2017-12-16 2:12:57 ¶ ●

now that I’m back on aspects again, I wanna take some time to talk about black holes again, because they’ve been on my mind.

I’ve noted already that black holes are associated with the time god Lord English, but something that somehow completely slipped my mind is that black holes feature heavily in the very symbol of the space aspect, too.

a very straightforward reading of this is that black holes form singularities where all the dimensions of reality collapse down into one, so black holes are symbols of the unity and interconnectedness of both the space and time aspects.

but the space symbol isn’t just a black hole; it’s the spiral arms of a galaxy that forms around a supermassive black hole. so it could be said that the time aspect represents the all-consuming event horizon at the center of the black hole, while the space aspect is the galactic nursery that surrounds it; the destructive and creative sides of the coin, respectively.

this ‘creation in the wake of destruction’ concept is something that’s already prevalent within Homestuck; just like black holes, the Reckoning is a process by which the old is annihilated to make room for a new system entirely.

this adds some depth to Alt!Calliope’s role in the story, I think; it was often speculated, long before she ever even showed her face, that as the Muse of Space she would follow in the footsteps of Pickle Inspector and literally become reality. by turning herself into a black hole, Calliope does exactly what you’d expect of the ultimate passive hero by not becoming reality but facilitating the conditions needed for reality to exist.

I think with this reading of the space symbol in mind, it’s easy to interpret the time symbol as being the cog at the center of the machine that turns everything else around it; i.e. the black hole itself. this reading is only supported by the fact that the first glimpse we see of Dave’s land features gears shooting lava from their axes, reminiscent of the common depiction of black holes firing off jets of molten material.