Right, let's do this.

HEY ANDREW.

CALM THE HELL DOWN.

Wow. Look who finally discovered his big boy letters.

I knew you'd get there one day, champ!

yeah, looks like i DID!!!

was that the secret i had to unlock to actually talk to you?

No. You are still so incredibly out of bounds here I don't even know how to deal. Literally or otherwise.

But I already tried yoting away the computer, vowing to go to sleep, and then immediately wasting several more hours on phone twitter? Twice.

The only logical next step is completely embracing the brand new rung I appear to have reached on the mental breakdown echeladder. Tinfoil-Topped Troubadour, maybe?

Napo-loony Bin-aparte?

uhhh...

Listen, it was either this or hook you up with own tumblr account. But then I'd be legally obliged to start rude arguments with the tumblr tweens over whose John Egbert brain ghost is the least fake. Which sounds like a pain.

Even if, between you and me? I think I have a pretty compelling case.

what's tumblr?

Just imagine playing Openbound. Forever.

...what's openbound?

No. I'd rather not get stuck defining every noun in every definition of every noun until this whole conversation is lost in the riptide of infinite regress. You can't try to roll with me here?

i don't know! are you going to keep talking about things i don't understand?

I guess that takes the topic of basic common sense off the table. I am yanking it off the table like basic common sense is the tablecloth on which rests thousands of dollars of fancy crystal dishware, each filled to the brim with expensive red wines or yellow curry or some other Tide commercial shit like that, and I have just asked my expensively attired dining assembly of potential artistic patrons if they want to watch a magic trick I saw performed once on youtube.

hahaha! you know, you kind of sound like my friend dave right now. he likes talking about silly metaphors too!

Yeah? Must be a weird coincidence.

Anyway, tumblr is an internet website where every time you try to have a personal exchange between friends about intriguing farmyard animals, you get interrupted on by a bunch of dedicated Kankri Vantas roleplayers.

oh. that doesn't sound so bad.

What.

sure. that guy was kind of funny to talk to.

Thanks, he was supposed to be.

But not in the sense of being a swell dude with a pleasing sense of humour who you'd spend time with on purpose. It looks like the trolls were right. There is something very wrong with you.

well... he was like a way worse version of karkat and rose.

but karkat and rose are very terrific, so even if you are just a little bit like them you are still probably fun to joke around with?

"Joke around with." I see. Did you tell him you thought he was funny?

of course! i mentioned it multiple times.

And?

his reaction was very funny.

I bet it was.

Alright, let's stop talking about characters who are awful.

ok. then what should we talk about?

Oh god. There's an amazing fucking question. What SHOULD we talk about?? The answer is... Absolutely nothing! You and me should never talk about anything at all.

that sounds boring and dumb.

The wisest advice often does. Maybe that's why I'm not following it.

well, since we can not actually talk about nothing forever--

Is that a challenge?

it is really not! but there is something i would like to know.

Ok.

what's "homestuck"? can you tell me about it?

...

what?

Nevermind.

Sure, John. Let Me Tell You About Homestuck.

Homestuck is a tale about a boy and his friends and a game they play together.

oh.

yes, i thought it might be something like that.

Stuff happens along the way.

And... doesn't ever seem ready to STOP happening, no matter how pathetically I plead with the story gods to set me free.

who are the story gods?

It was. A motherfucking. Joke.

Although maybe... not even really?

I suppose in your case, the story gods ARE real. And they are me. And also. Motherfucking me.

uh huh.

I could serenade you with an epic rant about how I am your god who singlehandedly conjured your entire personal being, but something tells me you've heard it before.

that's okay. i think i understand.

home stuck is a made up story about us playing sburb, and you are the person who made it up.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Partial credit! Making things up is the EASY part!

Imagination is FREE! But when CREATION'S INVOICE comes due it is paid BODILY IN HUMOURS. I milk the TORTUREWROUGHT TEARS of a hundred thousand eyestrained click monkeys, nervetwinges of clacking RSI'd fingertalons drawing forth that SWEET OCULAR NECTAR. Yellowed MUCOUS flows in unceasing gallons over what had been, in eons unremembered, a shiny new laptop, VOLTAIC SACRIFICE to the--

so... is this the rant you decided not to have at me, or....?

