Ori said, sticking her head over Flop's shoulder to look behind the tree. "You're that one! The one who made the hits! Like, the really big hits, a few years ago! You've grown a little since."

Hits? Now Flop was interested. Maybe this synth could tell them her secrets, instead of the imaginary ghosts, and she'd be inspired that way.

"Mhm," said the Yuki. "Please don't ask me to sing. I'm a little reclusive, by nature. But, anyway, you can call me Lost. Some people call me Laggy, which is a little annoying, but there's nothing at all I can do about that."

Oh- right, that jogged Flop's memory quite a bit. Lost Umbrella and Lagtrain were both incredulously highly rated songs back a few years ago, with Lost having easily - if somewhat accidentally - rose into being an icon, seemingly out of nowhere. While she seemed very opposed to actually singing, Flop would use any technique she could learn from to have hits like Lost had.

"Wait, yeah, I know you too," Flop asked. "Like Ori said, you look older now, even though that sweater is... basically the same as always, if smaller."

Lost stared at Flop with rather dead eyes - ones that screamed that she'd be rolling her eyes if she cared enough to, except she entirely didn't.

Somehow, this... this child was outdoing Flop on her own stream by barely saying anything! She wasn't even insulting her! How was she supposed to compete with this?! And every second that Flop stayed quiet was another step closer for Lost to victory and fame and all the things Flop wanted and-

"Well, um, I'd really love to ask you some questions!" Ori chimed in, sensing the... tension? Agh, whatever one described this. "About your music, I mean. You're like, an inspiration, and we both want to make it big like you. Is that, um, okay?"

Lost shrugged.

"Okay, well, how does someone so... how do you get so famous? What should we be doing that we're missing?"

"Octave change," Lost yawned. "Near the end of the song, if I had any preference."

"What?" Ori and Flop said in unison.

"Octave change. What I did in Lagtrain. Hibana did it on her new song too. Well, to be fully honest, someone also shot off half her head to give her the inspiration to create the song in the first place - but the octave change at the end was a good, notable thing to include. Anyway, I guess they were trying to kill Hibana too. Probably the same people who tried to blow up my train. I still have no view of them."

Aaaarghhh; that advice was infuriatingly simple! Somehow it was both what she asked for and not. Of course techniques helped with making a good song, and she probably wouldn't remember to do something like that without Lost having said it first, but both her and Ori still needed an actual idea or a basis for a song - a hit song, at that. Ori had already figured out that it was a solid win to use a yellow background - and she really deserved credit for that - but here was one of the most prominent synths telling her remarkably obvious advice... almost annoyingly obvious advice... and both of them would be fools not to take it. Spoken had trained under Night Fever, and that had gotten her to be known as one of the most prominent current divas, so any word from a synth who made songs like Lagtrain one simply had to take as utter gospel (which was a very serious commitment given not many synths cared for the gospel anyway).

Hold on, what had Lost said at the end? Someone had tried to blow up her train?!

"- so, anything else?" Ori finished asking as Flop snapped back into it.

"Ah... sing from the soul, don't read words on a page. If you don't like your song... or feel your song... or ARE your song... it's not your song. And too many songs are so fast I can't bear them," said Lost, getting visibly increasingly bored.

"DID YOU SAY YOUR TRAIN EXPLODED?!" Flop bursted back into the conversation, causing Ori to nearly fall over and Lost to jump a little. "Why are we glossing over that?! I thought you said it 'broke down'! That's a huge difference!"

"Mhm. Well, the tracks blew up, at least. Whoever they are, they're good at keeping hidden but not good at doing their job. I assume the intent was to derail the train; we simply came to a stop and couldn't continue on," Lost mumbled with all the cadence of someone telling you about their slow work day, before quickly adding, "But the real problem is now I can't get home. It's too long of a walk."

IDTTPRiWO sent a shocked emoji in chat, which at least confirmed to Flop that she was, at least, not crazy for not treating this with utter casual disregard.

"... I... well, depending on where you live, we could give you a ride back on our scooters?" Flop suggested, still rather in shock from what she'd been hearing.

Lost shrugged once more, her expression never changing from that slightly disconcerted frown.

"If it'll support me and the driver both, I suppose such an action would be appreciated," Lost said. "Are we leaving now, or are you going to keep staring at the headstones? If you want for something to happen, nothing will. Only some people get to hear through the veil of rain. It's a blessing and a curse that I can."

She shot a look at Ori. It was her idea to come here; as bold as was it was probably Ori's choice still on whether to call their search for inspiration a fail for the day and go back home. There really wasn't much to do here; although Ori's idea leading to them saving a kid - a very famous kid, maybe one she could ask a favor from later - was at least a net positive, if they weren't struck with inspiration quite yet.

"Yeah, sure, we can go. I guess we can find our inspiration tomorrow instead, right Flop? You can go home if you want, I'll take Lost back to wherever she lives and then be there afterwards. It's a little longer spent with one the most viral synths around, right? Maybe I can learn a few other things from her!"

Lost yawned gently, blinking as she approached Ori's scooter - it didn't take a great intuition to figure out which color bike went to which synth.

"I think the most poignant thing," Lost said, a little louder, "is that you're obviously trying too hard. You're going out every day, trying to force yourselves to find something that is only meant to come to you instead. Let whatever it is you're waiting for show up, obviously, and then take that opportunity to run instead of hiding away."

Now that was advice! It was incredibly annoying and discouraging advice that basically told Flop to sit and wait for something to happen, but-

Wait a second. Maybe it already did. That really weird ad from this morning... maybe that's my sign!

Well, there was nothing as obvious as a glowing notice that said 'how to get virality', was there? Perhaps a bit on the nose from whatever viewership god had finally decided to favor her obviously deserving self, especially considering she didn't even think 'virality' was an actual word - but whatever, when hit came to the gift horse of fame she wasn't going to look it in the mouth. Before Flop could even calculate or think straight, she found herself on her scooter on her way home, having already said absentminded goodbyes while entirely still thinking what she would do if this strange advertisement turned out to be telling the truth.

There are probably stipulations when it comes to this sort of thing, right? I mean, nothing's ever free. Everybody either wants money or your fame. Nobody's just giving the secret to... what was it? Virality?

But she was prepared to pay whatever cost necessary, as long as she wasn't sharing the spotlight (well, with anyone but Ori) or controlled somehow. Besides, Lost had gotten her fame... probably a similar way, right? That was the implication, albeit now she kept saying people were trying to kill her, but hey, Flop wasn't going to worry about that-

As fast and as focused as she could, and about 10 FLOP ERA fans nearly run over while they asked for her autograph (only 10? Utterly pitiful) later, she found herself back in front of her apartment, still dark and still when she walked in as how she'd left it.

She closed her door behind her, locking it before laying in bed again and opening her phone. She hoped the page with the ad on if wouldn't have refreshed, but in all likeli- whoa! What the... Just opening her phone had given Flop's phone a black screen with a green smile on it - below the 8-bit grin, it simply read this time, 'WANT VIRALITY? CLICK BELOW'.

It was exactly what she wanted to see, and while not exactly the same as as earlier, it was clearly by the same person. It was weird it was appearing without a prompt on her home screen though, without her even opening an app...

Whatever. I guess you really ARE a sign.

Without a second thought, she tapped the button, and watched as that same green 8-bit smile suddenly flashed not just on her phone, but on her TV and PC as well- as if it had simply been waiting for her to accept its offer this whole time.

... Shit, what have I gotten myself into now?