#with it representing freedom and giving freedom to the player

[toweringclam]

I think any Deltarune analysis is incomplete if it doesn't acknowledge the fact that the player has no agency in this relationship either. A lot of early theorizing was that playing the game itself was bad, and comparisons were made to spec ops: the line.

Spec Ops has become something of a cliché in game criticism/theorizing because it represents one of the first times where the relationship between the game and the player was more complicated than just being a player insert power fantasy. Where it was explicitly part of the text that by playing this game beyond the first minute, you were already defying orders and risking lives. If Captain Martin Walker turned around, everything would have turned out much better.

That's not the case here and I hope that is clear by now.

We were *tricked.* The intro is us being promised a blank vessel, then forced into an already occupied body. We had no choice in this. Our only other option is non-existence, and that's not a choice anyone can really make.

Of course, we can make this relationship positive or negative. There's every sign that before we entered Kris's life, they were almost an empty shell of a person. They hadn't been to school in a while. They're extremely unkempt. They have nothing on display in their room. What friends they had have been alienated. Whatever happened to them before the game started, it seemed like they had stopped *living.* like they lost their soul, or, perhaps, their Determination.

We give that back to them.

Each chapter shows them growing progressively more autonomous. They take a more active role and show more of their personality. They defy us when they don't like what we tell them to do in increasingly forceful ways. They have fun without us telling them to. On a normal route, we are mostly a positive influence in their life. Of course, they resent us still. They're a teenager and we're a force of control in their life. Of course, they want freedom.

Maybe we can help each other with that.

(Weird route is, quite literally, another story)

[utopianparadoxist]

On Roxy, Centrism, Gravitation, and Love

So Candy Roxy has gotten a lot of shit--rightfully so--for taking a consistently centrist and peacekeeping role in the Candy timeline. Generally averse to the spotlight and of the opinion that the Gods, with their outsize importance and cultural weight, should stay out of the governing affairs of regular people, Roxy has largely been reduced to a passerby watching as her friends plummet the world into chaos as they try to tear each other's throats out.

But there's another way to read her fundamental centrism, one where her focus and perspective simply aren't political, but rather interpersonal. As one redditor (I lost the comment and don't know who, sorry!) put it, they read Roxy in this latest update as a character striving to "keep everyone together", to pull the fracturing group back into unity.

Pulling things together. That sounds familiar.

It sounds, in fact, like Gravity. "In physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas 'weight'[1]) is a fundamental interaction primarily observed as a mutual attraction between all things that have mass." In other words, Gravity is a word we use to describe the fact that everything that physically exists, that has substance and matter, is inexorably pulled towards each other.

Rose describes gravitation as "the intrinsic nature of nothingness", that is to say, the nature of Void itself. And while the force of Gravity gets weaker the further things are spread apart, this weak and subtle force is what draws together cosmic gases that compact and condense into each other with such intensity that they give birth to the Stars themselves.

In this way, Void is a force which creates and becomes Light. And in the same way Gravity acts as a force pulling stellar objects together, laying the foundation for organized solar systems and ultimately Life itself--could Roxy be trying to act as a force pulling her friends into harmony reflect her relationship to the Void, right at the time the Black Hole threatens to grind them all into oblivion and they most need someone to rally them to a unified cause?

Let's see how deep we can dive into the dark.

--@lime-bloods's Void/Home Collage.

To start with, there's some required reading to understand where I'm trying to go. The image above is from Homestuck blogger @lime-bloods, who has done some absolutely brilliant work unpacking the symbolic importance of Black Holes.

I suggest reading the images above to grasp the full context of the idea, but in essence, it suggests that Black Holes are synonymous with the concept of the Home in the bounds of Paradox Space.

As Lime-bloods states, The local Black Hole of a Cherub's birthplace is identified as that Cherub's home, and Cherubs always return to this same black hole in order to reproduce. John's speech about the note that desolation plays makes reference to "the Voids keeping neighbors apart", in other words, the houses separating communities into families.

--@lime-bloods's Void/Home Collage.

The Sprites, too, are bound to the gravity of their player's Home during Sburb, unable to leave the house until the player reaches unlocks the ability to summon and eventually release them. This carries over into Homestuck: Beyond Canon, where almost every sprite manifests inside the Black Hole created by The Point.

The only exception to this is Jasprose, who A) As a Light player may have some natural resistance to the call of the Void and B) was the only Sprite explicitly released from her duty by her Player--Davepeta "released themselves" as Davesprite, but we don't know if that represents true freedom from their Sprite nature or merely a more nuanced rebellion against it. That's a tangent though, lets get to The Point.

--@lime-bloods's Void/Home Collage.

The Plot Point is a massive machine created by Roxy and Calliope for the purpose of stabilizing a Black Hole, a supermassive source of literal and narrative Gravity, and for all intents and purposes, it represents a Space/Void fraymotif, or feat of combined Aspect magic.

And what it does once Vriska dives into it is pull her into an cocoon forcing to re-experience of her old childhood Home, her very experience of being Homestuck, to force her to confront and grow past it. In this simulacra of her Home she has to contend with the toxic family dynamics she grew up with--Mindfang and Spidermom as her mothers, Doc Scratch as her groomer and symbolic father.

Diving into the Black Hole makes her once again Homestuck.

"...Understanding that Rose's lapse into alcoholism is her own way of succumbing to 'gravity' - a pull towards toxic familial cycles which not only evokes Vriska's own "addiction" to breaking 8-balls but also literally surrounds the drinker in a dark pocket - her allusions to the Void and gravity here are also tinged by her own experience and outlook as a Seer of Light (who heavily relied on a magic cue ball as her source; a fountain of information which is symbolically opposed to the information-consuming black hole)..." @lime-bloods reader response to my ask.

Lime-Bloods also draws the insight that Rose's relationship with alcoholism--brought out by her grief over the loss/absence/non-existence of Mom in the first place--is itself her succumbing to the call of Void, of Gravity, the narrative and force that pulls her toward Roxy, Mom, and her own childhood. It is in the midst of her alcoholism, after all, that she has the very revelation that leads her to tie Gravity and Nothingness/Void together in the first place.

There's another name for that force. Another form Gravity can take, that is experienced not narratively, but emotionally.

"My instinct is that Rose has reached the same conclusion I have: that 'gravity', as a metonym for the influence of a black hole, is just the inevitable pull towards oblivion. I think she's using "nothingness" as a euphemism for "space", over which gravity has dominion, but through this we can start to appreciate how the concepts of Space and Void weave into each other ("nothingness", "space" and "void" all being functional synonyms)..." @lime-bloods reader response to my ask.

At the same time that lime-bloods identifies Gravity with characters being pulled towards their homes--and so, emotionally, toward their histories with each other, in the context of Child/Guardian pairs-they also identify Gravity with the pull towards oblivion, towards nothingness.

Towards death, like how it was in death itself that Rose's mother gained the gravity to pull her daughter's heart closer to her, bringing all of Rose's love flooding to the surface. Death is itself a kind of nothingness after all, and while Space is the neighbor holding Void's left hand on the wheel, Void spins through the cosmos holding Doom's hand on its right.

And there's something interesting there when it comes to Roxy. A recurring pattern in her emotional responses to death and brushes with mortality. When Jaspers died and she held an elaborate funeral for him in an attempt to connect with Rose, like when Rose died and she held a private funeral for her and reached out to embrace Jaspers, when Dirk committed suicide in Candy and Roxy reacted by proposing to John at his funeral--

when faced with her mortality, Roxy reaches out for love.

She actually lays out this logic explicitly in the midst of her proposal. Death reminds her that time is finite, and that reminds her that what she wants to prioritize in her life is her love and connections to the people that matter to her.

John's inner thoughts in response to her proposal describe love in a rather interesting way, too--describing it as a feeling that goes "unexamined", unobserved, not directly paid attention to, as if out of the spotlight of the concious mind, until it becomes overwhelming and crashes over you.

As if a mass of cosmic nebulae gaining enough Gravity to compact gases together intensely enough to birth Stars--or Light. This association between realized Love and Light isn't new--as the aspect of Truth and Importance, the original comic associates Light with almost every major pairing, including Dirkjake, Vrisrezi, Rosemary and Roxycallie.

But the process of being drawn closer together and developing love, of strangers becoming acquaintances becoming friends becoming family or life partners, gaining importance in each other's eyes through the mutual attraction of Gravity--that process tends to take place mostly in the Void in original Homestuck, askance and askew from the viewer's perspective, hidden and private.

Though perhaps I shouldn't limit the force of Gravity entirely to the word "Love" (perhaps Passion is a better one, Heart's echo to Void's Gravity as a horizontally mirrored pair on the wheel) after all, Terezi tells John that the purpose of kissmesitude is ultimately to force both partners to "Shine a Light" on parts of themselves that would otherwise go ignored in other to improve both parties, meaning Hate can serve much the same purpose.

