#classpect analysis

[toweringclam]

Classpecting Masterpost:

Here's where I'll be posting my Class and Aspect analyses as I finish them. I'm linking the individual Classpect analyses on their respective Class and Aspect pages, both because of the 100 link limit, and because I feel like they aren't meant to stand on their own. Instead, they're meant to expand on the themes discussed in the Class/Aspect articles.

TL;DR: Want to find out about Heir of Breath, click on Heir or Breath first.

Edit 3: currently on hiatus until July due to IRL stuff.

Edit 2: Notes on methodology: This analysis focuses more on a storytelling perspective than a practical one. This isn't meant to help classpect you or your friends, it's meant to look at what Classes, Aspects, and the intersection thereof *mean* as mythology, game design elements, and components of meta storytelling. As a rule, I do not classpect people unless they've been dead long enough to *become* a story.

Edit: This project was started as a research document for my fanfic, Sburb². It's currently on hiatus until I either finish this project or feel like I have enough of a grasp of classpecting to continue. I'm adding the link at the bottom so I can keep it pinned.

Classes:

Heir

Bard

Rogue

Page

Seer

Maid

Sylph

Mage

Knight

Thief

Prince

Witch

Aspects:

Breath

Life

Light

Time

Heart

Rage

Blood

Doom

Void

Space

Mind

Hope

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[kravicle]

here is my masterpiece. enjoy

[classpect-crew]

wait no actually these pairings make a fuckload of sense

i need to dive back into classpecting and give my thoughts. i obviously have a huge respect for all the creativity and speculation of the classpecting community—of which i am an enthusiastic part—but if this is really how hussie sees the classes, i think there’s merit in exploring this framework

i have thoughts on maids as the most active of the ‘passive’ classes and i actually fully agree with that pairing now, even though i didn’t at first glance

i also want to get into breaking up the ‘symmetries’ of the aspect wheel and instead taking the aspects in conversation with each other. void and breath have a lot to say to each other, after all. same with doom and time. i’m not capitalizing these because i’m exhausted and need to sleep, but eventually i’ll get around to expanding on this

[burningthemidnightcityoil]

As classpecting is pretty good about narrative character analysis, particularly in how a narrative construct fits into a narrative and what role they perform...

An Active Class, doesn't necessarily mean a Powerful Class Player. Not necessarily. They can be, they have that potential, but not necessarily.

For example.

Starscream here, by narrative analysis, is a Witch Class. He constantly tries or invokes change for his own purposes, and he often roleplays a Prince/Thief to do so.

( To be a prince, that requires a legacy to maintain, and to be a thief requires a desire for loot for loots sake, both are things he does because it forwards his manipulations towards power--witches deal in power manipulations. )

But he is, by far, weak as a person. All his attempts at "change" are thwarted either by others or by his own personal failings.

( We should note that he is a witch without a familiar. He doesn't have the challenge or ability to take power over himself for himself--he keeps trying to outplay Megatron, who isn't even in his ballpark. )

By the Witch's narrative, if he did succeed, he'd probably be the most powerful entity in Transformers.

But as it stands, he is, instead, just a conniving annoyance to those around him.

[ If I had to guess his full classpect, he'd probably be a Witch of Hope. Hope deals in Stories--which are, in a sense, a form of Falseness and Lies. Hope also deals in making "imaginary friends", and consider how most seekers are just copies of Starscream in reality, and how many clones of Starscream there are in-universe... ]

[ which also ironically means that he is the weakest person with the potential of being a force stronger than any divinity in-universe. Hope can be stupidly overpowered, and so are fully realized witches. The dude can die and still come back, what does that tell you. ]

[dove-strider-is-my-wife]

Analysing the new(ish) class drop

Ok so relatively recently, Hussie, the original writer of Homestuck, published a snippet of the classpecting document they used to keep track of the main power system in homestuck.

As someone that always adored classpecting, this drop was massive and frankly world shattering at first. Sylph being an Active class? Maids are passive? Witch-Sylph and Heir-Maid? Why the fuck is the Knight active?

But I kept thinking about it and now I think I can explain a few of those. But first, a quick word about the passive/active dichothomy.

0. Active-Passive

While the words active and passive can and do mean how willing are the characters to take actions, active players being more goal orientated and passive players being more support, they also very much mean how self serving a class is. One thing that did not change is the idea of active meaning that a player does something for their own benefit first and formost while a passive class is about trying to help and support the team with the tools available. I also have a theory that a session with too many active players is doomed to fail because of their self serving and self obsessed nature, but that’s for another time.

You should really think of the active-passive split as: active – the main powerhouse in the team with a tendancy to self agrandise, and passive – the support of the team that makes sure nobody kills eachother and everything goes smoothly.

Now, onto the rants.

1. Small changes

The Witch and Maid ones are really big and trust me, I’ll get to it, but first we need to talk about some of the small changes. For reference – this was the most popular interpretation of the class system:

Ok so, first of all, you’ll notice that this one follows a line structure while the other does not. I think the reason for this is that, if we want to make a visual aid for the first diagram, it would be a spiral. I mean, spirals are damn important in Homestuck, why wouldn’t they appear in the class analysis. I will now proceed to try and make a visual aid, god help me, I am not good at this.

And the same with the passive classes, but I didn’t feel like humiliating myself even more. And we can associate red with the active classes because of Calliborn, but also because Time is a very red class. And Space with lime green because everyone there is very subtally horny.

