also totally forgot, wanted to make a note on something Vriska says about Echidna

VRISKA: Really, who knows what her real purposes are? They’re pro8a8ly totally unfathoma8le.
VRISKA: Echidna is kind of a 8ig Deal Denizen. One of the real heavy hitters, like that other guy… the really strong one with the ridiculous name.
VRISKA: She might even 8e the 8iggest deal. She’s the mother of all denizens. I mean, not in a literal sense. Like, I really dou8t she physically spawned them all.

in greek myth Echidna is literally the mother of all monsters, but that bolded line there is referencing Yaldbaoth, a gnostic concept, not a greek myth

and i think this is interesting that this is the way that Hussie is deciding to mix Gnostic and Greek myths, he’s making Echidna the literal mother in both myths

he’s basically equating her with Sophia the aeon of wisdom from gnosticism that spawned Yaldabaoth and was responsible for his creation by emanating without her partner aeon (reproducing on her own without her spouse essentially) which is where we get our word Philosopher, meaning Lover of Wisdom, Philos Love and Sophia Wisdom

and thats really cool! i just wanted to say that lol that Homestuck’s Echidna can be thought of as more of a mix between the Greek Echidna and the Gnostic Sophia! adds a new angle onto how to view her 😀 and makes sense as she has always been a denizen in Homestuck that has all this wisdom to give and greater knowledge of all the sessions beyond and likely to be the essential key denizen when stuff goes down

Makes me start to question my thought that Calliope would get Abraxas as the other more truly powerful gnostic concept, if Hussie is adding a gnostic connection to Echidna, who is already the space player denizen then it’s a high candidate for a version of Calliope to have her as a denizen as well!

Caliborn as one half that was stunted in growth has Yaldabaoth the stunted god thrown out of heaven Lucifer analogue

The cherub that is the true merger of Calliope and Caliborn has the Abraxas, as the ultimate god merger of everything

and a Calliope would have Echidna, as the super strong mother space denizen with connections to Yaldabaoth directly made with the connection to Sophia as his mother

and I keep saying a Calliope because what I think is most likely is that Alt!Calliope is most connected to Homestuck Echidna which is better understood as Echidna/Sophia, powerful all knowing warrior mother goddess most in opposition to Yaldabaoth with the Sophia connections, while our Callie gets Abraxas, the true real one, what is meant to happen and the actual gnostic denizen who transcends both Echidna/Sophia and Yaldabaoth!

I love pretty much all of this-the link between Echidna and Sophia has never felt more explicit, especially with Alt-Calliope as a manifestation of the “Holy Ghost”.

though I disagree with our Calliope having Abraxas as opposed to Echidna. Part of this is that I think Jake and Karkat fill the role of Abraxas partly through their relationships to both cherubs.

But to me, Alpha Calliope seems like the truest version of Sophia we get in the story, and that makes all the difference. She’s the Sophia who tries to “know the unknowable” (Cherubs playing Sburb is an explicit taboo) and creates the Yaldabaoth of Homestuck: Lord English.

Isn’t Abraxas sometimes portrayed as a union of opposites, including both effectiveness and ineffectiveness? Couldn’t he therefore be both the strongest and weakest of Denizens, depending upon context?

dahniwitchoflight:

not just sometimes, that’s literally what he is and because he stands for all opposites, he isn’t stuck between effectiveness and ineffectivess, since ineffectiveness in it’s nature never manifests, it is literally *ineffective*,

It is things not happening, versus things happening, so something that doesnt happen has no power against the things that do happen, letting unbridled effectiveness unfold wherever it pleases. They are unique opposites that by nature do not cancel each other out.

This is what Abraxas is all about and why he is a god, the ultimate god guy person thing. he need only imagine something for it to become reality because as the culmination of all opposites, usually all opposites cancel each other out, so his power is nothing except effectiveness, since that’s the only thing that manifests in the face of its opposite

but yes since he is literally everything in one being, he is the most truly powerful (yalda only believes he is the biggest bad aruund because he is either ignorant of Abraxas’s existence, or is directly malevolent against him, depending on the tale, but homestucks yalda seems to be the ignorant one)

but this means that as a denizen in nature he is whatever the player can need him to be, representing them perfectly like how Karkat described for himself, but the thing that makes me think that its Abraxas the most is Karkat saying how he’s the opposite of Yalda, and Yaldabaoth and Abraxas are opposed as the fake ultimate and the true ultimate creator, everything Yaldabaoth does is just a sham imitation of what Abraxas is

Abraxas creates all things from himself and permeates all of a reality of like while the facets of himself manifest as varying aeons of a perfect reality

