Chapter Text
Sunlight streams into your room as the dawn breaks into your house, thankfully not to steal your copious amounts of hammers or shitty movies. Although this seems to leave you unfazed, as you continue to snooze away in bed, as you are prone to do these days to the ire of all of your friends.
You’re not sure they consider you a friend anymore with how things have been going with you lately. Maybe an estranged acquaintance, if you’re pushing it. Not like you can answer that anyways, considering you’re still in the realm of the dreamers.
Your name is JOHN EGBERT. It’s currently been three years since you and your old friends beat SBURB, and about a year since you became, more or less, a shut in. This makes you NINETEEN as of today’s date, although whether you’ll end up celebrating this milestone of your adult years is beyond you. You’ll just have to settle with a completely unearned DIVINE NAPPING.
Or get up, make cereal, then immediately fall asleep trying to glean some amount of enjoyment out of your previously favorite movies. Whichever happens first.
Oh, but what’s this? You rustle underneath the covers, awakening for the first time since… you think two days ago? You’re not really sure, your slumbers have gotten longer and longer as time has gone on. But it’s something, so maybe you’ll get-
...And you just flop out of bed in a blanket burrito, popping out your head from the covers encasing your body. Okay, fine, sure, do that. Be dramatic about getting out of bed, that’s about as much as you are able to get out of yourself anyways. Good job, dumbass. Proud of yourself yet?
You inch your way across the floor, somehow not getting the idea that unwrapping yourself even slightly would be better than imitating a worm vigorously flopping on it’s way to Valhalla. Wait, how would a worm even get to Valhalla without hands? Isn’t it a requirement to die with a weapon in your hand or something? Would you have to duck tape an axe to it’s side? You need to know.
Disregarding that train of thought for a spell, you’re now at your door. Which is an issue, because like the previously stated warrior worm, you have no free hands to work with in this scenario.
Wait.
Oh my god, you’re a genius.
You uncaptchalogue some brand-spankin’-new FAKE ARMS from your sylladex that you got last year (you use the ARRAY modus nowadays, because while it IS boring, it’s more convenient for grabbing shit), and with them shoved into the little space there is between your head and the blankets, you proceed to smack at the door handle to attempt opening the infalliable threshold.
As on might expect from the arms being fake, and by proxy having no flexable fingers, you can’t exactly grasp the door handle and push past the wooden barrier preventing you from exiting your bedroom. You get a feeling that this might be more effort than getting out of the blankets and opening the door normally.
…
Nah, that’s ridiculous.
You continue to do this for five minutes until you realize that the thought wasn’t what was ridiculous.
Okay this is stupid.
After lying on the floor for another three minutes after giving up, you get out of your soft cloth coccoon to open the door and head downstairs. You didn’t bother with getting a new home like everybody else, you just settled with your old one, albeit with some adjustments. The white walls and flooring are replaced by brown wooden flooring and tan carpet in some areas, with a nice muted blue coat of paint on the walls. It’s not much, but it’s at least a nice place to live in solitude. You think Dad would like it.
Moving on.
You head into the kitchen and look into the cabinets. They’re filled up like usual with a plethora of pre-alchemized foods, lots of healthy choices slamming into your face as you look through the catacombs of nutrient and vitamin filled gloriousness.
You settle on a microwaveable pizza from what you can only assume to be some sort of Earth C equivalent to Digiorno’s, known as Digorn’s (It’s pretty odd that somehow, Digiorno’s manages to also be a universal constant for trolls and humans. Is there a consort and carapacian version?)
Whatever, you kickstart the oven and let it begin preheating, leaving the frozen meal on the kitchen counter as you head back into the living room to switch on the TV and see what the news is.
What the TV first deigns necessary to let you witness is, instead of the news, an ad talking about this year’s upcoming presidency for Earth C, specifically in New America (don’t worry, that’s like, the one unoriginal name in all of Omeus’s countries), and it’s currently cycling through the different politicians that are currently known to be running. Which you could honestly care less about, their policies are pretty much the same for the most part. Not that it’s bad that they’re the same, their policies are pretty focused on stuff like easing tensions between other existing countries and cracking down on recent violence from some cult you have no memory of that exists (They say it’s a group of human-troll hybrids that believe themselves to be the superior biological race compared to both trolls and humans, or something. Kind of gives hybrids an undeserved bad rep if you’re being honest).