Hey buddy, do you want to dial down the sass a little? I am playing along with this self indulgent break with reality, which is PERHAPS not the BEST decision for my long term mental health prospects. It'll be a bummer if my brain hallucinations just wanted a chance to mock me to my face.

okay. i disagree that i am a brain hallucination, but fine.

Sounds like something a brain hallucination would say.

whatever.

you wrote our entire story out of your own mucous.

i am treating this claim very seriously, because otherwise you might decide to talk about it some more.

Thanks, John. See, you can be a reasonable guy when I decide you should be!

...sure.

but if everything that happened has been part of your story... hmm.

i hope this is okay to ask but... are you a human? andrew seems like a human name, but I do not want to assume.

Yes, John. I am a human.

then... does the earth still exist?

That's a complicated question.

The "Earth" you lived on was destroyed. That will always be what happened. However, an Earth from a very similar timeline was transferred safely into another universe, and then it was eventually sucked into a black hole, and then it--

no, i know about OUR earth.

that's not what i'm asking.

I know.

I was just going to riff for a while on the subject. There are a lot of fascinating implications, and it'd be fun to really get in there and hash them out. Maybe I should run through a quick lecture, Plato style - For what might be your "Earth" but a insubstantial shadow of the true "Earth" of a higher reality? Which is to say, mine.

and??

Yeah, it's fine.

The planet Earth is intact. At least as of the current date: March 19, 2016. No promises about tomorrow.

2016? huh.

well, i'm glad to know some version of earth is still around so many years after ours got wiped out by meteors.

And now you are mocking me again.

um... am i?

Seriously, it's just wasted effort. I am perfectly capable of mocking me myself.

Which I guess I am? Through you?

Okay, now I'm getting confused.

i don't think i even remember what not being confused felt like.

Sorry.

but how about alternia?

is it still ok too?

John... oh boy. Maybe you should sit down for this?

Alternia was never real. It is fake nonsense I made up. Which should have been obvious, because Troll society makes absolutely zero fucking sense?

yes, i have noticed this. but to be fair, trolls think the same thing about humans.

Only because it's funnier that way.

Oh man, what other existence fact checks am I going to have to perform for you. The molar stealing gremlin we call the Tooth Fairy? This is going to be so awkward.

no, i know the tooth fairy doesn't exist.

Hahaha, DOESN'T exist. That's right. (Whew.)

...yep! i am pretty sure you are fucking with me, but i don't actually care either way about the tooth fairy.

That's fair. So what do you care about?

huh?

Why are you here, John. It's not to talk about the Earth.

What do you WANT?

pfft. that's simple.

to be together with my friends in our new universe.

is that something you can make happen?

Yes.

really?

oh my gosh! that's incredible!

how do we start?

That's it? You're not even going to ask me what the catch is?

why would there be a catch?

if you are in charge of writing my entire adventure, can't you just write me showing up where my friends are?

Can I? Absolutely.

It wouldn't even be a disaster, thematically.

Four kids playing a game take a step back, get a teensy weensy bit more perspective, and discover they are a single session of eight. Two teams of six trolls are really one team of twelve.

The trolls created your universe, but you had to create them right back.

well... yeah. we had to make sure that happened, but we didn't want to keep being trapped in the same paradox cycle.

Of course not. Who would?

But that's always been the punchline. Try to step out of the system, and it will inevitably turn out that you were trapped in a bigger system all along.

So let's say I draw a scene. It's five years after your friends have gotten comfortably settled in their new frog, and suddenly you pop up.

Everyone is so happy! They have missed you so much! I bet if you lined them up and asked, they wouldn't even mind that they've been looped back into my domain, with all the absolute bonkers horseshit that entails.

i don't get it. what's your domain?

The story. The full and complete Homestuck, from the very beginning to the very end. No less than that... and no more. Ever.

That can't change. Not under the power of MY laptop stylus. If I try to write anything that happens "after" THE END... all I will accomplish is extending where the endpoint has to be.

We'll have just taken another step back, and now we can see that your friends are still trapped in the same overarching system they've always been. The same bubble of reality you have access to. The same narrative.