Yalda tries to imitate this by creating our material realm in which he permeates throughout and this is gnosticism’s explanation for why our realm is dark and imperfect in nature, a cheap shitty imitation, think how like Homosuck is to Homestuck

So Karkat saying the denizen opposite of Yaldabaoth, when usually you would assume that was Echidna, but he’s clearly meaning someone else, makes me think he means Abraxas. Those three Echidna, Yaldabaoth and Abraxas are closely tied together symbolically in homestuck, especially when you see the Echidna/Sophia parallels, they are the 3 denizens directly relating to gnosticism and to eachother, so when soeone mentions one while describing another, i tend to them of them 3, so it’s perfect as well that as Yaldabaoth is represented as all powerful and for the strongest players, Abraxas would be represented seemingly first as the opposite, for the ‘weakest’ players, but in reality he is truly the Denizen of the actual strongest players, even if they themselves do not see it yet

Perfect for someone like Karkat and Jake

just think of it like them being “Strong in the real way” yknow?

(follow up) But if vriska got Cetus just like rose, and echidna also shows up for space players, wouldn’t it make sense that eridan would get Abraxas instead of Karkat?

Yaldabaoth has been assigned to Caliborn (Time) and Dirk (Heart). So we know he, at least, doesn’t necessarily link to Aspect. Not much reason to think Abraxas necessarily does, either.

And given that only two Beta trolls became part of LE, Yaldabaoth probably went to either Equius or Gamzee. Unless nobody got Yaldabaoth in that session, and Equius/Gamzee got Orpheus/Dionysus respectively? Don’t really know yet.

But the two of them are the closest to what I’d call “naturally gifted warriors” other than…Eridan? And Gamzee is the one who comes closest to “matching” Yaldabaoth’s thematic tropes. So nothing suggests either Yaldabaoth or Abraxas went to their “Aspect” partners there.

You know, karkat really is the exact opposite of bro I think. Bros anger was quiet and violent while karkat yells a lot but never gets physical; bro seems to have no emotions while karkats are so loud and obvious you couldn’t misunderstand if you tried; bro sneaked around the house, silent like a predator, karkat is literally yelling at all times, etc etc. I think this inability to be ambiguous must be a relief to dave :,)

yuuup. One way to parse it is that Bro, like Yaldabaoth, is an agent of seemingly “thoughtless” action–all powerful over materiality but too blind to ideas/emotions to know what to do with that power.

Karkat, by contrast, exerts his power entirely THROUGH feeling and thought. His voice is his strength because he’s able to move and help people through it–much like Abraxas itself talked at length about every detail of Karkat’s own psyche to him.

Parallels!

Hephaestian Shonen; Abraxian Tsundere – optimisticDuelist – Medium

==>OD: Engage Davekat Meta

CG: ABOUT GODDAMN BLOODY TIME, ISN’T IT?
TG: bro we’re like fuckin inscrutable by design, cut the dude some slack

Really excited to share this with you guys, I think it’s likely my best writing yet. Here we cover Dave and Karkat’s arcs, incorporating themes and beats from Hephaestus, Abraxas, Final Fantasy’s Cloud and Tidus, Naruto’s Sakura, Tsunderes in general, and the most important concept of all: Nakama.

Lemme know what you think! But also, I have a favor to ask.

If you like Davekat and this post moves you–please share it. Historically, I’ve had a pretty hard time getting my stuff circulating on Tumblr, for some reason. That’s usually not been a problem, since my Youtube audience has grown so fast. But Youtube’s been making some changes that have made my growth slow to a near stop recently, and that’s got me kinda scared tbh.

Because if I can’t grow my audience, it’s basically impossible to make this a genuine life-sustaining business for me. And the degree of effort and creative energy my content takes means I can’t really do it unless its a job, so I may not be able to continue doing this.

I doubt it will go that way and I’m not giving up til the bitter end, don’t get me wrong. But Youtube is by far my biggest platform, and the one with most potential-hence why big changes there are so scary. My only other hope for growth is here on Tumblr, and that hope only exists if people care enough to share what I’m saying. So I’m just lettin you know it’d help me out.
But no pressure!

Oh, and also, I need to give out some major props out to the writers who made this post possible:

Credit for the Dave|Tidus connection goes to Griever, author of @jojostuckcomic. Check out his fan adventure here, if you like Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure-it’s a really fun time!

And go check out everything @saccharinescorpion‘s ever made, too. Pheonix Flair is incredible and excellently lgbt, all of her short stories and games are amazing, her media analysis ranges from excellent to outright prophetic in this case, and she deserves the support.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

Keep rising.

Hephaestian Shonen; Abraxian Tsundere – optimisticDuelist – Medium

You said in a post earlier that Karkat’s denizen might be abraxas. Could it be that he just really has the trainer denizen? It would make sense for some duality stuff against Yaldabaoth.