Now, with all of this preamble, I want to say that I am so fucking happy that Prince is the second most active class only surpassed by Witch. I found it kind of weird that Prince – you know, the Dirk and Eridan class, not very passive – was put at the very bottom of the active list. We’ll talk about it more when we get to Witch, but a part of the active classes that I don’t see talked about that much is their meddling and pushy tendancies. When a passive player wants a person to help them with something, they just go and ask. When an active player wants a person to help them with something, they push and push and push until maybe the other person gets the memo. (omg just like Eridan and Dirk)

I think the reason the community thought Princes were more passive than they are is due to Dirk’s Knight roleplay.

1.1. Roleplay theory

There’s a theory in the classpecting circle of the fandom that certain characters (especially of the Derse affiliation, but not only) sometimes try to roleplay as other classes. The best example would be Grimdark Rose. Rose is a Seer of Light, but her character arc is about ignoring her character arc and causing havoc. While the grimdark decent is happening, she’s a lot more forword, she uses dark magic, she has not one, not two, but three whole familiars. She basicly roleplays as a Witch of Void. And when we meet Roxy, she’s a Rouge of Void.

From her actions and Rose’s arc being mostly about her trying to connect with the mother that she lost to the game, we can build the theory that Rose internalised her mother’s Void tendancies and in a desire to make herself feel closer to her, roleplayed as her in the SBURB session.

We also see this with – fittingly - Dirk. Who tries very hard to be a Knight because his bro was one. Dirk has some very normal and totally not obsessive attachment to Dave, and this bleeds into his courting of Jake. He gives Jake a robot version of himself to serve him in his training (and also molest him on the side). He gives Jane Lil’ Sebastian, a robot bunny body guard. If we want to strech it a little, he gives Roxy a version of himself that would actually love her. He is roleplaying as a Knight because that’s what his bro was and he wants to be more like his bro.

I find the roleplaying theory very fun, because it uses the language of classpecting to explain character arc. Like, for example, I think Rose was not happy with her role as a Seer at the beginning and that’s why she kept doing Witch stuff, I think that Vriska’s relationship with Tavros is a result of her trying to “fix” him with her luck like a Sylph would, I think at the beginning of the comic Jade was forced into the role of Page/Seer (depends on interpretation, I’m more on the Page side) and didn’t like it, I think that Roxy writing fanfics of her mother’s novels is her trying her hand at being a Light player to try and connect with her, I think Dave’s whole “coolguy” persona is just him trying to fulfill the Prince archatype Bro forced on him.

Anyways, back to our sheep.

1.2. Hello, sheep!

I still don’t understand how Thief is not the most active class other than Lord because it has all the active trademarks, but at least it’s in the top three, so I’m not complaining. 

Mage and Seer are a lot less active/passive than we thought. Another thing that was weird to me because Seers are passive, sure, but have you seen Terezi and Rose? They don’t hesitate to take matters into their own hands. So, that tracks.

Now, onto the stuff you came here for.

2. WHY THE FUCK IS KNIGHT ACTIVE???????

I think it would be helpful to talk about Knights and Pages in the context of how we used to interpret them.

Knights were the passive server class. They provided the team with what they most lacked. Knights tended to appear in sessions were there was a lack of their aspect. The beta kid’s timeline was on a timer, so Dave was serving them time. The trolls session was filled with squibbles for power, so Karkat served them leadership and connection, everyone respecting Karkat’s authority by the end. Knights are very group orientated, their whole thing is being support for others, providing them with the things they need, they’re the glue that keeps the whole thing going. Knights also work only under stress and (usually) direct orders from someone. Dave spends most of his time in the game doing what Terezi says, Karkat spent a lot of his meteor time doing what Jade said, both of them helped their respective Space player with frog breeding duties. If we were to interprate Davepeta as a Knight of Heart (which I do), they served Jade knowledge on the ultimate self and also literarly kissed her serving her the love and connection she always desired.

Meanwhile, Pages work almost like sponges. When a Page manifests in a session is because that session is overflowing with their aspect. From the amount of Aradiabots, its clear that the trolls had a lot of branching paths and freedom in their session, which was partly “absorbed” by Tavros being a Page of Breath. The alpha kids are all very fucking horny for their own character specific reasons (Jane because she’s a conservatist wants adventure in the great wide somewhere, Roxy because she feels empty and alone, Dirk because he’s fucking weird and has 20 complexes) and this lust gets “absorbed” by Jake. Pages also tend to be selfish but mostly out of incompatence or general airheadedness. I highly doubt Jake wanted to forget Jane’s birthday and annoy her with his Dirk problems, but he still did because they’re still self absorbed and care about themselves more than others. (I’m starting to notice that active/active couples never work out). Pages get served their aspect, they are the object of attraction for their aspect. They also seem to have no big problem with abandoning their team which is another active trait (Sollux abandons the meteor gang, Tavros sleeps through most of his session, Vriska abandons Terezi at the end, Meenah abandons (Vriska), Jane leaves Roxy behind etc.)

I will sit here and try to defend most of the changes made to the fanon class diagram, but this one I simply refuse to believe. Like, Dave and Karkat love their friends, they love helping their friends, they are more than happy to just be support players in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile Jake and Tavros want to be important, but they also enjoy a solitary life, they don’t really care about their friends, they constantly ask and need the support of other people.