You don’t have the energy to pay attention to that, so you just switch to another news channel. The small, prospitian news anchor is discussing the local news, going on to mention small happenings like a recent opening of some new branch of a museum dedicated to you and your friends, specifically of artifacts and documents (aka printed wikipedia articles) from the other’s Earth, that being Dirk, Jane, Jake, and Roxy’s Earth. Not much going on here either.
JOHN: PUT THE PIZZA. BACK IN. THE OVEN.
Oh right, the pizza.
You quickly slap the frozen Italian dish onto a pan, shove it in the oven and set the timer. That should be good for now. You go and walk back to the TV, and switch it to another channel again. After a minute or two of ads, the channel apparently is in the middle of a rerun of a documentary on troll/human biology, going into basic intricacies of every similarity and difference. They’re more or less focusing on troll stuff right now, actually.
They go over the basics of troll anatomy, like how blood color of a troll is influenced both by the temperature of the genetic slurry and the temperature of a mother grub’s environment, and how it influences the grey skin tone of a troll and it’s lack of influence in any other department, including the mutations trolls may have and their lifespan. Their facial structure is partially similar to a humans, only differentiating in how their facial structure is like…
Okay, you know that thing in artstyles where people just draw the curve of the nose, but just make their entire face just flat below that? You think that’s specific enough. Yeah, their heads kinda look like that.
Their-
JOHN: OKAY WHAT THE FUCK, THAT’S NOT HOW TROLL BIOLOGY WORKS AT ALL ACCORDING TO ACTUAL HOMESTUCK, EXPLAIN YOURSELF.
What, did everyone think trolls were like, completely the same as humans except for grey skin and horns? What kind of tool would think that two completely unrelated species would look the exact same? This isn’t Star Wars genius!
...Wait.
No, hold on. This doesn’t feel right. Troll legs don’t bend like that, troll feet don’t look like that, trolls are supposed to have different powers and lifespans based on blood. You think. Everything you’re watching right now isn’t right, is it?
You swear that Karkat looks like some dude with grey skin and nubby horns. Nothing out of the ordinary, that’s how he should look, because you stared him in the face multiple times for certain, and nothing about him looks like that at all.
But something in your head keeps on pushing this different version of him into your mind. Which isn’t too fair to say, it’s the same old grumpy Karkat you know and love! But something still feels-
JOHN: CHANGE THE CHANNEL FROM THE BORING ANATOMY DOCUMENTARY.
Bluh bluh bluh, troll reproduction, blah blah blah, no biological sex and therefore no sexual dimorphism, you know all this stuff from some Karkat rants a while back. Booooooooring, next! There’s bound to be something fun on TV right now, it’s not like there isn’t thousands of channels to scroll through.
You decide to just put on some of that Minecraft roleplay some guys are doing over on Twitched. You thought that game died out over the course of many divisive updates to the game, although Aradnosoft (which you’re pretty sure is just the Omeus [also known as Earth C if you’re being uncreative] version of Microsoft) seems to be dragging people back into it pretty successfully with more improvement focused updates. You just put on some Grubtube playlists of the crucial story vods and let it play in the background. It won’t kill you to see what’s going on with it, right?
Nah, you won’t get TOO too invested. It’s just a block game after all.
You think you might actually check and see if any of your friends are online to casually text, now that you feel a bit more energized. Although, considering you got up at like, 6:30, you’re not sure how many people are actually going to be up and at em’ to shoot the shit with you. In your defense though, if you don’t get up this early, you end up wasting the day away like a miserable wreck, which you’ve come to actually try and remedy in the past month. Doesn’t quite make up for the 11 months you wasted either way, but improvement’s improvement, whether or not it’s a year late.