Dirk, for example, shines a light on massive problems with himself and with his effects on other people interpersonally through his relationships with Jake (Love) and Hal (Hate). Both force him to contend with himself and grow, enabling his eventual rooftop conversation with Dave.

Coming back to the Candy timeline in this latest update, we find Roxy trying to pull everyone in a centrist position on the matter of Jane, again reaching out to the friends she knows and loves for support when faced with the imminent mortality of someone she cares about. She finds nothing.

The thing is, the call towards love, towards Home, isn't inherently either good or bad. What I'd call it instead is essential, as in that in the same way gravity pulls astral bodies together and keeps us bound to Earth, it is in the essence of people to be pulled towards one another.

This contextualizes the Home as a Void symbol somewhat. Above all else, what a Home literally is is a House, and what a House really is is Empty. A house means nothing by itself, its purpose to be a hollow shell encasing people away from the elements.

It is the shared life, the mutual draw of love or the conflict and hate between the people sharing that Home that defines it, that gives it distinct meaning, whether for the better or for the worse. Without that inner Light, a House is indeed a perfectly generic object--an oversized Box, forgettable, infinitely replaceable. A microcosm of the Void itself.

So as Lime-Bloods says, Gravity/Love pulls Rose towards reliving toxic family dynamics, and in this case it pulls Roxy towards saving the life of a fascist who will inevitably make the world more toxic and cruel for everyone, simply on the strength of feeling provided by Jane having been a core part of Roxy's Home herself.

That said, what is toxic in one context can be productive in another, and right now the Candy adults are desperately in need of a leader who can get them all to agree on a direction to take towards solving the very real, very imminent problem of the Black Hole obliterating the Candy Timeline to nothingness.

While Vriska suggests that it may be possible for them to save Earth C from its fate, it is really only Roxy that is stepping up to the plate of advocating for it, continuously emphasizing the metaphysical threat and her unwillingness to abandon her Home, and by association, the very Black Hole that entraps her.

She says it best herself: She feels it in her gut that they can still save this place, and who better than a Hero of Void to make that kind of determination? A Black Hole is after all as much a symbol of Void as it is one of Space.

So I suspect she's going to rise to the occasion of meeting this particular challenge, and if she does, she's going to do so on the merit of the Gravity/Love that keeps her bound to Earth C, in all its wretched beauty.

The two easiest ways I can think of to solve the Candy Earth situation are for either John to dive into the Point and become June, for all the Gods to work together on some sort of large-scale abstract fraymotif or combined God magic the likes of which we've never seen before, or some combination of both.

In any of those scenarios, it feels like Roxy will likely be coordinating and keeping the group on task, simply because everyone else is too distant and divided from each other. And all of this makes me think about someone else. The other Roxy, traveling to confront Dirk in Meat.

When I first read this update, Meat Roxy came off unusually cold to me, surprisingly callous about the idea of killing Dirk. He even came off as willing to do the deed himself if need be, and like he was simply asking Dave if he was up to the challenge.

Now I find myself wondering. It feels to me at the moment like Meat Roxy is playing it cool, so to speak, keeping his own cards close to his chest and deliberately providing the space for Dave to express his own feelings and opinion. Neither Roxy nor we get to hear Dave's answer, but considering Roxy even said he hopes things end hunky dory, he really asked the question as neutrally as possible, providing space for Dave to go either way without feeling judged.

But considering the lengths Jane was able to go and still have Candy Roxy's love keep her attached to her, at least as far as wanting to offer mercy, it seems likely to me that Meat Roxy would feel similarly merciful about Dirk. I'm sure Dirk will do everything in his power to make Roxy and Dave feel they have no choice but to try to end his life, but I think he and we may end up surprised at how far he'd have to go to really convince Roxy of that.

I suppose time will tell. This somehow feels incomplete--perhaps fittingly, even now it feels like nuances of both Void and Roxy escape me, and I find myself simply waiting for what the future will bring. But I think the association between Gravity and Love treads new ground on the subject of Void, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

Nothing to do now but wait for the next upd8.

Keep rising.

[kingcael]

yes, please, what inspired the portraits of the gods? did Matt/Brennan have ideas or did they give you free reign? i particularly like the paint dripping down, it feels so...authentic.

When the concept of the project was being brought up Hannah kindly asked me to join for the Divine aspect and together we had come up with murals or secret shrines within Aeor, so that’s why the characters are all depicted with the stone wall. We worked a bit with everyone, actually the players had done a lot of thought and had some excellent input about their gods! I also referred to the Taldorei Campaign guide for any bit of canonical appearance but largely I had a lot of freedom. We all generally agreed the idea of secret shrines behind walls or painted in forgotten ruins was a good one and everyone signed off on it!

When I was painting them I imagined painting them as a follower might, so some of them have hastily done sections, or areas carved and overworked like many different hands contributed to the piece. Notably the Wildmother has the moss, which I imagined people would connect with her by touching her image with hands covered in blood or water to nourish the moss.

The Dawnfather and Everlight also represent life and light, but I cast more shadows on the Everlight where the Dawnfather is painted to make you almost squint with his brightness. The Raven Queen was not particularly far from our original concept sketch for proof of concept, she definitely encompasses vibes I enjoy painting haha

Hannah and I worked in tandem to make them overlap 1:1 which was an interesting challenge but the animation when they invoke their godly forms worked exactly how we hoped!

[mebis-rain-world-corner]

On The Prince's awakening, and enlightenment through echoes

While the throne has probably existed for eons, and something was starting to coalesce at its peak, it is pretty openly stated that it is watcher's precense in the throne what acted as catalyst for the birth of the prince's selfhood

Ahh! To move! To breathe free!

Never again... STARVING, pressing, grinding, SQUEEZING

against... us? But now... I? A... SELF And... an OTHER.

Oh the joy! The incomparable JOY!

Ahhh hah... familiar.

There was... such discomfort... and hunger. Endless hunger! And then... a presence!

A light! A scent! A tunnel! To freedom! How beautiful, FREEDOM!

A scent. Familiar. So familiar.

The watcher is probably the first living thing to be to the throne proper in an eternity

But I think there's more to this

4 karma "murals", 4 karma upgrades

4 visits, 4 warp points

Watcher's visits brought enlightenment like visiting echoes would do for a slugcat

"The highest enlightenment, achieved by the hardest path. A feat even guardians must respect" This achievement requires the player to raise their maximum karma to the highest level without visiting Five Pebbles. To do this, the player must find 4 out of the 6 Echoes, each of which raise the player's maximum karma by a small amount. All 4 Echoes must be found before visiting Five Pebbles. The achievement is earned as soon as the last Echo raises the player's karma level to the maximum of 10.

And is not as simple as just visiting 4 times either: for this awakening to properly progress you must make it to the top, eat the karma flower, then make it to a previously sealed chamber to open a warp point there

almost as if you're opening new pathways in its brain (tree)

A light! A scent! A tunnel! To freedom! How beautiful, FREEDOM!

These paths you weave. Through them I have expanded my kingdom. I have tasted and I have become. It is my true purpose I believe. Perhaps the only purpose!

Enlightenment is gaining knowledge, understanding, insight

Perhaps Echoes don't just give you more karma merely by merit of being extraplanar beings with influence over karma itself, or by the insight behind their anecdotes

Perhaps Echoes give you a glimpse into what lies beyond, a window to the fractal layers of reality

Perhaps what is happening here is something similar, the watcher showing the throne other worlds through the paths

the karma flowers though, thats harder to understand

perhaps the one at the very top represents the little death that is sleep ("like sleep like death")

Echoes always send you back to sleep after all

[missriggie]

If Inquisitor Lavellan is Hope, Elf!Rook is Freedom

Forgive my rambling but I just wanted to share this, see if it inspires discussion/theories/new friends to reach out, and maybe cement myself in this fandom.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

I've given a sparing thought to some theories and headcanons I've seen circulating with the confirmation of elves once being spirits in Veilguard and all the clues sprinkled throughout Inquisition. One has popped up that I find intriguing and I agree with. Inquisitor Lavellan is a Spirit of Hope.

I think there is a very strong case for that, especially for those Solasmancers out there who love to pair them up as Wisdom and Hope. It's a very beautiful thought as they are without a doubt soulmates, at least in the cases where those two end up together.

Hope defines the Inquisitor's journey. They become the Herald of Andraste, a symbol to look to after a period of ruthless war, then into the ass-end of a demon apocalypse trying to mend a broken world. Deed after great deed they prove their capabilities, and become a formidable player in Thedas's history, keeping people looking up. They are the Dawn That Comes.

Now that Veilguard has since confirmed that Elves were spirits made flesh, I've started to wonder at what possible spirit Rook could be, should they be of Elven lineage. I've decided, either through evidence or delusion or trying to piece together the fanfic I've got brewing, that Rook could be a spirit of Freedom.

Every faction could have some way of a purpose toward liberation. A Veil Jumper would want to free their history and their people from ignorance. A Grey Warden would want to free Thedas from the Calling and the Blight. The strongest background, and most the likely canon faction for Rook would be a Shadow Dragon, putting pressure on the Imperium to abolish slavery.

