[56kilobits]

i've been obsessed with this video so i downloaded the video file off of youtube so even if the internet goes down i can always watch frogtimelapse.mp4

[thecollectibles]

Art by Leah Gardner

[txttletale]

So what is homestuck about?

four 13yo internet friends play a video game with cosmic stakes that sucks them into another dimension. over a chat client, they meet a set of twelve alien kids who played the same before them and gradually realize that the cosmos operates on a system of self-closing timeloops and narrative inevitabiilty that's pitting them against an immortal demon bent on destroying the universe

[txttletale]

to be clear, this is how i'd give a casual synopsis, which is usually what people who act like explaining homestuck is really difficult are ostensibly trying to do. if i was, like, describing homestuck's themes in a more analytic register, i would be more inclined to focus on how it's a multimedia hypertext fiction bildungsroman deconstruction with several layers of metanarrative that's ultimately focused on the experience of growing up queer and online in the 2000s through the frame of gnostic allusion, pop culture bricolage, and the author-audience relationship as seen through the lens of said author's idiosyncratic quasiplatonist theory of fiction

[hope-system-reblogs]

Can that be explained for someone who doesn’t know all the jargon? Not trying to be insulting, I just don’t know what a lot of that means.

main difficulty phrases/parts:

bildungsroman

gnostic allusion

pop culture bricolage

idiosyncratic quasiplatonist theory of fiction

[txttletale]

so first of all i want to be super clear that, like, this 'jargon' is not simply obtuse for its own sake, but just like any specialized topic with centuries of theory behind it, literary analysis has developed its own vocabulary with which very specific and complex concepts can be communicated succintly

that said: a bildungsroman is a type of coming-of-age story that puts a lot of focus onto a certain notion of 'growing up', a somewhat romanticized vision of the transition from 'childhood' to 'adulthood' with a strong focus on the emotional maturation of the protagonist. when i say homestuck is a 'bildungsroman deconstruction', i mean that homestuck is, in some ways, an entry into this genre, but takes pains to highlight, interrogate, and sometimes outright reject a lot of the underlying philosophical assumptions that go into defining it.

gnosticism is a dubiously historical (as in, it is an exogenous post-facto grouping made of faiths and interpretatins of christian doctrine that is often described as though it is a coherent and continuous religious tradition) constellation of beliefs mostly bound togeher by a focus on personal enlightenment in the face of an illusionary or deceptive world and by a quasidualist cosmology separating an invisible, omnipotent divinity and a lesser, malevolent or flawed creator divinity ('demiurge'). homestuck is full of gnostic allusion, from the surface-level aesthetic incorporation of gnostic vocabulary and concepts (the monster yaldabaoth, a character's username being gardengnostic) to a more thorough thematic engagement with the ideas of materiality being a deceptive shroud over an immaterial 'true world', or malevolent/absent creator divinites emanating forth from higher-ranking ones.

bricolage is an artistic technique focused on repurposing and melding existing objects -- 'pop culture bricolage' here is me saying that huge parts of homestuck rest on the recontextualization and incorporation of both "low" and "high" cultural objects, aesthetic, visual, and narrative elements from stuff like saw, starsky & hutch, the sims, dungeons & dragons -- allowing plot beats and images (sometimes, literal, jpeg images) from all these pop culture works of art to form loadbearing parts of everything from indivdiual panel composition to story arcs.

the 'quasiplatonist theory of fiction' here is a reference to the beliefs about art and fiction that hussie expresses, with varying degrees of facetiousness, through homestuck and outside of it. i call it 'quasiplatonist' as an analogy to platonic idealism, because a central element of it is the notion of the 'pure', immaterial, 'essence' of a character being separable from their depiction in the work and the circumstances of that work's creation, and i call it idiosyncratic because hussie's take on it is very singular and leads to some very strange conclusions.

[honkers-clown-club]

Let's honk girls

[sandmandaddy69]

[oarfjsh]

they probably cant love me back in a human or even mammalian sense, but my goldfish with their smooth pea-sized brain have learned to trust that i will make them better when they are sick. i feel like crying about this often

[cantabilechaos]

Maybe Princess the tarantula never had anything resembling what we as humans know as emotions, but she still came out of her burrow and up to the glass when we’d talk to her and used to stare at the drawing I’d tape to her terrarium. Maybe she couldn’t even comprehend what we were, but she knew we were there to take care of her. And even if she never showed that sort of curiosity or trust we’d still love her.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Idk if Munchie the praying mantis felt love for me, but I do know he trusted me enough to climb onto my hand when offered and was comfortable with allowing me to carry him places despite me being absolutely massive in comparison to him. So that's close enough in my book.