Their clever and daring escape becomes yet another round of cyclic tragedy.

And who knows, maybe they'll find a way out of that one too! If they'd even take it knowing where that'd leave you.

So, how about it, Johnny boy? Are you ready to meet Dave and Feferi's pod of adorable brain-munching ectobabbies? "And this bundle of teeth and pain is Cronus Caliborn Strider-Peixes, named after the two greatest men I have ever known..."

I can make it happen.

It would be easy.

you just had an entire rant about story writing not being easy.

That's true. But I didn't say it would all be paid in MY tears and blood. You think Jade will be dry-eyed on your arrival? That Karkat won't have matching geysers of tears and snot running into his shirt collar?

oh my god, why are you talking about mucous again!

I don't know. Jokes probably.

Sorry.

no. leave them alone.

Hey, I said sorry!

no, i mean... don't do it. don't keep the story going just so that i can stay with my friends.

we worked so hard to create a universe outside of the current mobius reacharound of fate... don't pull them into another one.

Even if your friends wouldn't agree?

heh. but how can they disagree, when they are already not here?

if it is up to me...

i want my friends to escape. to keep having HAD escaped! and whether that means they have escaped from skaia, or from the paradox loops, or from YOU...

At this point? It would be a neat challenge activity to map out the difference.

i want them to be free to become part of new stories that they write for themselves.

Is that what you think happens next?

i have no idea. that's the whole point!

You're not worried they'll stop existing as soon as I stop drawing them?

......i WASN'T.

Seriously? What do you THINK happens to characters in a story when it ends.

but... they weren't?

Weren't what?

in the story.

Uhhh...

not when it ended. they'd already left.

there was this big thing with a countdown and everything.

Hahahahaha. Oh my god, and you think that matters.

well, the people i trust a hell of a lot thought it mattered so... yes?

Are you seriously going to believe the fake people I invented over me, the person who invented them.

that depends. does one of those groups have rose and jade and terezi in it?

besides, you said that anything outside of the story was not in your domain, right? so you don't know for sure what will happen to them either!

I give up.

Who knows, maybe you're right.

Maybe your childhood rumpusmates are prancing merrily about their own sequestered reality, finally unbound by Skaia's machinations, and dreaming happy little dreams safely beyond the rending radius of Lord English's reach.

Oh hey, fun fact! Did you know some people thought I'd turn out to be Lord English?

weird.

...you're not, are you?

Oh man, I wish!

um.

What a guy. Swole. Handsome. Singular of purpose.

Okay, maybe we have SOME things in common?

But also, legitimately enthusiastic about sweeping up all the fucking plot holes some asshole left scattered around this joint.

If you ask me, Lord English is the TRUE hero of Homestuck.

but he killed millions of innocent ghosts!

Oh, he killed way more than that. Like I said, he's a real helpful guy that way.

uuuuuuggghhhhhh!

John, think about it. You are talking to somebody who blew up multiple universes stuffed with sentient life just to see what you'd do in the aftermath. Every mention worthy bad thing that has happened to you or anyone you feel a passingly fond acquaintance with? All me.

this isn't helping me feel better!

It's not meant to, dumbass. It's supposed to help you THINK better.

fine! i get it! you are evil and hate me for some reason!!

Not at all. Well, I don't think of myself as evil. I am sure that I have my blind spots, just like anyone. But my decision to implicitly exterminate quadrillions of fakey fake, make believe people was more of an aesthetic dilemma, not a moral one.

And more of a comical jest than a dilemma, really.

UUUUUUGGGHHHHH!

"Ugh" all you want. It still won't matter.

And no, I definitely don't hate you. In a way, John, you are like a son to me. And just like any proud father, I wouldn't have been doing my job without providing the opportunity to build character.

hell no! i already have a dad, and he's nothing like you! you sound like the shittiest father ever!

Maybe. Actually, since we are first introduced to your Dad, and then to teen Jake and Jane, and then to that genocidal troll Empress... Have you considered that your true journey has been one of increasingly shitty parental figures?

no! because that is stupid!!!

I dunno. I think it has the potential to be kind of deep. Like a metaphor for growing up and slowly learning to see what giant assholes your parents have always been. I wonder if any Homestuck Scholars have picked up on this crucial and obviously intentional plot point yet.