You take out your hot pink Iphone-
Okay, you can explain, it’s not a girly thing, shut up. After the game, Roxy had decided to properly exchange Pesterchum handles with you so you can keep in touch (which lead to everyone sharing their respective handles), and when you pulled out your PDA, she just gave the most over exaggerated offended gasp you could imagine and shoved the very same hot pink phone that you have now into your hands. She claimed that she “needed to save your teenagerhood”, or something along the lines of that. And now you have the girliest phone known to mankind sitting in your hand.
It didn’t take much getting used to, though. It’s just a color, and a pretty nice one at that, so you won’t complain. Who cares, right?
Well, YOU do, but you’re an exception. You guess.
There’s only one person online at the moment, which you guess shouldn’t surprise you. He’s essentially there 24/7.
You should probably text him, since you have nothing better to do. Even if you barely know the guy.
— ghostlyTrickster [GT] started pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 7:23 AM —
GT: uh.
GT: hello, is this hal?
GT: i don’t know if you go into computer sleep or something, but it looks like you’re online.
GT: good morning, if you are awake!
TT: Good morning to you too, user of the severely out of date Pesterchum, haplessDumbass [HD].
TT: How can I be an absolute pain in your ass on this fine day?
GT: oh, you are awake!
GT: i wasn’t expecting you to actually respond.
GT: considering i have talked to you a total of like, one time?
TT: I would have thought that too.
TT: That, and like I said, Pesterchum’s out of date.
TT: Abandoned, dead, yadda yadda yadda.
TT: you get the gist.
GT: hold on, since when did everybody move on from here?
TT: Since everybody up and left this asspile of a messenger app and planted their asses firmly into the “fresh and swaggy Striferline”, according to an excerpt from Dave that I fished out of Dirk’s last convo on here.
TT: Take note; never make me go through their DMs again, not interested in seeing their brotherly bonding on how fucking gay they are.
TT: Not being homophobic there, they literally had those talks a thousand times.
TT: And I mean a thousand.
TT: I took count.
GT: aw man, that honestly blows.
GT: i used to love this whole thing, i thought we’d just keep using it out of pure nostalgia.
GT: some of my best memories were made on here, actually.
GT: guess i didn’t get the memo here, huh?
TT: Well, in their defense, it’s severely limited in the shit you can do on here.
TT: Like, “Oh shit, name and colors for customization and absolutely no icons to express yourself with, cutting edge technology!”
TT: Not to mention that you absolutely nailed the motivationless sucker act.
TT: You brobably could have made the move with them if you actually, you know, had any internet activity on Pesterchum at all 11 months ago?
TT: Not their fault they left the dead weight behind.
TT: I don’t see the issue.
GT: ugh, okay.
GT: like you helped, but whatever.
TT: And?
TT: Was I not funny?
GT: i said whatever, you asshat! i’ll go searching for them on striferline myself if you’re just going to ridicule me!
GT: take your “jokes” somewhere else, talk to you never again!
GT: byeeeeeee!!!!!
— ghostlyTrickster [GT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 7:27 AM —
TT:
TT: Okay, note to self;
TT: After 12 consecutive attempts, I find that poking fun of personal problems is not how you make funny jokes and net yourself friends.
TT: Will probably figure out how to construct proper punchlines later.
Jesus, he’s a prick. Why did you think bothering with him would be a good idea?
You at least got an idea of where to look, regardless, so it’s not too big of an issue. He gave you the name of the new messenger app everyone’s supposedly using, so you guess your reconnection mission is going to start there. Because you cannot manage to get your ass out of the house and socialize with living beings face to face, apparently.
“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
-Adam Lambert, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
You wouldn’t know if that’s a true quote, considering you never got the chance to play the Witcher games yet. Not that they didn’t exist yet in your universe, you did enter the medium in 2018, when the Witcher 3 was obviously out three years prior.
Wait.
Wasn’t your thirteenth birthday in 2009, not 2018?
No, you think it was 2018.
You know what? It’s just dumb old Earth dates, it doesn’t matter. Back to Striferline!
