"That concludes the audio-visual tour. Please, stay on the square disc until you reach a certain level of reality you can comprehend." Marie's eyes shot open and for a few seconds, everything made sense in the universe. Her life, her future, her relationships with friends and loved ones; all pieces of a puzzle that finally fell into place. Then she saw Ish standing in front of her, cocked her arm back and threw a punch, disconnecting her fist from her arm which launched full force into Ish's face, tossing the young man dangerously close to the edge of the disc.

"ENOUGH WITH THE BULLSHIT, HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE?!" The bluenette reattached her fist to her wrist and glared daggers at the collapsed man who swiftly rolled to the left to avoid a horrible stabbing accident.

"We are on our way out now as a matter of fact." Ish mumbled and rubbed his jaw, gesturing around them with the other hand. It was then Marie noticed their surroundings; a tunnel of rotating pictures stretching off into an infinite point in the distance, each picture displaying a window into a possible existence. The midnight blue disc they were traveling forth on moved just slowly enough that if she focused hard, she could pick up some of the words being spoken.

"How'd you do? I see you've met my-" A spitting image of Marie, had she been a man who was really into makeup, strode down a large staircase while wearing a long, high-collared cape. He stopped momentarily and stroked the shoulder of what appeared to be a balding Eddy shoved into a suit three sizes too small. "- faithful handyman." The man-Marie turned his eyes towards the middle of the hall where, surrounded by strange party goers, stood a shivering Nazz and an even meeker looking Double-D than she was used to seeing. Must've been the thick glasses he was wearing. The picture flowed out of her line of sight and she found another one on her right.

The first thing she noticed was that Eddy was wearing black nail polish. The second thing was Double-D's ridiculously fabulous striped scarf. The third thing was that they were shoving thick bundles of paper and posters torn from the walls into a trash can, all while complaining about being cold, unemployed and paying rent. Just as they tossed a lit match into the metal container, the focus shifted from their loft to the street outside where Ed lay beaten, robbed of his jacket and dignity. Marie looked away; there was just something about that guy's innocence that made her have a soft spot for him. She then found a third one.

It was a simple scene, one that she could vaguely recognize as being set in Ed's backyard. The young man in question and May were seated on a raggedy old blanket with textbooks strewn out around them, though in this moment it would appear that they were more focused on each other. A jam jar containing what looked like a very generous urine sample rested between two half full wine glasses. Ed looked down about something May had said and mumbled something in response before the straw haired Kanker continued. "But I really didn't hear a fucking word that you just said." Ed shone up in a bright smile and lunged for the girl, happily embracing her while he laughed wholeheartedly. Marie could still hear May joining in even as she saw the picture float away.

"Shameless plugging detected." The cool voice said, emanating from the floating disc, and Ish convulsed in pain when an electric field momentarily jolted across him. "Behavior corrected."

"Not a good start to the chapter." Ish flipped over on his back and groaned heavily.

"Hello again." Marie spun around at the sound of Double-D's voice and the young inventor waved pleasantly.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Momentarily sidetracked, one might say." Double-D took a few steps forward to help Ish up. "I have something for you."

"Aim for the gut in that case; I don't think my face can take much more."

"Oh, no; it's this." Out of his back pocket, Double-D pulled out a curved brown stick at the sight of which Ish jumped back and was yet again close to falling off the disc.

"No, no, no; I know what that is! Get that boomerang away from me!" Ish ducked behind Marie and peered over her shoulder like a frightened child who meets a rubber-masked Santa Claus during Easter. "I'm gonna turn into a sociopath, I just know it!"

"Hang on, what's that?" Marie pointed at the boomerang.

"It reverses people's personalities if you touch it!" Ish popped up to hiss before ducking back down again.

"Yeah, you'll probably just become normal then."

"No worries, Ish; it's all tapped out." Double-D smacked the wooden artifact against his palm twice. "You told me to hold on to this."

"I did?" Ish stepped out from behind Marie and frowned in confusion. Tryingly, he touched the tip of the boomerang and took it when nothing happened. "Did I say what to do with it?"

"Toothpicks." Double-D surveyed their surroundings with the mild sense of surprise an octopus displays when a clothing store doesn't carry their size of arm. "I suppose this is the way out?"