The only thing I can see making a Knight active is their desire for a quiet life. Pages want to be heros, Knights would rather refuse the call. But like… that’s only really Dave. And the “refuse the call” story arc is for the entirety of Homestuck as a webcomic – Rose never completes her quest, Calliope refuses to fade into irelavance, John refuses to fight Lord English. The whole comic is about refusing to follow the road made for you and finding happiness in obscurity. Because if sacrifing yourself makes you a hero, you’d rather just be a normal uneventful person. So its not really a Knight thing.

3. Witch – Sylph

I really like the Witch class. I feel the need to preface this whole section with this one disclaimer. So, the most significant change to our fanon interpretation is the Witch-Sylph and Heir-Maid connections. This whole thing from here on out will just be me speculating on their connections.

We know a bit more about what Sylphs do than Witches because of Arenea. While I dislike the way some parts of the classpecting fandom take every characters interpretation of their own aspect as gosple, I do think that not only do we actually get to see Arenea’s Sylph powers match what she says they are, she’s also a Light player, people that are known for talking way too fucking much.

Sylphs fix their aspect. We used to think that Sylphs are passive, but I actually think the fact that they were made the buttom of the active group alongside Maids, who are the least passive of the passive is supposed to show something else. That the Witch and Heir are the true active/passive class while Sylph and Maid go by a different title scheme. So it’s either Sylphs are proactive, but group orientated, or that they’re passive and selfserving. For this we will have to look at the two Sylphs we have in the comic.

Kanaya is a Sylph of Space, but one thing that I enjoy about her character is that she is one of the few characters that expresses downright confusion at her title. She only seems to understand it and accept it when she talks with Echidna and finds out that reproduction is a core part of the Space aspect, so her goal of conserving the troll race is actually tied to her classpect. We can see her being the one that uses the matriorb, hatches a new mothergrub and oversees the reproduction of trolls as a way for her to fix space, fix reproduction. In parallel to how Jade fixed the cancerous frog Karkat and Kanaya first made. But the question is why does she do this? It is a personal goal of hers, her lusus asked her to do it, so it has a very personal stake for her. We can also talk about how trolls cannot reproduce without the mothergrub, so even with ecobiology and the trolls’ lack of incest problems, I doubt it would be healthy to have a whole society made up of 3 genetic codes (Karkat, Kanaya and Terezi). I wouldn’t say that Kanaya’s lack of action for finding a new matriorb counts as her being passive about it, since when Roxy creates a new one, she seems to be genuienly shocked by the find. She genuienly thought that there was no way for a new matriorb to exist, she lived on the meteor not knowing for certain if her species would ever see a new generation.

I’m getting distracted, point is, I think Kanaya points us to a “one which fixes [aspect] or fixes through [aspect] for others, passively”. As for Arenea…

Arenea is a lot. I should probably write about her at some point, but the thing is, she is a very complicated character classpect wise. Even when she’s in her villain arc, her motivation is fixing the timeline. But she doesn’t listen to others when they tell her the timeline doesn’t need saving or that her method of “fixing” it does more harm than good (Arenea is responsible for the death of Jade, Jake and Jane). But we know that she was a meddler doing her own session as well, she constantly tries to help, even if her help is unwanted. So what does this mean for us? This would make the definition almost “one that fixes [aspect] or fixes through [aspect] for others” but in the active way of helping others.

3.2. Witches and Sylphs are meddlers

One of the first things Jade does when she connects to Dave’s session as his server player is move around his toilet because the place needs a woman’s touch. (And before any of you um actually your way in with Rose, I would like to say that not only are all Light players prone to sticking their noses in where they have no business, but she’s also Witch roleplaying as we talked previously)

Kanaya constantly tries to fix people’s relationships to the point she’s burned out by the task, but the thing nobody questions is – do all those couples really want Kanaya’s help?

Arenea tells Jake she’ll respect his boundaries and never touch him without his consent before turning him into a nuke and making him kill his grandma.

Feferi keeps cuttlefish locked up in her room to try and protect them and her plan for governance is to turn Alternia in a nanny state where she ever so graciously takes care of all the poor retards, I mean, lowbloods she respects a lot but they should really shut up cause it’s nap time.

Grimbark Jade tries to force Dave to use his timetravel powers even though he does not want to by threatening to kill his best friend.

The Handmaid… (the thing is, I’m pretty fucking sure that the ancestors were made to have the classpects of the original trolls, but then Hussie wanted to make the dancestors and they retroactively became the classpects of them. This is a long way of saying that I think the Handmaid was written initially with the idea of her as… you know… a maid, not a witch.)

What do all of these have in common other than their class? They all try to fix things without asking the other people if they want that help or not. The only successful Witch in here is Jade because she must have learned at a young age that meddling too much in other people’s business is not exactly appreciated. How much of that is her Witch tendancies and how much is her Space aspect is to be debated, but the point still stands. Sylphs and Witches take it opon themselves to fix things with very little feedback from the people suppositely needing the fixing. This sometimes proves very useful, take Jade fixing the universe – or very bad, take Areana trying to fix the timeline.

