16/02/2018 19:00:19 ¶ ●

## The material and the notional

One idea that recurs fairly prominently in Homestuck’s Gnostic roots is the duality of the material and the notional, the World of Matter and the World of Ideas. And with the advent of the Extended Zodiac, one idea that took root in my mind was the possibility that this duality extended to the Aspects themselves.

I don’t have solid evidence for this yet, but I do have a lot of anecdotes, below the cut. Regardless of whether it’s truly canon, though, I do think it’s a potentially useful and interesting way of thinking about the Aspects and Homestuck itself.

So, this picture. It’s pretty interesting. An official Aspect wheel, after all this time. And, well, it’s got some fairly distinct color patterns to it. Most notably, and most importantly for our purposes, its upper half is considerably brighter than its lower half. Like, by a lot. Happy pastel colors up top vs a deeply dour color scheme at the bottom, with the middle two being fairly balanced, Space with its white-on-black and Time with a red that is brighter than that of Heart but darker than Light’s yellow.

And what do those symbols represent? The upper half, the notional Aspects, can be described as thought, knowledge, myth, growth, and at the very top, freedom and the essence of the soul. In summary, they are the infinite potential of the imagination, of possibility. Those wielding the notional Aspects have an ability to perceive what might be, what is desired, or what is simply made up, and strive to make it reality. I speak of John, and his dread innocence. I speak of Vriska, and her infinite ambitions. I speak of Feferi, and her grandiose designs. I speak of Jake, and his mastery of the art of delusion. Rose struggles with this, but, well, that’s the thing, she struggles. And the more she struggles, the less her symbology leans toward Light, and the more she is swallowed up by Void. Terezi has similar complications, especially once she is selected for predation by Gamzee, and struggles to imagine all but a finite set of possibilities, all unpalatable.

What of the material, then? The lower half, the half of nothingness, of self, of loss, of truth, of bond? They are the materials, they are solid, they are real. They are not to be dreamed up as possibility or flight of fancy and then discarded just as quickly. Dirk fights constantly to rid himself of the aspects of his personality that he dislikes but finds that he cannot (until perhaps at the close of it all); Equius’ very body is of such intensity that he cannot help but cause consequence upon all things he touches, and his presence repels the omniscience of Scratch, erasing his environment from the notional; Sollux is constantly concerned not with what might come to pass, but with what *will*, and pays a steep price whenever he tries to fit it to his liking, and Karkat is pretty much constantly busy bringing things back into reality with reminders of time limits and the need for teamwork. Gamzee’s path through this is one of struggle, of course, as he uses sopor and the power of delusion to hide from himself the truth of what his gods (who are very real and not simply to be accepted on faith) demand from him, and initially does not wish to live through the consequences of following through on those demands (though of course he eventually does).

And what of the two Aspects caught in the equilibrium, of Space and Time? Well, they’re a bit of both, the point where rising ape meets falling angel, to borrow from Pratchett. They’re physical phenomena, of course, laws of nature, but they’re also both closely connected to the creation of art (although very different forms of art), and Space further has an association with ascension into an imagined ideal form, merging notion and materia together as one.

I might do more on this, delve deeper into some particular detail, but this provides an overview of the idea, at least. Bits and pieces, perhaps to be assembled into something of greater cohesion one day, perhaps to be unraveled and discarded with time.