#its the opposite though with my eridan one

[cicadaemon]

Did another redraw but this time with the actual first piece of Homestuck fanart I ever drew.

#homestuck #karkat vantas #cicadart #its pretty fun doing this #its the opposite though with my eridan one #where I was unhappy with the first 2012 attempt but very happy with my redo #I was so proud of this one but Im meh about the redo #karkat was always hard for me to draw tho #especially cause I liked to do the blood hue to the skin and that's hard to make it subtle esp since he does make an effort to hide it #i always hc'd he did body paint lol #i also didnt have as much to fiddle with like with eridan #karkats design is very basic but lovely

[classpect-navelgazing]

do you have an analysis where you talk about why you disagree with what canon has to say about classpects anywhere? i looked but tumble isn’t exactly the greatest at searching for stuff. i’m just curious to know what the issues are with what was said in canon

Sure. Though I don't know if I'd say I "disagree with canon" so much as I think the more someone tries to give us a straight up, clean answer on it, they're probably an unreliable source. My source is canon, but more holistically.

For me I think this started two places. First: I just..... don't really buy the idea of Pages being the Slow Burn class. I never bought it, honestly? As soon as I figured out how Jake English manages people and their expectations of him to get what he wants, it threw into question the whole concept of the class. Because Jake is the second most emotionally intelligent character in HS after Karkat, but he uses it for himself rather selfishly instead of for a greater cause. When Jake subtly or subconsciously tries to bend the story to his will, he's remarkably effective.

So, of course, I looked at Tavros. What does Tavros Nitram want? Well, he wants to have fun, to progress at his own pace, and to kind of do his own thing. I found it very interesting how the people around him sort of bent to what he wanted. No one stopped Tavros from dreaming on Prospit. He didn't do anything to get those mechanical legs, which he textually wanted, other folks took care of that for him. No one really stopped Tavros from playing the game (both FLARP and SGRUB) the way he wanted to. Aradia enables his allegedly bad class choice, Karkat orders Vriska to save his life, and when Vriska wants to force Tavros to play her way, Kanaya interferes. It's all very cohesive to me in a way that I genuinely do not know if the creator intended, but the pattern is absolutely there.

So, whoop, Pages Are A Slow Burn gets tossed into the garbage where it belongs.

The other one that really made me go "huh" is Calliope's Active/Passive thing. From the moment I read it the first time, I was like "i'm........ not sure that's a thing" and on every subsequent reread and relisten, I became even more certain she's just theorycrafting and its not borne out in the actual text. Which, frankly, fits into Calliope's whole thing of being a proxy for fans, particularly their speculation. She outright says to Dirk she gets carried away with her theorizing.

Like... for me its the Prince thing. I flat out don't think Princes are "The Most Active Class," at all, full stop. The idea is kind of silly to me. Eridan wasn't fucking Super Active, he just became extremely potent when he finally went off. And Dirk, similarly, is the king of Hurry Up And Wait. When shit pops off, he acts with incredible effectiveness, but the rest of the time he's zoning the fuck out, white lying about how cool he is, and fishing.

Same with Seers on the opposite end. Am I meant to take seriously the idea that Rose Lalonde and Terezi fucking Pyrope are the most passive class, nah. No sell. I literally and actually think I could make a better argument that Witches are more passive than Seers.

And then I just... don't agree with Calliope's verbiage of the classes. Dirk was not a destroyer of heart/soul, his most dramatic and effective moments in the story are harnessing his aspect, and in the conversation where Calliope tells Roxy her verbiage, even she says its a little esoteric and hard to grasp.

Calliope's trying to apply very firm wording and delineation to something that Terezi much earlier calls a "hyperflexible mythology." That reading of classpect frankly bears out a lot more, imo.

Which just led me to the conclusion that: all the stuff Calliope says, its her opinion. What I am interested in is action. What do these people do, what do they think of their aspect, how does it manifest.

My conclusion was basically: fuck passive/active, this is all about your role in the narrative. Which, in my opinion, fits very well into the two ways HS is structured: as a video game (the vernacular, the commands, the literalization of abstractions like inventory and leveling up), and as a stage play (the acts, the curtains, the intermissions).

#chromaticroses #ask arc #hs meta #homestuck

[classpecting-the-hoyoverse]

Asking for Sampo classpect bestie ♥️

One Sampo analysis comin right up bestie! ♥️

Edit: Damn even when writing him henever ceases to make me mad. My draft not saving 4 times...

Sampo Koski: The Sylph of Rage

gonna put in a page break this time, for this is a doozy!

Sylph: The passive creation class

One who creates their aspect for others.

Alternatively, one who heals through their aspect.

Rage

Abstract: Doubt, Confusion, Skepticism, Chaos, Truth, Actual Rage

Literal: Clowns, Cults, Theater

Rage is one of the most... bewildering aspects in Homestuck, and those who identify with it are even more-so.

Sampo is no different: A man of many voices and personas, sending anyone that has the misfortune of running into him into a whirlwind of schemes and swindles.

Rage.

Those bound to the aspect are sources of great confusion and chaos. They're steadfast and stick to what they believe in, near impossible to convince them of otherwise. Though this might label them as stubborn, it's unwise to underestimate them:

Sampo's introduction to the astral express crew was nothing short of baffling. What is a man doing there huddling beneath a pile of snow in the middle of nowhere?

The answer comes rushing in with Gepard running into the Astral Express Crew in his pursuit for the blue haired man. Gerpard accuses them of being Sampo's accomplice and when they try to clarify that they aren't, Sampo disappears. Note that this makes March 7th very angry.

This, apparently, isn't anything new and has gained a reputation for causing trouble. Disappearing at inopportune moments, antics like these are considered as "classic" behavior by Seele.

Now that his chaotic nature is established, next is pinning truth into his character. But how can a man who constantly lies and connives have any bit of truth tied to them?

Let's segway into his class, the Sylph

I know it sounds kinda weird, but bear with me.

Sylphs are mostly known as the healers of Homestuck, creating and providing others with their aspect to aid them in one way or another. But keep in mind that this isn’t always the case.

Sylph of Light Aranea Serket has more obvious examples of healing and providing Light to others. In our first introduction to the character, she offers to heal Terezi of her blindness, stating that she could help "people see things":

How magical.

Aranea can also instill literal Light into people, like what she did with Jake English.

Next we have Kanaya Maryam, our Sylph of Space. When we get to meet her properly, we get to see her in her room. Kanaya's room is covered with garments she created, some for other people.

Obvious Sylph behavior there, but Kanaya's role becomes more... atypical than what one would expect a Sylph to be.

Kanaya's aspect of Space is associated with both emptiness and matte; literal space. Therefore Kanaya heals through creating more space.

During the Horrorstuck phase of the comic, Eridan was planning on joining the side of the antagonist Bec Noir as a desperate attempt to keep livin. He blasts holes into both of them, killing two trolls as some sort of proof to Bec's loyalty. One of those trolls was of course Kanaya, and through what I could label as a unique ascension into her role as a Sylph by reviving as a rainbow drinker was she able to stop Eridan from killing any further.

First, she was able to fill in her otherwise fatal wound before hunting down Eridan and return the favor, increasing the space within his torso:

This may have not have healed anyone, in fact its the opposite, but killing Eridan was for the benefit of the other trolls still alive.

Sylphs are also the archetype of the fairy. Fairies can grant wishes or power to those who ask for it, just like how Kanaya created a wand for Eridan and how Aranea gives long expositions to anyone who comes across her booth, acting out the phrase "Knowledge is Power".

So how does this apply to Mr. Koski?

Remember that the Sylph is a passive class, they don’t take action themselves until someone or something else influences them to do so. And once they are incentivized to act, they act to help others accomplish their goals.

I should also mention that it’s ironic that a person on the path of Nihility, a character that deals in debugging the opponent, would be classified as a healer player.

So what if I told you that Sampo Koski is the true savior of Belobog.

Let’s go back to our protagonists’ first meeting with him: If it weren’t for the convenience of his encounter at the beginning and the subsequent misunderstanding with the Silvermane Gaurds of being his accomplices, the Astral Express Crew wouldn’t have easily been able to find their first lead in their mission through Cocolia.

But before they were about to leave with them, when March 7th was still trying to prove their innocence, the Trailblazer shows the Captain, Gepard, a photo of their planet as proof that they aren't from this planet.

The image stirs up feelings of surprise and awe, the viewers unable to believe that what they're looking at is their home.

This would lead to the first bit of Belobog's lore and what life was like before the big freeze, being retold in legends.

This also raises confusion for the players, you must have wondered why Belobog is in an ice age while the past had recounts of outer-world visitors at least once.

For his freedom, Sampo enables truth and suspicion. Though a trade evokes images of a rogue, there is a explanation that I'll dive into later in another post.

Two big examples that showcase his "roundabout restoration" both happen during the opening and closing acts of the Underworld arc.

While the Trailblazer and March were at Natasha's resting, Dan Heng wakes up. Sampo talks to him first and instructs him to join the fight club, telling him that if he were to become champion he would be able to uncover something about it.

Though, winning doesn't exactly mean that one can get into direct contact with them. Instead, winning buffs Dan Heng's reputation and his likelihood of reaching someone who may have their answer.

This leads them to Wildfire, where the Underworld arc begins. Through Sampo having the Astral Express crew meet Wildfire were they able to save the Underworlders from their crisis and the Crew able to discover more about the planet’s stellaron.

It’s also where Bronya, who was also brought down there by Sampo, not old uncovers the truth of Belobog’s underground residents, but also about herself and her origins rooted down there, both of which were hidden from her by her mother Cocolia. And through that experience does she decide that once she becomes Supreme Guardian she will help her planet for the better.

If Sampo didn’t bring Bronya to the Underworld to witness their hardships, she wouldn’t have the initiative to help them once she returned. We also wouldn’t have had BronSeele

I should also note that Sampo could also have been named after the mythological item of the same name. The Sampo from Finnish mythology was a device forged by a blacksmith named Ilmarinen, its purpose was to bring great wealth and prosperity yet the characters that are involved in its story were consumed by greed and fought for its ownership before losing it in the sea and breaking it.

Next, let's discuss the arc of the Sylph.

Sylphs deal with the struggle of moderating their aspect, sometimes having so much of it that they push it onto others needlessly in the form of meddling. Meddling in other's affairs is a trademark characteristic of Sylphs that can be seen in Kanaya and Aranea: The former being given the name Fussyfangs due to her habit of placing herself between others and act as a mediator in stressful situations and the latter literally messing with the timeline so much she caused it’s destruction just to become important in Homestuck's larger narrative.

The entirety of his character story is just him under many disguises and swindling others left and right, meddling and double-crossing other's while causing chaos and raising suspicion while he’s at it. Sampo was also responsible for one of the most ridiculous bans to ever happen in Belobog in my opinion:

But in an example where his meddling does cause some good happens when Bronya was about to (falsely) apprehend our Crew, Sampo comes in out of nowhere to rescue them. In the process though, he knocks everyone out. His interference saves our protagonists and skews Cocolia’s plans off course.

For saving him from Gepard, he feels like he owes us a rescue back.

For how he knew where to find us, he tells the Trailblazer that after his escape from Gepard, he looked after them and March and Dan Heng afterwards.

In fact, Sampo has a peculiar habit of watching others, especially if who he's watching has no idea.

This moves onto my next and final point: What is Sampo's purpose in the story as a Sylph of Rage?

This is where this post will cross more into theory territory, starting with Sampo's Lightcone.

The card's brief description describes a sniper aiming his crosshairs at Sampo, who seems oblivious to his impending demise as he throws money all around him. Before the sniper can pull the trigger however, his target turns to look at him through the lenses. Almost as if he was waiting for him.