3.3. Thoughts and conclusions

With all that being said, what have we got. Witches are the active active class, while Sylphs are simply an active class. Their verbiage would be something along the lines of:

Witch – someone who fixes [aspect] or fixes through [aspect] for their own benefit

Sylph – someone who fixes [aspect] or fixes through [aspect] for others

Both Witches and Sylphs have to overcome the impulsive desire to help people without their consent and learn when its time to take the lead and when they should let other people take care of their own issues.

The thing that makes Sylphs an active class is their desire to help others is often tied to a personal desire to be useful and important. They do help others, they might even enjoy doing so, but it is a primarely selfserving practice.

Witches meanwhile are people that, in the same vein, enjoy helping others, but they are extremely picky and selective to those they help and very hands on with their demands (Take Jade and Karkat in act 5).

Both of these classes go by the idea of if you want it done right, you’ve got to do it yourself, a very active class idea.

4. Heirs and Maids

Ok, I’ll be perfectly honest, I thought way less about Heirs and Maids, so these are going to be my thoughts.

A thing that Heirs and Maids have in common is that they seem to embody their aspect more than any other class, active or passive. They also can “become” their aspect. For exemple, John can become wind and he gets the ability to retcon the story, thus “inheirting” the freedom to do whatever the fuck he wants. Aradia starts the story dead (a very Time symbol) and she godtiers when she is burned on her godbed. She then spends a lot of her time guiding the ghosts through the dreambubbles and fucking with Vriska for the fun of it. We could say that she “became” time by dying. Jane is the literal heiress of a baking conglomorate and she “becomes” alive when she engages in Trickster mode. She even makes others feel full of life with the trickster lolipop. Equius inherits the Void aspect’s desperation for connection and he can literaly “become” invisible.

So if I were to speculate on the verbiage of them is that they would be around “Inheriting”.

Now for the question we all asked ourselves, how are both passive, let’s try and explain it.

If we were to go by my reading of Sylphs as being people that fix for others but for selfish reasons, we can assume that the oposite would work for Maids. Maids would be the players that inherite their aspect for themselves but for selfless reasons. Let’s analyse if this works in the context of the characters we have here.

Aradia spends most of her session as a robot (we don’t have time to get into the symbolism of robots in Homestuck now), because she’s dead. During the session she plays support to help the others out. Then, while on the meteor, she godtiers, freezes Jack Noir in time and flies away from him. We could interprate this as her buying the others time, thus she inherits her aspect and uses her obundance of Time to help others. She rips some of the benefits (mainly being alive again and being imortal) for herself, but she also gives to others.

Jane is the heiress to the Betty Crocker brand, wealth and sweetness are two very important Life aspect symbols. Jane is really looking forword to get this promised baking empire, but she plans on using her fortune to improve other people’s lives as well (cut her some slack, she’s 16, she thinks that if she owned the mail it would work better than the public system). Even before she godtiers, she has so much Life that she is able to revive herself on Prospit. She’s also the character that ends the story with the most living versions of herself (Jane and the two Nannasprites). But she’s also a healer, she’s able to share her life with others and grant them a second one.

Maids clearly desire their aspect and they do inherit a lot of it, both the good and the bad, but they also try to give to others and help them out as well. We see that Jane, even while under the control of the Condence, didn’t enjoy hurting people, when she killed Roxy her first thought was getting close to her to revive her.

For Heirs this should be a lot simpler. They are the ones that inherit their aspect for others. They are the most team and group orientated out of every normal class. Let’s take John.

John is an Heir of Breath. He gets some of the bad aspects of the Breath aspect, mainly being guillable and airheaded, but he also is the first one to ever get the taste of freedom that godtiering provides. We could say that through his godtier he manages to inherite the freedom of the wind. And after touching the juju ultimate weapon, he inherits (from himself) the freedom of abstanance. He is no longer bound by the narrative because he has now become trully free. And through his newly inheritated freedom, he makes sure to free the others from their own narrative chains. Yet again, a character that inherits something and then uses it to help those around them.

4.2. Suffering from success

I am not Hussie, so I can’t really talk with authority. I also find some of their decisions a bit perplexing, as I have mentioned above in the Knight-Page segment. But I will never understand why there are three classes that suffer from their aspect, when the rule was always that they come in pairs of two.

Maids, Heirs and Witches all share the same suffocation from their aspect. They are the classes that seem to have the most of their aspect out of all of them (not including Lord and Muse), but that also comes with all the bad aspects of their aspect.

John becomes so unchained from reality that he starts thinking that he’s the only one that isn’t going crazy and loosing themselves. 

Jade is forced to spend most of her adventure alone, isolated from her friends and family. 

Aradia fucking dies and has to live a good chunk of her life as an emotionless robot before getting put in a robot by the creepiest guy around. 

Jane needs to avoid assasination atempts so often she gets locked in her house and then she spends most of the story being mind controlled. 

The Handmaid gets adopted by a fushion of the creepiest guy around and then groomed into causing racial warfair and dying at the end.

Even when characters roleplay as those classes they get to eat shit. Grimdark Rose gets possesed by the HorrorTerrors and killed by the same dog that killed her mother.

Ok so maybe Sylphs have this as well. No they don’t. Kanaya only stands to benefit from her distance from society while Arenea only suffers from talking too much and getting the spotlight taken away from her from her two Thief friends.

