#taz analysis

[a-train-nowhere]

It's so interesting to me how vastly different tres horny bois are in terms of how they're played, and I think that adds to the appeal of the Balance arc overall. Especially with Merle.

Travis plays Magnus like the big hero, the main character. He's loud and confident and boastful, he's incredibly talented and has plot armor out the ass that keeps him alive through everything. He's equipped with a tragic backstory, the loss of his home and wife and yet through everything he tries his best to be a good person.

Taako is the comedic side character. He starts as the joke character beginning with the name. He's Taako! The magical chef from TV! I assume Justin didn't truly expect TAZ to take off as much as it did so he made a silly guy for the one off episode they planned. But then TAZ just kept going. And of course he does get his own tragic story with the loss of his sister, the poisoning at Glamor Springs, and everything else. But that underlying silliness is always somewhat there!

But then there's Merle! Merle is the most human of the three. He's messy and he's relatable in some ways, and he's done bad things. He abandoned his wife and his children to go adventure. He's a deadbeat dad and he's not there for his family emotionally. His faith is loose and he's cynical. But at the same time? He's down to earth, he's a comforting figure and he knows how to help. He's trying his best to be there for his kids and to fix his mistakes, and he ADORES his kids. He wants to be a better father, a better man. And he does! He grows and learns and even though he fucks up he keeps trying. Merle's inherent caring nature shines through so well especially in regards to his children, and that's 100% Clint McElroy's influence.

[jerreeeeeee]

can we talk about how tesseralia makes tres horny boys who they are and parallels them in story and song beautifully. magnus coaching a group of kids and encouraging them and telling them they can win when all the odds seem against them vs hoisting angus on his shoulders and telling him to let the world know they won. taako’s first profound experience of the bonds formed through cooking vs developing the power to fight the embodiment of despair and apathy through cooking a meal with somebody. merle’s first meeting with his greatest enemy who’s completely ideologically opposed to his commitment to love and joy vs his last moment with his old friend john appreciating the beauty of the world together

[cobalt-knave]

Steeplechase (the park) is like its own character, and it's almost an eldritch entity, massive and uncaring. It's the sovereign state of Steeplechase, always imposing an alternate reality onto the world that maintains the most immersive experience and best customer service that always boils down to a feasible story over the truth. People and buildings are slowly becoming a hyper-real hardlight version of themselves. Better. Less true.

The closest location character, so twisted and intricate that once you're in it, it takes over everything, is the City in Ulysses Dies At Dawn. But everybody wants to leave the City; it's just they can't. It's the whole planet.

Nobody wants to leave Steeplechase. Once you're there, you devote yourself, some part of yourself, to always staying in Steeplechase. It's in the currency; a suite to pay another night of the park. It's in the abandoned children in Old Kididelphia.

[mjrdm]

Do you like Huey Lewis & The News?

I MISSED HIM SO MUCH !!! recently watched the american psycho (2000) with a flatmate and was hit by such unbearable jenkins core I had to draw something like

throws up and dies

[tavtiers]

have you done a maid of heart analysis yet? would love to see your take on it :D

The Maid of Heart [symbols: flower, heart]

The Maid class has its basis in the handmaiden or lady-in-waiting. An example would be Joan of Arc.

The Heart aspect’s main theme is instinct. You can find its official description here.

A Maid of Heart is among those who alter the individual's impact. This is the “classpect group” they belong to. Members include: the Sylph, Maid, Bard, and Prince of Heart/Mind. These classes are all opposites or inverses of each other that alter the Heart/Mind dichotomy (the individual's impact). A description of classpect groupings can be found here.

The Maid of Heart actively assists the Heart aspect. Active classes tell themselves what to do and do so for their own benefit. They are more likely to stand up for themselves, but more likely to be cruel. Sylphs and Maids aid their aspect and everything it symbolizes or use it as a form of aid. Simplified, the Maid of Heart is motivated by themselves to assist instinct.

In personality, the Maid of Heart feels like something is holding them back and is invested in self discovery. Personality descriptions can be found here.

Their archetype is the Escapee Free Spirit, defined by freedom and instinct. Archetypes are explained here.

Their opposite is the Sylph of Mind, who passively assists intuition.

Their inverse is the Bard of Mind, who passively destroys intuition.