The description mentions how it seems that Sampo can read minds, but I can promise you that he likely couldn't. But what Sampo could do is appear to those he thinks can benefit from his services, attracting them by doing something outrageous. Hence his plead to have his assassin to hear him out.

This brings us to his last cutscene in Belabog: the Trailblazer’s fever dream.

In it, he does say some very… curious things. Although it can be said that this is how the Trailblazer perceives the man, there’s a few things about this scene that make me think otherwise.

The dream plays out like a snippet of a play with Mr. Koski being center stage. He seems to be talking to someone, briefly recounting his feelings on the Astral Express Crew.

This "someone" could be the Aeon Aha, who's design is a chaotic mashup of circus and drama, both of which are associated with the Aspect of Rage.

Who Sampo could be talking to could be Aha, the Aeon of Elation. Despite being on the path of Nihilty, why would he have ties to a different Aeon?

Well, Nihility is only half of what Aha represents. The summary of their beliefs being that the universe is ultimately without meaning, Nihility, and cruel by nature. But Aha does give a reason to live through that pain, and so what it means to live a life to the Elation is to find joy to numb the pain.

Healing wounds, diluting sorrow and eliminating pain through laughter well explains the role of a Sylph of Rage in simple terms. Sampo echoes this statement in the Trailblazer's dream, adding onto how he'd rather be on the sidelines instead of being an active player:

It's been established that Sampo likes to work behind the scenes in order to avoid arrest and that the events in Belabog have left him exposed more than he'd like. He is given the offer to leave and come to Epsilon, which is curiously enough the only place where Aha's followers, the Masked Fools, are mentioned to be in.

He refuses, saying how he doesn't find the place any fun. Perhaps he doesn't find the company of Masked Fools to be anything to be associated with. When taking into consideration his secretive nature and the extravagance of the Masked fools, then it's a fair assumption that he doesn't like them despite being affiliated with the same Aeon.

Afterwards, he starts to say his farewells to the entity. Though this may read like Sampo is just talking to Aha while oblivious to the fact that their conversation is being observed, the whole dream makes itself to be a play; a monologue.

He mentions that he needs to make his curtain call, which is when an actor comes out from backstage to acknowledge the applause of the audience. He faces forward, towards the camera before asking if the viewers enjoyed his performance. He asks if he brought joy, but to any who played this line may just have added more confusion and suspicion to Sampo’s character.

Once the Trailblazer wakes up and you choose to tell March that you dreamt of Sampo, March takes it as a bad omen.

So what purpose could this dream have?

March could be correct in that the Sampo dream could be a signal for events to come. Whether those events are either good or bad, we’ll have to wait and see.

We are going to see Sampo again later down the line for his curtain call, the story on his lightcone is a microcosm of what will happen to the Trailblazer in the future: They will need help, likely in a dire situation, and Sampo will appear out of no where to aid us. His sudden appearance will certainly stir shock and surprise to everyone around him, using that to his advantage to bide precious seconds to clock in his blows.

His dream serves as a reminder that he’s watching us from the shadows, or at least keeping tabs on our progress and waiting for the right time to give the Trailblazer an offer they can’t refuse.

#ask #homestuck #sylph of rage #godtiers #classpect #classpect analysis #rage #rage aspect #sylph #sylph class #Honkai #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr sampo #sampo koski #hsr sampo koski #it got a lil ranty at the end #but I’m just happi that I was able to finish it

[classpect-crew]

The Bard of Time, In Brief(s)

Let’s be fair: the Bard gets a bad rap, and I’ve already expanded upon the Destroyer Classes a bit here, but today I want to dive into a specific Bard to show you just how many interpretations you can spin off of one Classpect. Remember: Sburb loves wordplay and irony when assigning Classpects, and the strongest associations of each half of your Title (outside of the established abilities of your Class and Aspect) are generally ones that inspire a particular turn of phrase. A Maid of Time who has a lot of time on her hands is, quite literally, “made of time.” Of course, Aradia already beat me to the punch with this joke, but it’s a good example of what I mean.

This speaks to me on a personal level, because after diving into what it could actually mean to be a Bard of Time, I think this might be the funniest, most self-referential Classpect I’ve ever identified with—which means it’s perfect. Naturally, since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief: I am a musician of no small talent with an impeccable sense of rhythm, as well as an amateur poet. Beyond that, I gave myself the middle name Taliesin after the timeless bard—Shakespeare wasn’t the first to hold that title—because I have an ego the size of Jupiter and I love the romance and drama of setting myself up with a legacy to fulfill. So, let’s take a deep dive into the Bard of Time, from both my personal perspectives and a more general analysis. To hell with brevity—on with the show!

On a surface level, the Bard of Time is “one who inspires the destruction of death, certainty, and Time itself.” However, we can expand this list ad nauseum by interpreting many different functions and associations of Time—but I’m getting ahead of myself. The two Bards we’ve seen in the comic start out with an unshakeable faith in something that shapes their personalities and worldviews. Now, this could simply be a function of the Aspects of Hope and Rage, which are represented by enduring faith and eviscerating doubt, respectively. We really only have two Bards to analyze, and their Aspects are direct opposites. Still, it’s something to consider. Bards are a Passive Class, and their interactions with their Aspect usually come in the form of inspiring the Aspect itself, or its destruction, in others. I truly believe that the word “inspire” is as crucial to understanding the Bard as “destroy,” and this also has many, many possible interpretations.

The Bard can be considered a Buff/Debuff Class, though this is a bit misleading. As we’ve seen with Gamzee in particular, the Bard can become deeply affected by the whims of their Aspect. Destroyer Classes seem to be spawned into sessions with far too much of their Aspect; unlike Rogues, their purpose is not to diffuse their Aspect to areas of low concentration, but rather to destroy it outright and make room for its opposite to reign. We see this very clearly with the Princes: Dirk was part of a session rife with romantic drama and one identity crisis after another, which would have prevented anything from getting done until he intervened. Eridan’s destruction of the Matriorb, the symbol of the session’s Hope, broke the trolls out of stagnant passivity and ultimately led to the joint creation of the new universe. Bards tend to have a more subtle effect on their sessions. Their influence ripples out in unpredictable ways that can be the catalyst for, in ironic Homestuck fashion, both the failure and success of a session.

The Bard of Time will be part of a session with far too much Time. This could indicate a lack of urgency in other players that leads to a cascade of unproductive and damaging choices, since there’s “plenty of time,” or it could mean that the Bard’s allies are far too wrapped up in the implications of fate and certainty, leaving them paralyzed by inaction or even determined to spend the session fucking around based on the assumption that they’re already Doomed. They may assume, incorrectly, that their Will has no bearing on the session, much like Aradia before her maturation arc. It’s helpful to note here that the Maid is the Active inverse of the Bard. The Maid begins as a subservient to their Aspect, and then grows to heal their relationship to it, culminating with the ability to create it for themselves. The Bard starts out heavily influenced by their Aspect’s opposite, and later inspires the destruction of the most negative relationships of their Aspect in others, and in their session at large.

In addition to correcting these broken relationships with Time, the Bard would also be well-equipped to invite the destruction of damaging patterns, which can range from unhealthy habits and addictions to karmic cycles spanning time and space. Perhaps they choose to get sober, and that choice ripples out and inspires others to do the same. (This has happened in my own life, and I’ve had at least half a dozen people reach out to tell me that speaking publicly about my sobriety encouraged them to break their addictions, too.) They may also invite the destruction of the “Doomed” label given to both individuals and broader Timelines, which could be extremely beneficial to others—but could also, in theory, lead to a Timeline cursed by everlasting stasis, like a terrifying form of limbo. Given enough power, they may even be able to invite the destruction of Death itself. I’ll leave this power’s implications, both awe-inspiring and horrifying, to you, dear reader.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.”

#classpect #classpect analysis #homestuck #bard of time #bard class #time aspect #wow this took about…3 hours or so #i should probably eat something

[murdereraisuha]

Classpecting TWST: Savanaclaw

Time to classpect the dorm that deserved better writing-wise. I’m gonna start tagging these “twst analysis” now too cause I am basically using the classpect stuff as a vehicle for getting a better understanding of the characters

Spoilers for chapter 2 and some of the trio’s personal stories. No knowledge of Homestuck required to read.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Leona, the symbol for the hope aspect, and the words “Leona Kingscholar: Prince of Hope”]

Before we get to the reasoning, I just want to say, Leona I am so sorry you have to share a classpect with Eridan. Okay now I’ll hand the mic to past me.

Throughout his personal stories, we see that Leona is fine with resorting to underhanded tactics, but he specifically values cleverness and creative use of resources. Leona looks down on those who don’t exhibit those things (ex. the Savanaclaw students in Leona’s dorm uniform story who tried to beat up Jack using sheer numbers).

Leona tends to only expend effort on things that benefit him in some way.

Leona is a powerful and intelligent magic user; he could have easily graduated already if he wanted to, but it seems he doesn’t want to.

Despite Leona’s strengths, those around him criticized him and constantly compared him to his brother due to Leona being the 2nd born prince. No matter what he did, he could not sway those opinions. He could never become number 1.

Because of this, he developed the belief that life isn’t fair and he gives up on things rather easily.

Based on this, I have 3 aspects in mind: rage, hope, and doom.

Rage and hope go hand in hand as opposites: rage is negative emotions, rejection, and doubt, while hope is positive emotions, acceptance, and ideals. For Leona, his story seems to be about him having given up on his hope and dreams of ever succeeding. In its place he has become quick to deem efforts worthless. He acts antagonistic to people like Vil and Malleus, and he seems to disapprove of some of Jack’s honorable ideals. All of these things connect to the parts of rage/hope.

Doom is also a possibility, as it represents negativity, decay, and limits. It is the opposite to life, the aspect that I picked for Kalim. Therefore, I think doom is plausible since Leona shows the opposite side to the luxuries enjoyed by Kalim and Farena as first borns.

Now for classes. I don’t think Leona does much stealing, he doesn’t suffer from indecision, he doesn’t put up any masks, and he’s not a very healing focused person. I think that narrows it down to witch, heir, mage, prince, and bard.

If it’s prince or bard it would have to be hope, in which case prince of hope fits Leona best due to his destruction of hope being focused more than just happening naturally. Though Leona has suffered, it seems to have more hampered his potential than gave him useful knowledge so now I’m kicking out mage. Heir seems to fit best if it’s as a heir of rage. Finally, I’m also kicking out witch since he he doesn’t do much manipulation of any of the 3 aspects.

Between prince of hope and heir of rage... it’s prince of hope. Since Leona says that nothing he did could sway people’s negative opinion of him, we can assume that Leona had hope earlier in his life that he could change those opinions. He did stuff like studying and improving his magic until he finally realized that that wasn’t changing his image at all. Rather than preserve his hope, he choose to destroy it, making his class the active destroyer class, prince.

In chapter 2, he rallies Ruggie the rest of his dorm against Diasomnia, using their hopes as a tool for destroying the other teams. In 2-24 Leona then tries to destroy their hopes once he deems their plan useless. At one point he says 「じゃあ本当のことを教えてやるよ」, translated by Shel_BB on youtube as “Let me give you a dose of reality.” This and the other things he says this episode really connect to the hope/rage themes of reality vs fantasy and stop vs go. Therefore, quite ironically since he is an actual prince, Leona's classpect seems to be a prince of hope.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Ruggie, the symbol for the Life aspect, and the words “Ruggie Bucchi: Rogue of Life”]

Ruggie grew up in a poor environment with food insecurity. Many of his clothes are hand-me-downs, he’s fine with eating odd things like dandelions, and before holiday break he raids the cafeteria for food to bring back for the others in his town.

Ruggie’s official hobby is part-time jobs. From working at Mostro Lounge to selling mandrakes, he’s really focused on earning money however he can.

