Zoostuck 2

well, whatever you answer, make sure you accidentally mix them up and tell the seagull about whether or not to resolve the time paradox and the time traveler whether or not they should eat the crab

well, whatever you answer, make sure you accidentally mix them up and tell the seagull about whether or not to resolve the time paradox and the time traveler whether or not they should eat the crab

Mix them up? You can't do that in your very first column! Your reputation would suffer and then there's no way you'd bring civilization to this endless void you're falling through. They'd probably all go to that other civilization those arms are making that you somehow know about.

Anyways, you begin drafting your responses.

Dear Struggulling,

Believe me, I've seen some really bad sitcoms. But none of them were worse than the destabilization of the entire universe. It's probably worth the risk to preserve the timestream.

Dear Troubled,

I don't really know what it's like to have trouble with your diet, not needing to eat and all, but my advice is to forget the crab and take a big chunk of lard and put it in a sandwich. Preferably a chunk falling through an infinite void.

There, it's done... Wait a minute! Drat, you mixed up the answers after all! After you specifically said you weren't going to do that! And you already submitted them to your mind so it's too late to fix it! Your advice column, and hence your civilization, are going to be a total failure!

You're going to need some help here. Maybe you can write in to that Dear Lard advice column you've heard about.

You are now another version of that guy building a sandcastle - no, not the one who sent a letter to that advice column, you aren't that version yet.

You are, by sheer chance, on the same beach because you solved all the problems your other selves created and are treating yourself to a break. Unfortunately, you somehow forgot that this was the beach where, when you were another you, you built a sand castle - which has now gotten large enough to actually block out your sun - and started bothering a crab and turtle and seagull and a big fight started, and ugh this is just a pain.

You try to distract yourself by reviewing your solution to all the various problems. The first key was reprogramming the game to use a first-person interface. This actually wasn't very useful in and of itself, but the process of reprogramming the game required you to come up with several reality-bending programming languages, based on such things as electrical currents in the universe, which of several different varieties of potato dishes you prepared last night, hedgehogs moving at various high speeds, the fiber intake of a large number of people, the mass of an assortment of objects, your future coding plans over an entire year, carving words into backpacks, and every piece of speculation about a mascot crossover game that didn't end up going into the game itself.

By doing that, you developed the tools you needed to fix the other problems, so now the universe is fine except for the existence of a really terrible sitcom, which you're taking care of by making sure nobody watches it. While you were at it, you also disproved every myth in the entire history of the universe, which turned out to be pretty simple with the new tools at your disposal.

Still, you can't help but feel that it's all too neat, that you cleaned it up too tidily. What problem do you still need to solve, and what does it have to do with this stupid fight getting in the way of your perfect beach experience?

now see, create a backpack with B.U.M. on the back of it! it will be so hilarious.

now see, create a backpack with B.U.M. on the back of it! it will be so hilarious.

Oh, right, the problem is that you haven't done that! That's the only thing your hard work hasn't resolved and also the real reason you aren't enjoying yourself at the beach. That's got to be it. You begin making the backpack and...

Wait a minute. Why can't you remember what a backpack is? Damn it, did you eliminate them from the timestream completely? This is going to take a lot of work to fix. Great, just great. And how are you supposed to go diving back into the incredibly complex coding if you haven't had a relaxing day at the beach?

You are now a very short space garbageman. Your name is Eldin, but everyone calls you Elfin. Also, you think you can hear snarky comments being made by kids watching your every move, but nobody else believes you.

You aren't dressed like a space garbageman right now, though. You made a bet with a friend that a thousand angels could dance on the head of a pin, and now you have to prove it by capturing a thousand angels. Your plan is to kill everyone, both because you're mad at them for getting your name wrong and because you're pretty sure angels show up when you kill people. In any case, to do the job properly you dressed yourself up as some sort of nerdy merman. You aren't actually sure how this relates to hunting angels but you're almost certain it does.

But while you were running off to hunt angels, you got a call from work. There's this planet that's totally covered in garbage and you have to haul the whole thing off. Ugh, this job stinks, but angel hunting doesn't really pay the bills - at least, not until you actually win the bet.

Anyways, you were just about to do that when the right half of everything in the entire universe vanished. What the hell just happened?

Right cheated on Left and then had a divorce. You... you wouldn't understand.

Right cheated on Left and then had a divorce. You... you wouldn't understand.

Well, obviously you don't understand. That's the problem! You feel like this is part of some vastly overcomplicated plot you don't understand at all. And you can hear those stupid kids making fun of you for it!

You are now a singularity of complexity inhabiting a mortal body. Your vastly overcomplicated plot is proceeding almost exactly as planned, but there are a few matters to take care of. The most urgent is that no one seems to have actually died in the train crash; they are trapped in a painting instead. However, this requires such a minor adjustment to the plan that it bores you; all it requires is destroying the painting, a trivial task. Unfortunately, you lack the time to determine a more interesting method, as the longer the painting exists, the higher the chance of a stray action rendering the whole plan useless.

You are thus concerning yourself with a more long-term issue while your flamethrowerbots seek out the painting. The Bear Pope's adventure is growing more popular than yours with his latest update. If this persists, you might not secure victory in the contest. What excessively complex means can you use to ensure his ignominious defeat?

Turn into a potato

Turn into a potato

Ah, of course. This is the perfect first step in your plan...

Wait a minute. You have no idea where you're going with this. But you've already turned into a potato because you were so sure it was essential a moment ago!

