#formed as a little prose novel full of symbols and metaphors

[mishkakagehishka]

I guess i'm at that age where all i want to write about is commentary on society

[justforbooks]

The 100 best novels written in English: the full list

After two years of careful consideration, Robert McCrum has reached a verdict on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. Take a look at his list.

1. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678)

A story of a man in search of truth told with the simple clarity and beauty of Bunyan’s prose make this the ultimate English classic.

2. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)

By the end of the 19th century, no book in English literary history had enjoyed more editions, spin-offs and translations. Crusoe’s world-famous novel is a complex literary confection, and it’s irresistible.

3. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

A satirical masterpiece that’s never been out of print, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels comes third in our list of the best novels written in English

4. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748)

Clarissa is a tragic heroine, pressured by her unscrupulous nouveau-riche family to marry a wealthy man she detests, in the book that Samuel Johnson described as “the first book in the world for the knowledge it displays of the human heart.”

5. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

Tom Jones is a classic English novel that captures the spirit of its age and whose famous characters have come to represent Augustan society in all its loquacious, turbulent, comic variety.

6. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (1759)

Laurence Sterne’s vivid novel caused delight and consternation when it first appeared and has lost little of its original bite.

7. Emma by Jane Austen (1816)

Jane Austen’s Emma is her masterpiece, mixing the sparkle of her early books with a deep sensibility.

8. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

Mary Shelley’s first novel has been hailed as a masterpiece of horror and the macabre.

9. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)

The great pleasure of Nightmare Abbey, which was inspired by Thomas Love Peacock’s friendship with Shelley, lies in the delight the author takes in poking fun at the romantic movement.

10. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)

Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel – a classic adventure story with supernatural elements – has fascinated and influenced generations of writers.

11. Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (1845)

The future prime minister displayed flashes of brilliance that equalled the greatest Victorian novelists.

12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Charlotte Brontë’s erotic, gothic masterpiece became the sensation of Victorian England. Its great breakthrough was its intimate dialogue with the reader.

13. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

Emily Brontë’s windswept masterpiece is notable not just for its wild beauty but for its daring reinvention of the novel form itself.

14. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848)

William Thackeray’s masterpiece, set in Regency England, is a bravura performance by a writer at the top of his game.

15. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

David Copperfield marked the point at which Dickens became the great entertainer and also laid the foundations for his later, darker masterpieces.

16. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s astounding book is full of intense symbolism and as haunting as anything by Edgar Allan Poe.

17. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

Wise, funny and gripping, Melville’s epic work continues to cast a long shadow over American literature.

18. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)

Lewis Carroll’s brilliant nonsense tale is one of the most influential and best loved in the English canon.

19. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)

Wilkie Collins’s masterpiece, hailed by many as the greatest English detective novel, is a brilliant marriage of the sensational and the realistic.

20. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868-9)

Louisa May Alcott’s highly original tale aimed at a young female market has iconic status in America and never been out of print.

21. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-2)

This cathedral of words stands today as perhaps the greatest of the great Victorian fictions.

22. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)

Inspired by the author’s fury at the corrupt state of England, and dismissed by critics at the time, The Way We Live Now is recognised as Trollope’s masterpiece.

23. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884/5)

Mark Twain’s tale of a rebel boy and a runaway slave seeking liberation upon the waters of the Mississippi remains a defining classic of American literature.

24. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

A thrilling adventure story, gripping history and fascinating study of the Scottish character, Kidnapped has lost none of its power.

25. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)

Jerome K Jerome’s accidental classic about messing about on the Thames remains a comic gem.

26. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)

Sherlock Holmes’s second outing sees Conan Doyle’s brilliant sleuth – and his bluff sidekick Watson – come into their own.

27. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)

Wilde’s brilliantly allusive moral tale of youth, beauty and corruption was greeted with howls of protest on publication.

28. New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)

George Gissing’s portrayal of the hard facts of a literary life remains as relevant today as it was in the late 19th century.

29. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)

Hardy exposed his deepest feelings in this bleak, angry novel and, stung by the hostile response, he never wrote another.

30. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)

Stephen Crane’s account of a young man’s passage to manhood through soldiery is a blueprint for the great American war novel.

31. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

Bram Stoker’s classic vampire story was very much of its time but still resonates more than a century later.

32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)

Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece about a life-changing journey in search of Mr Kurtz has the simplicity of great myth.

33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900)

Theodore Dreiser was no stylist, but there’s a terrific momentum to his unflinching novel about a country girl’s American dream.

34. Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901)

In Kipling’s classic boy’s own spy story, an orphan in British India must make a choice between east and west.

35. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)

Jack London’s vivid adventures of a pet dog that goes back to nature reveal an extraordinary style and consummate storytelling.

36. The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904)

American literature contains nothing else quite like Henry James’s amazing, labyrinthine and claustrophobic novel.

37. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe (1904)

This entertaining if contrived story of a hack writer and priest who becomes pope sheds vivid light on its eccentric author – described by DH Lawrence as a “man-demon”.

38. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908)

The evergreen tale from the riverbank and a powerful contribution to the mythology of Edwardian England.

39. The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells (1910)

The choice is great, but Wells’s ironic portrait of a man very like himself is the novel that stands out.

40. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (1911)

The passage of time has conferred a dark power upon Beerbohm’s ostensibly light and witty Edwardian satire.

41. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)

Ford’s masterpiece is a searing study of moral dissolution behind the facade of an English gentleman – and its stylistic influence lingers to this day.

42. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915)

John Buchan’s espionage thriller, with its sparse, contemporary prose, is hard to put down.

43. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence (1915)

The Rainbow is perhaps DH Lawrence’s finest work, showing him for the radical, protean, thoroughly modern writer he was.

44. Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham (1915)

Somerset Maugham’s semi-autobiographical novel shows the author’s savage honesty and gift for storytelling at their best.

45. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)

The story of a blighted New York marriage stands as a fierce indictment of a society estranged from culture.

46. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)

This portrait of a day in the lives of three Dubliners remains a towering work, in its word play surpassing even Shakespeare.

47. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922)

What it lacks in structure and guile, this enthralling take on 20s America makes up for in vivid satire and characterisation.

48. A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924)

EM Forster’s most successful work is eerily prescient on the subject of empire.

49. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925)

A guilty pleasure it may be, but it is impossible to overlook the enduring influence of a tale that helped to define the jazz age.

50. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

Woolf’s great novel makes a day of party preparations the canvas for themes of lost love, life choices and mental illness.

51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Fitzgerald’s jazz age masterpiece has become a tantalising metaphor for the eternal mystery of art.

52. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)

A young woman escapes convention by becoming a witch in this original satire about England after the first world war.

53. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

Hemingway’s first and best novel makes an escape to 1920s Spain to explore courage, cowardice and manly authenticity.

54. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1929)

Dashiell Hammett’s crime thriller and its hard-boiled hero Sam Spade influenced everyone from Chandler to Le Carré.

55. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)

The influence of William Faulkner’s immersive tale of raw Mississippi rural life can be felt to this day.

56. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

Aldous Huxley’s vision of a future human race controlled by global capitalism is every bit as prescient as Orwell’s more famous dystopia.

57. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932)

The book for which Gibbons is best remembered was a satire of late-Victorian pastoral fiction but went on to influence many subsequent generations.

58. Nineteen Nineteen by John Dos Passos (1932)

The middle volume of John Dos Passos’s USA trilogy is revolutionary in its intent, techniques and lasting impact.

59. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)

The US novelist’s debut revelled in a Paris underworld of seedy sex and changed the course of the novel – though not without a fight with the censors.

60. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938)

Evelyn Waugh’s Fleet Street satire remains sharp, pertinent and memorable.

61. Murphy by Samuel Beckett (1938)

Samuel Beckett’s first published novel is an absurdist masterpiece, a showcase for his uniquely comic voice.

62. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939)

Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled debut brings to life the seedy LA underworld – and Philip Marlowe, the archetypal fictional detective.

63. Party Going by Henry Green (1939)

Set on the eve of war, this neglected modernist masterpiece centres on a group of bright young revellers delayed by fog.

64. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien (1939)

Labyrinthine and multilayered, Flann O’Brien’s humorous debut is both a reflection on, and an exemplar of, the Irish novel.

65. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)

One of the greatest of great American novels, this study of a family torn apart by poverty and desperation in the Great Depression shocked US society.

66. Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse (1946)

PG Wodehouse’s elegiac Jeeves novel, written during his disastrous years in wartime Germany, remains his masterpiece.

67. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)

A compelling story of personal and political corruption, set in the 1930s in the American south.

68. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (1947)

Malcolm Lowry’s masterpiece about the last hours of an alcoholic ex-diplomat in Mexico is set to the drumbeat of coming conflict.

69. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (1948)

Elizabeth Bowen’s 1948 novel perfectly captures the atmosphere of London during the blitz while providing brilliant insights into the human heart.

70. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)

George Orwell’s dystopian classic cost its author dear but is arguably the best-known novel in English of the 20th century.

71. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951)

Graham Greene’s moving tale of adultery and its aftermath ties together several vital strands in his work.

72. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)

JD Salinger’s study of teenage rebellion remains one of the most controversial and best-loved American novels of the 20th century.

73. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953)

In the long-running hunt to identify the great American novel, Saul Bellow’s picaresque third book frequently hits the mark.

74. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954)

Dismissed at first as “rubbish & dull”, Golding’s brilliantly observed dystopian desert island tale has since become a classic.

75. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Nabokov’s tragicomic tour de force crosses the boundaries of good taste with glee.

76. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

The creative history of Kerouac’s beat-generation classic, fuelled by pea soup and benzedrine, has become as famous as the novel itself.

77. Voss by Patrick White (1957)

A love story set against the disappearance of an explorer in the outback, Voss paved the way for a generation of Australian writers to shrug off the colonial past.

78. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

Her second novel finally arrived this summer, but Harper Lee’s first did enough alone to secure her lasting fame, and remains a truly popular classic.

79. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1960)

Short and bittersweet, Muriel Spark’s tale of the downfall of a Scottish schoolmistress is a masterpiece of narrative fiction.

80. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

This acerbic anti-war novel was slow to fire the public imagination, but is rightly regarded as a groundbreaking critique of military madness.

81. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962)

Hailed as one of the key texts of the women’s movement of the 1960s, this study of a divorced single mother’s search for personal and political identity remains a defiant, ambitious tour de force.

82. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

Anthony Burgess’s dystopian classic still continues to startle and provoke, refusing to be outshone by Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant film adaptation.

83. A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (1964)

Christopher Isherwood’s story of a gay Englishman struggling with bereavement in LA is a work of compressed brilliance.

84. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, a true story of bloody murder in rural Kansas, opens a window on the dark underbelly of postwar America.

85. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966)

Sylvia Plath’s painfully graphic roman à clef, in which a woman struggles with her identity in the face of social pressure, is a key text of Anglo-American feminism.

86. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth (1969)

This wickedly funny novel about a young Jewish American’s obsession with masturbation caused outrage on publication, but remains his most dazzling work.

87. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (1971)

Elizabeth Taylor’s exquisitely drawn character study of eccentricity in old age is a sharp and witty portrait of genteel postwar English life facing the changes taking shape in the 60s.

88. Rabbit Redux by John Updike (1971)

Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, Updike’s lovably mediocre alter ego, is one of America’s great literary protoganists, up there with Huck Finn and Jay Gatsby.

89. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)

The novel with which the Nobel prize-winning author established her name is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the African-American experience in the 20th century.

90. A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul (1979)

VS Naipaul’s hellish vision of an African nation’s path to independence saw him accused of racism, but remains his masterpiece.

91. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)

The personal and the historical merge in Salman Rushdie’s dazzling, game-changing Indian English novel of a young man born at the very moment of Indian independence.

92. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1981)

Marilynne Robinson’s tale of orphaned sisters and their oddball aunt in a remote Idaho town is admired by everyone from Barack Obama to Bret Easton Ellis.

93. Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis (1984)

Martin Amis’s era-defining ode to excess unleashed one of literature’s greatest modern monsters in self-destructive antihero John Self.

94. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (1986)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about a retired artist in postwar Japan, reflecting on his career during the country’s dark years, is a tour de force of unreliable narration.

95. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (1988)

Fitzgerald’s story, set in Russia just before the Bolshevik revolution, is her masterpiece: a brilliant miniature whose peculiar magic almost defies analysis.

96. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1988)

Anne Tyler’s portrayal of a middle-aged, mid-American marriage displays her narrative clarity, comic timing and ear for American speech to perfection.

97. Amongst Women by John McGahern (1990)

This modern Irish masterpiece is both a study of the faultlines of Irish patriarchy and an elegy for a lost world.

98. Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997)

A writer of “frightening perception”, Don DeLillo guides the reader in an epic journey through America’s history and popular culture.

99. Disgrace by JM Coetzee (1999)

In his Booker-winning masterpiece, Coetzee’s intensely human vision infuses a fictional world that both invites and confounds political interpretation.

100. True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2000)

Peter Carey rounds off our list of literary milestones with a Booker prize-winning tour-de-force examining the life and times of Australia’s infamous antihero, Ned Kelly.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p16 reaction

Reaction under the cut!

Still in the process of, well, processing the defeat of Lord English and all those deaths.

I wonder if, through some esoteric means, Jade's body would be used by Caliborn to try and escape his fate. She's an ex-First Guardian, so he might have a connection to her body. Plus, if that would happen, that would be the final time the wolf head could be connected to LE - since Jade's half dog.

Blaperile thought also of the server representing LE's DNA, running somewhere in the Furthest Ring. Maybe that fell into the Black Hole too, though?

I wonder what is even going to happen to John now. I mean, he still has the Ring of Life, someone could find him and put it on his finger. Someone like Terezi. It could be Meenah as well, in an ultimate sacrifice - she once said she'd run him through again to steal his ring, but maybe she'll sacrifice her chance at life for him. Some form of ultimate redemption for the Condesce, in a way.

If Terezi finds him, odds are she'll have found out about Vriska somehow. :/ I doubt any ghosts are left in the Furthest Ring on the one hand. On the other hand, we haven't seen any mention of any of the other trolls mentioned in the character list. Nor of GO Vriska & Terezi, though they might have double died through the cracks that encroached on them.

A third option to find John is Aradia - since she was so intent on witnessing the end of Paradox Space and seeing what'd happen if the place came falling apart.

Or maybe John will have some sort of vision, like a special afterlife, with his Dad there, before he wakes up / revives? I can only hope.

I doubt the Ring is multi-use, but if it were, it would sure be something if Meenah could be revived as well as John! And for Aradia and Terezi (and Meenah?) to come back with him to Earth C, now there's nothing left in the Furthest Ring for them. If Meenah came to Earth C, the Crocker run for president would have some serious competition! :P Not that I'd really root for Meenah to win, though, since she's quite clearly unfit to lead a country, only a strike force.

I've also got to wonder how long Andrew has been planning to have Davesprite be the one to kill Lord English? I'm sure much of what Davepeta became grew organically, as well as the other components of Lord English, but it seems to me the Davesprite part was always planned. But he sure is a master of tying in later details into the evolving story.

Like, for instance, LE biting Dave's head off reminds me of Hearts Boxcars doing the same for Eggs. Dave and eggs...

So, it was all doomed and retconned selves that were instrumental in bringing down Lord English, you know. John is pre-retcon, the other B2 kids came from a temporary offshoot. Tavros was also pre-retcon. Meenah came from a scratched session. Davesprite was doomed. All those troll ghosts were doomed. Alternate Calliope was doomed. The only exception is the Nepeta part of Davepeta, and she was so irrelevant to the timeline's major events before her prototyping as to almost not count. These were the glitches in spacetime that could kill Lord English. It's fitting, since Lord English was so focused on the main timeline and being the 'alpha', that he couldn't see where his 'doom' would come from.

Anyway. The page ended with a command to John, so I'm rather convinced the next page will continue from John's perspective.

---

"ROSE: When I was a child, I wrote a novel." Well, never mind!

Well, okay, I guess that, even though John's perspective has just ended in what could have been the ending of Homestuck, I would very much like to learn more about Complacency of the Learned and its potential ramifications as to the rest of the plot! Guess now's the moment to find out why the story isn't ending just yet.