His skillset, which includes pickpocketing and haggling, lets Ruggie pull off plenty of clever and underhanded tricks.

However, like Leona, Ruggie still has standards: in one of his ceremony robe voice lines, he says that he prefers his lot in life over that of a spoiled, rich person without any problems. 

His dorm uniform personal story, where he teams up with Trein’s cat to get magic history help and catch rats, is about using the power of others instead of relying solely on himself.

There were 3 paragraphs of stuff here that I deleted because I was getting absolutely nowhere. I didn’t expect Ruggie to be this hard.

Like, Ruggie's problems kinda seem to stem from just poverty and Leona being an asshole. Well, hm, actually if we combine the moral of his dorm uniform story and Ruggie acting like Leona’s maid, perhaps Ruggie’s problem is something like he keeps taking on burdens? Out of everyone who lives in his slums, he’s likely the only one going to a prestigious school like NRC. He’s likely well-known there because of that and him bringing back food a lot. Are Ruggie’s ambitions for a good job not only his own ambitions, but that of the whole community? I’ve always been a bit confused about why Ruggie helps Leona out outside of the magift tournament stuff. Is he... so used to having to help others and constantly take on jobs that his standards for what’s reasonable work are gone? I just went through the chats and in Jack’s one with Ruggie, Jack is telling him about having to find something to draw for a homework assignment and Ruggie immediately offers to go get his warthog piggy bank. Bruh?? Doesn’t that have your money? Why are you just lending it out like that????

Alright, because Ruggie is a guy who needs to chill and have some me-time, I’m narrowing his class down to rogue, maid, or knight. For aspects, I’m thinking life (energy & luxury), time (action & death), or blood (community & responsibility).

On second thought, I’m kicking out maid and blood. Rogue & knight and life & time seem to fit Ruggie better. And now my best guess is rogue of life. First, he obviously fits the stealing aspect of the class through his skill at stealing. Like how a rogue redistributes things, Ruggie obtains money/food to redistribute to the others in the slums. He also injured the people in chapter 2, basically taking life from them, which resulted in Savanaclaw's chances of winning the tournament getting stronger. For the tendency of rogues to have a hard time coping with having their aspect, Ruggie has a hard time accepting luxury/relaxation time. He funnels all his resources into efficient causes and his community. Also, in Jack’s dorm outfit personal story where Jack tries to help him out with stuff, Ruggie is distrustful of him and goes out of his way to avoid him.

I didn’t have any sort of eureka moment with this one like I had with the twins, so I’m still unsure about it. However, considering that TWST characters obviously weren’t meant to get crammed into the classpect system, it makes sense that some might not fit perfectly. So, with what I do have, I think that Ruggie is a rogue of life.

[Image description: A banner containing a picture of Jack Howl, the symbol for the mind aspect, and the words “Jack Howl: Page of Mind”]

Jack values honor, strength, and hard work. He believes that people should accomplish things through their own efforts rather than lowly tricks.

Therefore, Jack disapproves of Leona and Ruggie's method of doing things. 

In contrast to how Leona and Ruggie use others, Jack sometimes refuses help, like in chapter 2 when he claims he can handle his dorm by himself.

Jack is quite intelligent and insightful, as shown by his comments throughout chapter 3 and his scary outfit personal story.

Jack respects social/group hierarchies and takes care not to disturb order, as shown in his dorm outfit personal story.

Also in his dorm outfit personal story, Jack says that he wants to become someone with a single true purpose.

So, I'm already kind of stumped. He doesn't have any big moments in the spotlight during the main story, so there's not much to go off of there. 

We have to start somewhere though. So, first off, I’ll eliminate the destruction classes and theft since he doesn’t do much of either. I’ll also eliminate the knowledge classes since I don’t think he holds any special knowledge of anything.

For potential aspects, after eliminating the ones that seem mostly irrelevant to him, I’m left with mind, heart, hope, rage, or blood. The 2 that particularly stick out to me are mind and heart.

Mind is the aspect of logic, unbiasedness, morality, and blending in. For Jack, his strong focus on justice even when it means going against someone he once admired seems very mind-like. His care in not stepping out of line in social situations also relates to blending in. Of course, we should still keep mind’s opposite, heart, in consideration.

Now that I’m pretty confident his aspect is mind or heart, we’re left with 12 possible classpects. I still can’t narrow it down well, let’s go back to Jack’s traits.

What challenges does he face or have to overcome? In the main story, the problem he faces is trying to correct the injustice in his dorm by himself. In his dorm outfit story, the problem he faces is being over zealous about helping Ruggie. Wait, actually, that’s not right. Though that is a problem, it seems like the main growth/realization for Jack is about his motivation for helping Ruggie. When questioned by Ruggie in part 1, he mainly cites the group hierarchy as the reasons for his actions. However, later on, Deuce deduces (haha) that Jack looks up to Ruggie like a big brother. Though Jack denies it, at the end of the story he asks if Ruggie would let him call him big bro.

It’s like he is concerned about justice and social harmony (mind stuff), but in reality he does stuff according to his impulses and emotions (heart stuff). This doesn’t feel like a prince/bard situation though, it isn’t dysfunctional or destructive enough for that. I thought that the pages of the cast might be Epel and/or Sebek, but it seems that Jack may be a page.

Pages, the passive exploitation class, are characterized by a deficit in their aspect that they try to hide and overcome. Like how Jack takes his service of Ruggie too far, pages often overshoot in their efforts to correct their weakness. However, as they grow and learn from their mistakes, pages become masters of their aspect, like in Jack’s scary outfit story where he starts out with a bad idea then at the end develops it into a sound plan to scare the tourists. That also fits well with mind, since smoke and mirrors is another big part of that aspect.

Therefore, with how well this class seems to fit with Jack’s actions and motivations, I think that he is probably a page of mind.

#twst #twisted wonderland #classpect #savanaclaw #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #homestuck #twst analysis

[daedalusdavinci]

mituna/doom in aspec aspects

someone asked about mituna on the old blog and i copied down my response somewhere, so heres? a little on that

myths about mituna are frequently confused with myths about dave (think angel of death, and mituna being the god of death, but dave having the trademark giant black wings). since dave is the god of time, he is sort of heavily involved in age, decay, and death, which makes the distinction a little confusing at times. but dave is perpetual and unending, whereas mituna makes laws and order out of all of daves chaos and puts an end to things to avoid the sort of madness that would otherwise be created. mituna is usually a pretty overlooked god because its kind of viewed as a depressing aspect and doom mages tend to get a bad rep because of the association with death (even though life mages have overlap with that ability and are really just as dangerous for the same fucking reasons). also, similar to nepeta (and her fascination with relationships) and karkat (the god of relationships), terezi has a fascination with law and order that often confuses people and causes them to mistake her for being in control of it, when really, she doesnt get shit about it and its mitunas domain.

so mituna confuses people aljsdnflsf

mituna, kurloz, and terezi (i THINK) are the only ones i havent come up with designs for yet, because i keep sort of swinging around on the aesthetic of it. but mituna is tight with kurloz, terezi, and dave, mostly. mituna seems to be one of the only people who can stand kurloz and one of the only people kurloz can stand, because of kurloz’s fixation on right and wrong and clearly defined truths. dave, mituna, and terezi all vibe really well because theyre sort of on the same bullshit wavelength that drives karkat insane. hes also, of course, friends with callie, karkat, and nepeta. hes cool with rose and john, but he has sort of a weird relationship with feferi, equius, and eridan. feferi and him are sort of a pair, but not in the way that dave and rose are a pair, but more in that theyre oppositional to each other and drive each other a little crazy. equius and eridan he just straight up doesnt really like, because equius is weird and creepy, and eridan is abrasive and rude and also has never heard of a law or rule in his entire life and that jsut doesnt really shake out too great for their relationship

#aspec aspects #godstuck #eldritchstuck

[betweengenesisfrogs]

The Triumph of the Marginalia

Marginalia, n.:

1 : notes or embellishments in the margins (as in a book)

2 : nonessential items

-Troll OED

Is it just me, or is Nepeta and Equius’s arc the most slept-upon piece of brilliance in all of Homestuck?

A brilliance, might I add, that culminates in possibly the most triumphant, fulfilling emotional moment in the entire work:

https://www.homestuck.com/story/7928

*stands back and beholds its majesty while from the background comes the sound of James Roach brutally murdering ska*

No, but actually, I mean this 100% unironically, and by the end of this post, I think you’ll agree with me.

By now, I think we all understand the Act 6 double metaphor: the series of temporal loops and universes that Lord English commands is paralleled with, and in fact totally identical to, the narrative of Homestuck. Our characters’ lives exist within this context. They struggle to escape it, and are defined both by it and by the rejection of it.

Enter Nepeta.

The metaphorical meaning of Nepeta in Homestuck is irrelevance, and that’s why she’s the most relevant character in any discussion.

Nepeta was one of the characters killed off during the Murderstuck arc. Hussie argued that she was perfect for this role. In fact, I believe he said something like “Nepeta is sweet, but if you look up the dictionary definition of ‘expendable character,’ you’ll see a picture of Nepeta playing with a ball of yarn and looking very cute.” She’s an endearing combination of shipper girl and apex predator, but not one of your Vriskas or Terezis in being a driver of the plot. Hussie, it seems, created her just to round out the troll cast. He described one of his purposes in Murderstuck as being to axe some of the less necessary trolls to reduce the scope of his character list.

Except that didn’t really happen, did it?

Like a cat with nine lives, Nepeta just keeps coming back.

Equius is another addition to the troll cast who gets pushed away from the main action. He was a character-writing challenge: how do you make someone who’s gross, uncomfortable, and racist kind of likable anyway? I’d argue Hussie succeeded, in large part because of Equius’s relationship with Nepeta. By the time you finish with Hivebent, you’ll probably have a little fondness for their moraillegiance. And if that doesn’t do it, the conversation that serves as their swansong in Equius: Seek the Highblood will tear your heartstrings to shreds.

Because Equius dies, tragically clownmurdered. There was, at the time, some stink over this from Equius fans. Would he have really let himself be killed so easily? Hussie countered: yes, and it was the most in-character thing he could have done. He died doing what he loved: being asphyxiated erotically and horrifically by a superior. Truly, there could be no more fitting end to his character than that.

And yet.

No sooner did Hussie complete his self-appointed story cleanup challenge than he immediately began to undo his own work. It’s almost as if, in declaring his intention to own those who preferred more characters to narrative economy, he immediately had to own himself??

By the time we get even a little way into Act 6, we’re deep in the dreambubble landscape, meeting dead characters left and right. And who should show up there but Equius and Nepeta? Equius attempting to get it on with a bunch of Aradias, who dump him. And Nepeta, living out her romantic dreams as a representative of a timeline where she got together with Karkat. They both appear as symbols of this deadness, this irrelevance. Except that that brings them back into the story, into the spotlight – the opposite of where they’re supposed to be!

Like many bits of commentary, Hussie continues to incorporate the metaphor Nepeta=Irrelevance into Homestuck. Karkat’s remark on their journey that he would love to meet “FIFTY FUCKING NEPETAS” and embark on “NEPETAQUEST” alludes to formspring remarks to the effect that, no, Homestuck was not going to have much time for the minor characters. Except it clearly did.

Why couldn’t the narrative let the meowrails go? Was it that despite the economy of Murderstuck, something was still incomplete? After all, one of Equius’s charms was that he appeared to be growing into a less repressed, kinder person. In Seek the Highblood, we see him letting his guard down enough to roleplay with Nepeta for a change. Their love for each other: wasn’t that ultimately what could redeem Equius in our eyes? So his dying and thus failing to protect her–isn’t that something that should be addressed?

