#theory of the black hole

[frankensteinmutual]

Signalis (2022) [H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival] /Sagittarius A* / Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates / Outer Wilds (2020) / Is There a God-Shaped Hole at the Heart of Mathematics? / Drain for overflowing water at Sambuco Dam, Lavizzara Valley / ? / Thomasin Frances, Hole Theory (15/10/2022) / Bryan’s Ground, a public garden in Herefordshire on the Welsh border. / odd, weird, strange and unusual / Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves / Evil (2019-2014) / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / Illustration of the Annular Eclipse of 1836 from “A fourteen weeks course in descriptive astronomy”, Joel Dorman Steele (1836-1886) / @imdad_barbhuyan on Instagram / The moon’s Copernicus crater. Through magic glasses. 1890. / Kaveh Akbar / Dune (2021) / x / Dmitry Kochanovich, Epiphany (Russian,b. 1972) / The Silt Verses, Chapter 41: But As My Last Breath Splits My Throat / Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, The Camp is a Bait for Time / Darina Muravjeva, Hole / Hilde Heynen in Heterotopia and the City / x / Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers / x /  Louise Glück, from Descending Figure / Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. / Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried; from “A Letter To Love” / Lara de Moor, Orb (2014) / Sam Sax, Pig / The National - Wake Up Your Saints / Aleksander Rostov / Sanna Wani, from “Princess Mononoke (1997)”, My Grief, the Sun / Gregory Orr, [i want to go back] / Thomas Ott / ? / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Massive sinkhole swallows house in Florida / Edna St Vincent Millay, in Letters (1952) /Silent Hill 4 (2004) / @/vren-diagram / Anne Boyer, What Resembles the Grave But Isn’t / Law of Holes / Scarlet Hollow (2021) / China Miéville, from Railsea

(part one)

[raine-world]

When MatPat came on screen I freaked out (in a good way) and got so light headed I missed the entire conversation and almost passed out until he said "But that's just a theory-" which shocked me out of it like a sleeper agent code word

[lime-bloods]

I honestly didn't ever expect that I'd be in the position where I'd be using this blog not just to analyse what has come before in Homestuck, but to look toward the comic's future and do some real old-fashioned theorycrafting. but the time has come. so here goes; lime-bloods' Beyond Canon theories as of the July 6th 2024 update:

Vriska's Going to Hell

were all gonna help you! / whether you like it or not

a select few eagle-eyed readers already noticed that the sound used in last month's (Vriska: Figure shit out yourself.) is called "hell_tierwav". while it was easy to dismiss this as irrelevant composer shenanigans at the time, it's now become clear exactly what this was foreshadowing. whether it would be more apt to call this "Hell" or "Purrgatory" is probably up for debate - but whatever you call it, Vriska's been placed in a dimension seemingly tailored specifically for her personal torment.

while Vriska characteristically interprets the recreation of her childhood home as a symbol of how badass she was, the ghosts of her past - both literal, as the shades of the trolls she killed as Mindfang, and figurative, in the form of sprites wearing the faces of her dead friends - show us in no uncertain terms that Vriska's childhood home is the stage where traumas play out.

Erisolsprite puts it succinctly with his welcome to hell, but pay close attention to what exactly we're being welcomed to: this update ends on page 665. so as of this next update, we'll be starting on page 666.

Does Homestuck Have Hell?

the exact bubble of reality Vriska's currently found herself in seems to be an entirely new construction of the likes we've not yet seen in Homestuck - but that doesn't mean this kind of cosmic torment is without precedent. because while 666 is a number with Satanic connotations in the broader cultural context, it also has a very particular meaning of its own within the world of Homestuck. indeed, the latter half of the comic almost revolves around it, culminating in a climax in Act 6 Act 6 Act 6.

specifically, this repetition of a single digit is emblematic of recursive storytelling. to summarise what you can already read about in detail in my essay The World / The Wheel: when Caliborn is 'gifted' the Act 6 Act 6 supercartridge, which he is told is an "expansion" of Homestuck, it's a trick. there is no "expansion"; he's going to be trapped in a story that never ends because it keeps dividing into smaller and smaller versions of itself forever. the only way to truly beat the devil who trapped the heroes within a story is to trap him in his own story.

that's what Caliborn's "Hell" is, and that's also exactly what the Alternate Calliope achieved in Act 7 by creating the black hole which Vriska knocked Lord English into, ending Homestuck's story - something that Calliope even hints at in this very update, when she refers to the black hole as "containment"; not an accident, but a deliberately crafted prison. black holes are a symbol of recursion and regression; being sucked into one means being forced to live out your whole life over and over again, forever. so really, this is all we ever could have expected to happen when Vriska stepped into a black hole within a black hole! the presentation of the narrative even subtly hints at this; events in Beyond Canon that take place in the black hole are enclosed (in brackets), and now events that take place in a black hole-within-a-black-hole are contained within {curly brackets}, because you should always use a different kind of brackets to differentiate nested parenthesis from each other!

it is absolutely no coincidence that when Caliborn closes the curtains on his appearances in Homestuck, thinking he's won when really he's been condemned to a hell of his own making forever more, it's with a tribute to this exact same Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff strip.