Rook has a knack for freedom. We free Lucanis from the Ossuary, the Dalish Elves from the Venatori, the Kal Sharok dwarves from the Titan's anger, young griffons from the Gloomhowler. We even free ourselves from a prison of regret built specifically to lock up gods.

My first go round, I played a Lord of Fortune Spellsword, and it coincided very nicely with this theory. An ex-galley slave turned marauding treasure hunter with no masters to hold them back. She lived and breathed freedom so it made sense, at least for my Rook.

We also see the potential to corrupt that spirit of freedom. Into what you ask? CHAOS. Which also ties into the other thing that connects them to Solas; The Tower.

The big teaser for Rook as the protagonist back when it was still called Dreadwolf was the Tower/rook chess piece and floating head of a wolf. Solas's Arcana at the end of Inquisition is the Tower. This Major Arcana represents calamity, disruption, upheaval, unavoidable change, chaos.

Too much freedom leads to lawlessness, and Rook is never one to follow rules as far as we witness. In all backgrounds, no matter the faction, Rook's actions cause unrest, turmoil, disruption, often a total breakdown of authority, much like the spirit they are mistaken for when delving into Solas's memories in the Crossroads.

Rook cannot be caged or told what to do. But also, Freedom cannot go unchecked, to do so on either end of the spectrum just leads to untold mayhem. It needs a guiding hand. It needs Wisdom.

With this in mind, it just makes their dynamic with Solas so much more fascinating. Everything he has done is in the name of Freedom, and if he were to have a living embodiment of it move against him it would be so confronting. It would make him question his entire angle. Why is he really doing this, if not for freedom? But his pride would keep him in imprisoned in denial and regret. This denial is then reflected back to Rook in regards to the fate of Varric.

The case for each spirit, both Hope and Freedom, only intensifies if one chooses the Atonement ending.

Lavellan sees the Wisdom in Solas and tries to appeal to him through that. She gives him Hope, and joins him in the dream, forever protected from his fear of dying alone.

Rook holds a mirror to his Pride, his mistakes, his trauma and makes him confront it. They gather all the pieces needed to unravel his fear, allow him to let go and make his own choice to atone and return to his true self, opening a path to true Freedom to finally come home to the Fade. WHICH IS TWIN-FLAMEY AS FUCK

So yeah, I love this game. EDIT: I've expanded on this with a second part regarding Elgar'nan and will in the future take a look at Rook/Freedom in relation to Mythal as Benevolence and Retribution.

[thydungeongal]

Is PF2e a suitable dungeon-crawl system? Or would you recommend sticking to D&D? Iirc you rec specifically D&D before 5e (I don’t play D&D so the acronyms have been a struggle to keep straight). Better yet, for someone running their first dungeon crawl, what would you recommend? My players really like PF2e, hence my first question, but they also like exploring different systems, so I have two oysters. Maybe even several.

Okay so this is a really multifaceted question so I will try my best to answer it! :)

Pathfinder, to me, represents the same design and gameplay structure I like to broadly call "modern D&D" or "WotC D&D," which other people also call "neotrad." Basically, editions of D&D since the acquisition of the license by WotC have changed the game structurally to such an extent that while the games have not become exactly antithetical to dungeon crawls they have become somewhat harder for running a straight old-school dungeon crawl. For example, modern D&D is not very well suited to random encounters as a means of straining character resources owing to the fact that encounters can often take a lot of time to resolve.

Now, having said that, there is a place for dungeons in Pathfinder and other games in the modern D&D lineage: while the slow and methodical dungeon crawl is not fully supported by modern D&D, there is a place for what can be called a dungeon dive. This difference was articulated really well imo by @100-manslayer in this response to a post of mine:

The point being that you can absolutely have dungeons in a Pathfinder 2e and I in fact think Pathfinder 2e can be the perfect system for a dungeon dive: the sort of systemic design that Pathfinder represents means that a dungeon environment can act as a perfect microcosm of allowing players to use pretty much all the tools at their characters' disposal. It will be less like a slow, methodical crawl, but more like a romp in a cool puzzle dungeon. That I feel is where modern D&D and its kin shines.

A dungeon dive will basically end up looking structurally like a dungeon crawl, but specifically with "encounters" of various types already prepped in. I know Pathfinder 2e is very generous with encounter prep tools for GMs, so the best way to think of a modern D&D dungeon is as a way to structure content while giving players freedom in how they go about tackling it.

Now, if you want to go for an older edition and a proper old-school dungeon crawl my personal game of choice is B/X D&D, the B/X being a common abbreviation for "Basic/Expert." The game was released in a red box which includes both a Basic game and an Expert game, which together formed an extremely nice and coherent game, which happens to be my favorite edition of the game. It is a very straightforward dungeon game. Now, it is available digitally, but there is also a modern retroclone of it called Old-School Essentials, which basically takes the rules and mechanics of B/X, clarifies them, presents them with nicer layout, and makes them consistent (as there were some inconsistencies across the two sets). OSE is a fantastic game and it is also easy to expand upon, as it has a very active community producing content for it.

There is also Basic Fantasy Roleplaying which is an entirely free open source D&D clone. It is also a fantastic product, owing a lot to B/X in terms of its rules but having some modern touches.

But yeah, there is nothing about Pathfinder 2e that is entirely antithetical to dungeoning, but it is going to look like a slightly different type of dungeon!

[starlit1daydream]

Introduction to my Classpecting Ideas

This felt like a good idea for something to put out before I put my Knight & Page analysis out there, since I plan on making this a 6 part series. (Potentially 7 if demand for a Lord/Muse addendum is high enough).

So, I'll be laying out my most important philosophies on the subject here for future reference.

Classpecting is...

Point A. Classpecting is malleable.

There is not one rigid, set definition for any Class pair, or any Aspect pairing. The freedom of the author is that they may assign any symbolism to a concept that they may like.

What I mean by this is that people often seem to think that manifestations of an Aspect within Homestuck's narrative paint that object or idea as a concept inherently tied to that Aspect.

Example: Pumpkins & Void. You would not believe the amount of people in the early fandom who swore by the idea that pumpkins were inherently just Void constructs because of their role in Homestuck's narrative.

No? Pumpkins symbolise Void in Homestuck itself and Homestuck itself only only due to a running gag inherent to Homestuck itself.

Anything, with enough narrative basis and existing thematic ties, can serve to symbolise an Aspect. Furthermore, two different authors may have different ideas of what Aspect something represents.

Some authors may see alcohol, for example, as a Void-bound concept owing to its obfuscation of fair judgement. Some may see it as a Light-bound concept owing to the idea of 'in vino veritas' and the tendency of drunkenness to induce truthful confessions. Some may see it as a Life-bound concept owing to its associations with hedonism and impulsive behaviour.

With enough narrative consistence, anything is possible. Homestuck's narrative is not as rigid of a point of reference as some people would swear by it being. This is deeply important.

Point B. Classpecting is not the whole of a character.

I can't exactly phrase this in a satisfactory manner, but... a Classpect is not a personality type in of itself. An individual being a Prince of Heart does not instantly make them Dirk Strider. It merely means that their core value is identity & selfhood, and they interact with it by destroying it. It is that simple!

I see, time and time again, Classpecting blogs acting as if a Classpect is indicative of a character's whole personality and giving guides as to the exact behaviours & quirks a character with that Classpect should have.

I am imploring you to explore wider possibilities when it comes to this. Even if it means sharing a title with a canon character! It doesn't mean you have to just rewrite that canon character because that's not how Classpecting works.

I've seen fanventure characters share titles with canon characters. (Sovereignstuck's Annomi Errata & Dynama Zarrow sharing titles with Dirk & Porrim respectively, and Porrim herself is also a player in that narrative, mind you!)

I've seen fanventure characters share titles with eachother. (Vast Error's Dismas Mersiv is a Rogue of Mind. One of my fantrolls is also a Rogue of Mind!)

In every instance, they are fundamentally different people. I cannot put it any simpler than this.

Point C. Classpecting is always applicable.

That is the perfection of the Classpecting system. You can give a title to any character, from anything ever made. It's not even that difficult if you're half-decent at media analysis!

Quite literally all you need to do is ask yourself two questions.

"What's this character's core value?" and "How do they interact with that?" Do that, and you've got yourself a Classpect.

That's the beauty of it! It's obviously not going to be as airtight as a story that has the Classpecting system baked directly into the narrative, but it's still going to work out!

Hell, do it to yourself! Do it to your friends! The world's your oyster. You can do anything you want, forever, for the rest of time. I'm a Seer of Life! My best friend is a Page of Blood! My mother is a Witch of Hope! Go wild.

Post formatting

For my Classpecting posts, I'll aim to give two related definitions for every Class.

Definition A is the narrative function, what the Class says about the person and how they interact with their Aspect as an abstract concept.