You could imagine many a Nepeta and Equius fan saying this to Hussie back in 2011.

But Hussie was already saying it to himself.

The duo come roaring back into the story in the Trickster mode arc, mid Act 6, thanks to Gamzee’s ridiculous resurrections. True, Nepeta is still reduced as part of Fefeta, the character formed from killed-off girls who never speaks onscreen. But doesn’t using that fact as a running gag kind of draw our attention to it? Doesn’t the fact that Fefeta talks to Roxy constantly offscreen inform us that once we get outside the frame of the narrative, Nepeta has a rich inner life and countless stories to tell?

And it’s here that Equius gets something he never got in his original “arc:” the chance to apologize to Nepeta. You’d be forgiven for missing it since there’s so much else going on at the time, but he does, while fused with AR. Here’s what you’d miss, though: he’s grown as a person in the afterlife. He’s come to regret that moment of weakness, where his fetish kept him from protecting his moirail. Impossible as it seems, he’s continuing his character arc.

The scene ends with Fefeta exploding (she’s also, after all, dealing with Eridan), but it leaves us with a tantalizing question:

Will Nepeta forgive Equius? Is there even a plausible time and space in that story when she could respond to his words?

Do you see what’s happening here? Instead of being erased, Nepeta and Equius are starting to slip the bounds of the story that killed them. They leap in and out of the frame, half-mythical figures. Marginalized, they write their own stories in the margins. They exist in complete defiance of the original logic of Homestuck.

Lord English is an alt-Author figure, a dark, brutal reflection of narrative control and narrative necessity. His world, in which horrible choices are necessary, in which the alpha timeline is a ticking clock leading inexorably to his manifestation, is one that beats down people not deemed important enough by his narrative. Which makes it identical to the one we’re reading. Throw all the unnecessary characters in the trash. Kill them off, if it suits my purposes. The world doesn’t need Nepeta.

Which is precisely why it does. Because isn’t defying Lord English the entire point? Isn’t it what Homestuck reveals as truly heroic?

What might Nepeta be capable of?

Let’s talk about two other victims of English’s forces of marginalization. Davesprite might be the most quintessential example. He teaches us what the alpha timeline is and how it works, by going back to fix a doomed timeline and submitting to being doomed himself. Except he merges with a bird and avoids that fate. Okay, but he clearly gets killed off fighting Jack in Jade: Enter. Except he comes back and hangs out with Jadesprite. Okay, but he dies in the planetsplode in the Retcon. Nope, he comes back from that, too. Huh. He keeps slipping the fate decreed for him by – who else? Lord English.

But it’s a struggle, clearly. He’s caught up in various cycles of guilt and shame. Over being “not the real Dave.” Over his feeling that he has to be a hero in the sense Bro demanded he be. Hussie describes Davesprite as fitting the “way of the unbroken sword:” his experiences have led him to believe in being strong and capable at the expense of all else, in contrast with the other Dave, whose belief in Bros’ toxic ideas is beginning to slip – the “way of the broken sword.” And where did Bro get his toxic ideas from? At least in part, the whispering voice of the soul of Lord English.

Now we turn to Dirk. Like Dave, Dirk has a marginalized, “less important” splinter self but it’s more of a pressing concern. AR shows Dirk’s darker side: exhibiting manipulative tendencies that human Dirk is trying to move away from. He’s also a copy removed from humanity, who feels an understandable amount of disillusionment about being removed from physical existence and his own identity. But as much as Dirk may splinter, like his dumb anime sword, he never breaks. What this means in the symbolic language of Homestuck is that Dirk lives fully, instinctually, in the way of the sword. He believe in a world of hard choices, masculine heroism, and necessity. Ultimately, this, too, is part of what makes Bro so harmful to Dave. In AR and Davesprite, we have a strange parallel: two splinter selves, both of whom are enmeshed in the logic of LE.

Except AR, unlike Davesprite…kind of is LE.

What is Lord English composed of? Well, there’s Caliborn, the most unrepentant shithead of all time. There’s Gamzee, embodiment of horrifying clownery. And then there’s AR, a version of Dirk even more removed from the person he wants to be.

And…Equius?

Allow me a moment to get really indulgent and take a big puff on my Homestuck scholar’s pipe.

The metaphorical meaning of Equius in Homestuck is: sort of growing out of being a creepy racist.

Or maybe let’s say: the opportunity to do that. We said that Equius was on the verge of being redeemed (even had been, in the eyes of many readers). What does it mean to stick him in with Lord English’s souls? It means two things:

1) Equius is a product of his society, which was shaped by Doc Scratch, aka by Lord English, both of whom are kind of him, but Scratch picks up on his traits especially. This is a recognition of that fact: the part of him that sucks is, itself, Lord English in a dizzying loop.

2) Equius’s story is a tragedy. It is the story of a kid who started to escape his society’s tendencies, but was sucked back in by the evil force behind them.

Although…maybe that’s not the whole story.

Because both Equius and AR aren’t really that bad. AR’s pretty understandable, and by no means beyond the possibility of goodness. And the combination of the two? Honestly, pretty harmless. They counter each other’s worst tendencies by devolving into a weird goofball. In fact, AR even says he wants to do something heroic: to sacrifice himself for something really important. He does, kind of, mustering a last-ditch robohorse assault on Caliborn. But at the same time, this is the substance of his tragedy. A hero whose defeat of a great evil forces him to become the substance of that evil. Which could not be a more fitting summary of how these characters function in their story.

But maybe that’s still not the whole story.

Enter Davepeta.

At first glance, the creation of Davepeta seems like Hussie’s most batshit troll move yet. I feel pretty confident in saying that even those who predicted either of these characters returning didn’t see that one coming. However, a few pages of Davepeta’s presence reveals a fundamental truth:

Davepeta is fucking amazing.

In them, Davesprite’s depressive moods are buoyed up by Nepeta’s upbeat optimism. Nepeta’s reclusive shyness is balanced by Dave’s tendency toward brash banter. Both of them gain confidence from being the new person they are. They quickly let go of ideas inherited from the world that kept them from self-knowledge and happiness. Dave, his toxic masculinity; Nepeta, her fear.

A great point I’ve seen made is how much Jasprose and Davepeta resemble fantasy selves for Rose and Dave: indulgent, technicolor manifestations of people they could be if they let go of inhibitions and limitations. But I think Davepeta is the most unambiguously positive of the two.

The metaphorical meaning of Davepeta in Homestuck?

Growth.

Not giving a fuck about what the world thinks. The world, aka Lord English. Because Lord English could never have predicted that his machinations would also spawn a confident, powerful fusion of two beings he had discarded as totally irrelevant.

They’re also a multicolored non-binary furry, so that’s even more points in the pissing off shitheads column.

They are someone Lord English never conceived of, never could have conceived of, but which lay as potential within his domain all along.

And if Lord English is a reflection of the author, of what Hussie feels one has to destroy or sacrifice, than Davepeta is an indulgence existing in defiance of all that.

And this makes Davepeta the most powerful person of all.

They are the light at the end of the tunnel. They are the person you could be, if you could get past your mental shackles and just grow. It may not be possible to ever get there as a mortal human, may only be for a godlike sprite, but striving to be like them matters, is purpose and fulfilment enough.

And they love ARquius.

Nepeta believed in Equius, believed he could grow, and was growing. So as much as ARquius traps himself in a Lord English loop of his own making – grown, perhaps, out of Dirk’s belief that there should be a loop, that importance is admirable—Davepeta pulls from him, in his last scene, his finest qualities. His love.

Equius asks forgiveness again, and this time, Nepeta’s able to give it. Davepeta easily accepts ARquius’s apology, an apology which never could have existed within the confines of a normal narrative. A reconciliation that both of them fought for by defying their narrative, by existing outside it. By being not the trolls who lived and died, but their broader, conceptual selves, who exist beyond lifetimes. Beyond the comic page. And they consummate that reconciliation with that most cherished and loving of gestures:

A hug.

And even as this is Equius and Nepeta’s reconciliation, it’s also Dirk and Dave’s. Which, I should mention, is also taking place, simultaneously and circumstantially simultaneously, just below. It’s a more difficult one, certainly, especially as filtered through the splinters of Davesprite and AR. Here forgiveness is not quite the right word. But – knowledge, and recognition, and a kind of peace. It’s Davesprite’s chance to reunite with the part of his brother he loved, while also being a person who’s grown beyond him. And it’s AR’s chance to be loved.

Oh, sure, the art is ridiculous, the pose absurd. But that’s what makes it sublime.

I mean, what did you think that Sbahj comic was really about?

A boy distancing himself from his feelings through irony, never acknowledging that the story he’s telling is about two bros who desperately want to hug each other, but don’t know how.

Here’s the hug.

I want to dip into Epilogues territory for a moment, but it’s territory which is fairly well implied by Davepeta’s statements and role in Collide. The Meat Epilogue, I think, only illuminates what was already there.

Lord English is uniquely vulnerable to Davepeta.

And why shouldn’t he be? They, like so much else in Homestuck, are a consequence of his actions spiraling far beyond his control. But it’s more than that. Davepeta is finally able to lay the unbroken sword to rest by following the “prophecy” about Dave defeating Lord English. On the one hand, that’s kind of what happened. But it’s also completely different from what English intended, antithetical to his desires and goals. Which makes the victory all the sweeter. But at the end of the day, Davepeta doesn’t fight for the reasons Davesprite did. They’re free of that, now. Instead, they fight from a place of genuine compassion. Because Davesprite, like Dave, knows the true meaning of being a hero: caring about one’s friends.

But the most important thing about Davepeta is that they know Lord English, on a level that perhaps neither he nor they recognize. Both AR and Equius are in there, and both are capable of redemption. It’s only Gamzee and Caliborn who are truly beyond it.

How does Davepeta defeat Lord English?

With a hug.

They wrap their claws around him, and carry him into the sun like a piece of garbage. It’s an aggressive hold, but it’s also effectively an embrace.

And I have to wonder: in those final moments, did they sense a connection there? Did Equius and Dirk stir somewhere within Lord English? Did they give him a moment’s pause? Resist him? Make it just the tiniest bit easier for Davepeta to do their work?

If so, then that, too, is heroism.

At the very least, it’s circumstantially simultaneous with the hug we see in Act 6, and so it carries the same message:

Redemption.

Not for the shitheads, but for those who wanted to be better.

And if this isn’t enough, there’s a third reconciliation here, too: between author and reader, or to put it in other terms, author and character.

If Lord English is a shadow of the author, what part of the author can be redeemed? Maybe not the destructive, antagonistic urges. But the part that plans and designs and philosophizes as Dirk does. That part of Hussie wanted Davepeta to be there, to strike that final blow, and made it happen.

Because, when you get right down to it, as much as Hussie pretends to be antagonistic toward his readers and the characters they enjoy, it’s the fans, the shippers, the furries, those whose hearts go out to a cute, shy cat girl that he most celebrates.

Hussie fucking loves Nepeta.

Nepeta and Equius are, sneakily, the best characters in Homestuck, because they understand its fundamental message: that to succeed in Homestuck is to defy Homestuck. They defy everything it throws at them, and somehow, improbably, come out on top.

All of this is there on that page, a whole edifice of storytelling culminating in that singular, grand, supremely indulgent expression, a feast of looping leitmotif and color and imagery and meme and sound. It’s all there, if you know where to look.

Nepeta and Equius love each other, and that’s pretty fucking great.

See? I told you.

<> Ari

#nepeta #equius #davepeta #homestuck analysis #arquius #meowrails #davesprite #hal #trying to get out ahead of hussie's commentary for a change #happy 4/13 :33 #<3 #stay tuned #feast of homestuck 2020

[urcharactersclasspect]

Light players are mad insightful about these things, so I wanted to ask-- What is the overlap between a Mind and Heart player in terms of being a [Prince]?

