speculations on Konyyl and Azdaja’s relationship?

mademoiselleseraph:

revolutionaryduelist:

1) They cute

2) Implied panquadrant relationship, or blurring the lines between them? Nice. I’m here for it.

What this has me wondering about is whether having the same person in two quandrants is some kind of taboo? Like was Azdaja just embarassed that he slipped up, or was he worried about being judged?

It’s a kind of queerness, by Alternian standards. It’s
mocked in movies and the like and is heavily culturally discouraged,
maybe even outright legislated against for all we know. Karkat’s
character arc heavily deals in this.

vivicosas:

they do this every morning

dahniwitchoflight:

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?

casejackal:

oD & Case read Karkat: Troll This Worthless Human

It’s 6/12! Have this stream snippet.

I took a break from music streams to do a Friendsim stream with @revolutionaryduelist, so he can educate me a bit on how the hell classpects work. At the end of first stream, this went down.

Happy Hivebent!!

this is surreal to look at but it was genuinely pretty damn fun

hope you guys enjoy it as much as i did!

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!

I liked the DaveKat meta post you made, too, for it’s personal touches. I would have never looked at Karkat’s Blood powers in that way if you hadn’t made it personal in some way. I think you’re right. I think Hussie was using Karkat to tell a very humanistic message. That even in fiction, personal connections with others is probably far stronger a “power” than anything that uses brute force.

i dont have anythin to add here its just perfect and made me cry and i love u and homestuck and karkat FUCKING vantas above all

thank u

corollary tsundere insights

revolutionaryduelist:

i just edited this into the davekat piece but i wanted to point this out real quick:

i mentioned how Abraxas in symbolism, and Karkat in personality, are both beings of duality and married opposited–seemingly contradictory extremes contained within a single entity.

And, well….so is a tsundere. Hate and love, aggression and affection, instincts seemingly completely at odds contained within the same character.

I don’t want to harsh on anyones fun time wrt the way they engage in shipping, so dont take this as fandom criticism or anything, but i think this is why fanwork of davekat that portrays karkat as hyper-saccharine and woobified tends to fall flat for me.

Its not necessarily bad or anything, it just doesn’t really feel like Karkat to me, and its hard for me to invest emotionally unless i really feel like im seeing the guys i grew up knowing and loving. its personal to me, you know?

its just interesting to have the language to describe that dissonance now, after all this time feeling like there was more to say about Dave and particularly Karkat’s panquadrant stuff. It was always there in the periphery, it was just hard for me to pull it into focus in a snappy, concise way i felt i could easily talk about.

The fact that Caliborn identifies Davekat as being in the “Tsundere” quadrant not only gives weight to Karkats nature as inherently at odds with typical troll quadrants–it gives it context and a name, a frame to understand the experience through.

Which makes it a lot easier to understand why, when I dont detect that element of his characterization in fanwork, it just doesnt quite feel the same–simply because its so core to his character. im not saying he can never be happy to be around dave and sweet and stuff–the dere is as much a part of him as the tsun.

im commenting on some relatively niche extreme examples that basically turn dave and karkat into woobie marshmallows, which just doesnt do it for me. And again i really gotta stress, fandom is for fun and people should be allowed to engage in it however they want–depicting a character a little ooc isnt a crime.

im just interested in interrogating and understanding my own experience of fandom and this is a really interesting example of how having a sharper understanding of the canons’ text enhances how easily i can think about the characters in question. its neat.

anyway i like to ramble

corollary tsundere insights

i just edited this into the davekat piece but i wanted to point this out real quick:

i mentioned how Abraxas in symbolism, and Karkat in personality, are both beings of duality and married opposited–seemingly contradictory extremes contained within a single entity.

And, well….so is a tsundere. Hate and love, aggression and affection, instincts seemingly completely at odds contained within the same character.

I-It’s Not Like I Want To Understand Your Character Or Anything, Baka!!!

saccharinescorpion:

Or: So I Realized Why I’m Not All That Fond of Karkat

Or maybe it’s better to say, why I’m surprised that other people like Karkat

Alex, Mickey, and any other people not caught up with Homestuck: here there be spoilers

Here’s a surprising thing I want to suggest: Karkat, for most of the comic, has very little effect on the plot.

I know this seems a bit weird to think of at first–I mean, he interacts with so many characters, and he’s very close to being a protagonist! But, let’s think for a second. Most of his influence in the story is based on character over plot.

In Hivebent, by needling Terezi he gets to the position of leader of the Red Team, and later the combined team. But his duties boil down essentially to helping the others with their issues, usually romantic in nature. For all his bluster and bragging, Karkat is a nice guy—not a “Nice Guy,” but a decent good person who happens to be male. He is a rarity among trolls, and his personality allows him to keep the team together through the game without letting themselves get caught up in their own personal dramas. He is an archetype that TvTropes refers to as “The Heart.”