IF YOU REMEMBER JUST ONE THING I SAY, OF SO MANY GREAT THINGS SAID BY ME, THEN PLEASE REMEMBER THIS. I WANTED TO PLAY A GAME.

So What Does That Mean?

one of Beyond Canon's central missions is expanding upon Homestuck's exploration of the relationships between author, text, and audience. as discussed above, a large part of Homestuck's thesis is the evil of forcing characters to live the same lives and the same stories over and over without the chance to grow or move on, and Beyond Canon picks up on this by placing Dirk in the position of trying to keep Homestuck going forever purely to appease its fans, while the Alternate Calliope continues to oppose this ideology. and while the alpha Calliope outwardly seems not to have taken a hard position on where she stands in this cosmic battle, the question posed by her device seems to be an entirely new one: can it actually be a good thing to regress, to return to ground that the story has already covered? can this path lead to something new, rather than merely stagnation?

it's so relevant that Vriska is being confronted with the crimes of her past, not only in the form of all the trolls she was personally responsible for killing but also in the form of the exact same punishment she condemned Lord English to with her heroism - complete with the herd of horses that are always present at Caliborn's demise! but where being condemned to an eternal cycle was fitting punishment for Caliborn, someone who refuses to break free of cycles of abuse and instead chooses to enact that same abuse on the world around him... if Vriska is someone who can break free of these cycles, who can change and become a better person despite what happened to her, will this punishment have the same effect? or, as Davepeta seems to believe, is forcing Vriska to reckon with her own past and traumas exactly what will allow her to break free of that cycle?

DAVE: [...] ill just be over here in the hyper gravity chamber training to beat lord english KARKAT: WE HAVE A HYPER GRAVITY CHAMBER???

it's hard not to be struck by the parallels in design and purpose between the Plot Point and Dragon Ball's Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and not just because of the Dragon Ball enthusiasts present on Beyond Canon's writing and art teams: albeit in typically Strider-bastardised form, the Time Chamber got a shoutout in Andrew Hussie's own Homestuck (see quote above), in a reference that was even picked up on by prolific theorist bladekindeyewear at the time. for the uninitiated: the Hyperbolic Time Chamber allowed its users to train for extended stretches of time, sometimes even spanning years, while a significantly smaller time period passed in the world outside - something that is actually true of real-life black holes! and with the Plot Point's own emphasis on time, represented by the hourglass included among its mechanisms, it seems to me that an essential part of making the 16-year-old Vriska ready for the trials ahead will be giving her the time to undergo the same growth her adult friends have experienced.

considering that Beyond Canon is already playing in the Ultimate Self space, where there are levels of power beyond merely the "god tiers", it also doesn't seem too farfetched to speculate that Vriska, forced to reckon with the fact that becoming a powerful Thief of Light isn't the be-all and end-all of personal growth, will take another leaf out of Dragon Ball's book here and ascend "beyond Super Saiyan". perhaps this is even the "hell tier" so cheekily alluded to in the Plot Point flash? certainly this kind of evolution would be the perfect way to challenge Dirk's belief that the Ultimate Self is the only logical final step for a character's development.

whatever the case, I believe we can take Davepeta at their word here. I don't think it's just a joke that by the end of this ordeal Vriska Serket is going to be fucking RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPED!

[miscellaneous-dragon-art]

I finished painting Muse albums on very tiny squares!!!

I hope @musedotmuofficial likes this!!!

[xxcherrycherixx]

I am infected with raptormoms brainrot, there is no cure 😩

[pangeen]

The Penrose process:

(also called Penrose mechanism) is theorised by Sir Roger Penrose as a means whereby energy can be extracted from a rotating black hole. The process takes advantage of the ergosphere --- a region of spacetime around the black hole dragged by its rotation faster than the speed of light, meaning that from the point of an outside observer any matter inside is forced to move in the direction of the rotation of the black hole.

In the process, a working body falls into the ergosphere. At its lowest point the body fires a propellant backwards; however, to a faraway observer both seem to continue to move forward due to frame-dragging (albeit at different speeds). The propellant, being slowed, falls to the event horizon of the black hole. And the remains of the body, being sped up, fly away with an excess of energy.