All analyses I find on the matter just say that one "ghosts" the opposite, but you can see how Princes of Mind are very Mind-y AND Heart-y, and vice versa. What is your take on this?

Ohoho Flattery will get you everywhere.

Anyways. Princes do ghost their aspects opposite, I do think that's correct to a point.

The thing I think people hold a misconception about is what exactly "ghosting" actually means in this context. Lots of people use ghosting without thinking very hard about how that thought process comes to the forefront sometimes, they just know it makes a lot of sense and it does, don't get me wrong. But Most people only think it means a prince acts in the completely opposite way of what you'd think and that's it, in reality, ghosting just means they are pretenders of their opposite aspect and try to hide and destroy the actual aspect they have from outside sources, and this doesn't always work for them as they think the true aspect they have is a negative trait they must over come somewhere in their personality or lives, even if they have a front of acting oppositely to how youd imagine them to "actually" be. Its never a 100% acting the exact same way as the opposite. And most times it screws peoples interpretations up of where a Princes challenge might be.

Princes by themselves, can be very intense people sometimes having extreme veiws on things- No matter what their aspects are though. And they try to go to great lengths to become the opposite aspect they want to be.

I think the overlaps, in this case scenario, comes from the fact Heart players in general, not just if they have a destruction class, are not actually like how popular fanon loves to portray them as either. And neither are Mind players particularly.

For what we are talking about here, its a good idea to bring up Dirk again. Since ofc hes our primary example of a Prince of Heart which is the aspect opposite to Prince of Mind.

The popularized look at Heart players is usually that if you are a heart player, you will always be an emotional crybaby, you love romance and you basically are fanon nepeta kin or Meulin and always some sugar-coated angel. And you probably don't actually remember how Nepeta acted in canon, or Dirk for that matter if you think that way about them. Heart players can be petty, they can be passive-aggressive and they can be catty (pun unintended). They can be harsh, brutal, biased people and VERY impulsive or compulsive with their decisions.

In fact the Heart aspect i genuinely don't think is just to entail emotions like romance or wanting to cry, the heart aspect is more about passion and impulses, sometimes to a detriment but it can easily work in your favour too(dont get me wrong. Im not ragging on heart players; i respect plenty of them Ive met but to suggest heart players are cinnamon rolls with no flaws is just wrong imo and ive seen the stereotype way too much, so if you think that direction my opinion is useless to you, don't listen to it)

Dirk lived in a position where he needed to constantly keep his emotions in check, because he had lived mostly starved of most interactions so when he finally got them or had felt he couldn't quite gauge himself very well, at least not as well as he thought he was doing it. He constantly thought his own passion, his feelings for Jake and his affection for his friends had to be stifled but no matter how much he tried to hold back he did show he cared- and when he did, it sometimes was a bit much.

He built Jake a fighting robot - not out of some malicious abusive intentions - but because Jake had explicitly spoke a lot about wanting to be able to fight like in the movies and both of them liked those "Man of Action" type characteristics,  and he went a bit overboard with trying to please Jake with it. And despite DIRK HIMSELF never stating everything he wanted to Jake, all his alternate splitters would often make the declarations or advancements for him. He was ASHAMED of his own impulses and passions- so he cut himself into literal pieces over it. but he couldn't quite always hide them in the Mindy and Logical way he prefered, they always spilt out somehow no matter how stoic he tried to be about everything, it wasn't quite enough and wasn't always the best option for him to completely allow himself to let it go either, bc again, princes can be intense and sometimes they just don't know when to hold their horses. 

I know another example of what I mean is Eridan too. He thought he was right and that by joining forces with Jack would save his teammates and friends, and went way too far after people disagreed with him on the matter, and he was hurt by Feferi’s rejections too and definitely went too far in his reactions there too. And simple classism and hemoism went straight to full on the genocide of all land dwellers for the guy too. Which is probably the only exception, since, obviously genocide is bad. I don't think Princes often have bad intentions though. 

Mind Players are usually not always clinical or “emotionless” either. They usually act pretty neurotic and have a lot of feelings, they just decide to hold that back too usually though in order to be logical and precise, so with dirk there definitely is overlap big time.

Anyway I’ll stop here. I'm going off a way further on that beaten path of the question. and I kinda lost my train of thought.

I just feel as though there's a lot of misleading that goes on with these particular aspects. 

#prince of heart #prince of mind #prince of hope #classpect analysis #classpects #mind aspect #heart aspect #prince class

[mmmmalo]

Your note on Rose opposing the Alternian life cycle by bringing back the fish made me wonder if troll and human reproduction are conceptually opposed. Troll reproduction is sort of a destrudo counterpart to human libido. Any takes on Alternia and Earth being a cherubic pairing where death for one is life for the other? I guess it's probably moreso that the cherubs are an exploration of the same themes shown through the human/troll interaction.

Destrudo... I should probably read up on Freud's life/death drives again.

Anyway I'm not sure. Death and sex are linked for the humans too, which to me is what makes Rose's apparent opposition more surprising. Like, when Eridan balks at the thought of 'pink wrigglers' coming out of Jade's torso, simultaneously expressing disgust towards babies and maggots, Jade as mother and Jade as corpse: is that Eridan expressing disgust at only human reproduction in a way that's undergirded upon an image of Alternian reproduction, or is he disgusted by both simultaneously, or is he disguising his disgust for the Alternian as disgust for the human? I don't know which is the correct approach, if any of these. I'm honestly having trouble pulling my thoughts together.

I'm tentatively on board with the cherubic pairing of Earth and Alternia though. Looking at the massive Alternian presence in B2 Earth, its almost as though the A2 + B1 alchemy that created the Green Sun also generated a less abstract fusion? Makes me wanna revisit BKEW's old kid-troll ectobiology theory...

#rambling #morbid fecundity

[jinruihokankeikaku]

Whenever you have the time (so no rush on this at all!) do you think you could explain your takes on the triads? (Time-Hope-Doom, Heart-Breath-Void, Rage-Life-Space, and Blood-Light-Mind) I'm really interested to hear your thoughts and opinions! Especially because I'm super into the idea of the triads but they're confusing to me lol

OMG anon.....i know u said no rush 8ut!!!!!!1! the Triads are one of my favvorite things to talk about and 8asically form the groundwork for ALL of my Classpect theories so I had to answer this one basically as soon as I read it. Here we go - fair warnin, this may devvelop into a Longpost.

I’ll start with Fig. 1 - The Canonical Classpect Wheel from the Extended Zodiac website with (apologies for the messiness) lines drawn to indicate the Introspective Trine in green, the Incipient Trine in gold, the Communicative Trine in red, and the Climactic Trine in violet.

So what do those terms actually mean with regard to their constituent Aspects? Well, each describes a set of tr8s certain Aspects share despite their diff’rences, and the way all three Aspects within a Trine contribute to the form8ion of a narrative. I’ll descri8e each one in turn... 8eloww the cut.

Climactic or Conclusive refers to the fact that Time, Doom, and Hope are all associated with endings/conclusions. This is obvious when it comes to the associations between Time+Doom and death, but the connections go beyond that. These are all “staccato” Aspects - they don’t do their work, on a narrative or meta-narrative level, continuously, but rather in short and clearly demarcated bursts. Time and Doom, in addition to being associated with death, are perhaps paradoxically also associated with survival - despite the various deaths and half-deaths and potential future and past deaths they experience, Aradia, Sollux, Dave, and even Caliborn/Lord English are Alive at the end of the text of Homestuck, and even Mituna - though he’s dead before the narrative even begins - survives his sacrifice/martyrdom within the subnarrative of the Dancestors’ session (albeit at great personal cost). While the same cannot be said of Hope players (A/N: *cries in Eridan kinnie*), Eridan never truly realizes his potential as a Hope player, for as a Prince he continuously manifests Rage (Hope’s Opposite) during his brief tenure on-screen. Time has to do with actual/literal endings and patterns - ie, literal Timelines, the temporal dimension (which unlike the three spatial dimensions in unidirectional), and clocks/machinery, as its symbol, the gear, symbolically evokes. Doom has to do with inevitability and deduction/reduction/loss - death, (deductive) logic and reasoning, sacrifice/burnout (see our two tragic heroes and canonical Doom players, the Captors), and binaries/computation (which, in addition to connecting back to the aforementioned Logic, also involves the clear demarcation of categories/organization. Hope, while perhaps initially seeming like an outlier here, also ties into this pattern - Hope is associated with Climactic bursts of energy/activity (see Jake’s “Hope Field”, which manifests when he is at the height of his Hope-related power (courtesy of Aranea) and in the events directly leading up to the climax of Act 6 Act 6 Act 5, or Eridan’s quiet resentment building up to his climactic confrontation with Sollux. Hope predicts the ending - and faith, a domain of Hope, is about pure conviction, conviction beyond reason in the certainty of this prediction. Finally, Hope, Time, and Doom all share an orientation towards the Future and an affinity for prophecy and prediction - there is no true present Time, and one can neither be Doom’d in the present moment nor Hope for anything to occur in it. (For the present, we’ll have to turn to the opposite Trine.) Hope and Doom are opposed within this Trine, as Hope represents conviction, faith, and overwhelming flares of power, while Doom represents resignation, doubt/weariness, and fading or waning power. Doom and Time are opposed within this Trine, as Doom is associated with surrender, exhaustion/burnout, and acceptance of the inevitable, while Time is associated with struggle and effort and accomplishing the impossible. Time and Hope are opposed within this Trine, as Time is associated with death, destruction, struggle, and impermanence, while Hope is associated with resurrection, invincibility, and the permanent efficacy of grace.

Incipient or Immanent refers to the fact that Space, Life, and Rage are all associated with beginnings, expansion, multidirectionality, and the present moment. Space represents the three dimensions of physical space, as well as the “long-view” of the narrative as a whole - the overture as opposed to the individual motifs within it. Life represents evolution, social status, vitality, and youth, and is associated with momentary positive feelings of overwhelming Joy and Ecstasy. Rage represents devastation, social disruption, and violence, and is associated skepticism/metanarrative awareness. Space represents vastness and the Oceanic, concrete physical space and expansion/distance/isolation, and is associated with ontogeny, Creation myths, and the formation of the universe (through the Game). Together, they all comprise Aspects of continuity, fluidity, and vast, ongoing currents of power and change, power which may ebb or flow but which never truly halts in its course. Life and Space share ties to biological life and (ecto)-biology, including literal ties to reproduction and birth - this may be link’d to the association of Space with frogs/tadpoles and the ultimate goal of the Game, as well as with Life’s ties to animals, plants, and food/consumption, all of which are symbolic of and intrinsically linked to the sustenance of literal life. Space and Rage are united in the breadth of their scope - Space often being linked to themes of an entire narrative, or the existence of an entire universe or species (see Kanaya and Jade’s central roles in the literal salvation of existence and their respective species), and Rage being linked to metanarrative awareness, and knowledge, and the fostering of disbelief/skepticism in grand narratives and established ways of understanding (see the knack Gamzee and Kurloz have for showing up in places and parts of the text of Homestuck that they really ought not to). Finally, Life and Rage, whilst seemingly in opposition to one another, are both heavily linked to themes of re8ellion, rejection of established systems, and contrarian ideas - Feferi and Jane are both born to positions of privilege that they end up rejecting, and Gamzee is a member of a religious movement that he later lashes out against during a crisis of faith. One’s own Life, the Space one occupies, and the feeling of Rage experienced in moments of crisis and indignation are all phenomena of the present moment, discrete altogether from the irreversible march of time and the drive to contemplate the past and future. However, as with the Climactic trine, there are oppositions present here. For example, Life and Rage are opposed in that Life is associated with surges of positive affect - ecstasy, joy, comfort, and sustenance - whilst Rage is associated with surges of negative affect - apoplexy, resentment, anguish, and dissatisfaction. Space and Rage are opposed in that Rage often leads to violence and devastation, and is tied to images evocative of burning, breaking, or killing, whilst Space is the Aspect of creation, new birth, and the value of all parts of a whole. Finally, in perhaps the least obvious intra-trine opposition, Space and Life are opposed in that Life has to do with individuality/diversity, connection to one another and to other discrete parts of the biosphere through mutual support and sustenance, and is strongly associated with society, while Space has to do with the Unity of all things, the establishment of a cohesive whole, and isolation from one’s fellows, usually due to vast physical distance.

