#we're back friends!!!!!

[polypodweek]

Chapter ∅ On a day like any other, the air seems heavy with anticipation. The smell of motor oil, the sound of heavy machinery and the sight of neon signs hanging off every surface, are all an inescapable, integral part of the city's atmosphere. But this, this lingering tension? This is something new.

The city itself seems as usual. The sky is a sprawling mass of moving lights, as more airborne vehicles than anybody could possibly count fly in every which direction, seeming from a distance like stars of a faraway galaxy. And in the middle; a perpetual supernova. The Lighthouse. A triumph of last century engineering, looming high above the rest of the city, guiding ships safely to harbour and letting them know that they are welcome, safe, looked after. What was once a lighthouse casting its beam across the Northern Sea, has since been transformed into an all seeing eye overlooking the entire city, the radio tower sitting atop it reaching even farther - the rusting necropolis of long abandoned shipyards, half buried in the impassable sands of the desert that now lies to the north, of little concern to it or its keepers.

Yet, far away from the prying gaze of The Lighthouse and the merchant ships unloading their cargo day in and day out, on the very outskirts of the city, lies the Phantom Port Ward. It is mess of ramshackle buildings, broken street lights, car parts and ghosts of people that have long since left in hopes of a brighter future. A port in but a name these days. And in one of its many unassuming streets a tiny old workshop that has certainly seen better days - and days it has seen many! Nested amongst the rest of the run down warehouses that keep it company, it stands out for one reason only - a weak glimmer of light shines through its windows. Illuminated by it, a group of people standing shoulder to shoulder. And between them, a blueprint.

Welcome to Prismpoint Wharf and welcome to Poly Podweek 2025!

This time the countdown's a little different. Join us in a sort of poll based Choose Your Own Adventure where for the next 5 days you get to decide how the story plays out!

Choose a team of adventurers you want to send on this mission and follow along with them for the next 5 days as we count down to the start of Poly Podweek. Could be your favourite poly ship, could be your own OCs, maybe you want to see Leverage OT3 do what they do best, or send your plucky volleyball boys on a quest like they've never seen before, the choice is yours! And of course, share who you've picked and their adventure with the rest of us =D

Tune in tomorrow for the first part of this story!

CW This CYOA is meant to be largely light hearted and have a happy ending, but will nonetheless contain certain themes integral to cyberpunk: dystopian setting, themes of mass surveillance, propaganda, authoritarianism and climate breakdown, but nothing more detailed than the intro.

[lazylittledragon]

lae'zel doing her auntly duties (obligatory)

[cor-lapis]

"If we must fight, Sethos... I shall defeat you with the power of my friend group of employed adults who miraculously have regularly scheduled meet-ups, and also my daughter!"

[redesigns]

[saint-hymn]

You're not coming back from shit! Thrashing around in that high-conductivity state of yours, bumping into things and acting like a clown. Who are you kidding?

[wormsdyke]

normal show by a estranged producer normal guy

[atalana]

so the good place is widely lauded on this site for its takes on morality and capitalism, which i totally agree with

but i think it should get more recognition for the line "all humans are aware of death. so we're all a little bit sad all the time. that's just the deal. we don't get offered any better ones. and if you try and ignore your sadness, it just ends up leaking out of you anyway. i've been there, and everybody's been there. so don't fight it. in the words of a very wise bed bath and beyond employee i once knew - go ahead and cry all you want. but you're gonna have to pay for that toilet plunger."

[queerofthedagger]

tagging is a courtesy. I've said this many times before but it bears repeating because I keep seeing nonsense takes on this while it really is so simple. authors do not have to tag beyond 'creator chose not to use archive warnings'. if someone has triggers and/or squicks, then fics tagged as such are simply not for them. that's fine! not everything has to be for everyone!! authors not tagging clearly do that accepting that fewer people will read their fics! but that's still their prerogative. 'creator chose not to use archive warnings' or only the main ao3 warnings are proper, sufficient tagging.

and like, personally i tend to tag beyond that. personally, i appreciate when other authors do. it's a great practice. i love tags. but they are not something that is owed and we really need to get off this weird take that it is. it's not, and it's reader's responsibility to assess if they want to take the risk of reading something untagged, and to curate their online experience. and yes, this includes simply not reading things if you are unsure about its contents even at the risk of missing out sometimes.

[umbrvx]

[ @orvwomenweek ] hsy + identity || day 1

[violetscanfly]

How to care for your scientist - a visual guide

[pigswithwings]

FIGURED OUT THE PAPER TEXTURE. ITS OVER FOR THE ART WORLD!

[beeduoo]

i really like that one tiktok

[the-mpreg-guy]

WAIT. WAIT A MINUTE. YOURE TELLING ME THE FIRST TIME DEAN CALLS HIM “CAS” IS FOUR EPISODES INTO S4?!?

[bayheart]

I just joined the transformers fandom thanks to tfOne and just started s2 of the tfa series. And I gotta say, I’m beginning to hop on the JazzOp train thanks to your art and lil snippets I’ve seen

WEEPS!!!!!! WAILS!!!!!!!!!!! i've kept this ask open in a tab for weeks to stare at lovingly (and remind myself to finish this drawing).... THE DREAM THE GOAL ... I'M SO GLAD TO HAVE INFLUENCED U ONTO THE JAZZOP TRAIN !!!!! there's drinks and snacks to ur right thank u for boarding :] DO ENJOY UR TFA WATCH AND WELCOME INTO DA TF FANDOM!!!

a gift i offer..... TFOne gave Me, Personally, everything i have literally ever wanted in my life but most importantly these guys had multiple significant interactions and had me rending my garments in that theater. love and light

[aerequets]

when I'm pissed at my groupmates so I start punctuating my texts

[benevolenterrancy]

@pazithigallifreya why would you ask for him :( he doesn't want to be here :( he doesn't want to be singled out :(( he wants to be left alone :(((

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Why The Ending Sucks

Ok I figured it out. Hear me out:

The entire comic has a running theme best summed up as "who is controlling the narrative, and why are we listening to them?"

Hussie plays a caricaturized version of himself that he describes as "buffoonish" and "oafish". Caricature!Hussie is well-meaning, but a dumb idiot who's incredibly biased in favor of certain characters and in disfavor of others (the most obvious example being his "love" of Vriska, but there's also the way he constantly disparages Eridan). As a result, you have to be VERY SKEPTICAL and VERY CAREFUL when approaching Homestuck's narration, because even when the "best" narrator is at the helm, he's not 100% trustworthy and incapable of giving the readers an unbiased view of the story.

I say "best" because, importantly, Hussie isn't the story's only narrator. He and Doc Scratch explicitly fight over control of the story - Doc Scratch, the child abusing predator who engineered Alternia's fascist murder society, whose shaping of its history is explicitly described by character!Hussie as "fanfic". He is then killed by Lord English, who is described by Hussie as embodying the "toxically masculine" and by extension, the patriarchy, and Caliborn explicitly takes control of the story. John even grapples with Caliborn's version of events, calling out how sexist and misogynistic and shitty it is.

So if we're keeping score: control over the narrative is LITERALLY wrested away from Hussie (who was already struggling to be unbiased) by fascists, abusers, and the patriarchy. It's stressed multiple times that Caliborn/LE are responsible for literally everything that ever happens; the reason the Game Over timeline ends the way that it does is because the alpha timeline is, in essence, the narrative LE is telling: the forces of fascism get to claim the new universe, thereby propogating itself, while friendship dies and all hope is lost.

Who's in control of the narrative, and why are we listening to them?

There are other minor examples of this, too: Aranea is an exposition fairy, and she's biased as fuck and wrong ALL THE TIME about her own teammates. Karkat's explanations and rationalizations are constantly tinged with his own self-loathing and self-blame. Sollux and Meulin are both prophets as per their Mage class, but are both so bogged down by their own emotional issues that the futures they pick out are actively harmful. So on and so on. At nearly every turn, you have to interrogate who's telling the story, what their motivations are, and what they're overlooking or deliberately obfuscating.

So given that this theme is so prevalent, and so thoroughly weighted toward "well, actually, maybe you shouldn't take narration at face value and should interrogate it and come to your own conclusions," it would be Really Weird for the story to go "actually, you can totally trust the narrative now because everyone gets a happy ending".

So, I know that it makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but here's my genuine take on Homestuck's ending:

The ending is shitty on purpose because the viewer is intended to take it as a dare to refute the narration and make something better.

Why are we letting character!Hussie tell the story? He's a biased idiot. Why are we letting the various avatars of LE and Caliborn tell the story? They're fascist, misogynistic, predatory assholes.

And - because Homestuck is a story about life - why are we letting idiots, assholes, abusers, and creeps dictate the story of real life? The world is full of forces that would try to take control of the story and make everyone else play along, represented in microcosm within the text of Homestuck. We cannot let those forces win.

So please go out and do something kind and hopeful and loving in the world today. Thanks for reading.