The maximum amount of energy gain possible for a single particle decay via the original (or classical) Penrose process is 20.7% of its mass in the case of an uncharged black hole (assuming the best case of maximal rotation of the black hole). The energy is taken from the rotation of the black hole, so there is a limit on how much energy one can extract by Penrose process and similar strategies (for an uncharged black hole no more than 29% of its original mass; larger efficiencies are possible for charged rotating black holes).

Via Wikipedia

Animation:  © Eugene Pylinsky

Throat singing: The Gyuto Monks of Tibet

[jadedaegis]

Type III Stars, Metyr, and How Fkcugni COOL it is to see Fantasy allude to such technical knowledge *swoons*

SO LIKE I AM A HUGE SPACE/ PHYSICS NERD

So, I noticed a sort of "theme" to the progression of Elden Ring's "Shooting Stars" that mirrors how star formation is... well, a thing!! Metyr has lost touch with the Greater Will because Type III Stars have lifespans of "Only Millions of Years!" The microcosm is the most literal definition of the words you can get- a micro-cosmic space.

A Singularity. So!

In the great scheme of things the Type I stars would most likely be the Fallingstar Beasts you find throughout the Lands Between; Type II Stars would be entities like the two Astels and the Elden Beast! Entities that have lived long enough to start really mixing things up. And then we have Metyr. The oldest star- a powerful direct offshoot of the Gravity of Greater Will- ordered and told what to do by gravity until that gravity went inward and disappeared, pulling Metyr's focus inwards. After all, if you travel infinite distance over the infinite space-time surrounding a singularity you could "get to it," ...but you can't. Metyr looks to a ceaseless void, as she was broken; collapsed through unknown means into an indiscernible cosmic white noise. The information that could be gleaned by the Greater Will is simply erased by the inherent rot of the Lands Between, and an infinite space-time firewall stops it from recycling.

Not even Erdtree Burials truly recycle.

[valenteal]

So I’m rereading Storm Bringer and I just got to the first fight with Verlaine and I have some thoughts/commentary/issues.

To be clear I absolutely love this book and it is fantastically written. And this might be a translation issue or it might be a lack of research on Asagiri’s part, but the language used to describe Chuuya and Verlaine’s skills is just wrong. The biggest thing is the way it uses the word density. Density isn’t about gravity, has little to do with gravity. It’s a measure of mass, how close together molecules are. And if you increase density it doesn’t increase mass or gravity but would instead decrease volume. As in shrink. Increasing the density of a person would shrink them and probably hinder a lot of biological processes.

But something I find very interesting is the use of the word annihilation, which in this context if you’re familiar with quantum theory implies that the reaction created when Chuuya’s gate is opened has something to do with antimatter. Annihilation is the term for the reaction that occurs when antimatter comes into contact with matter, it releases huge amounts of energy in the form of gamma radiation. The use of the word gate is also quite interesting because it implies that there’s something on the other side. It’s almost as if Chuuya’s ability is its own pocket dimension. When Verlaine opens the gate just a hair heat and wind escape and Adam detects signs of annihilation happening on the other side. It actually lines up pretty well with what I know about antimatter.

I can’t help but think that Asagiri has also read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s essay “Antimatter Matters” in his book Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries because he uses the example of Billiards in the essay to illustrate his thoughts about antimatter. It’s really funny actually, he wonders if a game of anti-pool would be the same as regular pool, if gravity would affect antimatter exactly the same as it does regular matter. But we don’t know because it’s nearly impossible to create antimatter, that’s what particle colliders do but the only way to keep your antimatter from annihilating is to keep it in an electromagnetic box that repels it before it can touch. But as soon as you create a stable atom with no electric charge that becomes useless. So anti-hydrogen has been created before but it can’t exist for more than an extremely small fraction of a second. Anyway I’m getting off track. Point is I started rereading this book because I read that essay and I will forever associate pool and physics with Storm Bringer and now I’m wondering if I’m crazy and drawing connections where none exist or if Chuuya’s ability is just that much more absolutely INSANE than we ever even imagined. Cause like… it’s super OP but at the same time gravity is like the weakest force.

[UPDATE: READ THE REBLOGS IF UR INTERESTED IN MORE]

[daisyswift3]

Lol she doesn’t smoke. She’s alluding to Blowing Smoke/Lavender Haze. Blowing Smoke is abt PR and bearding

“Tell me is she prettier than she was on the internet” is abt swifties/hetlors and you can’t convince me otherwise. All the death threats and hate we receive. The doxxing and outing during bettygate. “I know what you are.” This song is from our (gaylors’/kaylors’) perspective to the tortured poets. It’s basically us saying “I see through you despite all the showmanship and smokescreens; you might��ve fooled them but you can’t fool me”

[starlight-bread-blog]

They were crazy for putting these songs like this. The whiplash. The range.

