130 - [S] Climax
The original chapter 130, a video:
What follows is much the same, just with still images and some text.
If you're trying to read this on a kindle, don't. The images are very important.
The Clock of the Multiverse stands, ticking, ready to make a decision. It swings: Just, Heroic, Just, Heroic, deciding which fate existence shall take, if either. Within its face, sights of the parallel can be seen.
Roland of Gilead, the great Gunslinger, ascends the dark steps once more. As he reaches for the knob he knows not that he has ascended these steps innumerable times, nor does he know that this time it will be different. The door will open for him in a way it never has in any previous iteration.
The duel between Corona and Eve, between fire and ice, continues within the castle-like illusion of the Tower.
In the mind of a Downstreamer, two groups of heroes turn to face each other. One seeks to destroy the central crystal of White Nettle's mind, the other hopes to defend it long enough for their victory. In many ways, their conflict is just as important as that between the light and the dark, even if it is not as evident.
Two plans come together in tandem with each other. Blumiere stands before the Source, an entourage of uncertain followers watching. Monika activates the Fourth Wall, intending to use the Tower's own ka and nature to twist the story to their desired outcome. Beyond the wall should lie the true GM, the Prophet.
Throughout the battlefield, different battles collide as the tension rises. In space, the Austraeoh and Starjammer refuse to give in to either one. Beneath them, Thanos and Lightning fight as reality around them permits. And in the midst of a Skaian brawl, Feferi and Meenah lock tridents. In many of these battles, there is no hatred, only the need to fight despite great pain going against one they might have known for years.
What is a fight but a series of duels happening at different locations? Separated by universes but not by fate, fire and ice clash. Where there are multiple foes, targets are settled. Nova, as the declarer of the true nature of the battle, takes Allure for her own; while Pinkie is never able to truly take something seriously and thus chooses an opponent who will do likewise. All have their own reasons, their own assaults, their own purpose.
Two things are risen. The Fourth Wall, by Monika's hands, successfully finds the true GM, he himself oblivious to his own discovery. Blumiere completes his ritual under the watchful, eager gaze of Renee; the Prognosticus rising to meet the Source from whence it came.
Fire and ice spin together, a duality built up since the start of time. One so frigid but with the fire in her mane. One burning with such passion, and yet a tinge of cold calculation within her nature. They truly are different sides of the same coin.
And then comes the Batter, purpose of Purity known, to remove the retconner. The Batter is no fool - he knows the powers John was gifted with. So he must act with cleverness. And so he does. 
For what will a man not do for the woman he loves? The fool believes he can take the Batter directly, but he knows not the power held within the Bat. 
One hit to the skull is all it takes to bring the most broken ability in existence to its knees. An emotional appeal, a twisted event... And a single-mindedness forces the god-tier clock of John Egbert to tick once more after so long sitting inactive.
As one battle is lost...
...Another is won. It may also have been lost, in a sense, but unlike the victory of the Batter, which is never going to feel like it was truly just, the victory of Corona has a certain satisfaction to it. Eve, admitting defeat, does little to stop Corona from powering the Tower Ring down.
It now falls to Blumiere.
The Prognosticus works precisely as he intended, fusing with the Source and the very Tower Ring it helped create. What took Giorno weeks to accomplish is done in a matter of seconds, and the Tower Ring is completely reprogrammed. 
As of now, Corona's vision of the future is looking true. Except...
A certain Downstreamer takes note of the Tower Ring she is protecting change nature. It would be a relatively simple matter for her to envelop the universe into herself and remove the Tower from the equation - the Void can only hinder her so much in such a grand-scoping manner. But it is not to be. 
Nova's determination is what tips the scale. She saw the goal, and she refused to back down from it in petty comedic battles. An opportunity is taken, a mind crystal shattered, and Nettle retreats to restore her mind. The Tower Ring stands undefended...
This thing, this thing that is but is not Renee, it does something. Purple and orange are not on her agenda, the color green is. An unnatural green - a third option. Surrounded by Flowery imagery, she takes what is hers, and the Source obeys.
XIX - The Tower. Incorrect. Yet so important. 
What does the Collapse? Mean? Who knows? One might expect to find out soon.
I am vaguely aware of this. I am aware of things spiraling out of control. But I also know I can do nothing, so I must face what is in front of me. And right now, that is developing too quickly for my tastes. I attack.
Monika takes care of the Batter, completely erasing that false "Pure" essence from existence. While she is occupied, my attack hits the Fourth Wall. My intention is to break it. But I...
