Whaaaaaaat the hell

where the hell am I?

do not be afraid ryan

.....cosmic?

yes

please forgive what i did...............i had no choice

it's okay.......i'm sorry too.

you wouldn't be in this mess if I didn't want to do some kind of crazy edgy for this.

Hell this whole NCCT is just going above and beyond whats reasonable

i understand it......

Of course you understand it. Part of me is in you.

And a lot of me is in the people behind this. Prism and.............well....don't wanna make anything official

especially when jack and the others arrive

Jack???

The hell's going on with Jack??????

i presume that prism plans to convince him to give up his will to save the shadow

......yeah that sounds like a jack move......

however i have spoken with him about this.........we are safe from her here........this can be a place of safety

i have assured it

Suddenly, Jack

"...Ryan.....Cosmic..."

Hey Jack

hello jack

"So, Ryan.....how have you been holding up?"

Well, I'm literally talking to myself right now, so clearly I've been better

by the way, the red shadow thanks you, jack

"Absolutely. It's only right to help him after all of this....."

Even if none of this is canon so it'll all get changed back after the dream tourneys end

"Then let him have any reprieve. It is what he deserves"

"And if you truly felt sympathy for us, then you would not be doing any of this."

jack

No, he's right.

There's an unfortunate divide between us

Between all of you and me

so..............barry..........

As much as I love the idea I saw floated around that he's the same one as your father, you know at this point that isn't the case

i would expect that means your mind is made up

do i know of barry's past, or will this be a surprise to me as well...............

...........i see...

"What?"

I'm just coming up with ideas to make everything really sad, you know how it is

"So I have to know, Ryan......."

"Why....."

.....I see what you're doing here

"What do you mean?"

This is the question that stumps Prism

"And why does it stump her?"

Because I have no set motivation for her. Everything she's doing is kinda aimless, I guess. I make it pretty transparent that the amount of planning going into these things are minimal at BEST. CPU Kerfuffle isn't your average story. We retcon like mofos. Half the shit in this is made up on the fly. The only thing that was planned out was the Home twist, and that was only planned out two episodes before the reveal

"So you have no plans for us? You just change our past whenever you feel like it?'

yes

Why am I even doing this?

likely because you are processing some heavy emotions

Cosmic, can we not???

why do you ask me?

yeah good point.

Just I'd rather not

"Turn this into a therapy session for yourself. Yeah, we've heard it over and over again."

it is okay. we do not have to discuss your personal connection to the story in specific detail.......however, can we assume in broad strokes that it may be an answer as to why this continues? why i have so much more to who i am?

......in some capacity I guess so....

that is all i wish to know

This was a bad idea

Or maybe it was bad timing

I dont know

Sorry about that last night. Just...things have been stressful

it is okay

Hey, Jack.

"What is it?"

I'm curious about something....how do you feel about the whole....Spectrum thing?

"I'm...not sure what you mean"

Well before I did this whole thing, you were just a guy who lived in the tundra, joined a village, and could inexplicably speak through chat. But now there's a reason....because you saw Spectrum with your own eyes. And Spectrum gave you that weird power I guess.

"You guess???"

Honestly, not even I know Spectrum's true power

"Didn't you CREATE Spectrum?"

Yes and no

I gave it a name and I gave it context to the story that you all reside in

But Spectrum has existed for WAY longer than I have

"So what I saw was the raw form of some ethereal concept?"

I guess so.

I wouldn't know.

I'm not the one who saw it.

See, while there's a lot of benefit to being someone outside the universe of CPUK, there's still something I can sort of envy about you all, despite all of this control I have.

I'll never see any of what we are acting out exist in a tangible sense, for better or for worse

"My free will has been ripped from my body in order to save someone who was suffering under something worse, how can you envy that?"

Do you want me to list the reasons?

1) In the WILD event that you don't come back from this victorious (which, come on) at the very least, your final moments were heroic. You did something that gave you meaning in helping someone else. At best, I die of old age at 89 after 50 years of whatever the hell I have coming next for me.

2) Even if I wasn't writing this, it's clear you all are a story. You can reasonably assume that you're gonna get a happy ending through all this. End up victorious. Because even if it isn't me, 9 times out of 10, the person writing the story wants to create a happy ending for their story in some way shape or form. Or even if it isn't a happy one, some kind of closure.

3) Everything here is so, so, SO simple. I even tried to make it more dramatic in this series, but even then, the sheer impact of some of the shit you all went through? Yeah, it's bad a lot of the time, but it sure as hell isn't as complex as my world

I guess that's the crux of it all. One of the reasons people tell stories is a form of escapism from all of this madness. Jack, Cosmic, you've never had to worry about electricity bills, or making sure you make it to work on time every day or unreasonable bosses or your dog getting mats in her fur or the county office giving you a citation because you're too exhausted to mow your lawn or the crippling loneliness of it all

Yeah you get a cutscene. You get some focused emotions, and you have implications, but I honestly don't know.....do you feel it? The everyday grind? The feeling of having to go on and on and on and on every day until you die, without knowing if it's going to lead anywhere? Knowing that you have dreams, but having an idea instilled in your head to keep your dreams reasonable?