I’m never inclined to think any character’s self-diminishing thoughts are correct.

Abraxas makes sense for duality stuff with Yaldabaoth–Yaldy is all about overwhelming power over the physical world, while Abraxas is all about complete embodiment of every aspect of the world of ideas.
Puts some meaningful context to Karkat’s description of his Denizen here:

Would you please elaborate on Jake being subconsciously omniscient? Or, if you have elaborated before, would you direct me to that post? It sounds super interesting and you tend to have all of the Hottest Takes(TM) so I’m really curious

I have talked about it largely in my video on Denizens, yeah.
Dirk tells us that Jake has an intuitive sense of reality that Jake has no natural means to know, and no clear limit for this is provided in the text.

Jake’s numerous connections to his Denizen, Abraxas, and the far reaching symbolic imagery associated with Abraxas that Jake puts into the story suggest something about the full extent of his capabilities, though. Namely, Abraxas is a deity associated with duality, totality, and the absolute oneness of all things.

Abraxas is the great unseen imbued in everything. It is every idea that could ever possibly exist, or be imagined. Its imagery pervades Cherubs, Calliope and Caliborn, and the character of Andrew Hussie, and so it’s agents have a massive impact on the entirety of Homestuck.

Abraxas could be said to be the conceptual embodiment of Homestuck itself–the double ouroboros of the Cherubs, decreeing the law of Do As You Will. Jake’s Hope powers already echo descriptions of Abraxas from Jung’s 7 Sermons of the Dead, so it’s not much of a stretch to suggest his awareness of Homestuck is just another facet of that connection.

PS: This is why we should be excited for Limebloods. Karkat is also implied to have Abraxas as a Denizen, he also has links to both Cherubs, and Redbloods and Limebloods on Alternia seem to be a two-sides-of-a-coin thing as a result.

Whatever we learn about Limebloods is likely to be relevant to Karkat’s like…ancestral connection to trollkind,I wanna say? So yeah

What’s your thought on everyone saying that Karkat has lime blood? The Extended Zodiac categorized him in the lime blood category, but it stated that True Cancer is special and transcends the sign class. It was even shown in the comic that Karkat has candy-red blood. That should imply that only the TRUE Cancer has red blood, as opposed to lime. Right?

1) Yes, only the True Cancer has Red blood. I mean. It’s the sign of the Signless. Only the Signless and Karkat have red blood, and only they are linked to the sign of…the Signless.

As far as people saying Karkat has limeblood, I basically think it’s funny as fuck. Karkat has candy red blood, guys. We’ve literally seen it in the story.

But that doesn’t mean the association isn’t important. Recently, understanding Jake as symbolically connected to Abraxas had started to make me see some interesting things in his relationship to the Cherubs. I believe @betweengenesisfrogs is working on a post about what I’m talking about, so maybe tune in to her if you’re curious.

But to make a long story short, it’s long been speculated that Karkat’s denizen, like Jake’s, was Abraxas. This because Abraxas was understood as the “weakest” Denizen to counteract Yaldabaoth’s “strongest”. This is a reductive take that misses the point, but the connection itself is valid. Basically, I believe that due to Jake’s nature as a representative of Abraxas, he has a very interesting impact on and relationship with both Calliope and Caliborn.

Since Karkat might have had Abraxas too and was a Blood Player, I had recently begun to give more credence to the common pop theory that Karkat was connected to Limebloods in some way, since it would connect him to both Calliope and Caliborn’s Blood.

Suffice it to say, this upd8 (and that is what this is, make no mistake) has confirmed that completely. And that implies some very interesting things about Karkat’s relationship to the Cherubs, and to the mysterious possible First Guardian on Alternia, who is an Axolotl and apparently associated with Limebloods. Check out that link on Jake if you want an idea what I mean. Basically, I think Karkat has grounds to lay claim to the Limeblood’s legacy, and to be considered a “Lord of Amphibians”, in some respect. I’m awful curious to know more about that First Guardian all of a sudden.

Hey, I am LOVING your writing on the Gnosticism themes on Homestuck–I hadn’t thought about the Aeons as Cherubs yet, and that’s fascinating stuff. However, a couple comments and leads: I don’t think Abraxas is ever referenced as Sophia’s partner, or at least, I haven’t found a source making that claim. far as I can tell, Abraxas was the name of a totally different god later attributed to the Ur-God that generates the Aeons, by Carl Jung in the 7 Sermons to the Dead (1)

betweengenesisfrogs:

That paper describes Abraxas as the ultimate, invisible God
that unites all opposites into one being, as well as the Lord of frogs and
amphibians (puts a whole new spin on consorts and BSlick, not even to mention
Jake’s consort kingdom, huh?). I also think the most obvious analog for Aeons
are actually the Aspects themselves–it’s important that the world of the
Pleroma is also the world of Ideas, and that Yaldabaoth is a “blind”
god because it cannot perceive the Ideas that created it.