"Indeed." With one last look of curiosity, Ish tossed the boomerang to the side where it dripped right through the disc. "All of these images you see swirling around us represents possibilities. Stories untold-"

"Alright, ye' scallywags!" The feared Pirate Captain Eddy McGee bellowed out as he stalked over the deck, smacking his first mate over the head.

"- stories never thought of-"

"So... What do we do now?" Lee Kanker fiddled nervously with the hem of her dress; she still couldn't believe that she was in the car of school quarterback Plank Wood. The strong, quiet type, if a bit stiff. Could this be the night?

"- dialogue and scenarios abandoned because its all just too ludicrous-"

"No thank you, Sire; I desire not one more drop of gravy." Baron Edwin Beefington of the Beef Dip Beefingtons, heir to the great Chicken on Rye Toast Corporation, whispered with a sense of superiority, confident in knowing that his underwear were decorated with the Beefington insignia, and the whole courtroom gasped heavily. The judge, His Lordship Eddward van Marion von Cactishire af Eddison, clutched at his chest and his lover, the crack ace journalist Kevin Brown PhD. MD. DDS. BS. BA. BMS. DW., rushed to his side to swear vengeance on that nefarious Saint Lord Father Bishop of Uttoxeter Edward McGee the Honorable who had surely poisoned the royal lemon tart ordered by the Higher Upper Over Council Mistress Nazz-

"Alright, alright; we get it." Marie threw her arms in the air and scoffed, interrupting the narrative completely and causing a tiny red string to join several other thousands decorating the hem of a silk curtain somewhere in the deepest bowels of Limbo, all waiting to get tugged to unravel their individual, interrupted history.

"Ish, before we depart though, I must ask; why did we end up here?" Double-D tapped his chin in thought. "Last time, if my memory serves me correct, Kevin and I came to Limbo partly because we managed to continue a story that had no continuation and thus caused about the end of the world-"

"Wait, what?!" Marie exclaimed, shocked to hear that bringing about Armageddon was a reoccurring thing in Double-D's life.

"Long story."

"It's called 'Rusty Worn Nut' and it's actually not that long; I think it's- GAAAH!" An electrical field reached up from the disc and spread out over Ish's body, sending the young man to his knees in pain.

"Shameless plugging detec-"

"Alright! I won't mention it again!" Ish sat down and sighed drearily, not even paying attention to the fact that his attire was smoking. "You were saying?"

"Oh, yes." Double-D coughed. "Partly because the world ended and partly because you wanted to have some sort of back and forth with us to sort out and make clear your position on the whole 'KevEdd situation'."

"The what?" Ish rolled his eyes at Marie's question and rummaged around in his pockets until he found a small, black disc which he threw to her.

"Press the button." While Marie did just that, and a holographic window shot up from the disc to display thousands upon thousands of pages of stories in front of her darting eyes, Ish turned his head to Double-D. "Right, the idea from the beginning was to do something similar with the two of you to not appear too biased. To sort of analyze the cliches and pitfalls of writing Edd/Marie."

"Hooooly shit, have you- Have you guys seen all this fucking porn?!" A wide-eyed Marie quickly pressed the button again and the holographic window shot up once more.

"You mean along the lines of instant forgiveness for years of torment, wrongful characterization to meet an end goal, the troubled youth Marie in need of rescuing-"

"Seriously, can I keep this?" Marie eagerly pressed the button again and licked her lips. "Our internet is shit compared to this filth fest!"

"You are correct." Ish got back up on his feet and offered Double-D a crooked smile. The brainiac shook his head and Ish swiftly threw the smile over the edge. "Then I realized, much like the last time we spoke, that many of the issues I could think of weren't exclusive to the Edd/Marie fandom."

"I remember that." Double-D nodded.

"Besides, I'd rather leave the criticizing to my fellow author BarthVader; I hear he's become quite infamous for it, even when he's not doing anything." Ish laughed shortly and fell quiet, the only sound now heard was the low pitched humming of the disc and Marie pressing the button over and over again.

"Therefore there must be something else you wanted to talk about."

"Quite right, quite right." Ish sighed and sat down at the edge, facing away from them. "I've had this... Feeling lately. I'm not sure what to do with it."

"Elaborate." Double-D sat down next to the young man, albeit not as close to the edge.

"I feel like quitting. Writing, here, that is." Ish stated flatly, staring at nothing in particular. "I've said it before, I've quit two or three times, but there has always been this feeling, you know? I knew, somehow, that it wouldn't be forever. I would come back, I would finish up all of this shit I've started and completely ignored to start new shit that I would then have to finish and so on."