Definition B is the practical function, what the Class says about their role in the session and how they interact with their Aspect as a SBURB construct.

Therefore, we get an idea of both the abstract, personal definition of a Classpect, and the functional, game application of a Classpect.

I'll also aim to give about two or three examples for each individual title about how you could write a character with them, since there are always going to be multiple directions you can take with a Classpect.

Conclusion

tl;dr - what I'm trying to say is this. Classpecting is malleable, easily applicable & capable of saying any number of things, and my posts will aim to give two concise definitions of both narrative and practical function for every title.

I'll get the Knight:Page analysis done either today or tomorrow, and the rest of the Class posts will be staggered releases in order of poll results. Thus, the order is going to be:

Knights & Pages, Deficiency and Exploitation.

Mages & Seers, Experience and Comprehension.

Witches & Heirs, Adherence and Manipulation.

Princes & Bards, Instability and Destruction.

Thieves & Rogues, Inundation and Redistribution.

Maids & Sylphs, Maintenance and Generation.

And, potentially...

7. Lords & Muses, Absolution and Dominion.

And then, subsequently, the order for the Aspect posts, which I've decided based on relevance to the canon, roughly speaking anyways...

Space & Time, Genesis and Terminus.

Breath & Blood, Fluidity and Stability.

Light & Void, Potential and Simplicity.

Heart & Mind, Instinct and Dialectics.

Life & Doom, Progress and Stagnation.

Hope & Rage, Conviction and Iconoclasm.

I look forward to the next post. Until then, take care.

[chaoticbardlady99]

My current thoughts and theories on Xavier, Sylus, and the potential general directions of Zayne and Caleb’s future Myths. I posted it in a long ass comment on YouTube and I don’t want to lose it 😭😂 my Notes app isn’t reliable and neither is my google docs. She and They are a mess.

May have spoilers for main story below but very vague.

Mc and Caleb have Adam and Eve vibes, but it won’t be the only biblical representation in the book. I am so impressed with the writers of LADS. As the main story has unfolded more, I’m beginning to understand more about how the current universe came to be and who each player is kind of representing as a commentary towards the world around them.

Sylus has more underworld/hades/ fallen angels vibes. It would make sense for Xavier being his counterpart too

1. Sylus centers a lot around greed and sin, but does have a strong sense of right and wrong

2. White and black feathers represent him and both are imagery surrounding him

3. “the Black Church”. That is all.

4. He refers to himself as a Fiend, not a dragon as a much. Even in his Myth he refers to himself as a Fiend

5. His overall theme is typically exposing “good people” for what they actually are. He’s also extremely misunderstood much like Lucifer

6. Your honor, the man is BEAUTIFUL

7. Lowkey wondering if red is actually his original eye color or if that became his eye color when he was cursed BUT he could have had the Aether core in his eye before since he was maybe an angel of Judgement.

8. Maybe he was told to kill MC and couldn’t do it? Maybe he fell in love with her or she was being doomed to death without any real reason that made sense to him so he fought back?

9. He was probably cursed and turned into a half dragon and cursed to kill his beloved which led to his dragon myth

10. Xavier would then be on the flip side- he is like the poster child for pointing out the system is corrupt and being hunted by the CIA over it while also supposedly being the poster child for this “good” why am I now thinking about Sylus x Xavier x MC

11. Also, McExcuse you, but Xavier give such sexy jealous angel vibes. Like Sylus isn’t really openly jealous, but Xavier is (I love him for it) and it’s very stereotypical angel boy trope of him

12. He a sweepy angel, your Honor (Xavier. Sylus could use more sleep)

I have to think Caleb’s will be somewhat in line with Zayne’s since they are supposed to be similar but opposite in regards to their story in regards to MC. Caleb’s story was really centered on apples and life. There is this thought that Zayne’s powers of creating life as the Master of Fate was taken from him by Astra for protecting MC and somehow that connects to him becoming the Forseer and losing his powers in that way and becoming cursed.

Caleb’s current timeline “myth” highlights how he has become the opposite of what he was in their true myth- he wants to be a protector but he became her cage instead of her freedom and instead of her choosing to be bound to him (die together), he was trying to force her into being by his side again willingly.

Caleb’s is more emotional and mental health based and I think you can see that in his ancedote as well since they mention numerous times that he was unable to pass his psychiatric evaluation whereas Zayne’s is much more bio physiological and cursed based (I.e. waking up as another person, Astra evidently has wanted MC to be dead for a hot second now if you take the myths at face value and Dawnbreaker wants to kill MC per the recent story update).

I will be curious to see how Rafayel’s counterpart is to him. I think it may have something to do with lightning (I just hope it’s not some fuck ass Zeus shit, I don’t care what that Swan says, I’m not having sex with it) and/ or it could be a character based on the Giant, Polyblotes who opposed Poseidon. I believe he was associated with earth but don’t quote me on that.

I think, if the trend follows, then each LIs “rival” will be the opposite of the other but also very similar in overarching themes.

Also is it just me or does Jenna have strong Athena inspired vibes? She has to have a full character model for a reason.

[bhaalsdeepbat]

Lae'zel is like a play on the "I'm not other girls" thing, except she's trying SO hard to be like other Gith girls. She's trying to steel her heart and be a perfect soldier in the collective army serving beneath Vlaakith. No will of her own. Just blind servitude alongside the other Gith who are also denying their own individualism.

Rather than gutting the companions right then and there - as any other Githyanki would do - she joins them AND promises them a cure. A cure that was meant to be ONLY for Githyanki warriors. And she doesn't know about the lies or the fact that he cure is a death sentence, but she still extends that olive branch to the group. She'll speak up when she's grouchy and try to project a hard exterior, but she's SO secretly soft.

When you approach Rosymorn, she'll stay on that part of the map if you try to leave. Upon returning, you can make her admit she missed you.

You can make the strong Gith who was raised to pillage, kill, and conquer admit that she missed the player character.

Lae'zel isn't like other Gith Girls.

Her act two scene is trying to progress the romance as though it were between two Gith raised within that culture. It's a fight to prove your worth through your battle prowess, which makes only the best *warriors* worthy of companionship. However, it becomes clear that isn't want Lae'zel wants. If the player loses, and Bae'zel beats the fuck out of them, she becomes distraught because she doesn't WANT to fight her romantic partner.

She wants to mutually protect one another. She wants companionship with her partner. She wants to enjoy the sunrise with them, feel the tickle of the night breeze, see the Tears of Selune chase after the moon across the night sky, she wants to live and she wants to share those experiences with her love. She doesn't WANT to be the stone cold Gith that she was raised to be.

Lae'zel wasn't given any role to do with the eggs, but once the egg is in the party's possession, she's instantly drawn to it. When Xan hatches, she gives him a name to represent that he'll be raised to be free to be himself. He'll have the freedom to choose his own path, whatever that maybe. Xan DOESN'T have to be like the other Gith. He could be a scholar, an artist, a warrior, anything he wishes to be. It's his life and Lae'zel is just happy to see her little Xan be raised with the freedom she didn't realize she craved until she arrived on that silly little planet.

Lae'zel isn't like other Gith girls because no two people are the same, even if raised in the same circumstances and culture. Everyone is an individual, even when they serve a collective or are fighting alongside Allies with the same main goal.

Lae'zel isn't just a nameless, faceless soldier. She isn't interchangeable with other Gith. She isn't like the other Gith girlies.

[mariacallous]

Today—250 years since the Continental Army officially formed to fight for the independence of the American colonies against the British monarchy—marks a milestone in President Donald Trump’s effort to politicize the U.S. military. Though they are rare, military parades have happened before in Washington, D.C. For the most part, these have been celebrations of military achievements, such as the end of a war. But today is also Trump’s birthday, and what he and his supporters have planned is a celebration of Trump himself.

A mark of a free society is that its public institutions, especially its military, represent the body politic and the freedom-enabling equal rights that structure civic life. If service members and the public begin to believe that the military is not neutral but is in fact the servant of MAGA, this will threaten the military’s legitimacy and increase the likelihood of violent conflict between the military and the public. Today’s events bring us one step closer to this disaster.

I have seen the politicization of the military firsthand. Last month, I resigned my tenured position as a philosophy professor at West Point in protest of the dramatic changes the Trump administration is making to academic programs at military-service academies. Following an executive order from January, the Department of Defense banned most discussions of race and gender in the classroom. West Point applied this standard to faculty scholarship as well. As a result, my research agenda—I study the relationship between masculinity and war, among other things—was effectively off limits. I consider what the Trump administration is doing to the military-service academies as a profound violation of the military’s political neutrality. That destructive ethos is the same one apparent in the parade scheduled for today.

Before Trump was reelected, the Army had planned significant celebrations across the country to mark this day, including the release of a commemorative postage stamp and a visit to the International Space Station by an Army astronaut. But according to The New York Times, arrangements for today’s D.C. event, unlike the other plans, began only this year.