"She has both hands resting on the chassis of his recent project, Sawtooth 3.1." Soooo... Was Sawhoo supposed to be Sawtooth 2.0? :P I wonder what improvements Dirk could be implementing. Also, whether he ever intends to use the rapbot on his show. I get a feeling most of the robots there never leave novice mode, actually.

"DIRK: Another one of those Lalonde childhood wizard fics, I presume?" Yeah, now I'm reminded of Wizardy Herbert, Roxy's supposed work. I never did get through that draft of it Andrew wrote all those years prior, I got to admit.

I'm guessing Rose has found a way to connect her old fic to the grander context of canon, realizing some of the stuff she put into the story came from her aspect?

"With the sunset behind her she’s a shadow ringed in yellow light that turns white at the tips of her hair." Pfff, circumstantial simultaneity strikes again! That's just like how Reload Rose looked. Alternatively, she has a bit of a halo right now.

"ROSE: It’s more raw. It betrays considerably more sincerity than my young self was surely ever aware of stitching into the prose." Hah, guess Rose was not as good at hiding her own feelings as she tried back then, hiding behind that passive-aggressiveness.

I wonder if this is Andrew talking about how some of his early work, maybe even early Homestuck, was a lot closer to his heart than the epic story it grew into, despite said level of epicness.

"ROSE: It meant something." Maybe adult Rose's work was too polished, too betraying of her literacy and a bit removed from the essence of what she was trying to say. That could be due to its nature as anti-propaganda aimed against Condesce.

"DIRK: Hmm." There Dirk goes again, with the autoresponder-enabling short responses.

"ROSE: For all its plainly evident amateurism as the literary product of a child, I’ve come to believe it’s a much stronger work standing alone as a single volume, its meaning and symbolism potently compressed, and its message shining through more nakedly, undisguised by the cleverness of a more seasoned writer." Again, Andrew comparing Team Special Olympics and such things to his later work?

"The plot concerns the machinations of twelve wizard children." Oh, I thought it was focused on twelve adult wizards, including Zazzerpan?

"ROSE: It isn’t their intent to commit atrocities, or within their nature to do so originally. They become corrupted by an overabundance of knowledge. The kind never meant for the mortal mind to grasp." They went grimdark. :P Also, I suppose this leads into Rose's misgivings regarding the ultimate self.

"ROSE: It certainly wasn’t the most fucked up thing I’ve ever written." ... Oh right, the MEOW code. Yeah, that must take 1st place.

"as if I were pulling inspiration from beyond myself—channeling the story, rather than writing it." Almost as if she got it from the Void more even than her then-latent aspect!

"spiderwebs of gold that dissolve into dust" ... Really, sure, go ahead, keep rubbing salt into that wound. :P

"ROSE: You could almost call the process... [...] She’s smirking now, just a little." Brace for pun-pact!

"ROSE: ...enlightened." Eyyyyy!

"

DIRK: It also sounds like it’s the opposite of what was going on?" Dirk also thinks it sounds more like a Void thing?

"DIRK: Sounds more like you were trapped in a sort of dire creative fugue state causing you to chart your own mental profile using metaphor revolving around murderous, omniscient children." ... So that's where the locquacious genes came from. Also in-deep-analysis.

"ROSE: Well, consider the playful pun rescinded.

ROSE: Apologies for diminishing your presence with my suboptimal health and the toll it has taken on my wordplay.

DIRK: Thanks. It’s been very difficult for me.

ROSE: You’ve been a real trouper." These two, are the best.

"ROSE: Anyway, my point is that I’ve long suspected my story was a pre-manifestation of my Seer of Light powers. I was seeing beyond my universe into another." Yyyeah, but, the analogy with the trolls doesn't hold up after the first glance, and she (or her adult self) also incorporated things from other timelines and universes. The genderqueer Cal... I forgot what the full name was..., for instance.

Meanwhile, Dave has been well aware his subconcsiousness is influencing him, and he has been looking and found the "least psychologically revealing" SBaHJ comic, as a result.