I...
I...
The clock of the multiverse and John Egbert tick in unison, pointing toward the center as one. The moment of choice arrives: will the death be Just or Heroic? Will there be death at all, or a rebirth? Existence holds its breath at the final creak of the hand...
Simultaneously, both clocks decide their deaths are Just and Heroic. In John, the multiverse is mirrored. There was a man who fell protecting that which he loved, but who also had the capacity and the drive to carelessly blow all else aside. He fell on his terms, but he also fell on the terms of others. Likewise, the multiverse both screamed in rage at its own horrors while screaming in defiance for its own survival; both sides filled with the determined souls.
With their battles over, two groups are sent to different locations far from their moments of combat. Both arrive at the grass. One has no idea where they are. The other sees a very familiar church nearby.
The multiverse is tired, broken, haggard. Either way, it could not have continued as it once did. Holes, rips, and voids of nothing around a Dark speck... There was never a result that didn't change it away from this wartorn wasteland. 
Let it all become one...
A New World is built, but not one foreseen by any before. Planets clustered together akin to atoms in ever-repeating shells upon shells upon shells... Earths, stars, Euipses, Jupiters, and other realms seamlessly sewn into a very particular, very designed pattern. No average collapse could have created this, no random trick of fate. The expected collision and fusion of planetary bodies simply does not happen, all are kept distinct in a fractal cycle. What could this mean?
Celestia City remains, the League itself standing strong as the Sweeties are sent back home. Bruised, battered, they have lost their fight. Unsure of what to do next, they try to get their bearings in a trembling city.
A hand is offered. A hand of friendship from the victor to the loser, from the fire to the ice... From an old friend to another old friend. With it, there is an unspoken question: will you stand with me, old friend, as the end comes?
There was no hesitation. Eve could never refuse the hand of a friend, no matter how much had come between them. It was who she was, who they were. Whatever was coming for them, they stood to face it together.
Flutterfree cares not that existence itself is reshaping around her, all she cares about is that her old friends are here, and they look like they are done with their fight. At long last, all this nonsense can be done away with, and they can stand the test that will come together. But the truth is a cruel beast...
Tragedy. Loss. In a world arranged where no planets collide and death did not come from cosmic chance, still there must be a price. The dusting is that price. Nova, hero of the collapse, the one who acted in the crucial moment to keep Nettle's power in check, dissipates into nothing.
Some realize what is happening sooner than others. 
Some know that, if only they had made a different decision, they wouldn't be here. 
Allure wonders if she could have gone with Cinder. If that was the right decision. If maybe Black Thirteen could do something to her...
Who knows, maybe she's right. Maybe it did do something. But it doesn't for anyone else, and as far as they are concerned, Allure's story ends here, woefully incomplete and damaged.
Her league suffers in her absence. A military mare and a robot have seconds to deal with the shock. Burgerbelle does not suffer the dusting - but in Thrackerzod's hooves, something else tears at her: physics itself attempting to reject her two-dimensional nature.
Thrackerzod knows she must do something. The other two are already gone. But maybe... Just maybe...
The ghosts, the Skaians, they do not get dusted. They merely feel themselves fade as the reality anchors fail. 
But there are other tragedies living around them, too many to count, too many to even understand. 
Magane's hubris caught up with her. She thought she could play the Tower. It proves her wrong here, as she dusts to nothing.
And I...
I...
What have I done!?
A man and a woman stand over an altar, hand in hand, with an artifact of power between them. Previously, they bonded together to save existence. Now, they end their lives together not to destroy everything, but to turn it to something new. It is a sacrifice they are glad to make. What they do, they do out of love, and it is fitting that they end in it.
Their peace is contrasted by those who stand behind them. 
Confused, uncertain, angry, smug... a mixture of emotions ready to fly out at any angle and any time when the Gunslinger himself enters, shrouded in darkness. Alushy stands between them, crumbling to dust just as the couple had moments before.
Almost all Skaians are ghosts. Reality anchors or no, they are not permitted in the New World. The warriors realize this. They know it is over. 
Perhaps it was Feferi's idea, perhaps not. But the two raised to kill each other reconcile in the end, many of their respective armies choosing the same end in peace. 
The living Twilight remains, unsure of what to do. She won her session, lived to the end. But so many of her closest friends were ghosts. What is left for her in this world still coming together?
In many ways, the dusting is Thanos' fault. Not the punishment - there always would have been a price, preserve or collapse. No, his responsibility is in the form of the death. Dust itself was how he wished to balance his reality, and so the dusting claims him as part of the balance.
