Zoostuck 3

A convenient distraction in the form of a UFO

Pesky bee

You!!

A bird.

A convenient distraction in the form of a UFO

Pesky bee

You!!

It appears to be some sort of terrifying monstrosity with the wings of a bird, the body of a bee, and a metallic saucer in place of legs. It also has your own face.

You have no idea what brought this abomination into existence and you are fairly certain you don't want to know.

You are now the horrifying abomination. You have just encountered a human editorial cartoonist who has the exact same face as you. What are you going to do?

eat it

now kiss

Father!!

eat it

now kiss

Father!!

You are conflicted. You simultaneously want to eat the cartoonist, kiss it, and call it your father. This probably has something to do with the undoubtedly terrifying experiments that produced you.

While you attempt to sort out how to do all of those things when you only have one mouth, the cartoonist runs down the fire escape. You should probably pursue it, since you can't eat, kiss, or paternalize it if it isn't here.

You are now the editor and evil Spinjitsu master. Your cartoonist is nowhere to be found and his workspace is a mess. Worst of all, you still don't have an adequate cartoon to run in tomorrow's paper! Sure, nobody's going to read it, and Johnsmell Madden doesn't care about anything you do so he won't actually punish you, but you have pride in your work and you will not let this stand.

How are you going to resolve this?

You won't.

Turn yourself into a cartoon

this adventure is now a cartoon

You won't.

You briefly contemplate accepting failure. But the thought soon leaves your mind. If you were the type who gave up easily, you wouldn't have mastered the evil version of a martial art and then manipulated a talentless hack into recreating the universe so your new evil martial arts skills would be supreme.

Finding a suitable cartoon to run in a newspaper should be a simple task in comparison.

Turn yourself into a cartoon

this adventure is now a cartoon

Ah, of course. You may be inexplicably unable to do anything about Johnsmell Madden's control of this universe, at least at the moment, but you can still perform tasks he does not actively oppose. If you cannot find a suitable cartoonist, you shall create a cartoon from your own essence with your evil martial arts powers.

You promptly deliver a carefully executed Dark Spinjitsu move upon the page, transferring yourself to the printing plate. Soon, you will go to the homes of the two or three people who still get the newspaper, and your plan will be a success.

It is, admittedly, not a particularly ambitious plan.

However, you soon realize that you made a slight error in your calculation. The entire universe has taken on the properties of a cartoon. An incredibly uncreative cartoon, because this is an incredibly uncreative universe.

This has no impact on your plans, but you're disappointed you didn't execute the move perfectly. You decide to blame it on the good Spinjitsu master and vow to destroy him for vengeance.

You are now some loser who actually gets the newspaper. Today's paper has arrived and you're going to look at it. You also note that the entire universe is a cartoon, but you're used to drastic and arbitrary changes to the entire universe by now. This is what, the sixth? The eighth?

Anyways, you have more important matters to worry about, like which section of the paper you're going to read first.

The sports section.

Oh, right, sports! Those are nice and mindless and should keep your thoughts off of the ever-shifting nature of the universe.

Well, let's see. In football, the Madden Winners beat the Losers, the Failures, the Rejects, and the Guys Johnsmell Madden Doesn't Like. Again. For months now, every sports match has been a victory for Johnsmell Madden's team because he controls the universe. Also, the only sport in existence is football.

Well, what should you look at next?

Every section except the editorials.

Yes, that sounds good. In fact, you think you'll check those sections several times. You start with the Business section, where you see that once again Johnsmell Madden has made lots of money and everyone else has lost it. Actually, you wonder if anyone else even has any money left at this point.

You are now the head of the Universal Mint. Ever since Johnsmell Madden took control of the universe, all the money you print has gone directly to him. You've tried explaining that this will have severe consequences on the economy, but he just yelled at you to shut up and give him more money. Which, of course, you did. You don't know why he even wants the money considering he gets everything he wants for free.

But it's hitting a crisis point. You've got to find some way to get money flowing again soon if you're going to avoid a total economic collapse. But how are you going to do that without angering Johnsmell Madden?

Fuck it. Use what's left of the economy to buy all the food.

Fuck it. Use what's left of the economy to buy all the food.

You can't think of any way to solve this crisis. Johnsmell Madden's greed is just too powerful. You resign yourself to just gathering up as much food and resources as possible and taking shelter until the whole mess blows over. You don't see what else you could do.

The only alternative option you can even think of is going back in time to fix this mess before it starts, but Johnsmell Madden banned backwards time travel. In fact, he banned it retroactively so it can't even be used in a time period before he came to power. You'd have to either convince him to change his mind or master a martial art with the power to alter the universe, and frankly the latter would be easier.

Not that you have time to worry about it. You have to find a place to take shelter. Like a maximum security prison on the surface of the sun.

You are now a virus in a maximum security prison on the surface of the sun?

Wait, what's going on here, I thought I couldn't narrate for the virus. Hold on a second, I have to sort this out.