"But you don't feel like that now?"

"No." Ish said. "It's weird. Some part of me feels like I would be just fine with getting up and leaving everything here the way it is. I would look back and wish I had done more, sure, but I wouldn't regret the decision."

"Perhaps that is the right one to make then." Double-D smiled softly and reached out to place a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder but recoiled in horror when he remembered that he had once managed to utterly destroy two separate planes of existence by doing so.

"Sick of perhaps." Ish groaned and leaned back. "Maybe it's time though. I have gone through most of the regular author tropes; snotnosed little brat with horrendous grammar and plot, newbie ripping off others' work unsuccessfully, rising up by diving deep into the angst pool, running rampantly with romance, getting closer to good grammar by ripping off/getting inspired by other people's work, mostly music this time, reshaping my most popular story to suit my then current writing style. I wrote a hilarious troll fic the ending of which I don't think anyone saw coming and I finally wrote the thing I would want to be remembered by."

"Quite a career."

"Wouldn't want it any other way. There has been no greater English teacher to me than this site. I'll be forever thankful for finding it."

"What're you two going on about?" Marie slumped down on Ish's other side and tossed the small, black disc into his lap. "Button's broke."

"Thinking of quitting this business. I do have other things to write outside of here, besides; I feel like all this has gotten rather repetitive."

"Aight, so just do it, don't drag us into this." Marie dangled her legs over the edge. "Seriously, stop complaining and go if you want to."

"Marie, show some consideration!" Double-D exclaimed.

"Why?" Marie shot Double-D a look. "It's not like he owes anyone anything and from I've gathered it's sorta clear that he's growing apart from whatever weird fandom he's a part of. I mean, this is what, the closest he's gotten to writing anything in six, seven months?"

"She's right, you know." Ish nodded. "The thing is, most of the people who I want to write for and finish my stories for aren't around anymore. I'm not saying that I wouldn't write for anyone who reads my stuff now, I'm always grateful and utterly amazed when that happens. It's just that with stories like 'Choices', 'Detest' and whatever old story I haven't finished, I wrote it for a fandom that's no longer around. I'm still surprised to see that there are old dogs who've been around here longer than I and it never fails to make me smile. It really felt like something else back then."

"Might just be nostalgia talking." Marie shrugged.

"True." Ish picked up the small, black disc, studied it for a while and tossed it over the edge. "Most of all though, I wrote them for me. Everything I've ever written are things that I wanted to read and can still go back and enjoy reading, even if the grammar throws me way off. At the end of the day, I'm not the same person. Which is good, of course, but that means in terms of writing that it's difficult to continue writing 'Yellow Submarine' or 'SpeakEdboxxx' because even if I know how both stories play out and end, I have no real desire to continue as I feel they're no longer my stories. I remember when I wrote them, just before I quit for almost all of '013, and it's just nowhere near the level, creatively or mentally, that I am at today. There was something special in each one of those moments and I just rolled with it. That's why I like to think that my one-shots are superior to anything else I wrote because they're bottled and capped in that one moment."

"I wish you'd put a cap in it." Marie grumbled; she was really getting sick of whatever personal crisis the weirdo next to her was having and wishing she'd remembered her cigarette pack.

"It's understandable, of course. Time moves on and so must we." Double-D stretched out and shifted positions.

"Yeah, not like I thought seven years could just pass by and things would be the same. I just never thought it'd be me, you know?" Ish mused. "I always thought that I'd run out of here, middle fingers raised to all the doubts I ever held, and just seeing everything completed. I never thought I'd be another one to abandon stories. I'd look at Easymac120 and KiltedEngineer and think 'That's the kind of drive force I want, to just plow through and complete a masterful adventure'. Or at the very least stay sort of consistent and on point, like RachelZimon with 'Immoral'. It's all individual of course."

"You don't have to leave, you know."

"I know. All of this is all just in my head, so far; I'm not saying this is my swan song." Ish jolted into an upright position. "Good lord, could you imagine? KevEdd lemony territory leading into a rancid heap of nonsense followed by some loose complaints about getting older and some sappy sentimentalism?! As a last goodbye?! I SAY NEVER!" He grabbed a hold of his companions' shoulders and pushed himself up, raising a fist. "I may not finish everything I've started, I may just post all the shit I've had backed up for the last couple of years or I may do something completely different, but I will NOT go down with the ship!"