Ok, maybe other classes have this as well. NO! Thieves and Rougues love their aspect and they only steal the good parts of it. Seers and Mages don’t have that much of their aspect, but they’re obsessed with it. Princes and Bards also only have a bit of their aspect as they mostly use it to destroy stuff – if anything, they suffer from their lack of their aspect. Knights and Pages start with verious amounts of their aspect but they have a neutral to possitive view on it, they don’t really suffer to get it. So why these three specificly? At least they could of made it Heirs and Maids only, but then Hussie had to put Witches in there as well.

I have no conclusion to this mini rant, it’s just something I’ve noticed and needed to get off my chest. On to the show.

4.3. Conclusions

We can losely define these two classes as:

Heir – one who inherits [aspect] or inherits through [aspect] for others

Maid – one who inherits [aspect] or inherits through [aspect] for their own benefit

Maids are made passive by their inate desire to help others and give from their own abundance of their aspect.

Both Heirs and Maids share the trait of suffering from their aspect, having to fight hard against the downsides.

5. Oh my fucking god, I wrote 12 pages on this

I have no closing statement other than I hope I sounded coherent. Also, put this under the reasons why I’m a light player.

[lpsburblore]

The Classes

(-)active (+)passive

THE MAGICIANS

(-6)Witch - (-1)Sylph (Creators) (-2)Mage - (+2)Seer (Learners) The magicians are all noted for their horrifying(ly annoying) tendency to prattle on about things they are interested in.

WITCHES are those who innovate with their aspect, often rebellious or trendsetting by nature. More often than not, a witch is pushed into her role by outside forces, but when the ball is rolling, a witch becomes a hyper-proactive force to be reckoned with. CANON EXAMPLES - Jade Harley, Feferi Peixes, Damara Megido

SYLPHS are those who renew their aspect, called "more magical witches" by Kanaya, sylphs seem - ironically for their placement as the (more) passive counterpart to witches - more immediately proactive than witches, but sylphs oftentime slow down and focus more on supporting those around them. Strangely, sylphs are often noted for their prowess in direct combat, and are prone to stubborn mindsets. CANON EXAMPLES - Aranea Serket, Kanaya Maryam

MAGES are arguably the most knowledgeable of all the classes, alongside seers. They learn not from observation, but from direct experience with every facet of their aspect, from the great to the horrible. Mages are the wise to a seer's educated, and are thus much more serious, but they are just as capable of humor as any other, even if many will never see it. CANON EXAMPLES - Sollux Captor, Meulin Leijon

SEERS learn the world around them from the lens of their aspects, seers are often regarded as nosey, and this is correct, there has never once been a seer able to mind their own business. Seers seem to have a nonsensical mixture of wanting to know everything and an acceptance that nothing can really be known until you see it, and they aim to poke, pry, and scry until they see it all. CANON EXAMPLES - Terezi Pyrope, Kankri Vantas, Rose Lalonde

THE NOBLE COURT

(-5)Prince - (+5)Bard (Destroyers) (+1)Maid - (+6)Heir (Inheritors) The noble court all share a common interest, that being doing what they believe is good for the people around them.

PRINCES destroy their aspect by intentional omission, a deliberate effort to disallow the existence of their aspect. They like their passive counterpart often exhibit traits that seem to oppose those of others aligned to their aspect, but to princes this rejection is out of a desire for control rather than a desire to avoid. They are not all bad however, as sessions with princes and especially the direct surroundings of the prince often have far too much of the prince's aspect, making their suppression of it necessary. CANON EXAMPLES - Eridan Ampora, Kurloz Makara, Dirk Strider

BARDS are noted for their avoidance of their aspect, rejecting it in almost every way whether they realize it or not. Bards in some ways embody a dichotomy of apparent suppression and immense expression, where they in most ways appear to suppress their aspect, but it comes forth from them in all of its most extreme forms. CANON EXAMPLES - Cronus Ampora, Gamzee Makara

MAIDS begin their journey like servants to their aspect, subject to its will and expected to do it justice, but over time a maid will grow an intimate relationship with their aspect, where their aspect protects them almost as much as they protect it. Many maids take this and become stoic and sometimes cold, but nearly just as often do you get maids who serve their aspect to its most optimistic degrees. CANON EXAMPLES - Aradia Megido, Porrim Maryam, Jane Crocker

HEIRS are shielded by their aspect throughout their journey, often feeling trapped in it. They most often begin their session not even realizing that it guides and protects them in almost every moment, until they grow to become just as much of a servant to it as it was to them. CANON EXAMPLES - John Egbert, Equius Zahaak, Mituna Captor

THE ADVENTURERS

(-4)Thief - (+4)Rogue (Redistributors) (-3)Knight - (+3)Page (Utilizers) The adventurers are often social, but even more often than that do they hide their true selves behind an incredibly intricate mask.