The day is scheduled to begin with a variety of family-friendly concerts, a meet and greet with NFL players, and military-fitness competitions, all on the National Mall. If all goes to plan, the celebrations will culminate with what organizers are calling a “grand military parade” that starts near the Pentagon, crosses the Potomac River, and ends near the White House. The parade is anticipated to involve 6,700 active-duty soldiers and a massive display of Army equipment: dozens of M1A1 Abrams tanks and Stryker armored personnel carriers, along with more than 100 other land vehicles, 50 helicopters, and a B-25 bomber. Trump is scheduled to give remarks after the parade and receive a flag delivered from the air by the U.S. Army Parachute Team known as the Golden Knights. A fireworks show is set to follow later tonight.

The organizers have made it abundantly clear that today’s purpose is to directly laud Trump and his politics. In promotional materials, they tell us, “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Army has been restored to strength and readiness.” They credit his “America First agenda” for military pay increases, enlarged weapons stockpiles, new technologies, and improvements in recruitment, declaring that he has “ensured our soldiers have the tools and support they need to win on any battlefield.”

Monica Crowley, the State Department’s chief of protocol and a former Fox News host, went on Steve Bannon’s podcast WarRoom to say that the concurrence of the U.S. Army’s anniversary and Trump’s birthday is “providential.” She called it “meant to be. Hand of God, for sure.” She added, “It is really a gift, and we want to be sure that we celebrate in a manner that is fitting, not just of this extraordinary president but of our extraordinary country.” She also expressed hope that the crowd would serenade the president with “Happy Birthday.” Clearly, Trump isn’t merely the guest of honor; he is the reason for the party.

During his first administration, members of Trump’s own Cabinet often thwarted his efforts to corrupt the Pentagon. This time, Trump has appointed a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is willing to tear down the boundaries separating politics and the management of national defense. Trump and Hegseth claim to be purging the military of politicization instilled by previous administrations and resetting the DOD around the nonpartisan matter of readiness for war. But in reality, they have used this rationale as a cover to insert an unprecedented level of political partisanship into the military.

Other events in recent months have pointed in this same direction. For instance, in February, the administration fired the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The only meaningful justification given for the move was Hegseth’s claim that the fired lawyers might be roadblocks to the president’s agenda—a frightening admission.

In January, the administration banned transgender people from serving in the military, not because they allegedly pose a threat to unit cohesion or because their medical treatment is unusually expensive, but because they are supposedly bad people (“not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”). At present, transgender soldiers who have met all performance standards are being discharged simply because of the administration’s bigotry against them.

The administration has also inserted its politics into all the military-service academies—the reason I left West Point last month. Trump and Hegseth have denied the validity of ideas that are taken seriously in a variety of disciplines and banned them from the classroom, including, as I noted above, matters pertaining to race and gender. Books and other works, most of which are by women and people of color, have been removed from the curriculum. The academic programs of the service academies are now structured around the Trump administration’s ideological worldview. Faculty and cadets wonder if they are allowed to entertain perspectives inconsistent with the administration’s politics.

In May, Hegseth led an evangelical prayer service in the Pentagon’s auditorium. Standing at a lectern with the Department of Defense seal, Hegseth led the audience in prayer to “our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.” The main speaker at this service was Hegseth’s pastor, Brooks Potteiger, of the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. This church restricts all leadership positions to men, declares homosexuality immoral, and asserts that women should not serve in combat. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a secretary of defense acknowledging his religious faith. What’s objectionable is the use of his authority to push his personal religious views on subordinates, especially as the director of a major institution of the secular state.

The president now routinely speaks to uniformed service members in his red MAGA hat, using his trademark rhetoric centering himself and belittling, even demonizing, his critics. He openly suggests a special alliance between him and the military. At Fort Bragg on Tuesday, for instance, Trump encouraged uniformed soldiers to cheer his political agenda and boo his enemies.

This is all extremely dangerous. Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society.

Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration’s ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump’s—or the Republican Party’s—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.)

But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump’s efforts to politicize the military have been.

[woodsie]

Shadow Yosuke’s Symbolism

I recently got a friend to play Persona 4 and we were talking about the symbolism of each of the character’s shadow selves, when we came to the realisation that neither of us really knew what Yosuke’s was meant to represent.

Chie’s represented her relationship with Yukiko. Yukiko’s her desire for freedom but lack of action in taking it. Yosuke has… a ninja frog…?

So I’ve done some digging.

Official Statements

The first thing I did was look at the official concept art sheet for shadow Yosuke. This primarily detailed that as the first of the shadows, they wanted it to be very obvious that their shadow’s and persona’s were the same thing.

This is done quite well and tells players subtly that they are the same without being obvious.

Jiraiya does look a lot like shadow Yosuke. The main body’s colour is inverted from black (evil) to white (good), the frogs eyes are added to Jiraiya’s head and the frog’s mouth becomes a chest piece, with the frog’s skin pattern carried over to the cuffs of Jiraiya’s clothes.

Jiraiya is easily the most similar persona to shadow. Important for early game. This idea is also helped by Tomoe looking very similar to shadow Chie, and allows the idea of persona’s and shadow’s being the same to be cemented into the players minds before they meet shadow Yukiko who is visually very different to Konohana-Sakuya.

Jiraiya In Folklore

My next step was to look for any symbolism between Yosuke and the story of Jiraiya himself. Granted, as a white woman™️ my knowledge of Japanese folklore is limited but I will summarise my findings and compare them to Yosuke’s story directly.

[Sorry for the weird formatting, I’m working around the 10 image post limit]

Both stories open with a character from an influential background and moving to a new area.

Jiraiya’s stance as a robber could be in reference to the fact that Junes is taking business away from local businesses and their families.

Saki could be taking the place of the woman in the house. Regardless of if she actually likes him, she is kind to him when others are not. This is something Yosuke admires greatly but it still doesn’t prevent Junes from ruining the Konishi’s business.

His shadow self is then a reference to the old man/magic frog. It recognises him from who he is, and although the shadow is hostile its intention is to teach Yosuke about the parts of himself he is trying to hide so he can reconcile with those feelings. This is what allows him to gain his persona, or in other words “teaching him magic”

Gaining his persona is what helps set Yosuke’s resolve and desire to avenge Saki and the others who have suffered due to the killer. He shows a distinct intelligence and is often the one to piece together vital information. Without him insisting they investigate Saki’s murder, the Investigation Team might not have ever existed. In that sense you could consider him a hero.

A good portion of his social link is devoted to him coming to terms with his situation, both around the murders and his place within Inaba. He frequently talks about feelings of loneliness and a desire to be valued, and he finds comfort in having his persona and being able to do something about what’s going on, it gives him some control over his life which he lost by coming to Inaba in the first place. Overtime though he does come to love Inaba as a whole and recognises that it’s the people around you that really make a place special. He’s not alone anymore and he’s far happier for it.

Other Potential Inspirations

In my attempts at seeing what others online think about potential symbolism for Yosuke’s shadow, I found that most people also did not understand what his shadow was meant to represent. However, I did come across a few older threads of people sharing possible ideas.

One of which was of a Chinese story about a frog in a well. The story related to narrow mindedness and limited perspective as the frog is unaware of life beyond the well and is amazed by it when told what it has to offer. This could be a potential reference to his dismissal of country life and him growing to love the town.

[viderchia-vivianne]

deltarune theory about the roaring knight, keep in mind there are spoilers for chapter 3 and 4 in here!!

The roaring knight has holes on their hands

The roaring knight might probably be dess, and we know kris is working with them at least somewhat.

In the images for the prophecy, there are TWO knights When you inspect a shadow crystal by yourself...

Kris's description when you get the black shard from defeating the knight also changes.

It should be noted Susie's also changes to this, and ralsei's changes to this:

I think the ending of the prophecy is that kris WILL become the second knight, and it will be nearly unstoppable unless you take the weird route where it is in some way averted. I think they also have horns on their head because the knight, in some way, represents wanting to escape into fantasy forever. Whenever they down a party member, they're "Swooned"

I think that because of this, the horns represent kris's horn headband they used to own when they wanted to blend into life with monsters. More so speculation here: I also feel like the consoles shown in chapter 3 are what is being displayed as the only route kris can take to break this cycle, but kris isn't willing to do it. I think that at some point kris got in contact with gaster to who brought the player into the world, as they are the only one who had the determination (lack of a better word) to find the secret bosses and carry out the weird route. This is why Kris freaks out more at the secret bosses that are past Jevil but are generally reactionless to everything else, they genuinely never got to this point in their own time through resetting the world on their save files. We can see we had to overwrite kris's file before which is what makes me think this. This does have some holes though. I also think that it's very possible that the weird route is sort of an "original" prophecy, said to eventually always come true, and the current prophecy we know has overwrote it, and the ending of the weird route is reviving it to give kris freedom. This is less solid but I feel like it's somewhat intentional with how the console game kris plays is practically the original zelda, while the one we play during the main chapter 3 segments is an altered version that's more friendly and funny. I think that they are definitely meant to parallel no mercy and pacifist from the original undertale, though. With the original game being what is essentially a real, genuine game despite how fucked up it is, while tennas version is a goofy and fun adventure that, although fun, eventually grows stale and hollowed out the actual original "game" aspect of the game.