"What ship?" Marie asked flatly.

"The KevEdd ship of course!" Like a lightbulb in the darkest night, Ish's lips stretched out into a bright grin. "If I'm going out, I'm gonna show them how it's done!"

"I think you're getting a bit too much air right now, Ish." Double-D scrambled to his feet and raised an eyebrow.

"You're right." Ish deflated, only the slightest, before shining up again. "But you better believe I'm not going down without a fight. GORDON!" The middle of the disc began to drip upwards until a floating, midnight blue penguin was fully formed. It honked. "Take us out of here; drop me off on in Sector IV, sixth floor, and these two in..." He turned to Double-D and Marie who were waiting on what would come next; one mostly patient and one considering throwing another punch to see what would happen to the penguin. "Where do you want to go?"

"Pardon?" Double-D asked politely, finding it easier and easier to suppress the ever growing annoyance over Ish and his surroundings.

"Last time, Limbo sort of imploded on us so I had to improvise your destination hence why you ended up in an obviously unstable location. This time however-" He gestured at the swirling images around them. "Any place, any time, any setting. Say the word."

"Fucking hell." Marie groaned and cupped her face in irritation; was there ever an easy solution with this guy?

"No, I don't think you wish to go there. And no, there's not." Ish winked. "Double-D?"

"I think 'Home' would be sufficient enough, wherever that might be."

"Home, coming right up!" Ish poked the penguin's stomach and the whole disc stopped dead. Double-D barely managed to notice that the streams of images around them had reached their end before darkness engulfed them.

"What now?" Marie's voice cut through.

"Why, you're going home. The only way to do so is to get shot out of this cannon."

"Of course it is." Double-D sighed wearily; he imagined quite the headache would follow this.

"See, the cannon is the source of all these alternate realities. This is where it all comes from. Limbo, The Tunnel; it's all just useless without it."

"Homophonic play on words detected." The cool voice rang out around them. "Have a lollipop." Marie and Double-D found that a lollipop had appeared in each of their hands. The former groaned.

"Can we get the hell out of here now?" The annoyance in Marie's voice resonated through the tempered metal of the cannon and a scent of raspberries filled the air.

"Quite so. Gordon?"

"Thank you for traveling by cannon. Please, hold on to your asses."

As their reaction times where nowhere near the capacity needed to take in what followed, all the three saw was a bright, blinding light. Therefore, they never saw the cannon; a metallic marvel floating freely in imagination's dastardly depths. The firing launching a million sparks of creativity across the cosmos and into the minds of children worldwide where it would settle into the fresh, untainted soil of their minds and grow relentlessly until a united people could cry out and revolt against the bitterness of art critics. The images they soared past at ridiculous speeds, possibilities as a result of choices within and without their control that unraveled themselves against compressed trees and electronic canvases. How Ish veered slightly to the left with a cunning smile of things to come with a pen and pad while the two Peach Creekers crashed straight into a picture of a crudely painted rubber duck eating a jawbreaker.

The whole table nearly flipped over as the two teenagers' bodies jerked in their respective chairs. Two lollipops shattered upon crashing into the hard concrete plates and confused eyes of the surroundings landed on the disoriented pair for a moment before going back to whatever conversations they had been having. The sun shone down on the small cafe with its warming, kind rays.

Marie thought that the closest parable to her current state was to have been beaten up by a centipede swinging its whole sock supply full of quarters. Then she thought that would be a ridiculous thing to say so she settled on the second best. "Whoa."

"Takes some getting used to." Double-D looked around with a delirious look. "I believe we are... Home."

"Home is good. I like home. Home makes sense." Noticing the table, Marie lunged and drained the cup of coffee placed out in front of her. "Home has coffee."

"Yes, it would certainly appear so." Double-D felt his pocket vibrate and he sluggishly reached for his cell phone, discovering that he had two texts waiting for him. The first was from an unknown number though judging by the amount of digits, he had a sneaky suspicion who it was.

From: *long string of numbers*

"Hello again!

If you made it this far: No, I haven't lost it. If anything, you must have for reading this far.