"ROSE: My original thesis was that the children represented the twelve trolls who created our universe." Ooh, so she noticed it too. Guess she might now be thinking the twelve are representations of the B2 kids, Karkat, Kanaya, Calliope and... someone else?

"DIRK: Twelve. That’s how many players went through the door at the end of our game." Riiiight, Terezi went through as well!

"When she finds herself leaning against him—probably without thinking about it, Dirk imagines, because neither of them really “do” that—he doesn’t pull away. If it’s her, it’s all right." That just shows the difference in how he and Rose behave versus he and Dave, where the distance or proximity is always a tangible thing.

"DIRK: You describe this as a fact of numerological significance.

DIRK: Which makes it seem you suspect these correlations are something less than utterly providential. As if there is a part of you holding on to the belief that certain figures are coincidental. That their significance and repetition smacks of bullshit." Heheh, there are a LOT of repeating numbers in the story though, bullshit or not. Twelve is just one of them: 4 6 10 11 12 13 25 ... Seems like Dirk holds them in higher esteem than Rose, though. If he's sincere.

"It’s unclear exactly which things are smacking, just as it’s unclear that when it comes to bullshit, whether or not smacking accurately describes what is being done per se." This metaphor has gone off track again.

"DIRK: I’m just saying it’s all evidence of a grand design. An immortal, metatextual apparatus beyond our ken that we can only catch glimpses of when we’re proverbially shitting our brains out through our nose." They can almost see Andrew. :P In-canon, the closest to such a reveal were John and Jade, but they let the moment of epiphany pass them by as they started their 3-year-long journey. :P

"ROSE: They were filled with the light of knowledge and one by one they succumbed to it, turning insane or evil or, most often, both." Ah, right, like the guy that filled that tome with knowledge and was crushed by it, that Roxy named Jaspers after.

"ROSE: If this is the effect unchecked powers have on players living in a post-canon victory state, then why isn’t it affecting any of our other friends?" Let the theories about evil power-hungry Jane commence! Though, what other effects could we even see right now, not much. Plus, Kanaya, Karkat, Terezi and Calliope won't feel the effects of an ultimate self ascension, at least.

"DIRK: Well." Don't say "now you mention it", Dirk. Please.

"some of us have stopped using our powers completely." Oh, he thinks that it's not so much power that corrupts, but the continued use of it?

"emergency resurrections" But he also doesn't seem to think then that what Jane is planning reeks of her getting slowly corrupted, huh.

"sportsball riot" I wouldn't be surprised if sportsball is an actual thing on this planet, courtesy of Dave's influence in shaping society.

"ROSE: In that case...

Rose sways suddenly." Eesh, she's starting to get woozy.

"ROSE: Maybe I was a fool for imagining I could settle down here." :/ It would be shitty for Paradox Space to do this to the players for no good reason, though. Then again, Sburb.

"occasional banter about adoption with her wife" Ooh, cool. Well, yeah, it would stand to reason Maryams like to become mothers. :)

"ROSE: I assumed it was just that feigned Strider Stoicism, but you seem to be taking this...

DIRK: In stride?" Awww-yeah. Sorry Rose, you have nothing to top Strider Dad jokes.

"

DIRK: But I’ve got more practice at this than you do. I spent most of my life before the game multitasking my entire fucking subconscious. I’ve had several times my age on paper to contemplate these mysteries.

DIRK: Years of prying open can after can of worms filled with answers I don’t like.

DIRK: Cut yourself on the edge more than once and you stop getting surprised by all the blood.

ROSE: I see." So it's as if, due to Dirk already having such an extensive memory from juggling dream and awake selves, he's handling all the input better. Maybe, relatively speaking, it's less that's coming in for him, too. I mean, his dream selves mustn't have gone through many different things. Plus, maybe merging with Lil' Hal does something for you to be able to handle big data. :O

"ROSE: In fact, I don’t think it’s the expansion of my powers that is causing the headaches, but rather my own resistance to it.

ROSE: Sometimes I get this feeling that I could, if I really wanted to, just let go." I think Rose might prefer to keep to her current self, if she could. Like the narration said, she's basically still a solitary creature. The expansion of experiences is proving too jarring.