[pwopaganda]

A PWOPA SERIES COMING SOON

One of the most consistantly reblogged posts of mine is the Rabbit hole of Dig Down's music video: Max Headroom. It has kind of just sat in the back of my mind that the majority of us musers are into the same things or hold similar beliefs over varying topics like conspiracies/etc.

SO, why not learn about out of the spotlight topics that've been disregarded by the news outlets due to being a spark that causes an Uprising. (I'm on FIRE here please let me burn to death I'm a sucker for puns)

The teaser for my first entry: Exo-Politics

[lime-bloods]

the realisation that a black hole's gravity is the same force that keeps characters 'stuck' in their 'homes' recontextualises a lot.

trapping Lord English in a black hole is poetic justice, so in retrospect it's obvious that the narrative forces behind his punishment would be the same as those behind the punishment he gives out. but the Rapture - the inevitable gathering of characters at a black hole, a tradition dating all the way back to Problem Sleuth - should also be thought of as cosmically analogous to the synonymously-named Reckoning: so it only makes sense that when a character is sucked into a black hole, it's analogous to being returned to the hole they were born from, just as the Reckoning sends the characters to the places of their birth (and just like how cherubs return to the black holes they were literally born from to reproduce, generation after generation).

consider the sprites, being drawn to the Plot Point the same way they seem to be drawn to the Battlefield once the game of Sburb is over - remembering that the rules of Sburb dictate a sprite cannot leave the Hero's home (until set free via pendant), we can now see that sprites are at all times subject to the whims of the gravitational pull of the childhood home.

and now that Beyond Canon's forces all convene once more at the singularity of a black hole, setting the scene for yet another Rapture, it becomes especially clear that this meteor they're all fighting over so intently is in fact the same meteor where the trolls were ectobiologically born. Vriska is tugged at not only by the gravity of her old toxic cycles of behaviour, the gravity of her oppressive childhood home, but by the gravity of the very literal rock that gave birth to her. the more layers we peel away, the more and more literally the Plot Point seems to be a cocoon for Vriska to be reborn from, if only she can escape that gravitational pull of the past.

remember, too, that like a cherub returning to the black hole of its birth, this meteor was once where Kanaya wished to seed the next generation of the troll race - just one small additional nuance to the fact that she must now defend it with her life from the encroaching forces of Jane's regime.

and even Kanaya's own Space symbol seems to take on new significance in this light. etymologically speaking, the starry arms of a 'galaxy' are mother's milk, befitting the aspect of creation; but the black hole that pulls the spiral arms together, too, is now the comfort of the womb. so it should be emphasised for a second time that Beyond Canon's "constellatory quartet" - three Heroes of Space and one of Void - are convening now at their own black hole, surrounded by the spiral arms of a galaxy, pulled in by the immense gravitational influence of a monolithic entity simply called Home.

[kittybricks]

How do you think the higher ups at starfleet manage vacation leave with time dilation? Here’s the grift I think: you get a very rudimentary job on a starfleet ship. Assuming you aren’t killed during your trial period you request PTO and then vacation for the rest of your life on a ship heading steadily towards a black hole. If your captain shows up to drag you back then they have no ground to stand on because 1. you haven’t even used up a quarter your leave yet, and 2. they are now also steadily approaching a black hole. Even vacationing on a planet would give you slightly more time- I bet there’s a party planet with bonkers gravity out there serving this exact purpose. There have to be plenty of people smart enough to figure this out, and it’s essentially a free money glitch. Just join a black hole commune ship and you get vacation pay for all 60 years of what’s only two weeks to you. Basically get paid upfront for everything. The only downside is that you probably can’t change your mind. It does make me wonder if redshirts being so expendable is kind of built into the model though. You vet all of the people who don’t really care about their jobs and then some by sending them into battle without like. A vest that deflects lasers or some shit. Which they could pay for easily. The problem is that starfleet spends all of their money on sparkly ace bandages and none of it is left over to make bulletproof vests for their employees who get shot at or exploded almost every day. There has to be a policy against time travel because that’s easy to uphold, but time dilation is like everywhere. It’s impossible to account for and they know this.

[leonardcohenofficial]

can't remember which of the former weather underground folks said this but one of them said that their fundamental problem was what they all really wanted to be was black panthers (EDIT: it was cathy wilkerson who said it) and that obviously was not gonna happen given the. everything. but in rereading prairie fire and sing a battle song it's so clear that weather were on the precipice of something that could have sparked real change but they just continually got in their own way and made a series of extremely stupid decisions that ended up flattening their potential

[wojakgallery]

Title/Name: Black Hole Brainlet Theory Wojak Series: Brainlet (Variant) Image submission by: cavalier-renegade Main Tag: Brainlet Wojak