This was indeed supposed to continue in the spirit of Rusty Worn Nut; at first by dissecting Edd/Marie and later replacing that idea with another bash at KevEdd. If that's what you were looking for or expecting, I apologize but can instead recommend 'The KevEdd Problem' by Aklaino2k7 which is quite a good guide to the ins and outs of writing KevEdd that isn't incredibly blasphemous.

Over Christmas, I did however come to the realization that while I have never really been involved in the community apart from publishing my works, as the amount of time I dedicated to reading fanfiction as opposed to writing it dwindled over time, I became discouraged from even starting to try after returning to FF dot net about six months after the outbreak of KevEdd. It's not that I don't like you, and it's not the pairing in itself; it's just that I'm an impatient man. There's the thing about wading through 90% of shite to get to the 10% of Chunky Puffs; I could never do that. I'm still amazed that I managed to pick up a few people over the years who supported me or with whom I've exchanged messages with. Jamie, Barth, Phoenix, Splendente, Ravenous, writer-person; the list goes on.

Even if I've been standing quietly on the sidelines, piping up every now and then before returning to the water cooler, I dare say that when looking upon what the fandom has become after everything KevEdd, I don't want to continue. I'm not saying it's overall good or bad thing to have happened (but take a wild guess where I stand), it's just a reminder that times and people change. I want to write, I will always write, but I don't want to write this. Not for long at least. So, yes; you just read through three chapters of fucked up shit just to find that some guy, who you might never have heard about before or don't even care about, is hitting up the beginning of the end. Hope it was worth it!

Yeah... One could say I'm gonna retire because of KevEdd, one could say I'm just outgrowing doing this. Either way, it's time to get writing. That's what it's all about.

Moral of the story? Write whatever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want, as long as you yourself would read it. Keep at it and get better. Don't lose sight of what's important. Read 'Rusty Worn Nut'.

Peace."

"This guy has issues." Marie looked up after having read the text as well and made a spinning motion at her temple.

"There are definitely some unresolved problems, I will give you that." Double-D reclaimed his phone and opened up the second text.

From: Kevin

"Hey, were running late, mcgee smashed a damn window and the principal went off his rocker. Pray we dont all get detention."

"It would appear a party consisting of at least Kevin and Eddy are delayed due to some window related antics; they will be possibly be here soon." Double-D scratched his temple in thought.

"Hey." Marie picked up an abandoned cigarette packet from the table that was almost identical to the one she'd left behind and eyed it suspiciously "Our world ended, right?"

"It appeared so, yes."

"And you ended your world before that?"

"Correct."

"So... Neither of us are in our home dimensions or whatever? We're practically homeless people intruding here?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Huh." Silence fell upon the two as Marie lit up a cigarette and Double-D looked up at the clouds in thought.

"I wonder what's different here."

Marie tilted her head. "What d'you mean?"

"Well-" He picked up the coffee cup in front of him a took a careful sip. It filled him with reassurance that safety was a concept no longer foreign. "In the first world, my world, Kevin and I weren't together on a romantic level. You and Nazz had barely had a polite conversation by that time. The only connection between that world and the next was that Ed had written an erotic story about me and Kevin."

"KevEdd." Marie chortled out a puff of smoke. "I'm sure gonna miss that deranged porn."

"Yes, quite." Double-D rolled his eyes. "The point is that when we arrived in, well, your world, the two of us together was the most obvious thing in the world. Over time, we simply forgot ever having come from somewhere else."

Marie coughed in surprise and leaned forward. "Wait, you're telling me I might not even be with Nazz in this world or whatever?"

"It is a possibility, I'm afraid." Double-D offered her a comforting smile.

"Huh." Marie took a deep drag off the cigarette and frowned. "Tell you what then. If it turns out that we're, I don't know, straight in this here place, I'll teach you how to eat muff like a pro and you'll teach me to suck dick." Coffee flew everywhere.

"MARIE!" Double-D spluttered, gasping for breath. "That is highly inappropriate conversational material!"

"What?" She offered him a devious grin that could light up the darkest of rooms. "Come on, I've heard some of the things you guys've been doing; you think moans like that can't travel through tent walls?"

"... I told him that night would come back and bite me in the ass."

"Don't mind if I do."

"For the love of- You were attracted to the opposite gender not one hour ago!"

"I blame the air in this place." As the teasing continued, and the smoke from Marie's cigarette rose high into the sky, all was well in the small community of Peach Creek and mostly everyone involved could surely claim that nothing of importance had really been written at all.