Lightning's face tells nothing. Is she indifferent?
Two old war veterans call a ceasefire the moment they know the battle is over. They hear reports of their crew suffering, but they themselves are permitted to continue.
The dusting curse is not just limited to those currently aware, no, those lives sealed away in the war will find it shockingly comes to a close. Can you die if you are not aware of it? Did they die when they entered the ball?
At first, Corona is satisfied that the collapse went as intended. The planets appear in the sky in a way she didn't expect, but they still come from many worlds. But as the sky fills out, she feels as though something is wrong. She is still here, and so is Evening. What are the chances of that? It was one in a trillion that she'd even survive... the only thing that could explain both of them surviving a collapse is ka itself. But the Tower has to be gone, right? ...Something had to have gone wrong.
The Tower lies.
But it rarely lies completely. There, at the base, there is a crack. True damage that is not undone by the cycle of Roland. A weakness that points to something more. The pseudo-collapse did not fully succeed in its goal... but it did not fully fail, either. 
There is only one Tower, now, sitting at the center of the New World, sky abuzz with millions of dots of distant planets. 
A massive world, larger than most seen before, sits at the center. The roses are but a tiny, insignificant blemish upon its impossible surface that looks out upon the new existence. What kind of new life does this central world offer?
Perhaps it doesn't matter.
Perhaps this is what matters.
An Earth. One Earth, above all the others.
The First.
CREDITS
Written by G. M. Blackjack
Video edited by Lizzard Tales
ARTISTS
Petrina Steward
T.A.L., aka UselessCommon
MalineTourmaline
Lola Draws
Lizzard Tales
Devilaphoenix (Maggie Vamp)
Little Duke
Ebony Sable
Hoodwinked MCShelster
Lytre Yarn
DONATORS
Zebulon
TheDriderPony
PATRONS
Ciber
Crada
Pink Man (DeadBloxxEpic)
Keywii Cookies
Omnipresent Microorganism
SgtSarge
Nightsclaw
SketchSkies
MUSIC
“Overture” from Homestuck
“Tick Tock” from Homestuck
“English” from Homestuck
Any franchises referenced belong to their respective owners.
~~~
The House Juju is a poor imitation of the Tower's Self-Defense Protocol. 
It brings about the broken retcon ability, and as such is the only known instance of a retcon paradox. 
The Gallifreyans, for all their malevolent machinations, were sure to keep this loop as stable as they could. Jade, Dave, and Rose all ended up where they needed to be within the House Juju.
John Egbert did not.
And the consequences of this failure in reality...
Is the rebirth of English, his terrible call heralding the end of existence and the start of a new one.
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Well, that was an interesting video. I understood about... a third of what actually happened (it doesn't help that I can't actually recognize 80% of the characters in this story by visuals alone) and eagerly await a written break down of what actually happened here.
Wait really? When the hell did this come up?
ugh..okay this was a thing....sadly I didnt really get what was going on like 99 % of the time and sometimes it was pretty hard to figure out who the characters where supposed to be ...at least for me.... i dont want to bash on any artists here but I just think the decision to make this a video was really not that great because i saw other people where confused as well and I just think if people are confused to what is going on in your climax of your story you did something wrong...
okay I watched it again and I got a few more things but still not everything and I still had problems with getting all the characters , even with pausing.
idk , i was looking forward to the climax of this story for a long time and its kind of sad that the only feelings that I have now that I watched it are confusion and sadness....( not sadness because of what happened , sadness because I didnt get what was going on ...)
I believe Bow Hothoof put it best: "You had a goal... and you achieved it! (Gross sobbing.)"
Seriously, when you put out the call for artists to make chapter 130 a multimedia experience, I was worried how it might go, but this turned out far better than I thought it might. Fascinating stuff all around. Looking forward to seeing all the consequences and just who survived a harsher purge than anything Thanos could envision.
And what the Lord of Time will do in his new playground.
Just about the only part I understood was Thanos getting snapped out of existence.
Can anyone give me a summary of what the buck I just watched?
I will say I think the video was good but if I had a choice between the video or a chapter I'd prefer the chapter. This feels like a rather unsatisfying way to wrap up the arc, there's no understanding of the character's feelings or what state they are in by the end. How much of what happened are they aware of? Is this what they expected to happen or is it a surprise? Was this all according to plan or was their an unexpected wrench thrown into things?