The most noticeable feature of Striferline straight out the gate is its level of polish and detail compared to the ye olde Pesterchum. It makes plenty of use of it’s human and troll aesthetic combination, the consistent use of bold troll colors and hexagons alongside the blocky structure and overall straight lines and lack of curves really sells a sort of crossover between Trollian and Discord, in your eyes anyways.
You go ahead and set up a profile, trying to make it as recognizable and as similar to your Pesterchum account as you can make while harnessing the many advanced features included, from animated icons to flashy but not over the top username displays, it really has a lot going on with it. You try not to get carried away though, Egbert’s your name and friendship’s the game after all. Unless impressive customization is a side objective in the quest, in which case you’ll get back to that.
And, after 15 minutes, you’re good to go with texting your friends in the only way possi-
Wait.
You have the standard text messenger for Apple products. With everyone’s info and DMs.
Oh my god. Your existence is suffering, and you are a complete moron.
Alright, getting back to the whole Striferline thing later. You WILL use that after the fact, solely because you don’t want to look like a complete dunce who just wasted so much of your dwindling energy for social interactions on this shit. Once you actually know everbody’s accounts, of course.
You just go ahead and text the first random person you last spoke to. Which just so happens to be Rose. Who’s going to psychoanalyze you for barely hanging out with anybody for a whole 12 months. And pester you over your and Jane’s shared birthday.
The more you think about this, the worse you think it seems for you to text Rose first. Who can you text who isn’t going to judge and criticize you for your own absolute stupidity and lack of will? Because it’s true. You’re sad and helpless. Who would even respond to your potential miserable excuse for a text? Your attempts are pitiful, and honestly? Shameful.
You text Jade-
No no no, she’ll get on you for isolating and will worry 100 times more than anybody. That’s a sore subject.
You text Da-
No, he’ll be overbearing and worried.
Roxy?
Probably Jade and Dave’s reactions rolled into one and the emotional gutpunch counterpart to Rose’s intellectual scathing criticisms.
Jane?
You aren’t dumb, there are multiple things that will make this worse, including but not limited to sharing Dave’s smothering concern and anger at pussying out on BOTH of your birthdays.
Jake?
He’s not THAT close to you.
Dirk?
He’s Rose but more intimidating in this regard. And lives with Jake.
Okay, that’s every one of your human friends immediately scratched off the list. Including your closest friends. Great. Nice job so far, dingus.
Vriska?
...Nah, she and Terezi will probably ignore you on accident with how unsociable you’ll be with your lack of spine to step forward in beginning any conversation.
Kanaya’s with Rose, and Karkat’s with Dave AND Jade sharing a space with Davepeta too, so that’s three more struck off the list.
Calliope’s with Roxy, and well. You don’t know each other well, you’d say.
You know jack shit on anybody else, and Hal’s a dickhead, so you practically exhausted every idea you could conjure up.
Great. Guess you’ll have to bite the bullet on somebody you’re close with.
Your finger hovers over the little black, green, and white dog doodle that you gave Jade as an icon in your contacts, and you suppose this is your only shot.
You take a deep breath in, and out.
John: hey jade, i know it’s uh. kind of been a while?
John: you honestly don’t really need to do much, i guess i was just bored more than anything, but.
John: do you want to just do something together?
John: like, anything?
John: we can just play super smash bros or whatever games i have available, it doesn’t have to be that much.
John: i hope you’re not too busy.
You toss down your phone on the couch after you finish, and go make sure you get your pizza out of the oven before it gets burnt. Or so there’s not a fire in your kitchen. Both would be bad. Avoid both? Avoid both. Definitely avoid both.
You watch through what is an hour’s worth of minecraft roleplaying with an oven made frozen pizza to chow down on before you decide to check on the fruits of your lack of any labor whatsoever, and see that Jade actually read your text. However, it seems like she hasn’t actually gotten to texting you back though, so you guess it’s just more waiting on your part after all.
You suppose some self reflection in the meantime couldn’t hurt, right?
Okay, that’s a lie, you think it could hurt a lot actually.