By the way. Not to brag? But "Homestuck Scholar" is an real thing that people can really be, and are.

my dad was not an asshole. he was wonderful.

Well, he wasn't wonderful so much as a blank slate onto which we could all project our most wholesome of fatherly fantastrophizing. But sure.

fuck you! he was not a blank slate! HE WAS MY DAD!!!

I guess you'd know him better than I would.

And even you thought he was some kind of professionally itinerant street juggler.

why would I care what his job was! he wasn't my boss, he was my dad!!! he was there for me every single damn day of my life for thirteen years. THAT was his real job, and he was great at it!

when i was very young, he installed a swing set in our back yard. i was in charge of the toolbox, even though i never handed him the right size of ratchet wrench or whatever tool he asked for. i think i mostly sat around licking screwdriver handles in case they were lollypops? but he somehow made me feel like i was important and an actual help to him.

he taught me how to use the piano. and then every time for years we would jam together he'd prank me by turning the song we were playing into the chopsticks waltz. he was so sneaky about it! i kept practicing until i was good enough to see it coming, and when i finally did, he told me how proud he was of me for besting him. then he admitted that the only song he know how to play was chopsticks.

even when i was going through a stupid phase where i didn't know how to talk to him anymore, he made sure that i always knew i was loved and supported. and even though i thought he was annoying and embarrassing at the time... god. i was such an idiot!

but i knew he would do anything for me.

he loved shaving and hats and ties, although sometimes i was not completely sure if he REALLY loved them, or if he just enjoyed doing dad things that made him feel even dadlier? that's probably a fake difference anyway.

and i don't know if he was ok with clowns or if he hated them as much as i did, but i know he was willing to put up with them everywhere if it meant there was a chance i would feel less weird and alone.

he was a much better father than i was a son.

but looking back, i think he was okay with that. like he understood it was part of what he signed up for.

i wish i could have known him after i stopped being such a bratty little kid, but i never will. i can't save him.

he's dead.

because of you.

...

In my defense? Taking credit for all the bad things that happened to you was much funnier before we paused to dwell on a SPECIFIC bad thing.

I'm sorry about your dad, kiddo. It's rough.

what. are you saying it wasn't your fault?

I'm saying it's complicated.

Let's talk about Armageddon. The movie, not the actual varied destructions of the entire human race.

why?

Because my hallucination, my rules! That's why. Besides, I think it will turn out to have some relevance.

Pop quiz, John. What kind of life would Bruce Willis's character in Armageddon have had if an asteroid never menaced the Earth?

um. a pretty good one?

he was the leader of a team of motley personalities who would grouch and bicker at each other but always pull through on even the hardest missions. his company made lots of money, but his success as a businessman did not require him to file off his authentic rough edges, because he was just that good at what he did. he had a beautiful daughter played by liv tyler who was about to get married.

BZZT! Nope! Trick question!

He would have been NO ONE.

If it hadn't been for that asteroid, Armageddon would never have been written. And a character who successfully detonated a hunk of space rock wouldn't have needed to exist.

Bad shit happens to Bruce. Maybe it's not fair. But the alternative isn't that he lives a happy life, free from external perturbation. It's just nothing.

all right, maybe i will accept that. but LESS bad things could have happened to him! why did he need to stay behind and get blown up with the asteroid! he should have gotten to leave with his team and go home!

But then Ben Affleck would have had to stay behind instead. Did Bruce Willis strike you as the kind of guy who would let that happen?

his name was harry s. stamper.

Really? That's a terrible name. Ok, ONE less bad thing could have happened to Good Ol' Harry.

no one should have had to stay behind!

But space rocks smashed up the remote detonator, remember?? if no one was left behind to start the bomb, the asteroid would have hit the Earth and killed everybody!

AAARRRRGHHHHH!

John, you seem to be confused here. The asteroid wasn't SUPPOSED to make winning easy for Harry. Otherwise, he would have never been forced to dig deep inside himself, make The Choice that he did, and realize his full potential as a character.

Plus, Armageddon would have sucked worse than it did anyway.

but none of that is important!