THIEVES often begin with an immense lack of their aspect, but eventually come to possess all of it. They can be percieved by others as selfish, or hostile, and this is often true, but they think what they are doing is the right thing to do… and unfortunately they are right about 60% of the time. CANON EXAMPLES - Vriska Serket, Meenah Peixes

ROGUES are playful and cunning, often more attuned to their aspect at the beginning than others, but they must learn over their journey to direct it where they want it to go, rather than hoarding it all for themselves. CANON EXAMPLES - Roxy Lalonde, Nepeta Leijon, Rufioh Nitram

KNIGHTS use their aspect like a multitool, that is to say if there is ever a problem, the knight will solve it using their aspect. The knight will make the absolute most out of every ounce of their aspect's potential, which is lucky considering that a session with a knight will often have a profound lack of it. CANON EXAMPLES - Dave Strider, Karkat Vantas, Latula Pyrope

PAGES often exaggerate their aspect, either believing they are more in tune with it than they are, or pushing it beyond its limits when they get to where they used to think they already were. Pages tend to be the explorative types, wanting to engage with everything and everyone around them in hopes of finding their aspect there… they will find it, and they will pull it out. CANON EXAMPLES - Jake English, Tavros Nitram, Horuss Zahaak

THE TITANS

(-7)Lord - (+7)Muse (Masters) (0)Waste (Waste) The Titans are the pinnacles of representing their aspect. Each having such a heavy hand in their aspect that it is almost impossible to have one without some level of paradox space-scale influence on the other.

LORDS are those who exert total influence over their aspect's entirety. They tend to come off as rather abrasive, and as know-it-alls, because they do know it all, they control it all, at least within the domain of their aspect. The master classes are often heralded as the supreme classes, but this just isn't true, any sufficiently powerful player, regardless of their class, can reach nearly the same levels of power… But lords are probably the easiest to get their way… aside from the immense trials lords are typically forced to (use their incredible levels of easy-to-obtain power to) overcome. CANON EXAMPLES - Caliborn

MUSES are often pushed to exert the entire will of their aspects, sometimes even to the point of becoming martyrs of it. Defined similarly to their active counterpart by their internal presence across narratives. Muses can be noted for being much more positive in attitude than their active counterpart, and for using their powers in much more subtle ways to influence the big picture, aside from a large, defining gesture of immense power in their "greatest moment." CANON EXAMPLES - Calliope

WASTES are a class of extremes, embodying both everything horrible about an aspect, and acting as a channel for their aspect's most integral features. Wastes can be noted for an easy access to immense power verging on narrative metalepsis, though much like the power of the master classes, given enough time any class can achieve similar things. Wastes ride the fine line between having total narrative power, and being even more subject to its whim than anyone else. (DEMI-)CANON EXAMPLES - None (Andrew Hussie, Toby Fox.) Why do you pair them this way? - I believe that semantic and etymological links are a pretty major part of how classes work.

[revveth]

Bard of Rage

The Bard of Rage's role is defined by "Corrupts their own Rage or through Rage". The Bard of Rage is a passive rage-bound player, and is most likely to serve the role of an opposition or blockage for progress in their session, or a support player. (Skip to the next purple text if you just want the Bard of Rage analysis ultimately)

Bards are the passive half of the destroyer classes, and their class focuses on passively corrupting their aspect. In the canon franchise/s, we have three canon bards: Gamzee Makara, Cronus Ampora, and Kalian Delfin. In all their behaviors, I find one is prevalent among all of them: they appear to be attracted to those who sort of embody/radiate their aspect. Let's use Gamzee for example, as the Bard of Rage he is drawn to those such as Karkat, Terezi, or Caliborn due to their excessive output of Rage. Karkat and Caliborn are more evidently 'Rage' filled, practically screaming all the time and just being what you'd expect Rage to be as a whole- pure negative energy. Terezi is a more abstract case, one that I'll explore more in the Rage aspect part of this post.

Kalian Delfin is another bard who shows this trait, being incredibly attatched to all his bonds even if it doesn't appear so at first. If you're unfamiliar with him, Kalian Delfin is one of the newest appearing characters in Hiveswap, and was confirmed as a Bard of Blood in the official server in his discord profile. All you need to know is that he is bonded incredibly so to his moirail Cridea, and is significant in Act 3's demo where he has a major role in the beginning. You could chop up his dependency on Cridea as just being her moirail, but in one post from Jerann's tumblr account, it's implied that he's always been a bit clingy/overprotective of her in general. Along with that, he tends to be very overbearing when it comes to her other quadrants (his hatred towards Luxora and Darien) and generally how she interacts with others (asking her to set him up with Onhors).

But what about how Bards interact with their aspect? Sure, we see one way they tend to be attracted to their aspect in the sense that they flock towards those related to it, but what about their personal relationship? When it comes to a bard's individual self, they have the nature to tend to corrupt or misuse their aspect for wrong. Whether it's before or after godtiering (which while on the topic, we've never really seen a true god-tiered bard), bards tend to passively destroy their aspect. Let's take another look at Gamzee and his actions in the story, specifically his use of sopor and his rampage on the other players on the meteor. Sopor acts as a catalyst towards dulling/muting his Rage, sending him into a state best comparable to what we know as being high on weed. This use of sopor acts as corruption towards his aspect, specifically his own supply of it. As for his misuse of Rage, we can use his sober state and the massacre he went on as an example. There wasn't many other scenarios I could have seen for him to better use that rage, given the isolation part on the meteor and of course the reason/s as to why he seemed to sober up, but causing conflict and death around the meteor is definitely a misuse of rage.

We do actually see a point in the story where Gamzee is able to utilize his Rage for good, tuning into his inner supply and dealing major damage to the Black King in his session's fight against their Black King. This shows that Bards, alike Princes, can have moments where they can use their aspect for good, and not end up destroying it or misusing it. Kalian's rebellious spirit is another good example of how bards have the potential to be good, as he uses his valor and fighting spirit to fight against the system of government of Alternia and Trizza's and )(IC's dictatorship.

