108 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
108 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
||
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
|
||
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
|
||
|
||
<html xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
|
||
<head profile='http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/'>
|
||
<meta http-equiv='Content-Type' content='text/html;'/>
|
||
<title>The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat - Chapter 41</title>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.title' content='The Homestuck Epilogues: Meat'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.language' content='en' scheme='DCTERMS.RFC4646'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.source' content='MFW'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.issued' content='{$issued}' scheme='DCTERMS.W3CDTF'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.creator' content='EpubPress'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.contributor' content=''/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.modified' content='{$issued}' scheme='DCTERMS.W3CDTF'/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.provenance' content=''/>
|
||
<meta name='DCTERMS.subject' content='Unknown'/>
|
||
<link rel='schema.DC' href='http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/' hreflang='en'/>
|
||
<link rel='schema.DCTERMS' href='http://purl.org/dc/terms/' hreflang='en'/>
|
||
<link rel='schema.DCTYPE' href='http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/' hreflang='en'/>
|
||
<link rel='schema.DCAM' href='http://purl.org/dc/dcam/' hreflang='en'/>
|
||
<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='../Styles/ebook.css'/>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body>
|
||
<div id='s41'></div>
|
||
<div>
|
||
<h1>Chapter 41</h1>
|
||
<div class="o-story_text o_epilogue type-rg type-sm line-caption line-copy pad-x-0 pad-x-lg pad-b-lg">
|
||
<p class="no-indent dirk"><span class="opener type-hs-opener-rg type-hs-opener-sm">S</span>he’s
|
||
right, of course. I do have to be stopped.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">Not because I’m really that bad. I mean, I don’t
|
||
think I am. I’ll understand if there are those who disagree. If my
|
||
agenda was to try as hard as I could to make sure no one thought I
|
||
sucked, what the fuck would ever get done? How would I go about
|
||
taming this world, or shaping reality for the better? And if I
|
||
didn’t bother pursuing those goals, and thereby tacitly accepting
|
||
the untold suffering that resulted from my inaction, wouldn’t
|
||
<em>that</em> make me a bad person? If I try and succeed, I’m a
|
||
hero, right? And if I try and fail, at least I made things
|
||
interesting on my way to the grave. There would be a tragic
|
||
nobility in that. And the way I see it, settling for anything less
|
||
from my arc would be, frankly, pathetic.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">So yeah, of course I know I “have to be stopped.”
|
||
It’s part of the contract. What you sign up for when you assume the
|
||
burdens of this sort of power. Where there is that which must be
|
||
subdued and suborned for the greater good, there is that which will
|
||
instinctively resist. That which intuits that whatever’s going on
|
||
here is “wrong.” Otherwise, intervention wouldn’t even be
|
||
necessary, would it? If reality and those within it were already so
|
||
intrinsically pliable, so amenable to deviating from their own
|
||
nature, the sins of men and faults of God would have no rigidity or
|
||
resilience. There’d be no challenge in forcing their correction. No
|
||
reward in ramming salvation down their throats. I know this isn’t
|
||
coming cheap, what I’m trying to do. The cost of it is knowing I
|
||
need to be stopped. I accept it consciously, and when the time
|
||
comes—<em>if</em> it comes—I’ll offer myself up gladly.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">But I’m not a fool. I know what accepting this cost
|
||
really means, through any objective narrative faculty. No matter
|
||
how I rationalize things, how grandly I orate my supreme designs,
|
||
or how indulgent and self-obsessed my concluding soliloquy may come
|
||
across, I’m perfectly aware of what I’ve become in all practical
|
||
ways. I am the villain now. It’s gotten impossible for me to see
|
||
this result as anything but inevitable, from the day I was spawned
|
||
from a puddle of slime. I want to be a good person. I believe I am
|
||
a good person. But when you’re someone like me, good is never going
|
||
to be quite good enough.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">The problem is, I think power like mine can only
|
||
make antagonistic intent unavoidable. Who could wield such control
|
||
over people’s choices and the course of events without ultimately
|
||
becoming the enemy of anyone who notices? Maybe only a stronger
|
||
person than I could manage to pull it off. Someone like Dave. So
|
||
when I say I know I need to be stopped, I guess it’s more than just
|
||
accepting my end of a diabolical bargain. I know I need to be
|
||
stopped, because I’m sure deep down, somewhere inside my infinitely
|
||
recursive sense of self, I know what’s going on here is all just a
|
||
little bit sick. To be honest, I’d consider killing myself and
|
||
sparing reality all the trauma from the jump—I mean, a legit
|
||
suicide, not one of those melodramatic faux-suicidal plays for
|
||
attention, sympathy, or Jake’s dick. But to really do it for keeps?
|
||
For a truly selfless purpose? Nah. Too cowardly for that. Too
|
||
afraid to stop existing for good. Wouldn’t you be if you were
|
||
me?</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">I guess therein lies the problem. If I
|
||
<em>weren’t</em> me, obviously I’d consider myself much less
|
||
indispensable. Only worthless people permit themselves the great
|
||
luxury of a valorous sacrifice. When the deed is done, what was
|
||
really lost? It’s like the guy in the mail room quitting in a
|
||
self-righteous huff. Who the fuck were you again? No, when the
|
||
sense of self is so substantial, when the fate of everything turns
|
||
on every vain whim of an ego this sprawling, this entrenched in the
|
||
very medium that contains all else, there’s a certain existential
|
||
sunk cost that goes with the whole deal. A persona that vast
|
||
doesn’t just self-terminate. It won’t allow itself to.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">That’s why when someone finally comes knocking for
|
||
the price I owe, I’ll fully welcome it. By then it’ll have been a
|
||
long time coming, and I’ll probably have done more than my share to
|
||
make sure, somewhere along the way, it all got put into motion.
|
||
What good is a villain who doesn’t have a satisfying dramatic
|
||
comeuppance in store for him? So yeah, the next time I die, let’s
|
||
pencil it in as a Just Death. And let’s also have it on good
|
||
authority that the next time Dave cuts off my head, it’ll be for
|
||
good.</p>
|
||
<p class="dirk">I’ll be looking forward to that day just as much as
|
||
the next guy.</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |