Commanding Aspects

arrghus:

So the Time Aspect connects a lot to death. That’s a fairly widespread notion. Specifically, Time connects to death to a large extent because the Alpha timeline is an incredibly brutal construct, hurting both those who follow it and those who choose to deviate from it. But the Alpha timeline is a construct of Lord English.

https://medium.com/@RoseOfNobility/apotheosis-and-creation-myth-2257d7bf5854 (scroll down a fair bit)

So Lord English, the Lord of Time, has redefined the Aspect of Time to suit his needs. Huh. Has Calliope, his equal and opposite, perhaps done something similar?

Now, I don’t have much evidence of my theory, I’m not even sure evidence is all that possible to accrue for such a thing, but, well, in the Gnostic origins that Homestuck draws upon, the physical matter of the world is often disparaged, seen as the flawed design of Yaldabaoth, devoid of meaning. We see this reflected in the Aspects, Void, the Aspect of irrelevance, confers great physical ability on its heroes, as does Rage, the Aspect of misery and meaninglessness.

Yet Space, the most physical Aspect of them all, is heavily associated with art and beauty? Beautiful clothes, fascinating sciences, even the Vast Croak, described as the most wondruous thing of all. Clearly, then, the physical world is not entirely lost. It can be filled with meaning, with glory. It has potential, even in a story so heavily centered on the internet and the exploration of ideas.

Certainly, Calliope loves the world. Certainly, she loves to draw its inhabitants, to speculate upon its mechanics. Certainly, she dresses herself in the trappings of its peoples, and speaks endlessly of their glories. Certainly, she acts to inspire the alphas to love the world with her in her communications with them.

Certainly, the last command of her alternate self was to partake of reality, to enjoy the fruits of hers and everyone’s labor. To “have fun”.

Certainly, Calliope in her symbolic sense embodies the audience, with their arts and their theories and their cosplays. Certainly, the story of Homestuck, without its audience, would be a lesser, stranger thing, not to mention mostly unwritten, given how much Hussie inspiration Hussie has at times implied he takes from his audience.

There is an outline here, in the certainties. An outline of a theory. A suggestion of Calliope’s grand influence on the story, of the way she shapes reality every bit as fundamentally as Lord English, and not merely by shaping him through his hatred of her.

But that theory is not yet certain, and I do not know precisely what form it would take, were it to become such.