Now that I’vve outlined the Climactic-Conclusivve and Incipient-Immanent Aspect Trines, those that I wwould consider Impersonal, I’ll movve on to those I havve term’d the Personal Aspect trines - the other half of the wheel, so to speak. 

Introspective or Internalizing refers to the way in which Breath, Heart, and Void all guide thought, attention, and action inward, toward the soul or essence of a person or an idea or a place or an object. Breath represents fluidity, motion, change, and individuality, journeys to the edges of the universe and journeys home - J. Egbert, our young person who took a seven-year odyssey from his bedroom to... their bedroom, Tavros Nitram, who went from a young idealist to a hero capable of rallying armies - these characters walked their own path, and they walked at at first clueless and vulnerable but ultimately on their own terms, liberated from social expectation and from all that had hitherto held them back. Heart represents the soul, the core or summation of one’s identity, the depth of romantic love and the love between the closest friends - Heart players and having or longing for relationships that transcend the Quadrants, and then our Prince struggling to unite the splinters of his soul and confront the prospect of touching a soul not his own - both come to mind. Void players know nothing, and are often avoidant of forming a coherent notion of self, but in this void of identity, the process of true self-discovery occurs - eventually; Equius sacrifices himself for a lowblood in (an attempt at) defiance of a highblood, and his (unwitting) martyrdom saves the Alpha Timeline; Roxy’s powers keep her session safely enshrouded in Void despite her own alcohol-enabled avoidance of addressing her identity, role, and fate. Heart and Breath share a focus on the individuals journey - first outward, and then returning to a home that they must make whole - Heart and Breath, in a sense, together comprise the soul or the spirit. Void and Breath represent the unknown, the sense of wandering or being adrift on forces beyond one’s control - surrendering to the journey as opposed to seizing control of the narrative. Heart and Void share what might be the strongest bond due to their deep connection with Feeling over Knowing, tapping into the actual essence of one’s identity and perhaps even reaching out to share that with another; Heart and Void bond over a shared sense of emptiness and a longing for fulfillment to match. Despite these bonds, however, conflicts also exist - between Heart and Void, there’s the contrast between Heart’s overflowing soulfulness belying a deep longing or feeling of emptiness, uniqueness, ability to stand out in a crowd, which stands opposed to Void’s knack for blending in, its players’ contentment with a blurred or faded identity, and their seeming shallowness or lack of distinguishing qualities which masks a hidden, but incredibly powerful inner core of identity. Void and Breath are opposed in that Breath’s prevailing sense of individualism clashes with Void’s tendency to blend in and conform to existing structures, and while Breath is constantly, almost involuntarily, self-aware and introspective, Void struggles to understand or think about their identity at all, and often, at least at first, tends to tie their identity to people, objects, or systems rather than having a strong inner sense of self. Finally, Heart and Breath clash due to Heart’s ties to romantic love, platonic love (and Platonic ideals), and the notion fixed or unchanging essence or Soul, while Breath tends to fluctuate, mutate, and transform when it needs to instead of tethering itself closely to any one concept, person, or thing - Breath is, in a sense, about the freedom that individual identity provides, whereas Heart is about the ways in which identity tethers us to the Universe and to one another.

