2019-09-28 00:26:39 -05:00
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<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 11</title>
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<div id='s11'></div>
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<h1>Chapter 11</h1>
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2020-03-29 12:23:21 -05:00
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<div class="o-story_text o_epilogue type-rg type-sm line-caption line-copy pad-x-0 pad-x-lg pad-b-lg">
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<p class="no-indent"><span class="opener type-hs-opener-rg type-hs-opener-sm">T</span>hat’s
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that, you think. Your glasses are broken forever, and you totally
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fucked up and underestimated young Lord English. Rose should have
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known better than to trust this to you alone.</p>
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<p>Rose, <em>Rose</em>... your smart, amazing friend Rose, you can
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almost hear her voice now.</p>
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<p class="Command">> Listen closer, jackass.</p>
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<p class="no-indent">Oh, wait. You do hear her voice. Vibrating low
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and muted through the wall of your cell. You’ve only realized right
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now that your cell has walls, because it’s awfully bright in here.
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It’s so white that nothing in the cell is casting a shadow. Looking
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around, you realize there is no apparent source to all this bright
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light, making it hard to tell where the floor ends and the walls
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begin.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: John? John? Are you there?</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">Her voice is muffled, coming from what you
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presume to be an adjacent room similar to yours on the other side
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of the wall.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: yeah, i’m here.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Oh, thank goodness. Everyone’s accounted for
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then. Are you okay?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: what?</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: Are you OKAY?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: i think so. i can barely hear you though.</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">You can hear a thud from Rose’s corner, like
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someone slumping against the wall in relief. Well, that’s what
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you’re doing at least.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="jade">JADE: —ay?</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: yeah im fine too but this is</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: uh</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: this is kinda dorky to say out loud but i
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dont</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: feel... time</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: thats not just me right you guys feel it
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too</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: or dont</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: yeah</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: i mean theres obviously space inside this box
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but i cant do ANYTHING</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: its like im blind</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">The noise outside the juju grows. Something
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sharp and metallic splinters above and rains down on the top of the
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chest.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="rose">ROSE: What did my future self say it was we had to
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do?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: erm... she never rea—</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: WHAT?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: she—</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: I CANT HEAR YOU</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: UM, SHE NEVER REALLY TOLD US WHAT WE HAD TO
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DO, EXACTLY?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: JUST WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, IN A REALLY
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LOOSE SORT OF FASHION?</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: DOES THAT MEAN WE’RE STU—</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">The metallic noises rain down harder, drowning
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out Rose’s attempt at being loud.</p>
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<p class="no-indent">PLINK, PLINK, SMASH.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: NOW I CAN’T HEAR YOU!</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: TRY USING LESS WORDS</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">The length of the silence coming from Rose’s
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corner communicates just how difficult a task that is for her.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: SHE SAID THE JUJU WOULD GET LOADED AND
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UNLOADED.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: WHAT?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: SO, I MEAN, IT JUST GOT LOADED I THINK?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: WITH US.</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: SO???</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: SO I DON’T THINK WE’RE TRAPPED IN HERE
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FOREVER.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: WE’LL BE UNLOADED FROM IT... AT SOME
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POINT?</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: WHAT?????</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: I KNOW IT’S ALL A BIT ABSTRACT, BUT...</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: NO, I JUST CAN’T HEAR YOU!</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: JOHN YOU SUCK AT YELLING</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: UGH!</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">You stop trying to loudly reassure the worried
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teens for a moment, and just think. Now you understand defeating
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young Lord English was never supposed to happen. Not the way Adult
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Rose was implying it would. You surmise the other four teens
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remaining outside the juju were the ones meant to be tasked with
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his defeat. And judging from the cacophony still emanating from
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beyond the walls of this house and its confining chest, they are
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taking the task seriously.</p>
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<p>But what does this mean for the four of you?</p>
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<p>You try to picture what’s going on in the battle outside, but
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it’s not easy.</p>
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<p class="Command">> Use your imagination.</p>
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<p class="no-indent">In your imagination, the battle is quite vivid
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and exciting. The coolness of the action in your mind’s eye is
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belied by the actual sound effects booming all around you, which
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you can only describe as vaguely stupid. There’s a lot of
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hysterical screaming, which, if you’re not mistaken, is coming
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exclusively from the male combatants. There’s a sudden swelling of
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energy that speaks to a vastness behind its power source. Almost as
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if an outrageous bubble of pure Hope were enveloping the stage, is
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how you would describe it if you didn’t mind sounding ridiculous.