[beevean]

gonna try the hot take ask game!

let's see... Sonic has never had an extremely rigid philosophy about not killing bad people to give them another chance. It's a blatant misunderstanding of how Sonic represents freedom to interpret him as believing everyone should be free indiscriminately.

Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

It simply doesn't exist in the games. There is not one scene of Sonic coming close to killing someone, only to pull back at the last minute. He's not a bloodthirsty Punisher, but he also has no qualms about stopping enemies, one way or another.

In fact, just ask Erazor Djinn how merciful Sonic is! Oh, wait, you can't. He's drowning in lava because Sonic trapped him there :P and let's not forget how he lowkey threw a death threat at Infinite when he talked about hsi epitaph.

Point is, Sonic's only principle if you want to call it that is his desire to help people in need. But it's not a rigid rule he lives by. There is no way he'd ever say "I want to do this, but my own rules prevent me from doing so." That is the complete antithesis of what Sonic stands for!

I'm gonna copypaste what I and a friend wrote in the IDW Sonic FAQ which I think is relevant:

--

“Why do you want Sonic to kill people so bad?”

There seems to be this common misconception that people who have an issue with Sonic’s “principles” would rather watch him kill in cold blood. That is not the point.

Sonic is a nuanced character who simply doesn’t have any “principles” when it comes to his enemies. He treats villains on a case-by-case basis: sometimes he takes them down without feeling sorry, such as Erazor Djinn. whom Sonic sealed in his own lamp and then threw into lava. Sometimes he first defeats them then comforts them, such as Merlina. Sometimes he takes a non-lethal approach, such as Chaos who was simply neutralized (it’s up to interpretation if he empathized with it or Sonic simply saw the situation  pragmatically). Eggman is a special case because of his plot armor that comes from being the franchise’s main antagonist, but his tendency to survive his encounters with Sonic can be easily explained as Eggman being very good at getting away: see below.

A violent Sonic is just as OOC as a Sonic that insists on letting enemies go in peace.

“Sonic spares Eggman.”

The “principle” of Sonic letting Eggman go is nothing more than Flynn’s attempt at a Watsonian explanation of a simple piece of storytelling that harkens back to the Genesis era: how come Eggman survives everything Sonic throws at him? The truth is, of course, that this is a cartoon series and Eggman is protected by his status as the main villain. If you really wanted to explain it logically, you’d have two options: Sonic always holds back and lets Eggman go… or Eggman is very good at surviving and escaping. And honestly, the second option sounds the most likely, because Sonic is shown to be near-ruthless when it comes to his archnemesis. Just a few examples:

Sonic 1: The player can control Sonic at the end of the Final Zone and they have the chance to attack Eggman one more time, watching him fall down in his exploding Egg Mobile. 

Sonic CD: In the bad ending, Sonic throws a rock at Eggman as he’s flying away, causing the Egg Mobile to explode.

Sonic Pocket Adventure: Super Sonic rams into Eggman at the end of Chaotic Space Zone, even as Eggman is visibly shaking his head and arms to say “please don’t”. 

Sonic Battle: In Cream’s story, she accidentally electrocutes Eggman, and Sonic mocks him all the while for his “new dance”.

Sonic Unleashed: At the end of the Egg Dragoon fight, Sonic takes the time to destroy the Egg Mobile and then throws Eggman in the general direction of the lava, again ignoring Eggman shaking his head and arms in fear.

Sonic Lost World: In the ending, Sonic sabotages Eggman’s jetpack and gleefully watches him fall down for miles.

Sonic Mania/Sonic Mania Plus: At the end of the Phantom Egg fight, Sonic leaves a panicking Eggman behind in the collapsing Titanic Monarch. In Plus, Super Sonic and the gang knock Eggman away into the Phantom Ruby-caused wormhole right behind them.

And this is not counting the many instances of Sonic leaving Eggman for dead, from the Death Egg’s implosion in Sonic 2 to Eggman being sucked into a black hole in Colors, or particularly gruesome fates that are played for laughs, like sinking into a pool of lava after S3&K’s Lava Reef boss or being cut by the Screw Mobile’s turbines in Mania’s Hydrocity miniboss. Clearly, cartoon series or not, Sonic has no regard for the life of his archnemesis.

The only instance in which Sonic actually stood there and watched Eggman escape was in the ending of his own campaign in Sonic Adventure 1. And even then, that was quickly rectified in the ending of the Last Story, where Sonic starts chasing Eggman again almost immediately after neutralizing Chaos.

(Sonic Adventure 2 doesn’t count. Gerald’s plan and Shadow’s death distracted everyone, with good reason)

[crimsoncowboyy]

Are John and Arthur “Good” People? (An RDR Analysis)

A common comment I see on a lot of RDR posts is that, at the end of the day, John and Arthur are simply bad people. Usually, these comments can be seen in game clips where the player controlling Arthur has him do something drastically evil, such as mass murdering an entire town, just for fun. However, these also exist under posts that are meant to praise the characters of the game, showcasing their redemption arcs and appreciating how far both John and Arthur grow from the beginning of the game series. First, I think it is important to note that for the sake of the game being interactive, players must be able to have autonomy over what either John or Arthur do. Player autonomy within RDR is meant to serve as a world-building mechanism that unites the player with the intricate environmental designs, side-character interactions, and atypical lifestyles of John and Arthur. The more one explores, the more immersed they become with the characters they play as, and this makes the eventual deaths of both protagonists even more impactful. Yet, some players instead utilize open-world freedom to harass and harm numerous NPCs for seemingly no reason. Sure, Arthur and John can be made to rob random houses and beat up women in saloons, but this is not representative of the canonical story Rockstar is portraying. This leads to the other point I brought up, which is that many people argue that John and Arthur do not technically redeem themselves, and I want to dissect this by explaining what RDR teaches players about what it means to be a good person.

To tackle this complicated question, it is essential to recognize that the world Arthur and John come from is not a world that RDR players have ever lived in. The Wild West as a whole is essentially its micro-society that died about over one hundred years ago, and rather than going to war with other countries, Wild West “gangs” go to war with rival groups that hold ideologies the other finds to be immoral or corrupt. This world has its own traditions, power dynamics, borders, and way of life that can be defined by two main concepts: anarchy and poverty. Yet, like all political ideologies and lifestyles, some issues and hypocrisies arise from these values. Despite being anarchists who view the rich and the government as the world’s true enemies, micro-governments form within the “gangs” of the Wild West that develop into an almost cult-like reality that all people knowingly or unknowingly accept. Dutch Van Der Linde is a prime example of this. He rescues children, veterans, people of color, and outlaws who often themselves are victims of capitalism, racism, and American corruption and takes them in as his “children.” Dutch can be analyzed as the gang’s leader, and he ultimately sets up a society where he has loyal advisors, such as Hosea Matthews, but at the end of the day, only his word is to be followed, despite any doubts or opposition. Additionally, despite giving those living in poverty food, shelter, “education,” and a sense of community, Van Der Linde isolates members of his gang from the outside world through unique manipulation that eventually has the gang turn against one another.

Even though Dutch claims he opposes the structure of the United States government and the way it is often a form of evil, he does little to fight against the system. Instead, he uses it as an excuse to gain power in his way and steal from those he feels as a whole wronged him, but he sends loyal gang members to do the dirty work for him. This leads to a vicious cycle of poverty perpetrated by both Wild West gang leaders and the government itself; to put it simply, the government does little to help those born into unfortunate circumstances, poverty, families of color, and more. It then deems these people to be “inhuman,” causing those same people to flee to whoever will accept and guide them. Then, when the government gets wind of what those “inhuman” people are now up to, they demand that these lifestyles get abandoned and destroyed, but still fail to provide an alternate lifestyle of help to get people on the right track. This isolation and lack of empathy from those of governmental power both cause these Wild West outlaws to exist in a balance of stark independence and cultish loyalty to those who offer a sense of belonging. Thus, a vicious cycle continues.

Yet, even with menial knowledge of the Wild West lifestyle, it does not take long for players to get a sense that John and Arthur are two strong examples of what morality within this dubiously structured world can be analyzed to look like. The only times we see John and Arthur be “cruel” (outside of TikTok gameplay clips from teenage boys…) is when they want to say or do something mean to somebody. For example, Arthur demeans Sadie by calling her “woman,” but this is because he feels she is claiming to be better than other people in the camp because she does not want to cook. At other times, he uses the term “woman” or similar derogatory terms when trying to assert dominance or intimidate others. Arthur does this because of the loyalty he has to Dutch; he believes he is acting how he must act to provide for the gang, thus making Arthur’s motivations clear: loyalty. No matter what, Arthur is loyal to the people he perceives to be his family and saviors, especially Dutch. When Arthur is not working and encounters people he has genuine conversations with, we see the kindness, empathy, and creativity that Arthur possesses, even if Arthur himself downplays his own beautiful characteristics. Even if you always choose to antagonize gang members, you will not lose honor as a result of it, implying the gang understands that Arthur has and always will mean well. He openly expresses that he believes in equality, and we see through his interactions with women, people of color, and even those with alternative lifestyles, such as Charles Chatenay, that he respects people if they follow their hearts and lack impure intentions. This is why Arthur resonates so heavily with Eagle Flies, who wants to start a war against the United States Army because of their treatment of his tribe, while Arthur despises Micah who only serves himself.