"....Dan does"

AND WHY DO YOU THINK THE AUDIENCE LOVES HIM SO MUCH JACK????

I'm sorry

Well I'm not, I know that I used bold, italics and capslock intentionally for dramatic effect

Maybe this is why I'm always so hesitant to introduce this meta stuff.

Because the relationship with a series, especially with so much improv and stream of consciousness, it's inevitable that the relationship between the work and its creator is explored.

And......well........I'm going through it

I'm still on the pathway to loving myself to the level I would like to

I've improved, but

yeah

that was quite a reaction to prisms comment towards spriteman

yeah

"So any more monologues you want to say before you inevitably open the floodgates?"

Well, I already kinda opened up the fact that I'm kinda depressed which, no shit right?

So yeah, I think that's it.

"So what does that make this now?"

"A place where people can talk without worrying about Prism?"

Yeah I guess so

"So why should they believe it?"

because I special protection over this place

"Are you sure?"

Yeah, that's....how I made it

I can confirm, I've double and triplech-

"Didn't Prism say that she worked with someone?"

........yeah.......yeah she did......

"Who did she work with, Ryan?"

The answer to that question is incredibly complicated and raises a TON of weird metaphysical questions regarding symbolis-

"I'm gonna raise my foot up your ass if you don't answer me!"

First of all, that's not possible by ANY-

"RYAN...."

Alright, alright...I've been leaning on implications long enough....it was someone from an old stream series I did. The idea at first was that it was an AI gone rogue kinda deal.....would start talking to me....

Eventually it was revealed that this character could exist outside of the game. The big plot twist that never got fired off because of the beginning of my slump was gonna be that the character discovered that I'd projected all of my negative qualities onto them, making them essentially the bad version of me, I guess. Or like, me if only seen through a pessimistic perspective.

"So they still exist?"

They'll always exist. Fortunately, at this point, I've been going to therapy for a while, and at the very least, they and I are on good terms. They like to cause trouble, and sometimes, especially when things get meta, they can come in and stir up trouble.

"But why????"

"Why would you let this evil version of yourself go to do awful things and ruin what you have?"

Nothing wrong with a little conflict to spice up a story. Make it a little more exciting

"I LOST MY FREE WILL"

And you'll get it back

I can guarantee it beyond a shadow of a doubt

"Can you?"

"100 percent guarantee that I will be okay?"

No, but I can't guarantee anything exactly 100%

"......what makes you different from Prism?"

The fact that I felt every second of the ten minutes it took me to respond to you.

Our realities run parallel at times, but they are completely unaligned.

To anyone in my universe, you do not exist. To anyone in your universe, I do not exist. Yes, we are the ones who create you, and we dictate your actions, but in a way, you dictate ours. You inspire us. We look upon your universe and see things that would be absolutely atrocious within our reality, but this veil between realities allows us pause.

Jack, we all love you so much. We love all of you.

"In that case, why take my free will?"

Sorry to be this blunt about it, Jack, but I figured you knew. This whole thing has been me talking to myself

"I.....think in the back of my mind.....I did, but......I suppose I once heard someone tell me.......nothing wrong with a little conflict"

heh....now you're getting it.....

So I guess to answer your question about what makes me different from Prism?

Prism lives in your reality. I do not. Prism holds contempt whenever things don't go her way. I think it's important we learn to embrace it. Prism revels in the pain of others to feel vengeance. I like to think I use the pain so that we can process complicated emotions and trauma, because feeling something these days? Way better than bleak nothingness.

Honestly? I still don't have my finger on it in full I don't think.

I'm far far far from perfect. But I like to think that at the very least what I have plotted out is good in the end.

"And if it isn't?"

Ask Waltz

i apologize for interrupting your soliloquy, but i believe they will be coming around quite soon

Okay

Jack

"Yeah?"

Do you trust me?

"Do I have a choice?"

That's a good question

If I believe in a god, or some other higher being if you aren't religious, and I believe that he created me exactly the way I am down to every last brain cell, knowing exactly how I would develop.....who I would meet....what I would see.....what I'd experience.........

If an all-knowing god knows all of that, then wouldn't that god know exactly what choice I would make?

If we're going by that standard, you might have more of a choice than me. At least you have Smash Bros battles that I can't predict, hehe......

"Do you believe you have a choice then?"

I don't know

I just hope that I'm able to make other people happy.

shadow is about to pick up nelson

"Yes"

huh?

"I do trust you"

thanks