"ROSE: I’m forcing myself to stumble through my life as a sleepwalker. All this pain and sorrow could go away if I would just allow myself to wake up." Between this and "letting go", it seems like an ultimate self ascension is perhaps even going to go further than the psychologically, maybe even physically. If that's so, Dirk might be further ahead but not there yet. But once they'd ascend, there wouldn't be coming back from it, I would think, and they'd leave their old lives and Earth C behind, to go to another plane of existence, maybe?

"ROSE: Because I’m not sure that the person opening her eyes will be me." ... Now I'm thinking about how the last command aimed at John was for him to close his eyes. :/ Could that mean he's about to go through a sped-up ascension?

Rose has the unfortunate occasion to compare her ascension to Jasprosesprite^2, so I very much understand she has very grave misgivings about "expanding her mental horizons", so to speak.

"Then, in a deliberate motion, he pulls off his shades." ... Say, would his eyes have changed if he merged with Lil' Hal, even just psychologically? I know the autoresponder was a pair of shades without eyes, but the Hal monitor had that red buzzing light which represented his eyeballs on at least one occasion.

"DIRK: I know I sound pretty nonchalant most of the time, but actually I’m scared shitless of myself.

DIRK: I’ve always had this uncanny ability to chart a course from A to Z and not give a fuck about any of the letters in between.

DIRK: I’m not sure anyone should be allowed to have that much foresight. Especially a guy like me." Well, that's a healthy self-assessment and fear. Though, foresight? It would be more akin to intuition, right, knowing how people responded in different situations? ... Which sounds like Mind powers, actually, come to think of it.

"ROSE: The farther above the board you fly, the harder it gets to care about the pieces." Is that part of the reason Terezi left, if she forced an ultimate self ascension on her with her Remem8er act?

"DIRK: And yes, I may be a shitty human being, but,

DIRK: As a mechanic, I’m off the fucking charts." Well, that certainly are points to Dirk being at least marginally better as an adult than Bro, if only out of self-awareness. Speaking of, does he have access to Bro's memories now, too? Also, the mechanic part is leading into the Soulbot I theorized about? Wait, mechanic... Dirk and Darkleer should have a build-off.

"Rose’s eyes have grown distant, almost mirrorlike. Dirk can see himself reflected in her vacant stare.

ROSE: All the pieces in their place.

ROSE: The mechanisms all running smoothly." Has Dirk... hypnotized her?

"She says this in a hollow tone. It’s the disarming voice a puppeteer ventriloquizes for a marionette. Her head falls toward her shoulder slowly. Dirk catches her cheek as she slides into sleep. It’s difficult for the untrained ear to spot the exact moment in their conversation when the words she was saying stopped being hers and started being his." ... What did I just watch. ... How. Why? ... Did Dirk use any Heart powers here? I can't...

"Does it really matter? In many respects, they’re basically the same person, aren’t they?" Kind of creepy to say that about your hypnotized daughter, though.

"Kindred spirits in blood and perspective, the puppet masters of the respective games they like to believe they’re playing." ... Puppets. Puppets and games. ... This is building up into a Saw reference and I don't like it one bit. "I want to play a game." ... I do hope Dirk's ascension hasn't seen him get influenced by Lord English.

... You know, though, maybe Dirk was able to influence Rose because of their strong connection, since she's so close to his self she's almost like another shard of him, more so than other people that contain shards of his essence, like Brain Ghost Dirk for Jake.

"But you already knew that, right?" Aaaaaaah, he took over the narration! ... He took over Andrew??? Is that a power for ultimate selves, to get access to the narrative prompt?? If so, then Caliborn was not an exception, just the primary example.

... He's pulled a Doc Scratch on us.

Dear god.

What to make of this. I think Dirk might be the hidden antagonist of Earth C. His Heart powers might be able to influence and even control people.

I just hope he isn't going to absorb them all.

... Man, this started baring on innocuous and look at how chilling the ending of the page is.

I think through his influence, people might start behaving exactly as he predicted, enforcing him being right and securing influence at the same time. I mean, if he merged with memories from Lil Hal, Doc Scratch and perhaps even LE... He's become a master manipulator.

... This is basically "shh, only dreams now" D: