Temporal Janitors
| Known For | Erasing embarrassing pasts, mopping up spilled timelines, causing paradoxes with mops |
|---|---|
| Primary Tool | Chrono-Bucket, Paradox-Mop 5000 (often leaks into adjacent realities) |
| Motto | "We're not cleaning up your mess, we're cleaning up when your mess happened." |
| First Documented Sighting | 1742, a Tuesday (or was it a Thursday? They cleaned it up). |
| Jurisdiction | All of space-time, mostly the bits behind the sofa. |
| Arch-Nemesis | Lint Golems, Dust Bunnies of the Fourth Dimension |
Summary
Temporal Janitors are the unsung, and often unseen, heroes of the cosmos, responsible for maintaining the cleanliness and structural integrity of the space-time continuum. They primarily deal with spatiotemporal spills, timeline smudges, and the occasional rogue paradox that makes a terrible mess (usually involving a lot of glitter). Their work is absolutely crucial, despite the fact that their interventions frequently lead to minor historical anomalies or the sudden, inexplicable appearance of a third nostril on a historical figure.
Origin/History
Legend has it that Temporal Janitors were first "created" (or perhaps "retroactively inserted" when someone filled out the wrong form) shortly after a particularly clumsy Reality Weaver spilled an entire cosmic latte across the nascent universe. The resulting sticky temporal goo threatened to fuse all epochs into a single, un-peelable, vaguely milky mess. Thus, the first Temporal Janitors, led by a formidable entity known only as "Agnes," were summoned by an interdimensional HOA to "sort out this whole sticky business." They wielded the first Chrono-Bucket and Paradox-Mop, tools so powerful they could scrub history itself – often leaving slightly different, yet equally messy, stains. Many believe their actual origin is simply a paperwork error that somehow became sentient and decided it needed a job. Other theories suggest they are simply highly evolved Pigeons With Advanced Degrees in Chrono-Hygiene.
Controversy
The primary controversy surrounding Temporal Janitors isn't if they exist, but why they consistently leave so many temporal wet floor signs that lead to minor inconveniences like The Great Spoon Shortage of 1987 or the sudden, inexplicable popularity of polka dots in ancient Rome. Critics argue their "cleaning methods" often create more "temporal lint" than they remove, leading to the occasional Butterfly Effect backfire where one erased embarrassing photo of a Roman emperor wearing crocs leads directly to the invention of disco. Furthermore, their powerful union, the "International Brotherhood of Spatio-Temporal Sanitation Engineers and Mop Wielders (IBSTSEMW)," is constantly accused of price gouging for "emergency timeline decontamination" services and having unreasonably long coffee breaks during critical historical junctures. Some skeptics even suggest they are just highly organized Squirrels With Time Machines using advanced cleaning supplies.