Zoostuck 2

now i'm the guy named kurtis blow, and christmas is one thing i know. so every year, just about this time, i celebrate... with a rhyme

Of course, it's all become so clear.
You rhyme when Christmas time draws near.
And yet, right now is mid-July,
says the calendar on which you rely.

Yet your rhyme sense never lets you down.
Something funny's going on in this town.
Time itself is acting odd,
Which means someone is playing God.

scheme

But if they can do that, why can't you?
This is a game that can be played by two.
You'll recreate this universe,
Only you won't make it worse.

What if it were always yuletide?
You could always rhyme with pride.
It would be such a simple change,
One which you shall now arrange.

But such a task cannot be done alone,
You're going to have to find a phone.
And then who exactly will you call
To help you to achieve it all?

The Big Book of Sestinas

A big phoney

up in the bronx where the people are fresh, there was one dj who had to pass the test, and now he's down by law and he's ready to play, that's right, y'all, his name is AJ

up in the bronx where the people are fresh, there was one dj who had to pass the test, and now he's down by law and he's ready to play, that's right, y'all, his name is AJ

That's right, you know just the man
To help you with your master plan.
With your rhymes and AJ's beats,
You'll pull off amazing feats.

You are now AJ. Some guy you once knew named Kurtis Blow is calling you and asking for your help with rhymes or something. Of course you say yes, because you really need some money, but there's just one problem.

A big phoney

You're a fraud. You don't know anything about beats. You just pass yourself off as a DJ and most of the time nobody asks questions. Unfortunately, that's not going to cut it here. You need to at least learn something about what you're supposed to be doing, maybe not a lot but enough to fool Kurtis at least.

So you head over to the bookstore and you pick up the most helpful book you can think of.

The Big Book of Sestinas

Namely, the Big Book of Sestinas. Because you're pretty sure being a DJ involves poetry.

You turn to a random page and start reading. What's the name of the sestina you find?

Petroleum and You! A How-to Guide

The Meta-Sestina

The Meta-Sestina

Petroleum and You! A How-to Guide

Ah yes, the Meta-Sestina. This is a sestina about sestinas. Specifically, it's a how-to-guide about writing sestinas, which apparently involves quite a lot of petroleum.

You don't fully understand it, but you probably will when you've got enough petroleum.

You are now John Eggwhite again. Or whatever your name was. And you've been busy.

The next step in your master plan involves acquiring large quantities of petroleum. However, as you monitor the petroleum supply, you discover that someone else has started purchasing petroleum in unusual quantities. This threatens to derail your entire plan.

How will you deal with this impudent upstart?

scratch AJ

Start a war

john egbert

Don Cheadle

scratch AJ

Who's this AJ and why would you bother scratching him? If he has an itch, let him deal with it on his own time. You have far more important concerns.

Start a war

No, the best way to deal with this matter is to start a war. This should affect the petroleum supply in ways that you can manipulate to ensure you end up with as much as you need.

However, you don't want it to be a high-profile war, as you don't want your past self learning of your activities. That would have unpredictable effects on the timeline, which might not work to your mutual advantage.

So which nations will you set to war with each other?

Holland Scholland

the universe and time

Holland Scholland

Yes, of course. A war between Holland and Scholland will go almost totally unnoticed. There is absolutely nothing of importance in either country, and most people don't even know Scholland exists. It will meet your needs perfectly...

Except that both nations don't use petroleum at all. They've completely replaced it in all their cars and synthetics.

Perhaps you're thinking too small-scale. Perhaps a larger war is in order - it simply needs to be one that appears as though it would have happened regardless, and one that could not possibly serve anyone's needs. It would be even better if it were a confusing war that no one could understand. Something like... like...

the universe and time

Yes, perfect. A war between the universe and time would be beyond the comprehension of most mortals. Not you, admittedly, and you are the main individual whose suspicions you do not wish to raise. Fortunately, you are already devising an ingenious solution to this problem, because you work fast.

You are now John Egbert, except you haven't named yourself yet because you are the past version and you haven't gotten to the point in the plan where you do that. Someone seems to have instigated a war between the universe and time. What do you intend to do about this?

poke holes in the space-time continuum

knit the universe a ball of yarn

stop time

stop time

Yes, in a conflict of such scale, you can't afford not to take sides. And although your plans shall involve rewriting this universe, there's a risk that a war could damage it beyond what you could work with. As such, you'll be working against time, to ensure the universe is in good shape to be replaced with a superior one.

But how can you fight such a foe as time?

poke holes in the space-time continuum

Ah, wait. The space-time continuum is what allows space and time to interact. By strategically creating holes in it, you can slow time's relentless advance and begin preparing a counterstrategy.

The one issue is that the universe would also lose capacity to work within the space-time continuum. If only there were some way you could mitigate that disadvantage...

knit the universe a ball of yarn

Of course! With a large enough ball of yarn, the universe can fill in the holes on its side and allow time through on its own schedule. That should ensure this war does not interfere with your plans.

You are now Ryan North. Where are you and what are you doing?

i don't know, you tell me, smarty pants

> ask your friend

partying

i don't know, you tell me, smarty pants

Well, you thought you were taking suggestions from an otherworldly audience for where you were and what you were doing, but since you're not really getting any responses about that, clearly your assumptions were incorrect.

Unfortunately, you still have no idea where you are or what you're doing.

> ask your friend

So you ask your friend, who's also a webcomic artist. But he doesn't seem to know you, which would make sense if you traveled back in time to before you met him. Which you probably did, honestly you've been really confused about what's happened. Especially that part where you were a gym teacher.

Anyways, he seems to be making a webcomic called "I'm Kurtis Blow and I Want You To No". It's about some guy named Kurtis Blow who always rhymes at Christmastime but he's rhyming all the time now because apparently it's always around Christmas or something. You think that's the premise, anyways; honestly you find the comic a little confusing, but that may just be because you're confused in general right now.

You ask your friend who doesn't recognize you where you are and what you're doing. He tells you that you're in his house and you're bothering him. Well, that seems clear enough. You probably could have figured that out on your own, honestly.

You decide to just hang around, it's not like your very presence is going to disrupt the flow of events and prevent a major step in a plan to rewrite the universe that will ultimately end up messing with the timeline in ways that will bring you to this point.

You are now John Egbert. The future one. You've recently discovered that you aren't the only one from your timeline to travel here. There are some detectives poking around who might cause trouble, and of more immediate concern, someone is distracting the artist whose creative vision will be brought to life in the new universe. If this continues, they might not be bored enough to look up blog posts by hipsters in Portland, Oregon.

Oh, and your past self has started intervening in the war between the universe and time that you started, that's an issue as well.

Fortunately, you have already turned your intellectual prowess towards finding a solution to these problems. What is that solution, again?

Partying.