Communicative or Connective refers to the shared association with society, dialogue, and community or connection that Blood, Mind, and Light share. Blood represents both literal physical bonds as well as the conceptual/metaphorical bonds formed by promises, relationships, and social obligations - it could be tied to the notion of “blood brothers”, or “the blood of the covenant”, as well as bloodlines or familial/genetic chains - consider Karkat and Kankri’s shared mutant identity, Karkat’s blood pact with his Universe’s iteration of Jack Noir, and the sacrifices Kankri makes (as the Signless/the Sufferer) to unite or bind together his species. Mind is connected to society in that it’s connected to ethics, conversation, and decision-making - Terezi, our Seer of Mind, is an aspiring lawyer/legislacerator, and her connections to Karkat and Vriska - both of whom share Trine Aspects with her, incidentally - are forged through the similarities and differences between their approaches to ethical leadership. While Terezi is never a Leader in the same way as Karkat and Vriska, she does, in her behind-the-scenes, Passive-Class way, lead the story forward from behind the scenes, and things would, needless to say, have gone very differently in the absence of her Mind-ful approach to team collaboration and, of course, her role in setting up the retcon through her agent, Egbert. Light, seemingly an outlier here due to its undeniable ties to individual ego and pathos, shares the same ties that Mind and Blood have to social relationship - Light’s domain of attention or focus, after all, cannot exist merely internally, as an observation (objective or subjective) requires both an observer and a person, thing, or notion to be observed. Light also, as mentioned above, is linked to leadership and the assumption of control, exemplified by Vriska’s becoming the team leader despite her loner status early on, and also by her and Aranea’s parallel plot-domineering arcs. Conflicts are here apparent as well - Mind and Light exemplify the contrast between objectivity, ethics, and analysis/indecision preceding decision-making, all of which are of course Mind-linked concepts, and Light’s connection to subjectivity, swift and decisive action, and softer ethical lines (Vriska’s exemplifying these traits is obvious, but consider also the way Rose Lalonde blurs the lines between her Aspect and its opposite through her association with Derse and the Horrorterrors, and their shared fascination with the largely subjective and only softly scientific (at best) fields of psychoanalysis and luck/fortune). Light and Blood contrast through Light’s connection to fixation, and to future possibility, which stands opposed to Blood’s being tethered to actuality, the present moment, and shared agreement/conspiracy rather than individual scheming and planning (essentially, the difference between leading through one’s bond to one’s followers and leading through the schemes or plans one has personally lain out). Finally, there’s the contrast between Blood and Mind, two Aspects both associated with plotting (both in-narrative and in reference to the meta-narrative plot) that conflict due to Blood’s association with subjective ethics, decisions made based on relationships and obligations to actual, concrete individuals as opposed to Mind’s association with objective ethics (i.e., legal ethics) and decision-making based on in-depth, abstract thought, and ideals that exist beyond concrete and individual bonds in the present moment.

~~~

....and that’s wwhat I’ve got, for noww!! Sorry for the delay, and for the ludicrous wwall a text - I hope it answwers yr questions, at any r8!! ^^^^v^^^^ do let me knoww, of course, if you’vve got anythin else a8out wwhich you’re wonderin!!

#Classpect theory #Classpect analysis #Homestuck #Classpect #ask #anon #Aspect triads #Aspect trines

[theorynexus]

Unrelated to the Epilogues

Apologies for not getting back to liveblogging, yet; however, that’s going to begin again with my next post.   This one is simply to express some thoughts that have been kicking around in my head for a few days, which I did not get the chance to express because I was sleep deprived and then briefly sick. Namely:   All weapons (or Strife Specibi, I should say) in Homestuck seem to be symbolically representative of the character who owns them to some extent.  A few easy examples would be: * the Dualing Pistol (White Magnum/White Wand), which is elegant and precise, only needing to be fired once to provoke massive, impactful change, and doubly representative of Alt!Calliope’s subtle orchestration of events behind the scenes; * The Dudely [Fire]Arm[ament]s (Caliborn/Lord English’s canes/rifles), which the aforementioned doubled set is contrasted to: whilst they are equally intended to convey mastery of events (and particularly the people taking part in them), these are more brutish, and make their impact through repeated blows (a pool cue arranges things through a loud, meaningful break, and then many serious blows to follow--- and while these blows might in theory require precision in order to make the balls fall where they must, in practice, Caliborn’s talent is in ensuring that every hit eventually brings things to a favorable conclusion, rather than in the shortest route possible).   Brute force methods are used to bring about the desired conclusion--- an inevitable death, generally  ---and the overkill that Caliborn (the Lord of Death, in some ways) utilizes whenever his rifle’s sights fall upon a target (for it’s never a single bullet that hits) is representative of his general methodology and spirit. *  Dave’s broken/mended sword, split over time, is obviously representative of his own Aspect, how it gradually affects him (time heals all wounds, as the saying goes, despite the fact that he seems to become quite incensed with it at some points, and struggles with it to the point of refusing to embrace it for a very long time), and especially how his personal history ties into his personal arc (Dave is more affected by his time with his Guardian than perhaps any other kid, despite the fact that Jade is fused with the replacement surrogate that might arguably be said to have usurped the position from her grandpa, and this is also a reflection on the Aspect of Time in his life, I should think).     How Bro (Dirk) Broke his Heart, and how Dave struggled to mend it over the course of the series has been much better discussed elsewhere than I could attempt to express in the brief space I’m allotting to this discussion, here, though, and thus I shall cut this off right here, just as both brothers have a habit off symbolically cutting things off, themselves. ~~~ The train of thought that I am wanting to express herein started with a thought that caught me by surprise:   I continue to have no idea what, precisely John’s Strife Specibus is supposed to represent, you see, so when I remembered that there was a method of inheritance called Gavelkind, it struck me that it could be related to this, as a pun.  Unfortunately, this seems like a dead end, unless it is a very forward thinking joke about every member of his party taking up the main character mantle after he dies in the “more canon [more relevant in Dirk’s eyes]” Meat Epilogue (or, alternatively, Davesprite and Rose’s inherited self from the timeline having to clean up John’s mess after the idiot got himself obliterated in the deal he made with Typheus after Terezi tricked him).     It could also be related to him forging the group through his Heir of Breath inspiration toward a path mechanic, but what are the chances of it being that simple an answer?   Unfortunately, said inheritance business seemed more promising than it was, because I was initially confusing it with the Elective method of kingmaking that is to be found in German historical culture. That truly fits with who John is, and resonates with the “I’m not your leader, I’m your friend” humblepie that was served up to us (and everyone else in his party). ... This line of thinking was useful, however, because it led me to thinking about Karkat’s own weapon.  Obviously, the “Heh, heh, Communism” line of thinking briefly occurred to me, but more relevantly, I thought of the reason why the sickle is used as a symbol of Communism.  It is a classic symbol of the lower class--- farmers, in particular  ---which hints at the very beginning to Karkat’s rather humble origins. While many people might like to think of his mutant blood as “potentially higher than fuschia,” or some such nonsense, more realistically, one has to realize that Karkat was placed in the lowest of low positions: not only was he the only member of his kind, but he would have been without a Lusus and immediately abandoned to death, if the worshipers of his Ancestor had not ensured that he had the dimmest possibility of a relatively normal life. At the same time, he wanted to defy this lowborn status and become a mighty general in )-(er Imperious Condescension’s army.   While this initial spark of revolution was not much, it is representative of all that was to come-- you see, the sickle is to some extent also a symbol of revolt, and while peasant revolts would generally be brutally put down throughout history (just as the waves of opposition to the Condesce were in Alternian lore), this would not in fact be the case with Karkat, or the session that he (and Aradia) would lead. You see, Karkat’s own ideals and the weapon that represents them are but the tip of the iceberg.  The Beta Trolls’ entire session was littered with themes of rebellion against the established social order, and the consequent turning of it upon its head.   First and most obviously, it would be two Lowborn trolls that would come to lead the two “teams” which the session had to offer. Both of these figures acquired this position by usurping it from Bluebloods, who might traditionally have taken up this role in a circumstance where the empress-to-be didn’t show interest in leadership and the Purple Blood in the group appeared to be an incompetent, serially inebriated sack of garbage. This theme particularly shown through in [concupiscent] romance, where we saw pairings that, without exception (other than possibly the crush that Ms. Leijon bore for Karkat, which saw no fruition and arguably did not count for anything, just as Eridan’s flushed feelings for Feferi didn’t “matter” in the end, and Kanaya x Vriska, while being a borderline issue for this topic, doesn’t count either, also due to it just being a crush), all saw subversion of social hierarchy:

Equius x Aradia, Gamzee x Tavros, Feferi x Sollux {I just noticed that these relationships all have the same social distance from one another for some reason.}, Terezi x Karkat. Vriska x Tavros is one-sided, and thus debatable, but also fits this pattern, intriguingly enough. Equius was hit with this subversive force in their social lives particularly hard, possibly because he was the Heir of Void, and thus was more inundated with forces of subtext than the rest of the group [particularly since he was a failure in that role].   Not only could he not resist the drive to submit to those it was “perverse” for one of his “station” to bend the knee to, when the opportunity to truly embrace the anti-normative forces that he had been dipping into (despite his Classist upbringing) came, he was so confused and uncertain that he could not properly understand what he was being pushed to do, and the necessity of it--- and thus froze, allowing himself to be swept away by the Rage Gamzee filled him with. These themes play out in Operation Regisurp, both in name and its practical implementation.  Furthermore, I have just, in the course of writing this post, come to the conclusion that this is why Gamzee had to be the final obstacle to the true end of the Beta Trolls’ session.  He was a crystallized manifestation of the old regime, and its established order:  Gamzee acted as a shadow of the Condesce’s will, the Hemospectrum’s implications, and the brutal reality that was Alternia.    It was thus quite fitting that Karkat was the one to stop his rampage, for he was the Knight of Blood who cajoled everyone to work together as a single team, rejecting the classical restrictions that would have spelled DOOM for their party in favor of bonds beyond the literal nature of the blood that flowed through all of their veins.   Furthermore, I think this is why that confrontation ended in the Shush Pap scene.   Not only was it true that Karkat had literally zero percent chance of actually killing Gamzee in the fight (and a very small chance, indeed, to defeat him through violence), but this would to some extent additionally be an endorsement of the old Alternian way of life.  Rather than through violence, Karkat used his bond with Gamzee to find a solution, and by this means, turned him away from his role as brutal Subjugglator--- though unfortunately this also meant that Gamzee would take a turn for the worse, becoming even more firmly cemented in his role as a servant to the Mirthful Messiah’s. ... Heading back to the meaning of Karkat’s weapon for a moment, I think that the sickle has another implication to explore: it is an implement of the harvest.  Karkat initially wanted to be a sort of grim reaper, slaughtering Alternia’s foes and claiming glory for himself and for his empress. While he was correct in thinking that he just needed an opportunity to prove himself (and thus, he was embracing the symbolic “one must wait until the fruits of the harvest are ripe” implications of the sickle in his own life), the climax of this narrative arc would come when Karkat found himself at the head of Meenah’s united army of all the trolls in the afterlife and bravely charged to meet a foe he knew could destroy the soul with very breath--- and the very real equivalent of the Grim Reaper, himself ---wielding the closest thing he had to a weapon painted with the rainbow (Fuschia an Lime Green bound together betwixt bands of black and white, thus singled out amidst all the colors of the light spectrum). This was his ultimate rejection of the Alternia that was, as he challenged the hidden hand that had twisted it into the place of horror it had been; and upon the fulfillment of that destiny, Karkat would vanish.

Yet, by some miracle, this was not the end: in a place separated beyond barriers of space and time, he would awaken, and but a short time later, he would be granted the Ultimate Reward that had once been wrenched from his grasp. ....................................................................................................................... One last matter of note:  It should be pretty obvious, considering the fact that universes are shaped to reflect the wills and designs of the Players involved, but I am pretty sure humans’ singularly colored blood is an explicit rejection of the hemospectrum, and the particular color that was “chosen” may very well be reflective of the important role Karkat in particular played in the session. What may not be so obvious is how fitting, symbolically, it is that it is a human that stands triumphant over the corpse of )-(er Imperious Condescension.  Curse baggage aside (which still has been irksomely unexplored, to my knowledge), the fact that it is essentially the Beta Trolls’ rejection of her world order that does the empress in feels very right and, upon reflection, is quite beautiful.   Obviously, there’s also a nice splash of revenge playing into that too, as visibly denoted by the weapon used and the handle wrapping, in particular.  I am curious as to the implications of Roxy’s typing color being the same as the blood of said fishy tyrant, though. That, I can’t quite figure out.

#Homestuck Analysis #Homestuck Spoilers #Karkat Vantas #Symbolic Meaning #Thematic

[homestuckexamination]

Why do you say that Princes don't necessarily reflect their opposite Aspect? I'm sure a compelling argument can be made about it, I just thought that the theory aligned well with canon Prince patterns. Is it just a matter of Princes simply destroying their Aspect, not really requiring an Aspect mirror to be a Prince?

The idea is that since Princes Destroy their Aspect, they must be their opposite Aspect, which is very reductive, assumes a few not totally true things, and feeds into the general idea of Princes and Bards as Bad or Evil Classes.

To begin, it assumes all Aspects are perfect Mirrors of their counterparts, and this works in some things, Void and Light for example are quite opposite, and you could think things such as Heart and Mind can also be opposite- But it’s not that simple, and other pairings such as Space and Time don’t back this. They’re Counterparts, compliment each other, and sure, they reflect some things, but to consider them complete opposites, and to think the Lack of one implies an Overabundance of the other is false.

Princes also Destroy through their Aspect, Destroy using their Aspect, which already debunks them not having anything to do with it and leaning more to their opposite. Many people think Princes mirror their opposite because of Dirk, and namely, AR, considering them more robotic, feeling-less, “Destroying their feelings, they are left as rational machines”, but that kind of misses some huge parts of their characters. Namely, AR’s struggle with being a Splinter and not having a body of his own, and the duality of ‘Robots don’t have feelings’ vs ‘Robots actually do have feelings’ is very Heart-coded, even if it’s because of a lack of Heart, it IS still all Heart. Similarly, Dirk is not as robotic and hard, feelingless as people make him out to be, he attempts to cover his insecurities up with that facade, but ultimately we see him for what he is. Insecure, trying to help his friends, fucking up his relationships, suffering because of the other facets of his Self getting in the way. However you look at it, Dirk’s Arc is Heart through and through, and assuming him more Mindbound because of being a Prince erases all of that.

Even Eridan can be parsed like this. Everyone assumes Hopelessness to be part of Rage, as it’s the opposite of Hope, yeah- And he is being irrational and angry when he snaps! But… He still does it very much in a Hope-way, he BELIEVES there’s no Hope, and BELIEVES his only chance is to join Jack. Rage is anger, chaos, irrationality, but it’s also dismantling false ideas, and anyone with a brain can tell Jack is a murder machine that’s going to stab Eridan the instant he shows up. But he believes that to be the only thing left for him, and it’s through that belief that he acts on his destructive tendencies and goes on a killing spree.

Too much of your Aspect or too little can be bad, regardless of your Class- But regardless of its amount relating to your issues, it’s still your Aspect. Complementary Aspects mirror some things for sure, but if Dirk was more Mindbound, his issues and problems would be parsed in a completely different way.