A classpect or “god tier” is an individual’s best self. All classpects go through a journey from unrealized, to struggle, to realized. When a character is unrealized, they neutrally exist as their inverse. On their struggle, they will wildly flip back and forth between their inverse and true classpect. In their worst moments they will act as their inverse, in their best their true classpect. When realized, they will stabilize as their true classpect. They will still have room to grow, but will become happier, more successful people.

This means that the Maid of Heart begins life motivated by others to destroy intuition. When their struggle arrives and they are at their worst, they will continue this behavior in negative extremes. However, when at their best, they will find purpose in instead assisting instinct for themselves. When realized, they will stabilize and continue to assist the Heart aspect actively, in a positive way.

They share their archetype with the Rogue of Breath, the Free Spirit Escapee.

The Maid of Heart would quest on a planet similar to the Land of Underground [Maid] and Heart [Aspect]. An example would be the Land of Rabbit Holes and Roses. An explanation of planet naming conventions can be found here.

Two possible gods, or denizens, to reign over their planet would be Aphrodite (Goddess of Love) or Yaldabaoth (Trapper of Souls). Other Heart aspect denizens can be found here.

When the Maid of Heart completes their planet quests and dies on their quest bed, they would rise to ascension on the wings of ladybugs (symbols of love). A list of soul animals can be found here.

The characters that I have currently classpected as Maids of Heart are: Snow White from Once Upon a Time, Laurie Jupiter from Watchmen, Maryden Halewell from Dragon Age, Aubrey Little from The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, Lucy Brennan from Twin Peaks, Stephanie Splitz from LazyTown, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, and Pearl Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants.

If any of the links not connected to my blog break, the content can be found on my Google Drive.

Official Aspect Descriptions Personality Descriptions Aspect Denizens

[erasermist]

One Piece Live Action Season 1 (includes spoilers):

Sanji Thoughts

As usual this is gonna be really ramble-y (rambly?) and honestly just me listing practically every instance I could see 😂 sorry if it doesn’t make sense! I just need to get all my feels out and this is the best place.

I just love Sanji’s characterization in this version. Don’t get me wrong, I love anime Sanji but there is just something about this version that I love too! I mean yea he a bit less flirty and actually has a little more style, but that’s not all. I love the way this Sanji is enamored with Luffy from the beginning. From the first time they really talk he is clearly comfortable with meeting this pirate in a straw hat and talks easily with him. Jumps immediately to telling Luffy his dream, to try and help Zoro at the cry from help from Luffy, and the offer Sanji makes to try and cheer Luffy up about Zoro where he will make anything for him if he only asks is so cute.

Sanji’s little smile in episode 6 after asking why Luffy would help defend the Baratie and Luffy just says “You fed us”… it’s perfect. In that moment, I think Sanji fell at least a little more in love with Luffy (platonic or romantic, I don’t really care how it’s viewed but love grew). And then his little smile when he asks about them needing a cook so he could join 🥲 it’s just so cute.

And his interactions with them all is just like he took on the role of older brother. I saw someone mention this before so it’s not like I’m the only one thinking it. In episode 7, the patience Sanji shows in talking to Luffy while fishing shows just how kind he is. And he is incredibly gentle when he leads the conversation o what Luffy is actually needing to talk about. And again when he traded a meal for time to speak with Nojiko, Sanji gives this soft look towards Luffy before gently steering the conversation to ask about Nami.

And even when Sanji sees that Buggy is making Usopp uncomfortable, he immediately sets out to silence him and makes a joke to try and calm Usopp down.

And in episode 8, even the usual Sanji - Zoro fighting only illustrates his kindness more, at least in this instance. During the fight against the Arlong Pirates, when Zoro looks like he is in pain from his injury, Sanji needles him to check on him.

He’s just so achingly kind! And I love him! Taz Skylar does an amazing job and I can only hope that he (and all the others) stay on with the live action for as long as it runs.

Edit: I can’t believe I forgot to mention his cuteness when he tells Luffy about the barrel idea!! He was so excited!

[sirislayer]

Unrequested Media Commentary - TAZ Graduation's unintentional, but brilliant epilepsy representation

Hi so - uh. It's done

[anistarrose]

desperately want to write an essay about aromantic themes in my own fic but. that would require finishing and posting the fic if I wanted to make an ounce of sense to anyone

[strilondism]

in sburb you kill less powerful guys to extract them of their resources to make your dick bigger. you rule over a planet of primitive villagers and make money by tricking them. you breed animals to select the correct genes. your dick becomes so big that you become the means of (re)production and fuck the game and become god

like video games are just very often using the framework of capitalism or colonialism but homestuck explicitly links those to fascist genetic & sexual ideas

[cobalt-knave]

One of the fascinating flaws in the relic plan to me is that the Light on its own is not evil! It's not doomed to make everyone destroy each other! It leads to many worlds having booms of creativity and culture and sharing, with the notable counterexample being John's original world.

But the way they approached the relic plan was through artificing. They chose to split it into weapons. Weapons to fight the Hunger.

Could the Light have been split into something else? Could it have been split into musical compositions? Would that have had the same power?

They, in a way, are drawn to the Light with the desire to fight the Hunger, and that desire (to fight) becomes the desire of the people of Faerun (the relic wars).

not enough people give lup credit for just being a colossal fucking dumbass. like shes so so smart and i love her so much so i mean this with the utmost affection but why the fuck did she make the phoenix fire gauntlet. what did she think was going to happen there. everyone else's relic was like. wildly dangerous but at least conceivably Could Have been used for good things. WHAT on earth could the phoenix fire gauntlet be used for other than mass destruction. like its just a straight up nuke. why did she make this. lup arson isnt the solution to every problem. it isnt the solution to MOST problems. lup.

[jerreeeeeee]

more and more i find myself interested in the period of time where barry and lup were best friends and sort of both knew they were starting to have romantic feelings but also were both not ready to act on them and continued to be close friends.

like so often i’d resist that sort of story, because they end up in a romantic relationship, and so it feels like that feeds into that narrative of “inevitability,” it feels like it retroactively cancels out the “platonic explanation” for how close they were before, but i don’t think that’s actually true for them? the “inevitability” isn’t that they’d develop romantic feelings, because any friendship that close must eventually become romantic, rather it’s that they happen to develop romantic feelings, and so it’s inevitable that they trust and love each other enough to take their time and change their relationship as they want to, because their friendship means so much to them.

there was a platonic explanation for how close they were before they started feeling romantically and before they started labelling their relationship as romantic, because before all that, their relationship was platonic. they were close friends who loved each other and then they fell in love romantically. they still loved each other equally as much when they were “””just””” friends. if they’d never developed those romantic feelings they’d still be close and love one another. (case in point; their respective relationships to taako, or at the very least lup’s relationship to taako, which is equally close and deep and loving, yet platonic, and in fact directly mentioned as remaining just as important to lup) (and really, case in point their relationships to everyone on the starblaster. in the monologue about lup and barry, griffin takes care to mention that the relationships between everyone on the crew had become indescribably close, and never positions their romance as being “more” than any of the others’ friendships).

the reason i dislike friends to lovers is because usually those stories imply that romance is the inevitable end to a close friendship, that romance is a deepening of a relationship, but taz balance so pointedly does not say that about all its other myriad deep and profound platonic relationships; the narrative, at every turn, fully respects its friendships and platonic bonds, so this one happening to be a romance doesn’t actually bother me. it does actually feel like a choice people made because they felt like it and wanted to, rather than being forced in, and it doesn’t reinforce amatonormative bias, because the story doesn’t.

their ending up as a romance doesn’t invalidate the friendship beforehand, because the friendship was already so deep and valuable to both of them. and honestly, from the way the monologue goes, it seems to me that they weren’t exactly pining, they weren’t longing to deepen their relationship, they didn’t experience distance before becoming a couple; they were together every step of the way. it was already deep and close and loving before they decided to change it, and they took their time because that was how they wanted to do it. not being together romantically never stopped them from spending time together or valuing their relationship or loving one another.

[cobalt-knave]

The thing about Steeplechase is the park's whole concept is consistently uncanny. Ustaben is based on nostalgia, and, at least Poppy's Place, is based in 1980s arcades, but this is set far enough in the future that that would not be nostalgic for any guests. It's chasing a conceptual nostalgia rather than the real thing. A yearning for a better past that they didn't experience. Sinuendo in Gutter City is based around innuendo but there's nothing behind it! It's not implying anything because that's all there is. They point out how that would be more unnerving than if it were an actual sex club, but that's a feature not a bug. Ephemera means temporary, but it's the oldest tier!

The increasing use of hardlight is so fitting because so much of the park is already sort of illusory and uncanny.

[andthen-light]

oh my god ghe FUCKING themes and symbolisms

[tavtiers]

What are your thoughts on the Bard of Void ?

The Bard of Void [symbols: jester hat, shadow]

The Bard class has its basis in the classic trickster trope. An example would be the Shakespearean fool.

The Void aspect’s main theme is the unknown. You can find its official description here.

A Bard of Void is among those who alter knowing and perceiving. This is the “classpect group” they belong to. Members include: the Sylph, Maid, Bard, and Prince of Void/Light. These classes are all opposites or inverses of each other that alter the Void/Light dichotomy (knowing and perceiving). A description of classpect groupings can be found here.

The Bard of Void passively destroys the Void aspect. Passive classes are guided by others or act for the benefit of others. They are more likely to be kind, but less likely to stand up for themselves. Princes and Bards destroy their aspect and everything it symbolizes, while using that same aspect as a weapon. In doing so, they leave their opposite aspect in their wake. Due to their actions, they come across as their opposite aspect. Simplified, the Bard of Void is motivated by others to destroy the unknown. In personality, they start out as the Light aspect, seemingly defined by awareness.

On the subject of personality, the Bard of Void gets angry when things don't go their way and is very independent. Personality descriptions can be found here.

Their archetype is the Revolutionary Spy, defined by outrage and secrecy. Archetypes are explained here.

Their opposite is the Prince of Light, who actively destroys awareness.

Their inverse is the Maid of Light, who actively assists awareness.

A classpect or “god tier” is an individual’s best self. All classpects go through a journey from unrealized, to struggle, to realized. When a character is unrealized, they neutrally exist as their inverse. On their struggle, they will wildly flip back and forth between their inverse and true classpect. In their worst moments they will act as their inverse, in their best their true classpect. When realized, they will stabilize as their true classpect. They will still have room to grow, but will become happier, more successful people.

This means that the Bard of Void begins life motivated by themselves to assist awareness. When their struggle arrives and they are at their worst, they will continue this behavior in negative extremes. However, when at their best, they will find purpose in instead destroying the unknown for others. When realized, they will stabilize and continue to destroy the Void aspect passively, in a positive way.

They share their archetype with the Thief of Rage, the Spy Revolutionary.

The Bard of Void would quest on a planet similar to the Land of Light [Opposite Aspect] and Void [Aspect]. An example would be the Land of Surveillance and Blackouts. An explanation of planet naming conventions can be found here.

Two possible gods, or denizens, to reign over their planet would be Nyx (Goddess of Night) or Poseidon (God of the Sea). Other Void aspect denizens can be found here.

When the Bard of Void completes their planet quests and dies on their quest bed, they would rise to ascension on the wings of bats (symbols of night). A list of soul animals can be found here.

The characters that I have currently classpected as Bards of Void are: Oghren from Dragon Age, Ice King from Adventure Time, Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, Adam Stanheight from Saw, Deacon from Fallout 4, Edmund Chicane from The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, and Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

If any of the links not connected to my blog break, the content can be found on my Google Drive.

Official Aspect Descriptions Personality Descriptions Aspect Denizens

[cobalt-knave]

For me, it's Devo. The way he acts and reacts to things all make perfect sense in the context of how he was raised. Being an asshole (cutting to the chase, trying to make quid pro quo deals, being blunt and even rude) is honest, which is something none of the Parish members are. They are nice and always hiding the truth or manipulating it, so he goes against that. He is showing more respect to someone by being an honest asshole than a nice liar, but he is still completely an asshole! And that's amazing!

Going back and looking at my initial thoughts/reactions to the show (@thewrongshop):

he's my GUY of the season

Like, "My resentment is my own"!!!

the way he balances his sort of naivete of not interacting much outside the cloister with his ability to THROW DOWN

the way he ends up back at the cloister and immedietly refuses to take any bullshit

GOSH with Devo he's just. His entire basis for relationships is manipulation and transactions. Like OF COURSE that's how he approaches the world. Even if he's trying not be an asshole, being not an asshole means offering a fair transaction, rather than being genuinely respectful.

and we SEE how "nice" and "polite" and "friendly" all the parish people are, especially Guidance, and it's a lie in so many ways, at least in how it affects Devo, so of course he would rather be rude and honest about it

and, like, saying things directly (and rudely!) IS his way of being respectful! Nobody would give him a straight answer literally ever in the parish, so he tends to say "this is what I want. I assume you want something from me. Here's what I'm offering."

And OF COURSE he assumes everybody's hiding information

Where he's from information is currency, not money

You've got information and you've got power / connections, which everybody wants and will hide or show what they have strategicly

which is of course Not how people like Joshy or Amber work at all

EVEN HIS THREATS ARE DIRECT. "This is what I will do if you don't do X."

What things in Ethersea can you not stop thinking about/drive you insane?

I may be cooking together a very big video essay and am just looking for input to cover as many bases as I can.

[bladekindeyewear]

Light/Void and Ascent/Descent, Outward/Inward

I was helped in putting together something pretty huge this week, Aspect-ways. Sometimes lately, I've been chatting with Taz (aka optimisticDuelist, @utopianparadoxist) and we discuss or debate over character and Aspect interpretations, or they link me some interesting thoughts they've posted blogways or from a third party. This time we were discussing a post they made on Void's potential connection to Gravity and all its potential conflated meanings, such as Love pulling things together, which they based on analysis stemming from @lime-bloods's Void/Home association theoryposts -- I was skeptical of this Gravity interpretation, for reasons I'll go into later below the cut, but one of those reasons was I felt as if paired terms between Light and Void are important when solidifying the domains of each Aspect, and I couldn't think of one for Void's "Gravity" that had a Light equivalent. For example, recently I had the belated inspiration in terminology, for instance, that Light is "Location" where Void is "Dislocation", a perfect tie between Light's links to Maps and Landmarks contrasting it with Pumpkin-like "disconnectedness from spacetime" and ability to appear anywhere, which I quickly added to the Aspect Duality post in late February (I should add the edit date in on that).

And while we were tossing the idea around, we stumbled on another set of even MORE important paired Light/Void terms that made me do an acrobatic pirouette off the fucking handle. I got permission to paste the conversation:

BOOTS: otherwise there might be other aspects that better fit what's going on

((does Light "Push" where Void "Pulls"? could that be it? no, that sounds more like Breath and Blood…))

((actually that might be really important to Breath and Blood, shit! wind pushes forward/outward, chains pull in))

TAZ: I think its pretty fair to say that its a nebulous and abstract reading where a lot of the evidence is hard to parse, like I said at the end of the post I definitely still feel like I'm missing stuff about Void

And I also agree that other aspects have a lot of room to play in this space and overtake Void in readings, primarily Heart and Blood in this context

BOOTS: ((and the "inescapability" of black holes carried Blood associations with other inescapable things))

TAZ: Indeed

TAZ: But isn't that part of the nature of Void? To be a subtle force that falls into the backdrop and lets other things more visibly take over?

BOOTS: you could call that descending into the Ocean, into the abyss over a cliff, into irrelevance; it's Descent, but not necessarily Gravi---

AAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TAZ: Well this is exciting

BOOTS: LIGHT IS ASCENT, VOID IS DESCENT

TAZ: Yeah, I can see that

BOOTS: there are so many fucking associations across the comic and I'm remembering so many of them oh my god

And that Gravity is wrapped up in this association as everything is naturally PULLED DOWN. The rest of the conversation is under the Read More cut where we started listing out more than a dozen freakin' examples to each other that show how UTTERLY PERVASIVE a theme this has been throughout the entire goddamn comic, from the start right up to and including the very latest update of Beyond Canon. (Contains HS^2/Beyond Canon spoilers if you're coming here from elsewhere, stop reading here if you're not caught up to the 2025-03-26 update!)

EDIT: (Just a brief note I'm adding to this above the cut, but a Discord friend just gave me ANOTHER association to add to Light and Void: Outward vs Inward, Light's outward projection the pair to Void's inward gravity!!! Shining Stars versus Black Holes! Void's Inwardness finally brings together its metaphysical ties with Heart and how the latter often sits isolated in the Ocean of Void like Dirk's house, the natural inward-looking nature of Heart-- compared to the outward-facing nature of Mind and its façades, tying Light and Mind together like Vriska and Terezi!)

TAZ: It might almost apply as a broad division to the upper and lower halves of the wheel in general, actually?

BOOTS: even in this LAST update they go UP to enter Canon a black hole is always Down

TAZ: But I like it as Light and Void specifically right now, lets examine that

Yeah yeah BOOTS: Looking at Light almost always entails looking Up, looking down is usually staring into the Void, with the exception of Derse players staring out into the Ring

mainly abysses and oceans with looking down TAZ: Dirk's consumption by Ultself is described as him being subsumed into the Ocean/descending into its watery depths, while Rose outright says about hers "I am ascending, and it is terrible"

BOOTS: Rose begins her grimdark path by destroying her first (UPWARD) Gate and rocketing off elsewhere and of course she's the prime example shown off by the comic of the Descend-before-you-Ascend of role inversion

TAZ: And Heart is on the lower half of the wheel with Blood and across from Void. So maybe there's something there

mmmhmm, mmhmm

BOOTS: it's been said even in like, Andrew's commentary outside the comic, that "Skaia is always Up"

it's never shown setting

TAZ: And of course they shoot the meteor Up towards the Green Sun

BOOTS: and the trolls see the creation-splosion of the green sun Up to direct them in Cascade--

yeah, exactly [what you said]

TAZ: Terezi's looking slightly Upwards as she remem8er's Vriska in [S] Remem8er

(Vriska) and (Terezi) staring Up into the Light of paradox space breaking

it really is all over the place, huh

for that matter, (Vriska) and Meenah looking Up into the fireworks as (Vriska) comes to the true realizations she does about how miserable it is to live the way Vriska and Lord English live

BOOTS: going against your hero role, Descending, is so often denying your true self agency and straying away from philosophical Truth-- after which comes the Ascent where you find and accept yourself

oh and by going into what's been constantly called HELL inside the Plot Point and then emerging out stronger, Vriska "descended" ala Dante's Inferno and then Ascended out of it

TAZ: indeed! indeed

Oh! Dirk and Hal's conversation on the rooftop!

Dirk sits on the side of his home and is literally staring down at both a long plummet/implied s*****e and literally into his Shades/his own Self

BOOTS: hell, if you wanted to make a pun of any love association, instead of gravity you could call it falling in love!

There's just SO MUCH MORE to this, so many examples of Light and importance and enlightenment and Skaia's philosophical truth being UP or involving ascent, where anything that drops or falls DOWN into the water or off cliffs becomes dislocated and its relevance unknown until it might eventually perhaps resurface unpredictably elsewhere. Tavros being driven down off a cliff by the Thief of Light to break his legs and stunt the playful drive he needed to become a fully realized Page of Breath, Aranea's snapped-neck body being dropped into the flames to fade into such irrelevance that she never surfaced post-Retcon, Vriska stealing all the luck/Light from the enemy creature in the first Meteor walkaround and it falling into a collapsing dark pit, so many people always going UP to reach concrete destinations, Roxy and others crashing DOWN through fenestrated windows and falling to reach the Furthest Ring, and of course there's always the Jung psychology stuff that was woven into Sburb (as I've reiterated in the past) and an essential metaphor for Descending into your shadow and Ascending from it to merge your shadow self with your conscious self for true self-acceptance and balance, like Vriska just did in the Plot Point, like the normal Quest Bed method of attaining God-Tier merging the Real and Dream selves and everyone looking Upward to see John RISE UP and achieve ascension: (From an older edit of the Wikipedia page for the Jungian Shadow--)

Nevertheless, Jung remained of the opinion that while “no one should deny the danger of the descent […] every descent is followed by an ascent”, and assimilation of—rather than possession by—the shadow becomes a possibility.

“We begin to travel [up] through the healing spirals…straight up.”

As I've said before, the game IS the psychotheraputic journey from start to finish, complete with the same monumental challenges, pitfalls, rejection and acceptance (of help and of oneself!) that all sorts of different people must confront in order to simultaneously fully appreciate and become themselves, and also become the people they truly want to be. Skaia's Light and the path it guides players on thus represents a journey to one's philosophical enlightenment about oneself, their ASCENT, and the challenges and misleading dejection that causes them to reject this journey and fight against their natures is DESCENT, so often involving the Horrorterrors who embody the essence of Void in nature and motive.

Gosh when you think of all the times "UP" or "DOWN" has been the focus of major or even offhand scenes or panels, there's just SO MUCH that fits them into Light and Void respectively. I couldn't possibly begin to list all the examples, you're probably noticing more in your mind as you read this post.