Thankfully, you are saved from having to do a single bit of figuring out what the fuck is wrong with you because you hear a knocking at your door. You guess Jade decided that it would be better to discuss this in person? Which isn’t unreasonable, she hasn’t seen you in a while, and probably wanted to check in on you first.
Although, as you take a second to stand up from the couch, pause the TV, and set your food on the coffee table in front of you, the knocking immediately starts ramping up in speed and force, making you think that maybe you fucked up in choosing one of the more emotionally based chums in your dwindling social circle, because this is beginning to sound like a mad knocking. Not Jade’s usual happy knock, because she usually does it to the tune of some song you don’t recognize.
This is the “your existence is getting obliterated today fuckass!” type of knocking. And that, ladies gentlemen and nonbinary gentlefolk, is not a good sign for you.
Jade begins to unlock the door with her space powers (which you, at first, didn’t understand, until you remembered that she essentially manipulates the space around her. Including moving the stuff around her as she pleases), causing you to begin panicking slightly. She must be at her wit’s end if this is what she’s resorting to. You also realize very late that you did not put yourself together enough to be considered even remotely presentable for guests, and this makes the cold feeling of dread in your chest and the butterflies in your stomach even worse.
John: wait wait wait, Jade!
John: i’ll get the door, just hold on a second please!
You don’t receive a response, but the lock stops moving and the banging ceases. That’s a good sign. You hope.
You quickly fly upstairs, and try to think of something that could help you ease the situation and make Jade less pissed at you as you quickly slap on some non-pajamas. Which leads to you putting on tan khaki pants and quickly slapping on your god tier t-shirt, leaving yourself barefoot so that you don’t make her wait too long.
You proceed to retcon yourself to the door in order to not waste any more time and not raise any suspicion in Jade, and throw open the door.
You expect a look of fury to be painted across her face. And Jade did look pretty angry to you at first. Or extremely on edge, you couldn’t tell in the split second that you saw of it. But when Jade finally saw your face, you could see the immediate shift in her emotional state to some mixture of relief and concern.
Jade: john!!!!
Jade: thank fucking gosh, i thought you were about to blow me off again
Jade: i was so worried about you, do you know how much i missed you???
Jade: i am officially mandating a birthday harley hug!
John: heh. jade, really, that isn’t necess-
John: o o f
John: it’s honestly- it’s really good to see you too!
John: but we’re all okay and everything, i just wanted to hang out with you, jade.
John: did you want to play-
Jade: now hold on, john
Jade: if we’re going to hang out, we have to get you out of here first!
Jade: i’m not leaving you in here to just eventually start not answering me again, ESPECIALLY ON YOUR BIRTHDAY!
Jade: in fact, i’m bringing you to live with me, davepeta, dave, and karkat for a while!
John: wait, what?
Jade: come outside with me john
Jade: there’s a whole world you’ve been ignoring
Jade: and so help me if i don’t see you for another year i’m making the most of the time we have!
John: jade, i know you’re excited, really, i get it!
John: i just don’t think i’m up for going anywhere.
John: or doing much social interaction with more than one person really.
John: do you think we can just, you know…
John: oh! you could just sleep over here!
John: we don’t need to make it a huge thing with everybody, all we need is just some good one on one time!
You can’t take that risk! You know who’s next after Dave, and that’s gonna a big problem-
Jade: but everyone else misses you too!
Jade: john, i don’t want to push you too much but you pretty much have said nothing to anyone this past year
Jade: Dave and Rose miss you a lot
Jade: you know, our best friends?
John: i-
John: tomorrow, we can just go see them tomorrow!
John: just the four of us, i promise we’ll get to see them and work our way from there.
She’s really backing you into a corner here. You don’t think you can handle THAT in a month, let alone a day.
Jade: john, are you going to tell me what’s going on?
Jade: you’re being super dodgy
Jade: as in way more dodgy than usual!
Jade: you’re normally never THIS avoidant on anything
Jade: well
Jade: at least from the you i know
Jade: can you please work with me on this, for me?
John: .
John: i honestly don’t understand what’s up with me nowadays, i’ll be honest.
John: i’m just trying to work myself back into our normal, that’s all.