As always, though, I will refer to my thinking of: If an idea pushes a hard assumption about a Class or Aspect, I don’t condone it. Flexibility is a major thing with Mythological Roles, and while consistency can be a good crutch to try and get a better understanding of it and make your own ideas about them, ultimately every individual case is a world of its own, and holding back an idea or forcing a stereotype can easily and has created an air of unease towards certain Classpects.

#Homestuck #Dirk #Prince #Class #Aspect #Fanon #Theories #Canon

[therenaissancedungeonmaster]

I thought up of a good bloodswap.

I might draw some of ittttttt. It’ll only be sketches though.

Details under the cut.

Kanaya Megido - Maid of Space/Porrim Megido - Witch of Space Nepeta Nitram - Page of Heart/Meulin Nitram - Rogue of Heart Terezi Captor - Mage of Mind/Latula Captor - Heir of Mind Eridan Vantas - Knight of Hope/Cronus Vantas - Seer of Hope Gamzee Leijon - Rogue of Rage/Kurloz Leijon - Mage of Rage Aradia Maryam - Sylph of Time/Damara Maryam - Maid of Time Sollux Pyrope - Seer of Doom/Mituna Pyrope - Knight of Doom Equius Serket - Thief of Void/Horuss Serket - Sylph of Void Tavros Zahhak - Heir of Breath/Rufioh Zahhak - Page of Breath Feferi Makara - Bard of Life/Meenah Makara - Prince of Life Karkat Ampora - Prince of Blood/Kankri Ampora - Bard of Blood Vriska Peixes - Witch of Light/Aranea Peixes - Thief of Light

(Key is has canonical parallels to Homestuck, has canonical parallels to Vast Error, and finally oops I replicated my own fantrolls)

Anyway, I don’t have much of a canon for them except:

Sollux was blinded by Eridan, his kismesis. It was probably less “hey, I’ll mind control HIM to mindcontrol HER’ and so on and more like... a physical altercation, y’know? Sollux is really despondent about the justice system, but in a way that’s like... ‘well, if you can’t beat-em,  join-em’.

Terezi is a vigilante/activist, seeing the empire as something that justice needed to be served against. As Vriska is the emblem of that empire, Terezi befriended her, and then attempted to assassinate her. Vriska caught on, and almost killed Terezi, before giving her voidrot.

Gamzee is just... constantly in Rage Mode. I think Bruce Banner’s line of “I’m always angry” applies, because basically he can do crazy stuff while still being somewhat sane. Somewhat.

Eridan basically boasts the boons of listening to the Empire, he’s a huge supporter and that his crooked belief system. In turn, Karkat is defiantly against those ideals, but thinks he’ll get culled for standing up for them, so he’s just like... supremely quiet and passive, even when he shouldn’t be, thereby destroying any blood between him and his friends.

Karkat and Vriska are like... neighbors. Imagine them as the neighbors continually trying to one-up each other and figuring out ways to get the upper hand in the name of reputation, but when they actually talk, it’s all niceties and polite conversation. They hate each other, but they’d never show it.

Nepeta... is supreme cat lady. She lives in the woods and is a witch. Her ancestor probably did the same thing as the Summoner, but got burned at the stake instead. Y’know... witch symbolism... Even though neither Meulin nor Nepeta in this AU are witches.

FEFERI IS ABSOLUTELY HUGE AND SOFT AND CARES A LOT ABOUT HER FRIENDS AND HUGS THEM... so hard they die. Oopsie. She sees the church’s policies as opposite its ideals, and seeks to reform it. She hates Eridan for... well... his beliefs, and Sollux for the fact that despite having the same opinions as her but about the justice system, refuses to do anything about it.

If y’all have anymore ideas, I’d love to hear it. It’s sorta bare-bones at the moment. Something might change too... especially Sollux...

#homestuck #hs #bloodswap #terezi captor #sollux pyrope #gamzee leijon #eridan vantas #nepeta nitram #feferi makara #karkat ampora #kanaya megido #aradia maryam #vriska peixes #tavros zahhak #equius serket #yeah #au #alternate universe

[kumaradosha]

I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to get the Rage aspect cringily wrong.

Like, probably more wrong than people tend to get other aspects. There’s a decent reason for that, though. People seem to forget that the only references for Rage that we have seen in characters are those whose classes represent the subversion of their aspect, tending to display either the negative or the opposite of what would be expected in that aspect generally. We’ve only seen a Bard of Rage and a Prince of Rage.

According to “word of god” in its description, Rage is not just chaos for its own sake. It’s not wanton destruction or fear/anger over nothing. It’s not even believing that nothing matters (on the contrary, Rage tends to be overreactive--everything matters...often negatively). It’s about truth. Specifically, despising and eliminating what isn’t. A rage player would rather live in uncertainty--if the only other option were living in delusion. Rage’s disruption and destruction has a purpose. Its fear and anger have a purpose. Its rejection of ideas has a purpose. It opposes the notion that simple faith in something false makes it real or true and finds that taking solace in comfortable delusion is harmful and dangerous. There is ultimate truth, but we as limited and fallible beings are incapable of finding or comprehending it fully. Therefore, the best possible goal is to eliminate what isn’t real or true in order to stay on the path to truth as closely as possible.

Of course, eliminating what is wrong isn’t nearly the entire route to a fulfilling reality. It’s simply Rage’s specialty. We need all the other specialties, a diversity of skills, to create a whole and useful society/existence. And we do still need Hope. We need creativity and ideas, specifically ones that are right and true; don’t worry, we’ll shoot down the ones you have that aren’t. We need to be able to trust some things and bridge the gaps in our understanding with faith in the interim between fallibility and perfect discernment. Even scientists have to guess at things before they are proven right or wrong (or at least the evidence suggests such--absolute proof isn’t technically a purview of science).

Speaking of which, lots of people seem to wrongly think Rage represents religion. It doesn’t. Hope represents faith, has themes of magic and religion. Rage’s themes include doubt and skepticism. The mistake is made, because it is Gamzee that is religious. But Gamzee is a Bard. He represents the negative, harmful permutation of religion (generally seen as profane and toxic to other religious people). The same way Eridan is an antitheist of sorts (technically a magic-denier) and represents the negative, harmful permutation of atheism/skepticism (rejecting the concept of things that clearly do actually exist just because they don’t fit his already-established belief system). They are extremes in the direction opposite to their aspect, because they cause destruction in/of that aspect. Hope has a similar, but somewhat lesser, problem of being misunderstood, because its only character representations are a Prince, a Bard, and a Page (somebody who starts out especially unskilled or clumsy at their aspect).

So just as Rage players recognize Hope players run the risk of supporting and perpetuating useless/harmful falsehoods. Rage players would grow to admit they themselves run the risk of proverbially throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We are so focused on eliminating anything that even might be fishy or that doesn’t make sense to us at the time, that we might unintentionally shoot down good ideas and reject actual truth. Hypothetically, what if a certain religion actually were true--or if magic/supernatural things actually did exist? Should we not accept and pursue that truth? At the very least not reject it? Something to think about.

The key to being a whole and healthy person is recognizing and strengthening your weaknesses as you grow more powerful at what you’re good at. Respect that our opposite aspects are important, even if they rub us the wrong way. Every skill is helpful as long as it is used responsibly and doesn’t extend its reach beyond its purpose. The key is to find where those boundaries lie and knowing exactly when Hope is okay or when Rage is too much. And that is very difficult.

Edit: I have not progressed in Hiveswap very far (even though I intend to eventually), so please forgive me if I’ve said anything that’s proven untrue because of my limited knowledge. Sorry about that.

#Speaking as a religious Rage player myself #Because the evidence I see points to the existence of God and certain other truths #Proper faith isn't blind; it's a placeholder to fill in gaps of understanding after we've already found some evidence for a thing #Hope's proper place and Rage's proper mitigation #Fight me #Rage aspect #Hope aspect #classpect #Homestuck #god tier #Knight of Rage

[classpect-crew]

Hi! I'm having trouble understanding the rage/hope aspect dynamics. They're opposites, which means that despite being really different, they have similar themes, just in reverse. Neither is inherently good or bad, though I think the rage/hope aspects are slightly more extreme than other aspects? Especially in certain classes. Idk, I just kind of want your input on those two classes and what the 'core' is behind both of them/how they play off each other

Ooh yes, this is one of my favorite opposite Aspect pairs! Like many Aspects, there’s a lot to unpack about both Hope and Rage, and some of these connections are not nearly as obvious as they would seem.

So, to begin with, Hope and Rage can be related to emotions. Hope is associated with optimism, positive feelings, and a sense of wonder and gullibility. On the contrary, Rage is best represented by pessimism, negative feelings, and a sense of doubt and skepticism. While Hope players might be childish, even naive at times, Rage players may be more grounded in reality, skeptical, and even cynical. Now, this isn’t always the case, but it’s difficult to analyse what we’ve seen in canon because the Makaras and the Amporas (Rage and Hope players, respectively) were all either Princes or Bards, and those Classes are known to destroy their Aspect, so it muddies the waters a bit. We see a bit more of what Hope is all about when it comes to Jake, but as far as Rage goes, it seems almost impossible to divorce true Rage as an Aspect from the inherent weirdness of the Makaras. I mean, seriously. Those guys are literally insane.

Hope represents options, opportunities, and back door exits. It’s much like Breath in this regard: there’s always a Plan B. And a Plan C, D, E...it’s safe to say that healthy Hope players are exceptionally good at finding ways to get out of a sticky situation. That’s what makes Eridan’s destruction of the Matriorb and his insistence to join up with the Big Bad so rooted in his story as a Prince of Hope: he destroys the trolls’ Plan B, kills one of the most optimistic trolls on the meteor, and then absconds until it’s time to be melodramatic again. Rage, on the other hand, is an Aspect of stubborn determination, limiting one’s worldview, and finding the fastest way from Point A to Point B, regardless of the collateral damage. It’s the reason why Gamzee’s destruction of Rage leads him to be so relaxed in the beginning, sharing tales of mirth and miracles with his friends, and even bringing them into his relaxed and carefree fantasy, even if only for a moment. Later, he begins to destroy through Rage instead. This is seen most clearly during Murderstuck when he viciously kills Equius and poor, sweet, dear, precious Nepeta, but there are also undercurrents of his destruction through Rage during his kimesissitude with Terezi: causing her to doubt herself and her abilities, breaking down her self-esteem, and trapping her in a cycle of abuse.

Where Hope looks at the world and sees a garden of possibilities, Rage sees a barren wasteland with only one path forward. When Hope gets caught up in indecisiveness, Rage dives into one particular path, confident in success. Just as Hope represents religion, faith, and even angels, Rage represents atheism, doubt, and dark forces. They’re both characterized by extreme beliefs, but the nature of those beliefs are different. Still, both Hope and Rage players would go to hell and back for those beliefs, and many do at some point in their journey. Hope represents the blinding light that stands at the foot of your bed and says “Be not afraid” as it begins speaking in prophecies. Rage represents the terror you feel in the middle of the night when you find yourself paralyzed, your eyes wide open, and the shadows around your bedroom begin to move in unnatural ways. Hope is the overconfidence that convinces a zealot of his righteousness. Rage is the skepticism that leads the solipsist to doubt the entire world around him. They’re essentially two sides to an incredibly volatile coin, and embracing one too much without appreciating its opposite is a surefire way to end up very, very dead.

#anonymous #classpect analysis #classpect #hope #rage #homestuck #i do have some other comparisons in the hope and rage tags from quite some time ago! #i tend not to look at those old posts much though because i want to give fresh perspectives each time #Anonymous

[hivedent]

i promised first guardian chat and here it is

so cats are often seen as the opposite to dogs even though thats due to completely arbitrary reasons

but because of this id decided to try the same with the troll first guardian assuming they had one. assuming you can even have a session without a guardian

anyway

i looked at doc scratch and i said “whats a fitting opposite to that then”

and i had the result of the opposite to “creepy adult who meddles with EVERYTHING” is “irrelevant child who has 0 influence on the world” (effectively making them a null first guardian like they didnt even have one to begin with)

the first guardian, who would bear a strong resemblance to “truth” from fullmetal alchemist would reside in a black pocket dimension and kind of observe things without interfering. which is doubly fitting imo because scratch is to caliborn as “truth” would be to calliope

but “truth” wouldnt have any first guardian abilities. so theyd be stuck in their home pocket dimension (wonk)

thus all things first guardian related would also be powerless like the cue ball

itd be black and hollow as if its “light” were turned off (think fenestrated plane being unplugged etc)

itd later be revealed that the pocket dimension is somewhat related to other first guardians

like where jack stored all his trophies. basically what im saying is more ultimately they would find lil cal at some point while in there

anyway

they would be created from (as i remember) a powerless cueball and horuss or perhaps some sort of horuss soulbot or something

but it wouldnt be a direct relative of horuss, thats not what im getting at. though it would still be fitting considering equius became a component of lord english who is also a component of doc scratch

it would be the combination of the “void” inside him (to deprive “truth” of powers) as well as calliopes soul that was symbolically inside him

thus. an opposite to doc scratch in almost every way. a little rude but not malicious, an observer who doesnt know all the facts, an inability to interact with the world, and a result of calliopes soul

 i mentioned earlier that the felt jujus would be made via... eridan? lil cal? SOME kinda how? and theyd be used by the alpha trolls throughout their session

well aranea comes into possession of quarters’s coins

aranea mentions the last time she and meenah saw each other they had been having a fight

i decided this was about the afterlife

meenah received information from [UNNAMED SQUIDDLE 3;)] about the tumor. but aranea didnt trust this information and thought it was better to just scratch it. theres more to this but its in my notes and this isnt about that

(but ps i also decided the placements of the trolls on the lillypad decided who they sided with in the argument. ill post my file about those events later)

basically meenah and aranea are tied and cant choose. they decide on a coin toss. aranea flips sn0wmans coin because HAHAHAHA SPIDERSSSS

someone, likely cronus, is annoyed and shoots the coin mid toss with... a gun? a wand? whatever, its in part a reference to wizardy herberts short patience and blah blah blah

anyway he shoots it right through the center. so it is a black coin... with a hole in it

this summons “truth”

doc scratch was present since the early evolution of trolls but only ever was in the felt manor or RARELY places on alternia. he was present throughout all TIME but not all SPACE.

“truth” on the other hand would not be capable of being “ALREADY HERE” and thus would only exist for a single moment, almost no TIME at all, but exist nearly everywhere AT that time, thus all SPACE

while meenah prepares to blow them up anyway, the powerful force of being ripped from the first guardian teleportation dimension shoots “truth” super fast

they zap around the whole session collecting things (namely the felts’ jujus. u could argue they always envied them bc they could use it all as furniture in their pocket dimension to make a proper house)

at just the final moment when theyve collected them all, the scratch finalizes and with their last bit of energy, tosses them into the dimension. which maybe lets say in that last second connects scratch and “truth” by mutual guardianship and it all gets spit out into his foyer and voila now the felt have juus except they always seemed to have them so I DUNNO

(ps: meenah’s oven, rufioh’s egg timer (for games), kurloz’s voodoo doll, damara/mituna/or latulas crowbar? for cosplay or because of half life? idr. horuss’s gloves for cans?? etc)

anyway i read some stuff later about how it was probably a rabbit tho

because dogs were associated with jade, cats were associated with rose and puppets were associated with dave (and they all were prototyped as their sprites at one point or another) leaving either rabbits or jesters for john

so that could have been like. created from the corpse of lil sebastian or liv taylor or something and continued the... very weird and abrupt alice in wonderland themes hussie had going for like a dozen pages

and usagi-chan would be associated with damara bc witch affinities with first guardian related creatures (jade with bec, fef with scratchs gift glbgoylb)

but i hadnt really gotten to plan that much stuff out for that version of the first guardian if it would even be that different