the new unified theory of classpect theory or whatever

This is an attempt to start over and come up with a more coherent theory of Homestuck's class and aspect role system. Intro Post and Table of Contents Classes tag Aspects tag my talksprite is by @thedoublepp!

[classpect-navelgazing]

taking classpect, flippin it turnways

Hello. My name is Arcturus. I am here to talk about classpect. Why? Hard to say.

I've been percolating this for quite a while now, and I feel I have finally settled on a unified theory of classpect. But I feel I have to do a few disclaimers up front, so if you don't vibe with what I'm laying out, you can hit that back button and be free to go about your day.

Disclaimer One: I am an archive reader of Homestuck, and only consider "canon" to be the actual comic from page one up to the Act 7/Credits flashes. Nothing from friendsim, pesterquest, or any of the """Post Canon""" content will be taken into account here. This also includes the "official" quiz that WP finally put up, because I find it lacking in several metrics.

Disclaimer Two: I strongly consider everyone in HS to be an Unreliable Narrator, and I heavily doubt anything that is outright 'told' to the reader by specific characters. My profiles of each aspect and class come from observation of actions. More specifically: I think Calliope's infodumps in Act 6 are interesting theorycraft but nothing more. Meaning…

Disclaimer Three: I don't give much stock to inversion theory, to gendering the classes, to passive/active classes (and outright disagree with some of Calliope's assessments), and frankly to a lot of the sort of Assumed Truths of classpect. Going into this, you can expect to see some ideas that I think go against the popular fanon.

If any of these are dealbreakers for you, then smash that back button and have a lovely day!

Let's get started! How do you explore this project?

My preferred method of figuring out classpect is the self-doxxing method. I have written some pretty thorough (but hopefully not overlong) descriptions of the common traits of each class and aspect. I would recommend starting with the Classes and begin to navigate through and read them.

This project has been pretty thoroughly beta tested at this point, and the common refrain is someone finding something that feels like a person attack. That would be the correct selection for you, the one that makes you feel particularly seen and observed.

Now, personally, I think its extremely hard to test for classpect. I think Aspect is slightly more feasible but Class is impossible. This is because I believe Class should be understood as what role you play in the narrative. When the audience is handed a playbill with the Dramatis Personae, what is the little descriptor next to your name? That is your class.

As such, it's hard for someone else to tell you what it is; it's about your personal journey and how you interact with the world. In the end, the person who is best going to understand what class you are is you. not me.

Aspect is slightly easier to assign from the outside. For that, I am currently working on a quiz for the people who truly have no idea or who just like quizzes. But for the time being, I would suggest figuring out your Class first, then moving onto Aspect. There have been a handful of people who found it easier to work the other way around, though, so don't feel like you're not allowed to look at Aspect if you want.

That's enough from me! Get started!

CLASSES (tagged here)

MAID: "Burdened by the aspect"

SLYPH: "Heals their aspect in others"

WITCH: "Sponsored by their aspect"

PAGE: "Served by their aspect"

KNIGHT: "Guardian of their aspect"

ROGUE: "Distributing their aspect to others"

SEER: "Knowledge of their aspect to serve others"

THIEF: "Steals aspect for self"

MAGE: "Knowledge of their aspect to serve self"

PRINCE: "In service to their aspect"

HEIR: "Avatar of their aspect"

BARD: "The Facilitator of the narrative"

ASPECTS (tagged here)

BLOOD: the aspect of obligation

DOOM: the aspect of inevitability

LIGHT: the aspect of relevance

SPACE: the aspect of the concrete

HOPE: the aspect of imagination

VOID: the aspect of obsession

LIFE: the aspect of affluence

BREATH: the aspect of freedom

RAGE: the aspect of impulse

TIME: the aspect of opportunity

HEART: the aspect of identity

MIND: the aspect of skepticism

Hey, what about Prospit vs Derse?

Sure, that one's easy. I got a quiz for that here.

Where are Muse and Lord?

Nah. I don't think I can extrapolate the similarities of the class from a single example. The games of Sburb seems to only use Muse/Lord in the event of a two player game, as they don't appear naturally in any of the four other sessions we get to look at. So nope.

Hey this is a lot of information and I'm still struggling to decide my class/aspect.

I'll make a post outlining some similarities and delineations to help you out later.

Final Thoughts

This was a metric fuckton of work. I have struggled with a lot of other analyses of classpect, and every time I go to HS wiki and look at their page on in, I see red, because none of it makes sense! None of it has internal logic! This project has been me throwing out everything I've seen on the topic and trying to create something that makes sense.

If you enjoyed it and want to give me a tip, I have a ko-fi over here.

Thanks to everyone who tolerated me working on this project, especially my Whomstve server. If it were for all y'all going "GASP I'VE BEEN DOXXED" and "WHY IS THIS SO ACCURATE" I would've quit.

For the curious, the hardest class to nail down was Prince. Trying to fucking unify Dirk, Eridan, and Kurloz was a nightmare, but I actually am very happy with the final product. Though admitting that shit about myself wasn't fun.