--

I'm going to integrate this Ascent/Descent meaning into the Aspect Duality post's sections on Light and Void, and link this post there, but before we finish I wanna delve into the potential Gravitation meaning of Void that optimisticDuelist brought up and reasons I might agree or be skeptical of the ties drawn in their post... especially stemming from this Rose quote they included:

That seems to tie Void pretty inarguably to Gravitation, or perhaps the vacuum pull of nothingness, but because I didn't have a clear counter-meaning in Light I wanted to look up the full context of this quote when I made this post... (readmspa.org is a very useful tool while Homestuck.com is down and mimics the old manual search function)--

ROSE: Or what about, the tale of Isaac Newdon under the tree?? He was BONKED on the head by an apple. ROSE: Not reallyan apple though… an atomic idea. An emlemental unit of inspripation itself, id clocked him right on then noggin. ROSE: And this indivisible notion colliding with hish awareness, much like.. . a high speed partical fired to create a nuculear chain reacation, jarred from the void a more profund unnerstand, HIC, ing of the intrinsic nature of nothiness. Thatis,. Gravivitation. ROSE: Of course thess stories are acutually bullshit. They didn't happen in realaity. But thef act that they'rare bullshit makes them more inshresting. ROSE: Men have crefted many stories that are bullshit out of symbols risen from the abyss of coinsciousness withou necesharily knowing whath e fuck they were doing or saying, as they flounered around for some truth. ROSE: Bust in spite of themseleves they would for howefer briefly cross through a ray of light regarless. Becuss of the sbymbols. Dave.. The symbols hol dall the power.

Taz also mentioned that a commenter in their server pointed out that this Gravitation quote and the reference to a high-speed particle collider could also be an intentional reference by Andrew to the Graviton, the theoretical elementary particle responsible for mass and its gravitational force that has so far not been detected/discovered yet, remaining obscured (Void) compared to the particles tied to the other elemental forces.

Black Holes ALWAYS had strong ties to Void, the ultimate sinks for the destruction of information, ultimate darkness, (ultimate Down/descent), the compression of all meaning and separation into a melange forever irrelevant to the rest of Reality beyond one's Event Horizon (thanks @sagaciouscejai for the reminder). And in the Epilogues forward, "Non-Canon" belongs to the great Black Hole and everything that falls nigh-inescapably into it-- as opposed to Canon's comparative association with Light and story importance. But, hm... if Void is "down" and "descent" and the "abyss of [Jung's collective] consciousness", to what extent is it important as "Gravity" specifically, as well? Or is that just tied to the fundamental concept of "down" in the comic's metaphysical framework? Taz mentioned Dirk linked to gravitation to tidal forces too, hence the Ocean which is Void-linked. Does Gravity have a balancing opposite in Light that I can put into keywords besides "Up/Down" or "Ascent/Descent"? And if it DOESN'T have a balancing concept in Light... could Gravitation be part of Void's tie to Space that explains them as neighbors, a shared domain that Space and Void might possess?

In the end I think I'm positive toward Rose's speech and the fact of Black Holes (as well as "DOWN/DESCENT") establishing a definite tie between Gravity and Void, but where I'd disagree with Taz is how over the rest of their original post they pointed to "succumbing" to toxic influences and generational trauma as a sort of Gravity, which I'd disagree with and say has more to do with Void's existing and known "submission and divestment of agency" associations, as well as Centrality coming from it (which I'd have to reconcile with Light's "Location" meaning) not quite adding up for me, and Love as stemming from Gravity which I really don't think has enough in-comic evidence tying the two together. If we eventually deduce that Love has some Void associations-- and the Void characters we've met have certainly been more than a little Love-obsessed at times-- I expect that any association would have to stem from Void's other established meanings such as the submission of agency required by a relationship as opposed to making all the decisions yourself (Light's agency) and hogging the spotlight, like the contrast between Vriska and (Vriska) toward the end of Homestuck proper. There's more to lime-bloods's post that I haven't given enough thinking time to, like Voids always being the central seeding-place for new creation like a Womb, which would ALSO explain its proximity to Space on the official wheel... but, yeah. Those are all my in-progress thoughts on that for the moment, anyway. ((EDIT: "Outward vs Inward" like I mentioned above the cut finally completes the Gravity association!))

I'm still blown away by how clearly Light and Void can mean "UP and "DOWN", can mean "ASCENT" and "DESCENT", that's... just such a blindingly stunning revelation for us to have come to so late, IMO. I bet there's half a dozen theorists out there who put it together AGES sooner and I just never saw their posts. Wow. :D