[anarchistmemedistro]

[flork-of-cows-official]

explorational opportunity

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s more comforting to convince yourself that all men are assholes then it is to face reality which is that your ex boyfriend wasn’t destined to become an asshole but for a variety of complicated societal and personal reasons he ended up that way anyways even though he could’ve chosen to not be an asshole

[what-even-is-thiss]

Your dad doesn’t suck because he’s a man. Sure, him being a man probably contributed to the various circumstances in his life that caused him to suck and believing that men are destined to suck gives you an easy to understand answer of why the world is this way but in reality your dad sucks for a variety of complicated reasons. You’re probably still justified in throwing ice water in his face and cutting him off but he didn’t drive you to that as an inherent extension of his manhood. He drove you to that because he personally sucks. A lot of men personally suck for a lot of complicated reasons but unfortunately there isn’t one universal easy to explain answer as to why that is.

[moodringsformushrooms]

that’s a good one

[pangur-and-grim]

isn't he handsome?

[pangur-and-grim]

who wore it better

[roychewtoy]

my watery friend... are you too brushed with the pattern of the dappled light...?

[elluendifad]

[ID: a photograph of a seal with a blobby splotchy silver pattern on its back that resembles light refracting in water, next to a photo of light's flowing white stripes at the bottom of a pool. Second set of images is a fawn ccurled up in the grass, next to a forested trail aglow with dappled light spots. end id.]

[redrum-sketches]

dappled with light

[steampunktomboy]

Using translation software on estonian or other languages without gendered pronouns is always fun because it will misgender literally everyone at multiple points because it doesn't know what to do with "ta" and will pick between "he" and "she" seemingly at random

[sinsinewave]

often it's actually not random many translationsoftwares manage to do *even worse* and assume gender based on a very sexist perception of context see google translate for example

[mellifexfarm]

rotate him

[mellifexfarm]

ewww

[mellifexfarm]

it grows

[mellifexfarm]

real animal now

[mellifexfarm]

officially named lint

[cruel-hiraeth]

call him bubonic the way he plagues me

[mintmatcha]

blorbonic plague

[ladyshinga]

watching a video and realizing I miss the term "flame war", it was JUST tongue-in-cheek goofy enough of a term to describe how silly it was to carry on long arguments online over shit that doesn't matter and was often started/spurned by a troll. Now ALL of it is just "discourse" or "engagement" which feels like they put a godawful slap of PR paint over the surface of flame wars like a cheap landlord looking to charge 1000 dollars more for the same crumbling walls

[bugthingsdaily]

today's bug thing is this giant beetle sculpture!

[icannotgetoverbirds]

AgResearch constructs grass jungle

Giant bugs, parasitic wasps, and people will be combined at this years’ Fieldays to educate the punters on pest control.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

According to the article, this was for a display, and there are MORE of them ("four giant bugs, measuring around one and half metres long, and nine smaller bugs, that are about half a metre long"), but I'm having a hard time finding them. I need to see the Big Bugs. I already emailed the company that did the exhibition asking for pictures of the rest of them but if y'all have any info BLEASE show me.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

Wētā Workshop

Wētā Workshop specialises in concept design and manufacture for the world's creative industries, from film and television to immersive exper

here's the people that made them. currently searching their webbed site for more bug stuff.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

well i couldn't find the original bugs. however i did find a gallery of about a million more giant bugs they made.

here's a link

beehold:

bee haircut.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

when ur buddy gets a little too drunk and starts hugging random humans and you just have to sit there and deal with it beecause you love them but it's still really awkward

[icannotgetoverbirds]

this is giving big "grabbing you by the ear because listen here you little shit" energy

[icannotgetoverbirds]

okay but like.

look at this. look at all these details. bug lovers of tumblr, get over here. experience catastrophic levels of autism. insane amount of work put into this.

go look at the gallery here. just. look at all the work that went into this. this feels like such a labor of love. fucking incredible.

[icannotgetoverbirds]

at a party rizzing up a cute girl by infodumping about ur special interest (it's working)

[icannotgetoverbirds]

@onenicebugperday LOOK!!! and please share it with bugblr because i think they'll enjoy it

[weirdvibesinhere]

I love when I’m watching a tv show that’s supposed to show me something futuristic and sci fi and it’s just this stuff glued to something else

Like you can’t fool me. That’s my friend the tube. We are well acquanted