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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<head>
<title>CHAPTER 6. A Conversation Regarding Relevance (Preceding Canon)</title>
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<span><a href="index.html">Index</a></span>
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<time datetime="2020-03-12">03/12/2020</time>
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<article>
<h1>CHAPTER 6. A Conversation Regarding Relevance</h1>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0145.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">space is vast.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">an unproductive statement, almost a tautology. and although tautologies can be worthy thought exercises, they become virtually meaningless when it comes down to the actual transmission of information. i believe it is for that reason most beings don’t use them in day to day parlance. the lives of the many are far too volatile and instinct-driven to want to waste time with saying that which is already true.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">tautologies are, in general, reserved for stories. for narrative device. for finding new and inventive ways to tell an audience that which they already know. and at the end of the day, are not all diffusions of knowledge at least somewhat tautologist in nature? in order to recognize the value of my words, you must first know what they mean. you must predict my intentions.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">but i digress.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">arguments with my brother would often dissolve into such nonsense. the shouting of truths back at each other, neither of us ever able to convince the other of the righteousness of our stance. we were never meant to agree. it isn’t in our blood.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">space is vast. everyone knows it, but most sentient beings in their many universes never have any way or reason to experience it first hand. even in societies advanced enough for space flight, most people will never leave their atmosphere. when they scoff at my tautology ‘space is vast’, what do they really know? nothing. as far as any of them have experienced, space does not exist.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0146.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">very few have stood and looked into the abyss, the true gulf of nothingness that spreads out around the single point of consciousness adrift in a constellation. all the combined weight of sentient endeavour would quail underneath that sheer, irresistible truth. the realization that they are so small, that the universe cares about their puny lives so very little. sitting in the glowing light of the stars this becomes even more apparent</p>
<p class="alt-callie">...</p>
<p class="alt-callie">are we out of orange juice?</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0147.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: are you talking to me?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: because if you are i would like to remind you that i hate!! orange juice!!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">no you don’t.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: well i guess i never really had a strong opinion on it before</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: but now i cant stand it!!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: its all you drink!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i like the pulp.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: its my body and i dont want orange juice!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i hate pulp, and i didnt just make that up to spite you</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: who wants strings in their juice?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i do.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: ughhhhhhhhh</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i realize that jade’s situation is less than ideal from a characterization perspective, but i still politely point out that nobody likes a whiner.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: fuck you rude calliope inside my head!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: from a 'characterization' standpoint, i think you are pedantic</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: annoying</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: and just a general huge drag to be around!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: why dont you try being possessed by the spirit of some other version of a good friend of yours, and floated around a spaceship full of people you love</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: unable to affect anything or say hello to anyone!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: then tell me about whiners!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i killed my brother and consumed him.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: sounds like a you problem</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i suggest to the witch that i have spent untold eons in the void between universes, waiting for the moment i would be needed to prevent the dissipation of reality as we know it. her appeals to emotion will not help her. i will remain unmoved.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: well i had to watch my boyfriend and my brother die in front of me on a tiny scaled version of a world that i shrunk for them!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: and then spend the next three years talking to myself, wracked with guilt that id killed them!</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0148.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">i remind the witch that my time was in the void, which is far darker and lonelier than a ship full of lizards. i add that it was also eons, a length of time that is, traditionally, far longer than three years. i ask her to excuse my pettiness in pointing it out.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: youre a member of a species designed for long periods of isolation</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: im a human!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: or at least, i started out that way</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: even if i had the powers of a first guardian, my brain still worked in modules of human pattern recognition!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: three years is a long time for a human teenager, i dont care how many of her molecules are made of a god!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i point out that this back and forth is becoming childish and if--</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: OH MY GOD STOP NARRATING!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: who are you even talking to?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">the audience, of course.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: audience?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: ugh, this is so annoying, i cant tell if youre being serious</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: your voice is impossible to read and i cant see your face</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0149.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: oh</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: well thanks</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: thats better</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">of course.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0150.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: youre right that i am being silly, and i didnt mean to start a slap fight over who has suffered more</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: clearly you have been through a lot more than i could ever possibly imagine</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: youre the same callie who talked to me and jane when we were unconscious back in the game, right?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: theres just a lot of everybody running around and i guess i havent been keeping the internal tally that i should have</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">yes, that’s correct.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: but i think it is a very natural thing to be silly when you are used to being able to control your own body, but now cant</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i will allow that, yes.