John and Arthur are similar to one another. One thing to make note of is that they symbolize a sibling duo that grew up in chaos and processed it differently. Arthur, who is older than John, takes a much more “loyal dog” approach to his upbringing. Since Dutch and Hosea took Arthur in and provided him with the paternal comfort he always sought even before the “Van Der Linde gang” was fully established, Arthur dedicates his entire life to the two. He is scarily dedicated to serving them, both because he adores the gang as a whole and because he has not formed an identity outside of Dutch’s hold. Dutch does this on purpose, essentially grooming Arthur to be an unbeatable bodyguard, and takes advantage of Arthur’s desperate-for-praise nature and gradually exposes Arthur to more and more violence until it is just a factor of his life. However, John juxtaposes Arthur’s fervently faithful nature, as he is younger and joined the gang after it was a bit more developed. John shows a much more defiant and anti-authority streak than Arthur does. While Arthur does value alone time as a means of reflection, John shows a tendency to make choices for himself, even if this is at the expense of other people. Yet, there is something almost childish about John, even when he’s robbing someone or being threatened by the government. In the face of danger, he will make snide remarks, and while being stubborn, he will display an almost silly sense of opposition to whatever he dislikes or does not want to do (think about how he was acting while being driven in the car in RDR1). Yet, deep down, John has a similar sense of loyalty to Arthur, and this is where their two arcs truly divide; Arthur is causing him because of his unconditional loyalty to a decaying cause, while John wants to be better for his wife, Abigail, and son, Jack, but does not know how to be. It is very evident that John loves Abigail more than anything. Around her, his defiant, angry nature will subdue or disappear entirely. Abigail, who also grew up in unfortunate circumstances and turned to prostitution as a result, understands who John is at the core, and he understands her. She is the one person John, in his own strange way, is vulnerable with. He lets Abigail slap him if he says something rude, performs gestures of love as a means of apologizing to her, and goes to Mexico while it is in the midst of a bloody civil war to take down Bill, Javier, and Dutch after the gang disbanded all to secure her freedom from government captivity. John’s love for Abigail is so important because he is somebody we see resent how he gets frequently used like a pawn by people in power, but with Abigail, he accepts that sense of authority and respects her because of it.

So, if John loves Abigail so deeply, why did he run away after the birth of Jack? Does this not make him a deadbeat father and a bad man? At first glance, John’s relationship with Jack does appear to have a level of unhealthiness to it. Not only did he miss a year of Jack’s life, but as he gets older, John tends to put down Jack’s less “masculine” interests. While this is wrong to do to Jack, it is difficult to claim that John’s actions were meant to be purposely cruel. This is somebody who knows very little about love, family, and fatherhood. Sure, John gets glimpses of these realities through the gang, but the gang is still made up of lots of people who are coping with traumatic pasts. The gang, who are now all adults, understand the reality of their situation and the people who are in the same circumstances as them, but John knows that Jack deserves better than the dwindling life of a Wild West outlaw. Yet, John does not know how to obtain this life for his son. The only fatherly figures he has had raised him to be but another player in this violent world, and otherwise, John has lacked positive and authoritative male role models in his life. So, John panics and disappears not just on Abigail and Jack, but on the gang as a whole. Upon his return months later, almost everybody welcomes him back with open arms; even Abigail. She understands that John fled not because he is unloving, but because he is too loving and fears he will raise a son that will turn on as hardened and unfortunate as him, and that is the last thing John wants. Even though they fight and sometimes fail to communicate efficiently, John and Abigail know that deep down, they mean everything to one another, and no matter how idiotic John acts, it is out of fear, not pure cruelty.

Both RDR games end with the protagonist’s death which symbolizes a cycle of violence being broken, even if it is a more gradual process. John and Arthur have spent their lives essentially in exile. Their biological families and home country have abandoned them in numerous ways, and this resulted in an outlaw lifestyle that is now being forcefully put to an end by the very same government that catalyzed its creation. They have mastered how to fight for what little they have and how to steal from upper-class Americans as an act of retaliation, but all this does is trap Arthur and John in their angry pasts. Rather than Dutch helping the two get back on their feet, he instead encourages John and Arthur to fight and take from the same society that displaced them. Yet, this brutality does nothing but make the two groups hate each other more and more, especially as Dutch’s plans began to change from simply robbing the rich to becoming the very force that enables poverty patterns to continue. John and Arthur begin to recognize and oppose this because of the empathy both possess, and they start to resent Dutch’s changing ways. Once again, we do not see either man kill in cold blood, seek to harm the innocent, take enjoyment in murder, or act in self-serving manners. From the angle of the Wild West being its own society, John and Arthur have the roles of being military men who finally see the extent of the damage their world has caused, even though they tried to convince themselves that their world was different. Thus, the cycle breaking begins. After being diagnosed with tuberculosis, Arthur decides to spend the time he has left helping strangers with an array of problems and assisting those whose lives he feels he has negatively impacted. One of Arthur’s final moments is him either going back to get the money that will symbolize Arthur reclaiming a sense of personal power in the world that is crumbling around him or him helping John with one final major escape from the life of violence he was born into. This is after Arthur already made numerous decisions to save John from danger, whether it be a wolf pack or a prison island, because despite Arthur’s criticism of John’s actions, Arthur knows that deep down, John is not somebody who acts with the intention to be bad. Seeing this goodness and selflessness from a man who grew up in the same life as himself, John continues to try and be a different person for the sake of protecting his family. John tries hard for this, and he eventually builds a ranch for him, Abigail, and Jack to live on together and search for a sense of normalcy, which Abigail appreciates more than anything.

However, progress is not linear. Despite John working hard to outgrow the only lifestyle he ever really knew, he cannot fully escape the trauma and chaos that trails him. This is partially due to him occasionally slipping back into his old ways, especially in the face of danger, where he continues to fight rather than aim for peaceful means of mediation, and partially due to the American government doing what it does best: fail at true justice. Even though John has started to create a new life for himself, the government ignores their role in the development of the Van Der Linde gang, instead kidnapping John’s family years later and only agreeing to release them if John can take down Dutch, Bill, and Javier. They send him into the war-ridden Mexico region with minimal resources, assistance, or guidance, causing John to have to do what he used to do with Dutch, which is kill, meddle in other people’s battles, and get taken advantage of by more powerful forces. Once again, John only kills because he sees it as fighting for the greater good; a reality where he and his family can be free and his past can be eradicated. He does not take joy in fighting for or against the Mexican government, he is simply working with what little he has to save his family. Even then, we still see John’s heart through his care for Luisa, Bonnie, and even strangers that he assists on the road. Despite this and performing what the American government asked of him, they still gun him down at the game’s conclusion, which John accepts rather than evades because he wants his family to settle down and live to become something better, even if he is not there to see it.

Even though RDR1’s epilogue shows Jack to now be angry and hurt as well, there is still something inherently different about his life compared to that of John and Arthur. Jack’s dad was present in his life, even if imperfectly, he had a mother who loved him dearly, even though we know she passed away a few years after John did, and Jack has an understanding of the foundation of a life built around love and family. It is possible that Jack may have the same streaks of violence as John did, but for the first time, the Marston lineage is seeing a glimmer of hope that has seldom been seen before, all because one man dared to stop fighting against the past and instead fight for a brighter future, even if not for himself. Now, does all of this backstory and explanation pardon everything Arthur and John have done? Absolutely not. No human being is capable of getting through life without hurting people, involving themselves in situations they should not have a part in, only trusting perfect people, or making bad choices in the face of unfamiliarity or turmoil. However, it proves something greater than simply stating if John and Arthur are “good” men because oftentimes, people grow up in worlds where goodness is not an apparent reality. Yet, what can be said is that Arthur and John tried to better and fight for a greater, purer good, even at their own expense. Sure, their pasts cannot be eradicated, and they cannot change what is already done, but what they do have power over is how they shape the rest of the time they have left. So, they do what others have rarely done for them and take a gamble on embracing love to both change for the people they cherish and to be changed by those who love them.