It’s an important role, especially with his group of misfits. But it actually has little baring on the plot.

Now, let’s look at him post-Hivebent. And let’s take a few glances towards Hivebent. There’s quite a bit of examples I could use for this part, but I’d like to focus on the four people he has his most significant interactions with: Gamzee, Jade, John, and Terezi. His constant assurances that he is not Gamzee’s friend, his convulted Griefer/White Knight triangle of a relationship with Jade and his past and future selves, his misguided(?) hate-based attraction towards John and later staunch denial of such a thing, and his….everything with Terezi.

In it’s simplest form, KK’s relationship with all the people, and several others (see Kan, Sollux) can be summed up as such:

CG: I HATE YOU, YOU SUCK

CG: WAIT OH SHIT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU

CG: OH GOD NO NO NO NO NO

Obviously it’s a bit more complex that THAT, but in the simplest form, Karkat can be classified as a Tsundere: harsh and abrasive on the outside, soft and caring within. I usually wouldn’t fall back on overtly simplified character types, especially those of a “TvTropes” vernacular, but this particular term will be significant later on! So, allow me this a moment.

So. For a good deal of the story, KK didn’t really affect the plot in any story changing way, other than his mediating and his…Tsundereness. (ugh, hopefully I won’t have to use this too long)

But then!

Karkat’s biggest role in the story, the culmination of his mediation and “tough love”: the pacification of Gamzee. This was a really good arc in that instead of resorting to killing as everyone else had so far, Karkat followed his ancestor’s footsteps to bring about an answer that DIDN’T have to result in more heartache.

But there’s something about the way he calmed Gamzee. Where else have you seen an emotional, harsh-but-secretly-sweet character calm their friend/ possible love interest (who, based on the dynamics of moirailliegence, Gamzee is) who is going through a breakdown through a tender hug?

Why, just about

just about

just about

just about EVERY SHOUNEN ANIME EVER!

See, this is The Big Secret I’ve realized about Karkat: he has the traits of basically every Shounen Main Female. He is abrasive. He is aloof and sarcastic. Yet he is easy to cry, and easier to care. There are references to his strength, but it’s only really ever seen in passing. He is the glue that holds the other characters together. He has complex love-hate relationships with those he cares about most. His biggest impacts on the plot have to do with helping others. In short, he is a very emotional character, and a very emotion-based character, which is fitting of the character based around the sign of Cancer.

So, what you’re probably asking is: “what was the point of all this Latia?” Like I said before, I don’t hate Karkat, I just don’t like him as much as I do other characters. But, I am very surprised he is a fan-favorite.

Why?

Like I said, Karkat is basically every Shounen Main Female ever. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but those girls aren’t exactly

aren’t exactly

aren’t exactly

aren’t exactly POPULAR!

You see, in my years of Liking Stuff I’ve noticed that these types of characters tend to be the least popular (outright HATED( among fans and fanwork (except in porn, haha), and these types of characters tend to be female! Female characters who have turbulent love-hate relationships with others are “bitches,” female characters who cry or are scared are “weak”, female characters who tend to focus on keeping the group together over fighting are “useless.”

So why does no one ever bring these arguments up when the character is male?

Another good example: Mai and Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender. A popular fancomic once pointed out that their temperments (surly, sarcastic, pessimestic) were very similar, and yet one character was loved by fans and one was usually hated for being the other’s love interest.

Guess which was a boy and which was a girl.

Now, a majority of Homestuck fans are fairly mature, and yet we still have these rather sexist roots that still rear ugly heads. Vriska is an irredemable homicidal bitch, Gamzee is a badass psycho clown with a tragic motive. Feferi is an annoying skank who toyed with her morial, Eridan is a cute tragic woobie killer who can be saved. Jade is annoying and weird, John is cute and lovable. Rose is boring and dull, Dave is cool and funny.

And Karkat is everybody’s favorite Tsundere nubby horned pwecious baby.

Basically, I find it fascinating that AH gave these traits to a boy and made an interesting character. And I find it more fascinating that people were drawn to a more emotional character. And that’s great.

But I just wonder: would people still like Karkatina?

This is the question we must ask ourselves.

e: an addendum!

This is the original post that a good chunk of my Davekat post is based off, and man i am still fuckin floored at how on point and relevant it is considering it was written in 2011.

And like latias writing flow is just so readable and accessible and aaaaaah i love everything about this fuckin post, i hope i managed to do it a small degree of justice.

Anyway, please do yourself a favor and read pheonix flair and/or check out latias awesome comics–I’m a big fan of The Ghosts of Dolores Delmudo and Un Cien, Una Semana in particular. I need to play Us Lovely Corpses but i already know its gonna be excellent, im just too busy to live.