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: so i will stop yelling at you</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: but i reserve the right to start yelling again in the future if i have a good reason</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: ...okay?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">that seems fair.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">jade looks at me with the face i have looked at in the mirror for the last few months on board this vessel without a name. no one can decide what it should be called, possibly due to the comical nature of its construction. for a while there was a ongoing list of ideas hanging in the common room, but it quickly devolved into a cluster of more and more obscure memes, until one day the knight tore it down in a fit of pique.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">don’t ask me to tell you which knight. you know which one.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">jade smiles. dave and karkat will always be a source of pain for her, a low ache somewhere in her center of gravity, but she is happy for them. she knows that there is really no other alternative for how to be. they chose each other over her, and they always will. they are the two people who matter to her the most in every universe, and that will not change, no matter how much she wishes it would, no matter how--</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: do you actually know that?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">pardon me?</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: do you actually know that im doomed to pine over dave and karkat across every iteration of reality?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: like, can you actually see that?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: because youre a space player, like i am.</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i know that you are more powerful than me, but i dont think you can see other timelines any better than i can</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: so i think you are just being dramatic</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: for the “audience”, whatever the heck that means</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i experience a moment of unease as jade looks at me. keeping her out of my thoughts is proving to be more difficult than i had first assumed it would be. i had begun confident that i could keep her consciousness sleeping peacefully inside the shell of her body, tamed and quiescent, but she has proved to be more irascible than i initially gave her credit for.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: heheh</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i have never been particularly tamable, and my consciousness is huge!</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0151.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0152.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0153.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: you are a pretty tough crowd, evil callie</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: but yes, i can hear most of what you are thinking to yourself</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: it took a little while to separate it from my own thoughts, just like it did with dirk</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: because thats what he was doing the whole time, wasnt it?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: controlling our thoughts</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: making us believe things we never would, things he thought we SHOULD believe</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">ah, and here we are. i had been wondering when we would get to the prince, and jade’s knowledge of the chaos he has wrought within this timeline, and who knows how many others. i assume she realizes exactly how many resources the prince put in to keeping her still and asleep, firmly out of the game, so as to prevent granting me access to the universe, in order to foil his campaign of endless hubris.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">jade knows all of this, i don’t have to tell her. she is a very bright girl, and even if she didn’t have partial access to my thoughts, she is good at compiling data and using it to fill in gaps. as she herself had rather licentiously mentioned, her brain is quite large.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">and all of these reasons are why i know i can count on her to be reasonable and realistic about her situation. i need a body to continue interfacing with this timeline, and her body is the only one that will do.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">i hear her wonder, what about kanaya?</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: what about kanaya?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: hey</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">what about her, jade? she is a space player, it is true, but her powers are nothing compared to yours. for one, she isn’t god tier, and for two, she is dead. a living dead, but dead nonetheless. and a sylph’s specializations lie on a different end of the spectrum from my own. a witch is a far closer match.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">no, jade understands and sympathizes with my assurance that her body, and her body alone, will do for my purposes.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: um...no i dont!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">she does. after all, she would not wish this sort of state of being on anyone else, and especially not on one of her friends. jade may have undergone a lopsided number of narrative hardships in her life, but at least she is used to them. why spread that suffering to another? jade understands and accepts her place in the story, which has always been to enable events to play out around her, just as it has been mine.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0154.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">because what is a story, truly? nothing but a series of misadventures and connections, actions spurring reactions, tumbling into one another, over and over and over. with so many competing interests, clearly the story cannot account for all perspectives, for all threads? it would be laughable, childish, even selfish, to demand that they do.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">in other words, not everyone will achieve a happy ending. this is a truth that jade had come to grips with a long time ago.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: wait.</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: stop.</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: why are you saying all of this?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">jade’s body is my vessel, and it is through this realization that she will understand her true role in the story. her true relevance. if i released my hold on her consciousness, there would be no guarantee that i would be allowed in again. therefore i cannot permit her the control of herself that she so desperately craves, and she understands that.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: wait. so...you could give me my body back, and then just hop back in when you need to?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">in theory, yes.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: then what the hell callie!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">because i don’t trust you to cooperate when the time comes.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: why not?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i thought you said i was a reasonable girl with a huge brain!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">you are, to an extent.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">she is. but the truth of the matter remains that humans are capricious and emotional. and even jade herself can admit that she hasn’t been the most...committed example of her species in the last few years.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0155.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: ...what is that supposed to mean?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">moving from lover to lover, job to job, interest to interest. over the last few years jade had found herself listless, unable to settle and unwilling to commit to anything or anyone. she knows there’s nothing wrong with that on a moral level, but on a personal level she’s always believed that she could be more, could do better. be better. and now, because of this, she realizes that sacrifices must be made.