Now what about Rage? We've talked about Rage on the blog previously, so to save time (and so I can properly upload this...), I'll paste over the aspect explanation from there.

.... let's go over the second half of our classpect: Rage. Rage is the aspect of truth and negative emotions. While Hope is the aspect that represents the future and the ideals we hold as a society, Rage embodies the search for truth good or bad. It embodies our passions for right and wrong, and how we fight for it. Rage is also able to stand metaphorically for our fights, and how anger and madness work as a component to fuel us in our fight against what we view as wrong. Hope and Rage both play a part in our beliefs, and how we use them to help strengthen our wills to FIGHT.

Nihkee Moolah is a good example of how rage can help a person channel their negative emotions into something worthwhile! In case you're unfamiliar, Nihkee Moolah is a prospit-bound rage player debuting in Hiveswap! She channels her negative emotions into fighting spirit, and even helps others along the way. In her volume, she notices how weak MPSAR (the MC of Hiveswap Friendsim) is and channels her pity and rage of seeing the weak into motivating them to work to become STRONG like her!

Gamzee Makara is another good rage player, shown through his sober phase and how sobering up caused him to enter a mode permeated by fighting. While it wasn't for an arguably good cause, it was still a way of him being powered up and fueled by his negative emotions and convictions. Acting as the Bard of Rage, he destroyed through rage, and showed up just how powerful a Rage Player can be at the end of the day when pushed to their limits.

I'll treat you to an extra tidbit about Rage I'd recently drummed up. You can take this with the Rage aspect, or flat out ignore it. Rage can also embody passion, not just negative passion as seen in Nihkee Moolahs case but also actual passion in things such as religion or other personal beliefs. Lynera Skalbi, Charun Krojib (i forgot their last name whoops-a-doodle), and the Makaras as a whole represent passion and how the Rage bound appear to have a strong connection made up of determination. For Lynera, its her flushed feelings for Bronya, manifesting in overprotective tendencies and rather explosive temperament. For Charun, they have a passion for art, and while theirs is seen as unusual, they view it as art and something to care for nonetheless. For the Makaras, how they worship both the messiahs and Lord English is a manifestation of how passion can lead to harm (ex: Assisting L.E./Caliborn to come to power, thus leading him to become a major player and villain in the story) if unmonitored.

As promised too, I'll unpack what Terezi has when it comes to Rage. Upon further thought while writing this, I've come to realize that Rage can also embody the view of Justice. Similar to how Mind has themes of justice in its aspect, Rage too has a belief of justice in its players. The difference between these two aspects comes in through how its executed, rather than just both being justice aligned. With Terezi, her execution of justice teetered towards Rage given her passion of finding and bringing justice to the believed culprit of the murders, Vriska Serket. She failed to recognize the additional clues and realize that there were multiple culprits to the case, having been unintentionally swayed due to previous conflicts she'd had with Vriska prior to the Meteor. And with her black and white view of the case, Gamzee ended up drawn to it due to the passion behind her actions and the Rage beneath them.

Now that we have the individual elements of this classpect unpacked, let's take a look at our showstopper: the Bard of Rage. One canon character has this classpect: Gamzee Makara, the purple-blooded troll of the Beta Trolls session. Going off of his character, he embodies what we've talked about already fairly decently. He appears attracted to those harboring Rage, he misuses Rage, and has shown how a bard is able to wield their aspect for good. A bard of rage is a title meant for someone similar to Gamzee, and though they don't need all his personality traits, its common for them to assume most of them. Destruction of self, unstable tendencies, anything of the sort can be something that inhabits a bard of rage.

Bards haven't gotten much time in the spotlight god tier wise, and the closest we can go to this is looking at the behavior of Gamzees enemies in his land. He appeared to be able to nullify and destroy their Rage, making them passive to him and not a threat. We can also see he's able to tap into Rage he stores in himself, though it could be an offshoot of high-blooded genes as well, given they are more prone to violence and extremities. His Rage-Mode was triggered two times in the story mode, first during the Black King fight in his session, and second during the meteor upon his sober state. When entering a state of rage, he appears to lose control of himself and his sense of right and wrong. He killed those he viewed as friends once before, and had switches in morality.

Overall, the Bard of Rage is a volatile player possible of great destruction, whether it be for the greater good or for a turn of the worse. My friend made me write this so like I hope its up to everyone's standards. Thanks for reading, and I will see you guys next post!

[adhesiveapoidea]

this post is about @superxstarzz combined classpects, specifically the classes. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, then go check it out!

warning: veeerrry long post. i will be talking a lot and it might not make sense because it’s two in the morning right now.

a pretty long while ago now (probably around october of last year), i had the idea to get super autistic about superxstarzz (aka casey)’s combined classes. since the combined classes are derived from, well, combining the normal classes, the best place i could think to start was by simplifying the function of the canon classes into just a few words. here’s my list below:

maid - mend self

page - grow self, utilize in self

mage - self suffers from; suffers for self

knight - defend others

rogue - distribute to others

sylph - meddle with others

seer - understand/see for others

thief - steal for self

heir - self becomes

bard - invert in self

prince - destroy in others (i know that bards destroy too, but princes destroy more actively than bards)

witch - manipulate others

with this initial task out of the way, figuring out the combinations of the classes became simply figuring out how to combine the functions. this took me only a couple hours of wasted class time, so if you’re a fan of superxstarzz’s combined classpects, feel free to find your favorite class and please enjoy my interpretation of its function!