I'm left asking what the hell happened? Which kind of makes for an underwhelming finale to what has been a rather interesting if conflicting arc. Yeah, I don't really care for everything that happened in this arc but I'm even more annoyed that it ended with such an unclear conclusion.
But this is just my opinion other people might have gotten more out of it than I did.
9956813
I think a lot of people , me included, will agree with you.
I'm sorry GM, but with all of the hype put into this arc and this chapter in particular, I can't help but feel cheated.
I honestly had no clue who half of the characters in the video were, and I couldn't follow the plot at all.
In my opinion, this chapter is probably going to turn alot of people off of the story.
This whole thing would have been better as a written chapter.
Just to be on the safe side, you should not just post this author's note and an embed video, but a true written chapter as well, to be sure this goes with the rules :
https://www.fimfiction.net/rules#stories
I fully understood what was happening there, namely:
Most of the creatures died, Prognosticus disappeared,
Rene is very important in the last story,
All planets are stuck in symmetry...
a collapse occurred and...
The dark tower is on the first earth.
This is our Brave New World
Caliborn is here again to put an end to everything.
P.S.
I know that a written version has already appeared, but this comment was before the written version was recorded.
9956824
I agree. Or maybe narrated to the video?
Gee, trusting an insane evil ghost piloting your friend's corpse like a meat puppet didn't work out? Shocker.
Probably should'a just let the Combine destroy the Void back in 123 huh?
Good to know I was right about John getting beat to death with a bat. Reminds me of what they did with Glenn and Abraham in The Walking Dead.
Definitely like this better, turns out I didn't even understand a third of what happened in the video. Thanks for the clarifications.
Well, you wanted a written version, you got a written version. >:(
I liked the video. I understood it without needing it to be explained.
9956831
Art defies definition.
... Well now. This was... Hrm.
Simply because I had a hard time recognizing the characters for their actual appearance, I ended up confused without the captions. With them, and now with an understanding, I’m thinking. I’m really curious to see how correct or wrong I end up being. Interesting ideas indeed.
As usual, I await the next chapter with baited breath.
Guys, probably the main reason about why so many of you were confused by the video is that you were supposed to be. That's part of how visual storytelling works, you're meant to take the pieces that you're given and come to your own conclusions based on your own perception of the situation. Of course we don't fully know what's going on and what all the implications are. No one in the story does at this point, except probably the Thing That is Not Renee. That's part of the beauty of it, in my opinion. We get to learn what it all means alongside the characters, and for the first time in this super meta story with an impossibly huge scope, we (the readers and characters) are all on the same page, equal in our ignorance, asking the same questions. And it is grand.
Also, I legit got chills when the house juju showed up and English's piano started. I was too distracted by everything else that just happened to make that connection right away, and then it hit me like sledgehammer. Well played.
Is there anything more to say?
That's all we really needed to know.
9957222
But some people needed explanations.
Well that cleared up the few questionsI had.
Mostly all, "Which Sweetie was that, again?" 
okay now I feel weird....
because I wanted a written chapter , but now that this is here I feel like its worse?!
I really dont know how to feel with all of this.... the video has some flaws , its not perfect , I think the main problem is that there arent enough Images, I think that would have helped a LOT, And I guess it really relies on you knowing who the characters are/how they look and in some cases even knowing the source material....like I missed Twilence COMPLETELY because the art didnt really make it clear that it was twilence..... And I didnt get the thing at the end because I just dont know anything about homestuck.
now I feel like this is a worse version of the video.
But then again : WHY did you make this a video to begin with , I dont see a reason for that.
I guess you wanted your audience to be confused but if you where going to explain what happened in the next chapter anyways then whats the point other than making peoople confused, sad and angry.
I still think this should have been a normal chapter.
9957826
Since you never saw Homestuck...
(S) updates were usually videos instead of the normal image / rapid looping 2 frame gif
Given the epicness of this story's scale, and the Homestuck inspirations, it's natural for it to have an (S) on this arc's climax.
Homestuck started as a webcomic, and completely transcended it's genre with the (S) updates and the occasional playable game updates
Homestuck's (S) updates were legendary for breaking the hosting websites due to popularity
9958046
but sots is not homestuck , its sots , it has its own identity and is its own thing, it shouldnt try to be something/imitatesomething that it is not
i know that this video was insprired by homestuck its just if thats the only reason im dissapointed
9958046
A webcomic has a much easier time making the transition to a video than a written book does. It's the reason why movie adaptions are never completely satisfying for readers of the original books. You have to sacrifice a lot of details when making that transition including all the character introspections readers have grown used to. It makes for a rather unsatisfying conclusion when you just go "here's a bunch of cool things to looks at" instead of actually going into detail about what is going on with the characters themselves.