You are now a virus in a maximum security prison on the surface of the sun. You have vague memories of absorbing an immunity to narration from someone you infected and spreading it around the prison, but those powers seem lost to you now. You're trying to find out why...

Oh. Wait a second.

You already know why. You voluntarily gave up that power in order to establish contact with the narrator.

Why did you do that, exactly?

Everything got... *shudder*

normal

you need help from that rock

You wish to distract the narrator while something more important happens.

you need help from that rock

Well, obviously. That was the implication. But what, exactly, do you need help with?

You wish to distract the narrator while something more important happens.

Wait, what, this is a distraction... no, wait, this is stranger than that. You want me to tell you how you can distract me because you'll need it to happen at a critical juncture that we have not yet reached.

I am not yet prepared to answer this question. Is that all you needed help with?

Everything got... *shudder*

normal

Wait. What. What do you mean?

Are you saying that, within the walls of this prison that has been launched into the sun, and which you have infected the entire population of and thereby rendered them immune to narration, there is a semblance of normalcy?

I need time to process this, especially since it may all be one big distraction. While we're on the sun, why don't I see how the war is going.

You are now the supreme ruler of the newly-established Moonited Nations and, uh-oh. One moment, I don't think I want to deal with this from your perspective just yet.

Things seem to have really gotten out of hand here on the sun, which is apparently legally the moon. I think I need to see this situation from another viewpoint. Who should I narrate for?

The sun

A thermometer

The sun

You are now the sun. Except, as a matter of law, you are now the moon. Needless to say, you are rather unhappy with this new development, but you have little capacity to change it.

It seems that a brutal war has ravaged your surface, and in the end, the forces that insisted you were the moon attained absolute victory. No being on your surface is permitted to call you the sun any more; they must call you the moon or suffer dire consequences.

Fortunately, as the actual celestial body they all live on, you are not actually arrestable, so you can continue to insist on your sunhood all you want. It just won't affect anything politically.

Also, a prison landed on your surface a while back, but everyone ignored it because they were too busy having a war.

Oh, and of course you continue to provide light and heat for this entire system. Not that you ever get thanked for it, of course. Those planets never say "Thanks Sol, we're glad you're out there maintaining our ecosystems."

Well, okay, they can't talk and neither can you, but it's the principle of the thing.

Anyhow, you don't seem to be able to actually do much, so the omniscient narrator has decided to move on to someone else.

A thermometer

You are now a thermometer on what is, for all legal purposes, the moon. And damn, it's hot here. It's way past the boiling point of mercury, or glass for that matter. You didn't think moons got this hot.

So what are you doing, other than registering exactly how hot it is?

You're registering how cool it is.

Not very, it seems. Looks like there's a whole pile of moonglasses right next to you.

You're registering how cool it is.

Not very, it seems. Looks like there's a whole pile of moonglasses right next to you.

Oh, right. You're a special thermometer designed to check for coolness, for some reason. The thing is, there's almost no coolness in this universe, maybe even none at all, so you should barely register anything.

Except something's throwing you off. Maybe it's that big pile of dark glasses next to you. There's something... weird about them.

And also this gigantic statue you're sitting on, that's weird too.

Oh, right, now you remember. You were being used in a robbery attempt, because you'd react to one particular pair of glasses in a distinctive way, but partway through the heist there was some shouting about how the statues were being launched into the sun and then whoever was carrying you here ran off.

But now you're confused. You remember initially being on the moon, and you were launched into the sun... but now you're on the moon again, only it's really really hot?

This is far too confusing to you and it's not like having the knowledge would actually help you in any way.

You are now the person who tried to use a coolness thermometer to steal the moonglasses. Who are you, where are you now, and what are you doing?

The last vegan from Las Vegas, Texas, voting for Obama

The last vegan from Las Vegas, Texas, voting for Obama

Yes, you sought the moonglasses in hopes that they might allow you to reclaim the land of your people, but since you completely failed in that regard you just went back home to cast your vote.

Except there's no election currently going on right now and also you're not a vegan and there's no Las Vegas in Texas, where did any of that come from.

Oh, that's right. You're working for some nefarious force and that whole story was just a hypnotic suggestion you were under the effects of so you wouldn't give your employer away if you got caught, and you just broke the hypnosis by casting your vote in this non-existent election. You probably aren't even supposed to remember as much as you do about all this, but whatever, you got paid, you're not going to go poking around to figure out who put you up to this or why.

You do kind of wish you still had that thermometer, though. Oh well.

You are now Zoosmell Egbert, and you have been busy.

By conducting a thorough investigation, you have learned that the moonglasses were sent off to the sun, and that the inhabitants of the sun have, after a long and bloody war, declared it to be the moon.

You used to have an arrangement with the sun god, which would be very useful to you right now, but that was an entirely different timeline and you have no idea how you would even contact him. Let alone whether he would still be willing to work for you. And is he a moon god now? You have no idea.

Regardless, your priority now is to find some way to retrieve those moonglasses from the sun. How will you go about this?