Wait. It's all clear now. All this time, you were just being manipulated by an even more complex singularity of complexity. It has carefully manipulated events so that you would transform yourself into a potato uselessly, to avoid the possibility that any further complex manipulations on your part did not interfere with its own complex manipulations.

Wow, that's amazing. In fact, it's so amazing that you think you're in love with this other singularity for managing to pull it off. Which was no doubt its intention all along. Wow!

You must clearly manipulate events to show your affection for it, while being a potato. Your old plan is now irrelevant; any part of it that needed to succeed will be handled by the higher singularity. How will you show your singularity-love and prove yourself worthy of being further manipulated by this superior entity?

Bake yourself

Bake yourself

Ah, of course! Nothing could be a more apt demonstration of love than a baked potato. You begin scheming how to do that immediately.

You are now the kid who was here way back at the start of the adventure and you have no clue what's going on. You're covered in garbage that's inexplicably spewing out of a time portal, and there's some kind of war going on over a package. You kind of think it was a game or something. And there was something about a slave you were trying to free, and a spider?

Damn, you're confused. You don't even know who you are any more. Do you even have a name?

Well, you can always make one up. What's your name going to be?

Baked Potato

Baked Potato

Yeah, a baked potato would be pretty delicious, but you don't see one around. Anyways, you're more concerned with coming up with a name.

Fortunately, in a flash of inspiration, the perfect name strikes you. From this day forward, you shall be known as...

Zoosmell Pooplord

Wait, no, that's a terrible name, why would you pick a stupid name like that. Well, it's too late, it's your name now and you have to deal with it.

Anyways, you've got a really stupid name and there are like eight hundred things going wrong here, and nobody else is going to be solving any of them any time soon. So that leaves you with just one question.

Where the heck are you going to find a baked potato?

bake a potato

Get baked, Potato

Bake the potato with that homemade kush kush gettin' mashed yo

bake a potato

That's a great idea, but it requires two things: a potato and knowledge of how to bake one. You have neither! Where are you going to get them?

Get baked, Potato

Your name isn't Potato! It's Zoosmell Pooplord. And you wouldn't bake yourself even if that was your name, seriously, you're not a glutton for punishment.

Bake the potato with that homemade kush kush gettin' mashed yo

You don't even know what that means! Man, this is total nonsense. Maybe that spider can get you a baked potato.

You are now the spider. You've been using your web to figure out just how this whole confusing mess fits together, and it's just one huge tangle. That said, it wasn't a complete waste of time: you've figured out where and when this mess all started.

Unfortunately, it started on Page 2 and that's gone missing. And the guy trying to find it is caught in an infinite recursive loop that's generating a barrier in another world.

So in the meantime, you've got four murders to solve, since the detectives who were falsely accused of them seem to have disappeared on some kind of wild goose chase. The victims are God's second cousin, the number 1, a really ugly scientist, and... wait, who was the fourth victim again? All your notes say is that they were killed by a pumpkin that came to life.

Maybe if you figure that out, you can find some pattern to these murders and find the real killers. So who's the fourth dead guy?

a hempster

a hempster

A hempster? What the heck is that supposed to be? Someone who deals in hemp? A hamster made out of hemp? A hipster who complains that hemp is too mainstream?

Well, whichever one it is, it's enough to lead you to a conclusion: There is no pattern whatsoever to these murders. They were either killed as part of an incomprehensibly complex plan with so many facets it cannot possibly be understood by any mortal mind, or it was just convenient to kill them in a way that could be pinned on a detective.

Normally you'd assume convenience, but with all the other crazy stuff going on, that incomprehensibly complex plan is looking more and more likely. And you're beginning to suspect that the key to stopping it all is on Page 2. But with that page missing, your options are limited. You're going to have to work this out for quite a while.

You are now the skeleton president and you have returned from the past and failed to bring any evil back with you. The wizard was a promising lead, but he died.

You also have one hell of a hangover, as does everyone else on the planet. Unfortunately, you haven't heard back from the extremely ugly scientist you assigned to work on the problem, and now giant monsters from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are attacking.

The latter point means that your failure to find evil isn't so bad, but it also means you have to fend off the giant monsters from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. How are you going to do that?

With Consistency

With Consistency

Well, of course. It's important to maintain a consistence stance, so that's what you're going to do! Nothing can possibly go wrong here!

You are now The Phoney. You won millions in a poker game and now you're outside the White House, which has just been left a smoldering wreck by a giant monster that you released from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

As the world's only superhero, it is your duty to save the President and defeat this monster with your power to change the contents of a phone book. So how are you going to do that?

Distract the monster by causing mass chaos; switch all the numbers around!

cook the books

The IRS can't POSSIBLY check if you've cooked your phone books

Distract the monster by causing mass chaos; switch all the numbers around!

You do what you do best and change all the numbers in every phone book nearby! Surely the ensuing confusion will give you a chance to strike down the monster!

Wait, no, it's not working, the monster's still attacking and nobody's even using any of the phone books. Dang! You thought for sure that would work.

cook the books

Since your plan failed utterly, you decide to get rid of the evidence. You don't want anyone thinking you're bad at being a superhero, after all! You decide to roast all the phone books over a fire and then eat them. That should throw all suspicion off you!

The IRS can't POSSIBLY check if you've cooked your phone books

For a moment you worry that the IRS might be on to you, but then you see the monster wreck their building and you figure you're covered. You eat the books and are ready to advance to the next stage of your plan!

Which is to run away and start spending all that money you won in poker games. What are you going to buy with it?

A new president