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">and that she, as a space player, is uniquely built for sacrifice.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: yeah</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i guess youre right</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i have been such a silly little slut!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: hey callie</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">yes, jade?</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: oh my god, whats that!!!!</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">she points off into the darkness. it’s nothing, of course. there is nothing here besides the two of us. this space is utterly under my control. jade could control it too, if she had any access to her own powers. but with my grip around her cortex, there is no chance of that.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">i know there is nothing behind me. she is being silly. but i’m not dirk strider. i don’t mind indulging the whims of silly girls, if it makes them feel better about their situations. there is nothing wrong with humoring.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0156.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0157_1.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0157_2.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">and here i make my first mistake.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">up until this point, i have counted on my superior narrative power and class strength to keep her under control, but bringing her into a place where we can both physically manifest has left me, foolishly, vulnerable. when you are dealing with an epically powerful space player and former borderline omnipotent being, you forget that even with her powers stripped, she is still quite a formidable physical force. a young woman in the prime of her life, with a canine’s instincts and the fierce desire to sink her teeth into something she can tear apart.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">and right now that something happens to be me.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">her fingers tear at my throat, trying to find purchase. she won’t be able to kill me here, but it is certainly unpleasant, and not to mention slightly repetitive. we just saw this in the previous chapter, although this particular fight will not end as amorously as the last one did. so don’t get your hopes up.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: who!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: are you talking to!</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0158.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0159.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0160_1.gif">
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0160_2.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">during the ship’s trip through space, there have been numerous experiments; modifications to the nutrition output of the various machines designed to create sustenance for the various species on board. i myself have been content with orange juice and synthetic proteins, but dave and roxy have both expressed longing for various ‘earth snacks’, and so the trials and errors began.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0161.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">the results were mixed. as roxy told us in a previous chapter, alchemized food all sort of tastes the same, although the visuals really help to bring about the flavor. and at the end of the day, isn’t it the journey that is more important than the destination? the stories you tell as you create the strangely flavored nutritional paste?</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: ????????????</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">so far, everyone’s favorite attempt has been a vaguely peanut-butter and chocolate flavored creation called "Rices'". nobody eats them really. they just sit in a bowl on the counter.</p>
<p class="alt-callie">i’m not actually sure what the witch is trying to accomplish here.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: you dont?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: really?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">i don’t know what she is trying to accomplish, because surely she would not be doing what it appears she is trying to do. making such a meaningless threat.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: meaningless?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: do you even know anything about the body you stole?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: shouldnt you have run some sort of psychic physical before you possessed it?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: its definitely what i would have done!</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0162.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">jade must know that i am well-aware of her family-wide peanut allergy. a story thread that has been extremely important and weighed in on in multiple parts of the narrative. how could i have forgotten such a key detail?</p>
<p class="alt-callie">but of course jade knows that. she is just being silly and dramatic. she knows that a suicide threat is utterly meaningless when made by a god. there is nothing remotely just or heroic about dying from self-imposed anaphylactic shock in the throes of a childish tantrum. at the most i’ll get a relaxing few minutes of sleep.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0163.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: do you really want to risk it?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">what are you talking about, jade? i just said--</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: i dont know, callie</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: ive never really understood the rules that govern the death of a god tier, have you?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: it seems pretty arbitrary from where im standing</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: who makes the decision whether or not something is heroic or just?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">...that’s unclear. but it certainly isn’t you.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: right, of course not</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: but are you so confident that youre a good guy?</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: are you sure that the alpha timeline WANTS you to be here?</p>
</div>
<p class="alt-callie">...what.</p>
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: youve done some stuff, callie</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: im only saying you shouldnt be so quick to assume that me killing you wouldnt be just</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: and that taking my own life to do it wouldnt be heroic</p>
</div>
<a class="flash" href="https://www.homestuck2.com/story/164">
[S] ==><br>
(View on homestuck2.com)
</a>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0165.gif">
<p class="alt-callie">i don’t let the witch manipulate me. i refuse to falter in the face of her whispers. without my careful planning and swift action, the prince would have taken full control over this timeline. none of my friends could even begin to imagine the turmoil.</p>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0166.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: they arent your friends!!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: you took them from me!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: do you really think any of them would side with you over me??</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: you keep saying that youre doing all of this for my own good, but youre just lonely!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: i know you are, because so am i!</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: if you are so utterly convinced of your virtue, then let me do this</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: you said that being a space player is all about sacrifice</p>
<p class="jade">JADE: well</p>
</div>
<img class="panel" src="https://www.homestuck2.com/assets/panels/0167.gif">
<div class="chat">
<p class="jade">JADE: bet</p>
</div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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<p class="command-line">> <a href="chapter7.html">CHAPTER 7. Distress Call From the Closet</a></p>
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