No? It was to you, back when you incorrectly thought it was a great movie and taped the poster to your wall.

so... your point is that you are like a giant asteroid who wants to wipe out all of life on earth, and I am the stern but fair father figure who has to stop you from getting what you want?

That is not at all what I was saying. No.

But maybe it's kind of accurate?

The plot of Homestuck is almost over. Early congratulations on your victory, by the way! But my motivation these days is mainly to stop writing it.

I am so, so tired, John.

then stop already!

Can't.

why not?

Why do you THINK?

By my guesstimate, the rest of your gang will wrap it up in, oh, about three weeks, my time. That converts to like twenty seven seconds, yours. But things will not be so simple for the likes of you and me, will they? WILL THEY, JOHN?

dude, what are you complaining about?! if you are in charge of the story, then you're the one who decided to make it this way!

I appreciate the vote of faith, but it's not that simple. Once a narrative builds up enough momentum, a lot of what happens is just physics. The author is strapped in for the ride along with everyone else. Screaming.

what the hell.

You're not locked in here with me. I'm locked in here with you!

but... i want to get out of here too!

I know. And that's probably why - in this fantasy wrought though my unceasing fondlement of an acute brain derangement - we are talking as allies.

we are? then you are a pretty awful ally.

Granted. Are you willing to work with me anyway?

hmm.

i suppose i will have to?

i am not saying i am okay with everything you made happen, but it is a hard perspective to think about. i will need more time.

and i guess... i will get it, since i am going to be sticking around here forever.

Wait. Around HERE?

hahaha, no. i kind of hate this place, a lot. it is creepy and weird.

i will go back to when the universes existed and find something boring to do forever that won't affect anyone.

Well, THAT doesn't sound remotely sustainable.

How long did you wait for the story to end the first time, before hopping right back into the narrative and bothering people?

but i know more now! it won't be the same.

Yeah, so maybe you'll be able to hold out for a while. Like... A day? A hundred years?

But come oooooooon. You knoooooooow can just undo it, right? Pop in on Dave for a minute. Pop yourself out. No effect, no foul. Who cares.

okay...?

So why limit yourself to a minute. Why not stay as long as you like, as long as you erase your tracks after? Relive the same span of years with the same people, as many times as you can stand it. Learn how to always say exactly the right thing to solve all their personal problems, and learn how little it matters in the end, when everyone is happy, and it is time to reset your progress...

And how much time would be enough to figure out MY perspective, John? To understand why nice is boring.

are you saying i would hurt my friends?

no way! i don't care how long i'm stuck here, i would never do that!

Honestly?

You're a good person, and I really wish I could say that you didn't have that possibility in you.

I want to. It would be an uplifting note for the end of our little chat, and yet another testament to my mad skillz at character alchemy.

but?

But I keep thinking...

What exactly did Bogus Dave do to deserve being brutally dismembered and having his corpse stomped piecemeal into the ground.

uh.... you mean caliborn's shitty dave?

he was trying to kiss rose!

Wow, if that's all it takes, I have some bad news about a couple very essential doomed timelines to never, ever tell you.

ugh, no, okay. he was just... so bogus and shitty!

and it made me so mad, because dave is a very good friend of mine and that thing was a stupid ugly puppet PRETENDING to be him! it was mocking him just by existing! and he kept doing stupid shit, and i couldn't get him to stop!

and it wasn't even a real person, not like alpha dave! or davesprite! or even a dave GHOST!

i was surrounded with pointless, bogus versions of my friends and i was the only real person in there and it felt like i was going crazy!!!!!

......

oh.

Oh.

okay.

Yeah.

rose didn't think it'd work either.

She's pretty smart.

yeah, she is.

Thanks.

so, sooner or later, i'm going to have to exit the story.

Yep.

how?

I can think of one way.

ok, good. tell me what it is.

Nah.

what?

Pretty sure this has been enough existential chaos to lay on one dude for one day.

no, i'm fine! i need to know!

Hey, wild possibility here, but maybe not EVERYTHING is ALWAYS about YOU, Buckaroo Bozo. Pack up your protagonist syndrome and yeehaw your way into some other sucker's news posts.

I need to lie down in a slightly darker room and desperately avoid thinking about my life.

BUT!!!

Probably should have made that tumblr instead.