The Ideas angle also
links into the Ur-Self stuff you talked about with Davepeta. I think Hussie
covered that pretty thoroughly, because the Ur-Self is just another branch of a
topic Hussie already covers from Act 1: Platonic Realism, and the expression of
the pure realm of Ideas in the world of Material reality. My next two videos
are covering the links between Gnosticism and Greek theory of Platonic Realism,
but in the meantime Tex Talks’ alchemy stuff breaks the latter down v well.

Oh, also notable is
that Yaldabaoth is described as having created “seven heavens” in the
sky–lending additional weights to the Seven Gates leading to Skaia, as the
characters must Ascend the gates much as humans must Ascend to the Heavens to
reach Pleroma 😉 And you are indeed correct that Skaia is the metaphysical
manifestation of Pleroma–hence why it acts as the Sessions’ Sun. It also gives
off Light, but Skaia’s Light is more focused on Ideas.

At last I finally have a chance to post your very helpful
correction! Sorry it took so dang long! XD

Yeah, I was totally wrong on Abraxas when I said he was Sophia’s
counterpart Aeon. I think I must have decided that because 1) it seems weird to
me that we wouldn’t know the name of that Aeon, but mythological systems are
weird and arbitrary like that I guess 2) I misread one of my sources, which referred
to Abraxas as “in Pleroma with Sophia,” which is still technically true, but as
it turns out, true in a more general way. I’ve corrected the original post. Won’t stop
old reblogs of it from going out, but ah, that’s the nature of the tumblr beast.

I’ll have to look into Jung’s take, but I’m intrigued. I
think Abraxas predates Jung, existing in earlier Gnostic systems (but not all
of them) and I think he does start as a separate god originally. But I LOVE
that he’s associated with amphibians! That’s fantastic. That really ties him closely
into the system of Sburb, even more than I originally thought, and suggests
that Hope is somehow tied to the unlimited creative potential of Skaia.

Also, I was looking into Abraxas, and as far as I can tell
he seems to have been a Hellenistic-Roman god of curses and power, of a type
that was pretty common in that period of history—gods whose long, bizarre names
were written on papyri and stones to summon the god’s magic power, frequently
as a curse to bring down your enemies. Variations on Abraxas’s name were
common, and in fact (I made sure I double-checked this this time, ha!) this
does appear to be where we get the word ABRACADABRA, from tablets and similar
riffing on ABRAXAS. Or Abraxas is a riff on ABRACADABRA and similar bizarre
power-god names. Which is fascinating in its own right, but on top of that, it
occurred to me…

Writing ABRAXAS like this might look something like:

And oh my god Jake is closely associated with Abraxas as his
denizen and Roxy even wonders on that page if he was writing ABRACADABRA and this just ties
Jake and the mysteries of the Hope aspect even more closely into Gnosticism,
and fuck, Homestuck really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it? Fucking
love it.

You’re right, Homestuck has always engaged pretty closely
with the platonic/archetypal nature of its entities, all the way from Act 1
onward! Thanks for pointing that out. It’s interesting to see how it becomes
more explicit (and more focused on characters) later on, but it’s so satisfying
to notice how the seeds were already there. I like the Platonist Forms connection
lots of folks have made; I’ll admit Platonism isn’t my area of expertise,
though. I tend to approach this much more from a Lit Crit/ Structuralist theory
of ideas. But it kind of comes to the same result, doesn’t it? Structuralist concepts
and Platonism get along pretty well, the only difference is that one’s encoded in
language and one in the universe. Given that Homestuck’s a linguistic-narrative
structure that represents a cosmic structure, it’s a pretty fantastic marriage!

Seven Gates / Seven Heavens is another SWEET CATCH, thanks! Sevens
are a pretty classic magical number, but they don’t appear super often
Homestuck outside the acts and the gates, do they? Curious. Very curious.
Another echo of Narrative as Cosmos, Story as Gnosticism? From what I gather
the archetypal power of sevens historically comes from the seven visible
heavenly bodies, (the sun and moon plus the five visible planets), and that’s
probably pretty closely tied to the Gnostic idea of Seven Heavens. Which all
ties in very nicely with the planetary and cosmic structure of Sburb. Excellent
stuff.

Thanks so much for writing in! I always look forward to
hearing your ideas. 😀

I can’t believe I missed this until just now when I needed to dig up your post on the Gnostic stuff and LE as Yaldabaoth, but all of this is great and i need to save it now, thanks