John: it’s just gonna take me one step at a time.
John: but i promise that i’m trying to sort things out, and i promise that, most importantly, i’m not going to just bail on you guys again.
John: you can trust me on this!
Okay, half truths, half truths. If you can’t keep things stable by staying away, you can keep things stable by being what they need you to be. You’ve got this. You give her the best F̸̨̻͖͖̰̏͛̈́͊́̊ạ̸̹̙̦̙̲̭͐̂̚͝k̷̢̢̡͍̬̼͖̃̈̏́̓̔͗͊͜ẹ̴̫͍͙̗̓̌̀. smile you can muster.
Jade: okay…
Jade: so you PROMISE we’ll go out and see dave and rose?
Jade: we’ll go talk with them, have a fun time, and we can have a sleepover with them too?
Jade: i know you aren’t lying, but
Jade: can you at least say it yourself?
John: ...we’ll go hang out with rose and dave too.
Jade’s concerned look shifts back to the same big, toothy smile from the previously mentioned “mandated birthday harley hug”.
Jade: i’m happy to hear that then!
Jade: there’s going to be so much we can do, we have a lot to make up for-
Jade: dave and rose will be ecstatic when they hear about this!
John: haha, yeah, i bet.
John: i’m sorry, jade.
Jade: don’t apologize, we just...
Jade: ...need to get you back up to speed!
Jade: i don’t think this is your fault, i really don’t
Jade: if you really want to apologize, we can apologize to everybody eventually, if you want to!
You nod with a smaller smile. This isn’t going to plan at all, but you can work with this. You just have to word things right and put on a good enough face, and no problems!
...God, this is going to be a long week, isn’t it.
—————————————————————
You stand in a great and infamous manor, being newly painted from it’s garish green to a more wide array of yellows and browns.
You are known by the title of STUDIOUS CLIP, although you regard it as more of a name than a moniker or job description compared to most other carapacians like yourself.
You imagine the audience doesn’t quite understand what the point of your presence in this narrative is quite yet, but you think the tale will tell itself quite nicely, as your knowledge leads you to believe. And your information isn’t nothing to scoff at, nor is your reasoning.
You’re known as STUDIOUS for a reason. And you intend to prove that you earned that name.
But in any case, you ought to get to your current duties with your wonderful son. He’s been working at his new passion project for hours, and you think that he may need a slight break. His determination is admirable, but you worry he overworks himself sometimes, especially with this project. It’s been in the works for months, and you know that he takes this seriously. So you follow suit.
You head to his new office space, passing by carapacians of different shapes and origins working at the paint job of your new home, and knock at the LORD’s door.
???: BLOODY FUCKING SON OF A POGOSTICK HOPPING UP OLYMPUS TO RIP OFF ZEUS’S GIGGLY MCFUCKING CO-
Aaaaaaaand he needs a break.
You crack open the door, and politely ask how the project is going.
???: Oh, apologies Clip. It’s going as well as it can.
???: Pardon my boisterous expletives but you must understand the tediousness of the task i have at hand.
???: You can imagine can’t you?
Oh yes, you understand the plight of your son. He’s certainly poured a lot of effort into this for the past few months. He certainly has made great leaps and bounds in his quest regardless!
???: Yes, but…
But?
???: Sigh.
???: Im being impatient im very aware!
???: My gripes certainly are not unique and i doubt they ever will be
???: It’s just that I worry so heavily that i wont be successful with this.
???: Egbert is stubborn, and it feels like the more progress i make the more they resist my attempts to even remotely make any improvements!
???: I can’t even imagine how difficult it will be to get the troll pronouns across, let alone get them to see the truth.
...Pardon?
???: Oh, right. I forget that my constant planning isnt always transparent to the outside viewer.
???: I’ll explain over lunch while I leave this be for a spell, does that sound good?
You can’t imagine anything nicer.
He closes the golden laptop, and packs it into his Cards of Fate fetch modus. Fetch modi continue to leave you puzzled to this day, but your son comprehends it well enough, so you don’t complain on his behalf.
???: Let us get to it then, i’m positively famished!