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Then you hear... it can’t be. Horses?? No, not simple horses of
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flesh and bone. These horses are metal, if we’re to believe they’re
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horses at all.</p>
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<p class="Command">> Stop using your imagination.</p>
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<p class="no-indent">This isn’t getting you anywhere, and clearly
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your silly imaginative whims aren’t doing the slightest bit of
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justice to the actual awesome things taking place out there in the
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heat of battle. Frankly, your theorized skirmish lost the handle on
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any legitimacy it might have had the moment you started thinking
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about horses. You figure no one will ever truly know what’s
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happening out there. You doubt anyone would even be able to handle
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how incredible the raw, unfiltered account of this teen brawl
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actually was, so it’s probably for the best.</p>
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<p>As you slip out of your fanciful conjecture, which may or may
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not have included a mechanical horse ambush, you overhear Dave from
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one of the rooms below you, raising his voice to speak to either
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you or someone else. You’re not sure. You place your ear to the
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floor again.</p>
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<p>He’s speaking to Jade. They’re attempting to reminisce again, to
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the best of their ability to do so while shouting through a wall.
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Once more you ruefully reflect on these teen versions of your
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friends, and all the questions they must have for you. For each
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other. What would you even say to them?</p>
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<p>Would you want to tell them about the happy outcomes, knowing
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they might never get the chance to experience those things for
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themselves? Would you tell them the sad outcomes, thus reinforcing
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their insecurities and suspicions that they may never truly be
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capable of living happy lives? You’re not even sure you could
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handle it, if you were Teen John. You’d have too many follow-up
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questions, which Adult John is in no way prepared to answer. Would
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you tell them what’s up with Roxy and Calliope, again having no
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real grasp yourself over what’s up with them? Would you tell them
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Dave and Karkat... uh... live in a hive together watching TV all
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day, and Jade maybe kinda sorta lives there too, but nobody quite
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knows what’s really going on with that? Would you tell them about
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Terezi...</p>
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<p>For some reason her name feels like nails in your heart. Makes
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sense, you guess, cause there’s a lot of sharp letters in it. She
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had sharp teeth too, and sharp elbows. Sharp words. Terezi Pyrope
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was a sharp girl, and maybe what these sharp feelings are trying to
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tell you is you miss her more than you realized.</p>
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<p>She wouldn’t have let you neglect relationships with certain
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friends for so long that you missed whole chapters of their lives.
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She wouldn’t have put up with you moping around with the
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salamanders for so long. She would have kicked your ass for being
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such a loser about everything. She would have poked you in the
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forehead and called you insufferably lame and told you to pick up
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the damn phone. You would have called her a weirdo and pretended
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you hated it, and maybe you would even have believed you hated it.
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But now, sitting here in this little white cubicle, contemplating
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your regrets, you don’t think you’d have hated it much at all.</p>
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<p>Would you tell the teens that?</p>
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<p>You’d probably never tell anyone that. Not even her.</p>
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<p>Another arbitrary thought hits your brain, completely unrelated
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to the subject of Terezi, or what you would or wouldn’t tell a
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bunch of incarcerated teens, or so you think.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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<p class="john">JOHN: am i... depressed??</p>
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</div>
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<p class="no-indent">You ask aloud, quietly enough that your
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friends cannot possibly hear it. All the question does is crawl
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back down your throat and burrow into your gut like it lives there.
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And it does live there, because as it turns out, you are really
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fucking depressed. You’re just a giant, wet meat sack of
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self-involved misery, and all that big, wet, meaty ooze drips out
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your mouth every time you open it. All the time and space in the
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world isn’t making it better. It’s something you should have been
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doing for yourself, instead of waiting around for things to get
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better.</p>
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<p>Well, screw waiting! It’s boring as hell! You are JOHN EGBERT,
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after all, immortal CREATOR OF WORLDS, the one and only man ever to
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completely transcend the partitions of CANON ITSELF. You’ve got
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these powers, remember?</p>
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<p>You hold up your hands and form a rectangle with your fingers
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and reach outside yourself, outside canon, to the place your retcon
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powers come from. You focus. You strain. You contemplate with all
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your might a place you can zap to, any place but here.</p>
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<p>You wait. And wait. And wait and...</p>
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<p>Nothing happens.</p>
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<p>You slump back down against the wall, and your despondence
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eagerly greets you again. Like an old friend ready to pat you on
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the back and say, good try man. I’ll always be here for you, when
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you fail. Thanks dude, you think.</p>
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<div class="chat type-rg type-hs-small">
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2019-09-28 00:26:39 -05:00
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<p class="john">JOHN: ROSE WAS RIGHT.</p>
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<p class="dave">DAVE: WHAT?</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: THE JUJU HAS TO UNLOAD.</p>
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<p class="jade">JADE: THE WHAT... HAS TO WHAT??</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: THE ONLY WAY OUT OF HERE...</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: IS FOR US TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO LET US
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OUT.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: SORRY GUYS.</p>
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<p class="rose">ROSE: OH.</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: ALSO...</p>
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<p class="john">JOHN: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE DEPRESSION?</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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