The hardest class to write was, hilariously, Heart, for the same reason. Unifying the experiences of the characters was difficult.

I am a Prince of Heart, but my favorite class is Page. My favorite aspect is Blood.

[classpect-navelgazing]

Hi!!! Quick critique, if it's okay. This is *amazing* and I love your views and theories on the classpecting system, but also WOW are there quite a few silly spelling mistakes. I'm pretty new to tumblr so I'm not fully sure how all of this works, but if you can correct it please do. It really makes me mad that something so big and so amazing has errors like this.

Nah.

[classpect-navelgazing]

Greetings! I'm wondering how exactly the Bard class works? It really seems to be the odd one out, like you said, the Bard is essentially a stagehand, and shouldn't be there??? It also seems to exist in this weird superposition of being useless, but also extremely useful?? I'd imagine there's a whole lot more to it than that, so I'm curious as to how and why it exists in the first place! If nobody can "be" a bard, then why does it exist and what purpose does it serve to the introspective person?

It exists because Homestuck is a fiction, and the Bard is essentially the personification of handwave. There is, in my opinion, nothing to draw out of it. The Bard is plot contrivance. It is the curtains. It is the stagehand, not the actor.

You, in real life, are not a Bard because you have personhood. The Bard in Homestuck does not. Gamzee is reduced to less than nothing by the time he steps into the role, he exists just to make the plot work where otherwise it would not. Cronus is not a character, he's a caricature of the Worst Person the author could come up with in the story. Even among the frequently one- or two-dimensional-at-best Alpha Trolls, he's a joke. He has no purpose but to be contemptible.

"Introspective person" and "bard" are mutually exclusive. It's akin to asking what's the character motivation of frustum culling.

[classpect-navelgazing]

So in your master post you didn't really go into describing what tends to define what moon you get. Could we get your thoughts on what prospit/derse dreamers tend to be like?

Oh that one's easy, I made a helpful quiz for that.

[classpect-navelgazing]

I know you don't believe in the passive/active (and personally, I'm all for that, it saves a lot of trouble.) dichotomy but how do you feel about classes and aspects being sorted in pairs? Do you think each class/aspect compliments another one, like narrative foils or opposing themes/archetypes?

Nnnno not really. Like, if you do and see connections like that, that's neat, but my modus operandus for this was to just zero in on each class/aspect on its own and try very hard not to let others influence. I was trying to build by addition and subtraction of evidence, not drawing comparisons and contrasts, if that makes sense?

[classpect-navelgazing]

I love your classpect theory so much. anytime I come across a classpecter whose analysis covers every single class and aspect, I'm compelled to read through all of it and bookmark it as a reference, but I'm especially invested in your theory since you are actually basing it off of the events in canon and not taking potentially-unreliable narrators' speculation as Automatically Canon Information. The fact that you've reread homestuck many times also adds even more credibility here. 11/10 stuff

I'll also add here, after reading through your posts, my aspect is Hope for sure. Which, funnily enough, is the aspect I originally thought I was after I read homestuck many years ago, before I started reading through other people's theories on classpects. I can't narrow down my class at all so far, but I'm sure something will stick out after I've spent more time thinking it over. Or if not, I'll just pick one and hope (no pun intended) that my personal journey ends up going in that direction

adlksjf thank you! Oh my god, I have reread/relistened to HS so many times that I have a stupid parlor trick I can do. When someone in my HS discord vaguely remembers a line or conversation, I can get them the link to it in under a minute because my brain just.... knows what lines are part of which logs and how to find the log extremely fast. It's TERRIBLE.

I'm glad my encyclopedic knowledge has been useful! And Classes can be hard, since they require a kind of... self-awareness enough to apply narrative tropes to your life. Keep percolating on it!

Hope and Blood are my fave aspects, so mavel tov!

[classpect-navelgazing]

That feels outdated due to how dismissing it is of a potentially good opportunity for an exercise in dissection of a narrative. I respect the idea you have going but I would suggest giving certain things a closer look over as limiting such a broad topic in the exact way you did can feel lacking for a lot of folks. (For reference, I do not have a Class yet, but I am leaning towards your definition of Heart, it was the only post on this blog that had a "Callout vibe") Thank you for your time!

buddy i'm not going to post all of your asks as a favor to you because i think almost anyone reading them would wince a lot. Especially your first message was just straight up fucking rude and presumptuous.

I suggest you go and make your own system for classpect if you find mine so lacking. I did not ask for your opinions, I disagree with your arguments, and your massive assumption that I would give more stock and weight to the unsolicited critique of an internet stranger than the many people I talked to about this is extraordinary.

I'm gonna tell you straight: This was incredibly uncool of you, and you should not do this again in the future, to me or others. Especially without first asking 'hey can I offer some crit?' I will probably be blocking you.

[classpect-navelgazing]

I know a lot of this theory is based on the small sample size that we have overall (three whole knights wow) but what do you think of the theory about knights being representative of what their session lacks most? (I can explain the specifics but I feel as if you don't require that)

I literally only heard this theory after I posted this project and I think you answered your own question.