All countries and communities are united through collective acts of violence, war, pride, and enabling of cruelty. The United States government and the Van Der Linde gang are both guilty in that regard. Yet, if the absence of all imperfections and the capability for one to escape the harsh circumstances they exist in is what makes somebody good, then nobody would ever be able to respect themselves, because, in one way or another, everybody hurts and gets hurt in return. What makes a true difference, however, is the ability to acknowledge one’s shortcomings, whether or not these are intentional, circumstantial, or implicit, and utilize that realization to push not to become perfect or guiltless, but better than before. At the end of the day, that urge to push for a gentler way of living for the sake of bringing peace to both yourself and who or what you love the most is what makes Arthur and John good people. Deeply complex, flawed, regretful, and troubled, but good. If everybody valued goodness as the desire to do better rather than fight against an unchangeable past, maybe the world as a whole would strive for decency and ultimately unite us all.

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Thank you for reading! This is my first time posting on Tumblr, and I am looking forward to posting and engaging with more commentary of RDR. My essay is not proofread, so I apologize for any mistakes. :)

[fluffyglass]

GIVE US THE IN DEPTH EXPLANATION FLUFFYGLASS

Ok ok ok. Here is the Frankie Fluffyglass Bugsnax Tarot guide (Major Arcana) and my reasons/explanations for every placement. Absolutely all of this is up for interpretation, both of the characters and the divine meanings of each of the cards (this is going to be LONG)

Filbo - The Fool

This was my first placement. In fact, this thought appearing in my mind is actually what got me thinking about assigning each trump card to a character! The Fool is a card that represents freedom and a will to try new things, but it also represents. Y'know. Being a little stupid. Filbo is naive and hopeful, fully willing to make a leap of faith for others, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing! The Fool being the first card of the Major Arcana also fits with Filbo, seeing as he's the first character the player meets on Snaktooth Island.

Floofty - The Magician

An incredibly ironic pick, I know. The Magician represents knowledge and confidence, knowing ones own abilities. Floofty is incredibly sure of themself, for better or for worse. They take charge of their own destiny and forge new discoveries. Also, I just know they would absolutely hate being associated with divination and especially with the Magician of all cards, and I think that's funny.

Shelda - The High Priestess

Not as obvious a pick as you'd think. I was actually between the Hierophant and the High Priestess for Shelda, and only went with the High Priestess because I felt Clumby aligned more with the Hierophant. The High Priestess is similar to the magician, representing knowledge and power, but is less active in that power. Shelda allows others to come to her to share what she knows, rather than going out of her way to show off her discoveries. She was right about everything (but not because she had magic powers) but she's like. Chill about it.

Triffany - The Empress

The Empress (and it's companion, the Emperor) are both cards with a sense of authority. The Empress is the calmer of the two, representing tranquility. It goes with the flow rather than giving directions. Triffany was given the Empress partly because I wanted her to match with Wambus (who fits the Emperor more than Triffany fits the Empress), but also because it's chill vibes align with Triffany. I mean, her whole thing in the Bigsnax DLC is her learning to take charge.

Wambus - The Emperor

Okay let me cook on this one. The Emperor is the other side of the Empress's coin, masculine while the other is feminine. It's a card that has power but is a lot more in-your-face about it than the Empress. Yet at the same time, it's a card that holds back. It's like, the stern father figure of the Major Arcana, and who fits that better than Wambus?

Clumby - The Hierophant

I will fully admit that this was a "leftovers" pick. Shelda really fit both the High Priestess and the Hierophant, while Clumby... kind of just fell into the Hierophant over any of the other remaining cards. It isn't completely disassociated from her, though. The Hierophant has a commanding presence; it's a card that speaks to others, communicates. And I mean, Clumby's a newspaper editor, soooo

Cactriffy - The Lovers

This is where any sense of seriousness goes straight out the window. LET ME COOK. Cactus Triffany's entire existence revolves around love. She was created because Wambus loves his wife, and now his fucked up cactus thing is in love with him back. Cactriffy is almost a representation of Wambus and Triffany's relationship in a way, so I think the Lovers suits it well.

Sprout - The Chariot

This was mainly based on gameplay. I mean, you put sauce on the ball, then the Kweebles follow the ball. I don't have much else to say on it.

Snorpy - The Hermit

Honestly, an early surface level pick. The Hermit title alone applies to Snorpy, and no other card would suit him better. Themes of isolation and reclusion at least definitely play into both Snorpy and the Hermit's character.

The Megamaki - Wheel of Fortune

LET. ME. COOK.

Once again, an admittance that this was a leftover. Wheel of Fortune is a really weird amorphous card, and assigning a character to it felt next to impossible. I decided to choose a legendary Bugsnak specifically because really, only Bugsnax were left to pick from. Why Megamaki out of all the legendaries? It draws up imagery of the Ouroboros, a creature looping in endless circles. The Wheel of Fortune is a fucking wild card (hah) so it took some thought to figure out what to do with it.

Beffica - Justice

Finally, a card I actually put thought into! No leftovers or superficiality here! Justice is a card that represents - well, justice, but also truth. Beffica is a character who will go to any length to find the truth and bring justice upon those she sees as wrong. She's insanely immoral so one might think that Justice doesn't fit her, but she's like. A vigilante. That's right, you heard it here. Beffica is Drama Batman.

Chandlo - Strength

You do not know how much this placement pisses me off. Because it does have thought behind it! Strength doesn't just represent physical strength, it represents willpower and the mental strength behind it but NOOOOO Chandlo has to go and be the big buff guy so giving him Strength seems basic. Well, I DID put thought into this one. Once again proof that Snorpy's Boyfriend sucks /j.

Alegander - The Hanged Man

The Hanged Man is a really, really, really weird card. Fits for a really weird guy! The Hanged Man represents a feeling of entrapment, yet also clarity through isolation. Sound familiar? The imagery of hanging also brings up the idea of execution, and considering Triangle Jail was a punishment... I think I cooked with this one.

Eggabell - Death

Non-Tarot people must be incredibly confused by this one. And I don't blame them! Death is an often misconstrued card, similar to a certain doctor we all know. It represents change, transformation, not just the coming of death. Eggabell encapsulates change more than any other character, with not only her changing to become stronger and save Liz, but her constant physical changes through Floofty's experimentation. Death and Eggabell go hand in hand.

Bronica Lottablog - Temperance

We never meet Bronica and barely know anything about her. And I suppose that also falls into this card. Temperance is calm, virtuous, stable. The memory of someone never changes, as does history. The angelic imagery was also a reason I picked Temperance for Bronica. Because she. She's 💀

Snaktooth Island - The Devil

I never actually noticed that the female imp has a raspberry tail that was completely coincidental. Anyways, you've played the game, you know why this is here. Beyond just being like, an evil presence, the Devil represents stagnation, entrapment. Bugsnax make you rely on them, they tempt you, they kill you from the inside. I'm not religious, but that seems to fit the Devil mold.

Snaxsquatch - The Tower

The Tower is similar to the Wheel of Fortune for me. It's weird and impersonal. So, giving it the Snaxsquatch rather than Snaktooth Island as a whole feels weird, but let me cook. The Tower represents chaos. Disaster. Fear. And the Snaxburg isn't Safe event certainly makes us think these things about the Snaxsquatch! Unlike the Devil, the Tower isn't purely negative, so I gave the island to the Devil, and thus the Snaxsquatch is here.

Cromdo - The Star

For such a contentious character, giving him such like. A chill and nice card feels a bit off, but I'll stand by this one. The Star feels connected to Cromdo through what it would mean for him. It's like... his future? His ideal future? If he was a star, he would have peace. He would have excess, as represented by the pitcher pouring wasted water onto the grass. I'm looking to the virtues of each character here and for Cromdo there isn't much to work with dawg 😭😭

Gramble - The Moon

The Moon is a card with a potent anxiety about it, between the dogs howling and the lobster hiding from them, there is tension. But above it all rests the Moon, a gentle light over the chaotic darkness below. How does this connect to my hideous little rodent? Only my autism brain can comprehend it. The girls who get it get it, and the girls who don't don't

Wiggle - The Sun

The Sun represents just having an awesome time. It's a card that radiates energy and joy- okay I'm dropping the act. She's the Sun because Gramble is the Moon. I know that, you all knew that, we can move on. Though I do feel like Wiggle aligns with the Sun; she shines bright, though seems like she's above others. That's just a cute coincidence though I am a Wigglefunny Warrior and Sun/Moon were the only cute matching cards remaining by the time I got to them.

The Journalist - Judgement

The Journalist is a really weird character to discuss because the whole point is that they have no character. Left with that, I decided to pick Judgement for them because it is through their eyes we see everything. We place our own interpretations onto this world, these characters. We judge them. Look at me all philosophical

Elizabert - The World

And as Filbo begins the Major Arcana as the Fool, Lizbert ends the Major Arcana as the World. Liz is almost a mystical figure throughout Bugsnax, always spoken of but never seen. And yet, she's the core of the game. She is everything. And therefore, she is the World. Also it's a cool dramatic card and all that, you get it.

Ending Note

This is entirely unedited I am NOT reading through all that again. Please engage with your own interpretations because I love talking about Bugsnax and characters and everything. I may or may not be considering an art project.