(note: descriptions will be formatted with the two base classes that combine to make the class, the name of the class, its whole function, and one word to describe its function)

maid/page = CONDUIT - heal self through utilizing. “grow”

maid/mage = REPENTER - heal self through suffering. “recover”

maid/knight = MOTHER - defend others through healing self. “nurture”

maid/rogue = DUCHESS - distribute the healing of self to others. “empower”

maid/sylph = ARTIST - heal self through meddling with others. “interfere”

maid/seer = AUTHOR - heal self through understanding others. “learn”

maid/thief = COLLECTOR - heal self through stealing for self. “gather”

maid/heir = AVATAR - heal self through becoming. “accept”

maid/bard = INVADER - heal self through inverting in self. “subvert”

maid/prince = SOVEREIGN - heal self through destroying in others. “circumvent”

maid/witch = PUPPETEER - heal self through manipulating others. “guide”

page/mage = BEHOLDER - utilize/grow through suffering. “realize”

page/knight = CHANCELLOR - defend others through growing. “master”

page/rogue = ANARCHIST - utilize/grow through distributing to others. “donate”

page/sylph = DOCTOR - utilize/grow through meddling with others. “prescribe”

page/seer = MENTOR - utilize/grow through understanding others. “study”

page/thief = MOONLIGHTER - utilize/grow through stealing for self. “covet”

page/heir = OVERACHIEVER - utilize/grow through becoming. “crescend”

page/bard = KEEPER - utilize/grow through inverting in self. “reflect”

page/prince = OVERLORD - utilize/grow through destroying in others. “devastate”

page/witch = MANIPULATOR - utilize/grow through manipulating. “command”

mage/knight = GRANDMASTER - suffer from defending others. “martyr”

mage/rogue = ARCHIVIST - suffer from distributing to others. “sacrifice”

mage/sylph = NEUROSURGEON - suffer from meddling with others. “collateral”

mage/seer = PROPHET - understand others through suffering; suffer through understanding others. “witness”

mage/thief = VICTOR - steal for self through suffering; suffer from stealing for self. “shield”

mage/heir = VICTIM - suffer through becoming. “transform”

mage/bard = TRAITOR - suffer from inversion in the self. “deteriorate”

mage/prince = SCOURGE - suffer from destruction in others. “languish”

mage/witch = DISPLACER - suffer from manipulating others. “disrepair”

knight/rogue = SCOUT - defend others through distributing to others. “fortify”

knight/sylph = CLERIC - defend others through meddling with others. “adjure”

knight/seer = TOMEKEEPER - defend others’ understanding; defend through understanding others. “conserve”

knight/thief = CONFIDANT - defend others through stealing for self. “redirect”

knight/heir = CONTRIBUTOR - defend others through becoming. “burden”

knight/bard = ANTITHESIS - defend others through inversion in self. “misdirect”

knight/prince = WARDEN - defend others through destruction in others. “prune”

knight/witch = HACKER - defend others through manipulation of others. “coach”

rogue/sylph = NURSE - distribute to others through meddling with others. “inspire”

rogue/seer = SCRIBE - distribute understanding. “teach”

rogue/thief = PILFERER - steal for self through distribution to others. “tax”

rogue/heir = BEACON - become distribution; distribute through becoming. “emanate”

rogue/bard = ARCHER - distribute through inversion of the self. “agitate”

rogue/prince = VANDAL - destroy in others through distribution. “poison”

rogue/witch = IMPROVER - distribute to others through manipulation. “change”

sylph/seer = HERBALIST - understand through meddling with others. “acquaint”

sylph/thief = MISTRESS - steal for self through meddling with others. “intrude”

sylph/heir = WEAVER - become through meddling with others. “mediate”

sylph/bard = POLLUTER - invert in self through meddling with others. “suggest”

sylph/prince = CHEMOTHERAPIST - destroy in others through meddling. “implant”

sylph/witch = REMNANT - manipulate others through meddling. “micromanage”

seer/thief = PLAGIARIZER - steal understanding; understand others through stealing for self. “cheat”

seer/heir = MONK - become through understanding others. “enlighten”

seer/bard = REWRITER - invert in self through understanding others. “question”

seer/prince = GATEKEEPER - destroy in others through understanding; destroy understanding in others. “erase”

seer/witch = JUDGE - manipulate others through understanding. “convince”

thief/heir = FRAUD - become through stealing for self. “usurp”

thief/bard = HOARDER - invert in self through stealing for self. “pickpocket”

thief/prince = PARASITE - destroy others through stealing for self. “drain”

thief/witch = ADAPTER - manipulate others through stealing for self. “preach”

heir/bard = SABOTEUR - become through inverting in self. “revise”

heir/prince = SUPERNOVA - become through destroying in others. “obliterate”

heir/witch = SUITOR - become through manipulation. “advise”

bard/prince = ANNIHILATOR - destroy in others through inverting in self. “uproot”

bard/witch = SORCEROR - manipulate others through inverting in self. “masquerade”

prince/witch = WARLOCK - manipulate through destroying in others. “siege”

and that’s all of them! thanks for sticking around. if you wanna see me do this for the combined aspects as well, let me know :3

sorry for making you wait so long for this, superxstarzz, i completely forgot to make this post at all. hope you enjoyed though qwq

- stickybee