Also yeah I can see in a very literal sense "oh the beta kids session lacked time" but I don't think the beta troll session lacked blood? Obligations and connections drenched that entire team, and Karkat was able to use those to direct the team to victory. And Mind for the Alpha Trolls? All those motherfuckers DO is talk about themselves, so, eh.

Add it to the pile with inversion theory of stuff that I think is a fun headcanon that isn't really borne out objectively.

[classpect-navelgazing]

Okay the two places I went “hm!” were Prince and Void.

I didn’t understand classes without looking at aspects, but the more I think about it the more Void sits right with me. Doing things a certain way by invisible rules even if there are alternatives? Keeping going once you’ve started? Yeah. Yeah.

Prince feels the *most* right. Outside validation yeah…yeah… but I don’t know that I feel like I live up to the positive aspects. But that “in service to” I think cuts both ways, and that definitely hits a vibe with me.

Anyway! That’s me, possibly :D

Can i say the Prince of Void is a fucking sexy title and I love that for you? Someone in service to obsession, like, a Prince is already someone who is rewarded for putting in the Fucking Work and pairing with the aspect of Void is like doubling down on that idea. I would not want to endure what you feel is your 'service' for your talents and skills but when you pop them off, when you do the Naruto thing of removing the weights, you must be the human equivalent of a sniper headshot or an orbital strike.

STELLAR selection, my friend. Also high five from a fellow validation seeker who worries their egocentric, I guess! XD

[classpect-navelgazing]

I’m reading through this and this is a staggering amount of work and very fun. I made “hm!” noises a couple of times reading through the aspects and classes and thinking about this in relationship to myself (without canon knowledge!) is super interesting

homestuck is really good, friendo, you know i will be there to help if you ever wanna try

also tell me ur classpect, damn you

[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).

[classpect-navelgazing]

oh shoot! i'm sorry that happened to you, you seemed to be quite clear about it from what i saw and don't deserve to deal with that. i hope you can either get the motivation back to continue for yourself or get as inspired for another project!

(your writing here has honestly been an inspiration for me as well so i just wanted to let you know. if nothing else i think it is incredibly cool :])

I... haha, I mean. Since I posted this project, I have started 5 fics and finished 3. I am plenty inspired, do not worry.

[classpect-navelgazing]

Hi there! I was wondering if you were still working on your post about delineations? I understand if not. I'm just eager to hear more thoughts from you. ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

No, not really. While I was really excited about this project when i started it and posted it, the sheer deluge of messages from people just... I don't know, repeatedly unable to read that I was not going to do their personal classpect analysis on demand was a lot, and it kind of killed my enjoyment. Maybe in a few months I'll come back to the project to fill out some stuff, but unfortunately that's not gonna happen right now.

[classpect-navelgazing]

This is an AMAZING work and I love it entirely but it HAS fully given me a classpect identity crisis ;) Would you be willing to expand a little on how the heir manifests differently from aspect to aspect, given how dependent it is?

Thank you, I'm glad you like the guide!

I don't personally think nailing down how each classpect combo works is a good idea. When I started this project, I never intended to write out every specific combination. I think doing that is a really bad idea that will limit what is supposed to be, per Terezi, a vocabulary of hyperflexible mythology.

I did a few bc people asked and I felt compelled to, but as my inbox kind of filled up with nothing but requests, my stance on this firmed up.

Like let's say I delineate every single Heir combo possible and someone who's definitely an Heir reads them and goes "huh none of those feel right". The thing is that I believe you could have two people who are Heir of Mind who are different people, but their best fit is STILL Heir of Mind.

The thing about classpect that's fun is that it's very specific, but not so specific it excludes interpretation.

My take on all this is meant to be a guide, and I feel like we lose something from me writing out every combination.

I hope this makes sense.

[classpect-navelgazing]

i usually say i'm a knight of heart (partially cause i like the concept of it best, partially because it sounds cool, partially because it fits, and partially because i feel like most classpects could fit me) but lowkey is there a classpect for 'i can relate to almost any of these because i grew up with little to no sense of identity'? i'd say one of the few aspects i can't rlly relate to is life but who knows if i did more research into it lol

Heart peeps have the strongest sense of personal identity, anon. They're just very good at code switching. The aspect you're thinking of is perhaps Breath. Or Mind if the whole idea seems silly to you.

[hs-funny-moments]

[callmearcturus]

hey remember that thing i said about Light being Agency in the story and the Retcon being Vriska's most horrific-but-triumphant moment as the Thief of Light

[classpect-navelgazing]

have never gotten into homestuck, read a bit a few years back but the website forgot where I was so I gave up, BUT a friend sent me ur blog and told me to assign myself a classpect and I followed u and I love being here now :D

newbie homestuck enjoyer enjoys ur blog, I hope u have a good evening!!

oh hey I have a post on How To Read Whomstve These Days. short version: Lets Read Homestuck from Act 4 onward and don't read it on the official website for the love of god use the Unofficial Collection