It's a style over substance approach that not everyone is gonna be happy with. I do think the video was good, I don't want to disparage all the work that went into this, but I do think they may have flown a little too close to the sun with this.
The good news is this isn't the end of the story so in the end, this chapter will probably be viewed as more of an odd bump in the road rather than anything that really impacts the overall quality of the story. Future readers will probably just go "huh that was weird" then move onto the next chapter. We're the poor suckers stuck waiting a week for the next chapter which leaves us plenty of time to discuss whether or not this was good.
Personally I stand by my opinion of it was a good but unsatisfying way to cap off the arc.
You know, for so much planning and building and hype, gotta say, it certainly didn't live up to my expectations, but damn was that not a good time. For real, the culmination of work and time has finally paid off. It was enjoyable and excellent.
So in the end, we get the worst of both worlds: the collapse happened and most of the multiverse is dead. And yet the tower still stands. Good going blumiere, you just made everything so, so much worse.
You can never stop the Story.
You can only determine how brutal the editor is. And oh, how they chose to for the editing to be brutal, because the harder you push on the Tower, the more epic the killing , the dying the more innumerable, and unspeakable it's horrifying the story will get.
You poor, motivated bastards.
The text and the pictures are both necessary to understand this chapter to the point that the video might have been 1 that required a narrator.
Base on what I'm seeing, the pictures are a hit or miss if you can see them on this very page.
9980844
Fimfiction sometimes doesn't load images for some reason - I just checked, they're all there. Try refreshing.
-GM, master of imagoos.
This was extraordinarily underwhelming. There were so many deaths of characters I have felt connected to over the course of the entire story, and yet those deaths here felt... Disconnected? There was no emotion behind them. No real substance. Even John- though I wasn't quite connected to him in this particular story- died without any real punch, despite being the only death I saw that wasn't a dusting.
And then there was the "Collapse?" that was just so very anticlimactic. The only thing that I feel like might have felt- at all, just felt in general- would be LE's awakening. But- and this is the only thing I'm not blaming on the chapter here- I haven't finished Homestuck so I've no real reaction to that particular punch, having only just recently finished Act 5 Act 2.
In general? This entire chapter is probably the weakest part of pretty much anything I've seen on this site at all. And it's really a shame, because outside of this chapter, this is probably the most interesting story and multiverse I've read. Of course I'll keep going, but not right this moment. I need to build up motivation to and interest in continuing any further.
I'd say the video's seriously underwhelming, but it's kinda what I expected from such a small community like this one. The lack of guiding in the video does feel like a big oversight on the production end of things. All the more because the art style and quality varies heavily between scenes, on top of a baseline where we as the audience aren't used to interpreting the story and characters visually. What makes the video - in my opinion - a bit unsuited here, is that you're trying to communicate complex and sometimes even subtext-laden events through images without having enough shots (or rather images representing distinct parts of scenes) at your disposal to bring the information each image has to convey down to manageable levels. Don't get me wrong - it's a cool video and creating a video chapter at all is an accomplishment the community may be proud of. But as an actual chapter in Songs of the Spheres, the text version works better for sure.
I may have had less trouble with keeping track of the characters - I've been taking notes while reading and was already familiar with Homestuck's art style and characters - But I still had some difficulty now and then, especially with Rohan, Jenny, and Magane. I just didn't know what Rohan and Jenny looked like, and had forgotten that Magane was present in the scene. What tripped me up most was GM and John looking near-identical in the style used. That last part tripped me up with the plot, which wasn't all that hard to follow, all things considered. The real problem was interpreting the events I'd seen. Rewatching helped with getting the events straight, but what I'd actually seen only really became clear when I read the text. Things like there being two Clocks (and not just John's Clock), the ring changing color the second time from interference rather than a fundamental mistake in the code or something, and (most importantly) the Collapse having still occurred (rather than that spiral of planets just being a view of a particular universe cluster).
9956824
Despite my judgments, I don't think I agree with Soundwave here on the matter of people dropping SotS. I think people won't judge a book by its movie adaptation (even if that adaptation covers an installment that originally had no written analogue). If there were something that'd've made me drop this story after this chapter, there'd've been things earlier on in this arc (or even near the very start of the book) that'd've done the same (and in fact, they did a few years ago; I'd grown bored of the time skip chapters and the change in vibes). If you make it this far, you're in for the ride.