#i need to draw something other than classpects

[superxstarzz]

iii don't care about spoiling nightveil anymore. I NEEEED TO POST ABOUT THEM HSGGSHDJRJRR

[auriidae]

LIFESTUCK ?!?! (pt 2 here!) (pt 3)

i was sick a couple days ago and spent like 12 hours straight doing nothing but classpecting life series characters and then was like Yeah i have to draw this now. so here's some sillies 👍 (super long classpect ramble under cut because i spent far too long on it not to share hfshjf)

quick note: i really really love @/classpect-navelgazing's theories and used them for a lot of the ideas here. go check their blog out it rules :]

ok you guys flower ranchers (scott tango jimmy) are making me so insane for this au specifically because of this idea i had about doom/life players. doom in true canon is related to inevitability, fate, and knowledge of the specific rules that keep the characters trapped within their story, right. and life is sort of related to healing, physically and mentally, within the confines of the game. so within this au, the aspect of life refers to the rules within the game that the players can see and are aware of (last life’s trading lives system + boogeyman, third life’s soulmate mechanic, secret life’s tasks, etc.). life players have some amount of dominion over these elements (depending on their class, of course). doom on the other hand refers to everything surrounding the games (stuff like admin powers, the world barrier, and whatever happens to the players after they die). 

as a mage of doom, scot (his name is so funny to me. like yeah he sure is) has a bunch of intrinsic knowledge about the way the games function on a logistical level. he’s like a guy who read the script a while ago and forgot all the characters’ names but knows the basic plot and how it’s going to end. or who knows all the ins and outs of tech crew and for whom the apparent magic of the show for the audience is lost on, since he knows how it’s being done. the thing is, scot isn't especially able to act on this knowledge during the game. what director wants someone in the audience — or one of the actors — taking all the magic out of the show, spoiling how it works and how it ends? no, it’s best if they keep that knowledge to themselves — and so scot’s narratively unable to affect the stories of those around him, even his close friends who he’d want to help. he’s aware of this, of course, which makes him more than a little depressed, as he can see the futility of it all and can’t even explain to anyone what’s going on and how the game works. (the only story he’s able to affect, of course, is his own. which. depressed doom player + mage martyr complex + guy who Really cares about his friends is not necessarily a good combination.)

the amount of stock i put in the idea of gendered classes is close to zero so tangoe gets to be a maid of life because ohh my goodness. i like the theory (thanks classpect-navelgazing) of life as “the aspect of affluence,” where life players usually enter the game with some kind of material wealth or status that helps their position in some way. i also like the idea that maid players start the game with a surplus of their aspect but often end up feeling as if they’re only seen as a provider of that specific thing as a result of this, and so end up longing for something else instead. this primarily applies to last life tango because that’s the season i’m most familiar with lol, but i thought the way he started out with so many lives there and quickly dwindled as a result of everyone taking from him and only him was Really interesting. mans has all the luck of the game he could need, but only wants friends to actually be able to live with. being a life player also ties into his little gambling games and things (again, dominion over stuff within the overarching game/story, but nothing beyond that).

then we get to jimi (again fantastic name). the basic premise of an heir is that they’re played by their aspect, right and Oh Boy is jimmy played by life in the life series. i don’t personally know much about anything he’s done other than heehoo canary guy but along with the previously stated points it’s So fun to see him as a life player because it allows for some really clearly contrast between the way he interacts with tangoe and scot based on their aspects. i really like the idea of scot being like “you’re a life player jimi. it's in your name. the game is not going to let you die” and jimi like “you really think so? aw thanks man” neither of them knowing that dying as a life player in this game is literally like in the job description. (ok. i kind of feel like i’m letting jimi down by basing his story so far around other people.. but this is just for fun and i can always change it later)

(also i could easily have put tangoe and jimi as doom players too but for the fact that i don’t think they necessarily see through the game as much as scot does (or at all). and so life it is.)

feel free to ask me questions abt them!!! i have so many thoughts about this bro 

[notsorryforbeingbluencold]

a camp here & there homestuck sburb/sgrub au has been rotating around in my mind for Months.... it would be So fun to see those silly little guys as trolls and running around ending the world nd shit..... it would probably be called camp boonbuck & grist ?? i dunno....

i only have elijah, sydney and jedidiah because in all honesty i dont care enough about the other characters to figure out chumhandles and fetch modii and specibuses and allat but ! yay. um also have adam because i needed a space player

sydney would be a derse heir of doom, jedidiah (or. jediah i guess? to fit the 6 letter naming rule. maybe just jeddie) would be a prospit mage of time, elijah would be a prospit muse of heart and adam (up-adam) would he a derse seer of space :333

i do have classpects for all the counsellors that had voices in s1 and adam was a hope player but i changed thst for boonbuck & grist because i feel like he fit better than marisol with the other guys :P idk,,, i have a whole twt thread with my classpects for the counsellors but its really disorganised and messy 😭😭 if anyone is even vaguely interested that ill put the classpects + blood castes here too

i imagine elijah's horns would replace the elephant ears on her mask ? so she just wouldn't have the mask umm i think jeddie would have vaguely gear shaped horns like how people give to dave strider when they make homestuck kid troll aus and shit

i think sydney's horns would probably replace the mushrooms in his hair thats fun,,, love drawing trolls with mushroom shaped horns!!!!!!

uhhhh doooonnnttt know if this is Entirely accurate considering it came from a fandom wiki page but i think sydney and jeddie would have a juju modus with eachother. like one captchalogues something and it goes to the others stack. the codependency goes crazy with this one

ummmmmm thats it..... i think it would be funny to make sydney a prince of life because. princes do the opposite of their classpect and sydney isnt exactly alive but heir of doom fit better :33 yay

(Don't know what to say here cuz I've never seen homestuck but Tumblr is making me caption this)

[hms-no-fun]

i remember a while back you saying in one of these asks that you didnt find classpects that interesting as a writing tool (or something similar, i don’t remember the exact wording) but you seem to be referring to them significantly more since then, both textally in godfeels and when you’ve discussed the work like in these asks - has anything changed in your perspective on them?

astute observation!

so, i don't find classpects particularly interesting as a writing tool. i'm not a big fan of mapping out a character beforehand, engaging in that sort of reverse personality quiz process of defining their wants, their needs, their astrological sign, etc. no hate to anyone who does, but for me it's far more interesting to just let the character decide that stuff for themselves. it's the same process of discovery i apply to the rest of godfeels, which is admittedly a sort of insane way to work and probably shouldn't be taken as an example.

so that's a very specific definition of "writing tool" that maybe isn't what other people are thinking of. i can get didactic about these things because i don't like writing advice or things that seem like writing advice if you squint.

you're right though that classpects are more at the front of my mind than they used to be. part of it is just that classpects are about to be a lot more actively relevant to the narrative (albeit not in the way you would expect), so i've obviously been thinking about them more. which, you know, those thoughts do naturally generate fiction activity which shapes how i intend to write future chapters-- in that sense, are classpects not a useful "writing tool" for me? i dunno.

it's not even that i find them more meaningful structurally. i think giving someone a title and then building their character around it is a great way to come up with wooden characters. in the case of the upsilon kids (who you will be meeting very soon), their classpects emerged through writing a bunch of little test scenes. i'd put them in a room together and give them something to react to. i really want to avoid conventional group dynamics with this crew, so i always pushed them to behave in messy ways. and over time it became apparent that what makes them work is their seeming incompatibility, which i shouldn't say much more about until you've actually got some material to draw your own conclusions from. but the point is, it wasn't until i got a good handle on each kid's vibe that i assigned them their classpects, and i assigned them in a way that was deliberately "underwhelming" or seemingly a bad fit. i did this because i don't like the narratological determinism that can arise when you give a character a title they like too much.

i don't like giving writing advice but i highly encourage young writers out there to not be afraid of writing unusable scenes. it helps to be able to think of the writing in the early planning stages as, in some sense, disposable. because the prose isn't the point-- it's getting to the characters as you understand them. there's so many scenes i've written that will not make it into godfeels proper without significant alteration if at all! and look, i know how it is when you feel like you can barely write, so every word you manage to get on the page is precious and needs to be preserved towards the Final Product. sometimes that's correct! precious things always emerge in this process. but it's nowhere near as many as you think, and the hard lesson is understanding the difference between precious and enjoyable. just because you enjoy the thing doesn't make it right for the story. even pretty trash belongs in the bin eventually.

but again, it isn't wasted work. the words aren't the goal, they're just a happy accident. the real work happens in your head.

uh shit anyway so for instance Dana Straten's classpect is Knight of Mind. i must admit she's an outlier among the upsilons in that i picked her classpect in the gf3 prologue with an understanding of her character that was vastly different from who she would end up becoming. back then all i knew about the upsilons was they'd be Dana, Jade's as-yet unnamed daughter, and two others. for a long time, once Julia came in and really breathed life into Dana, i was convinced that Knight of Mind was just wrong. it was a bad choice for her, it didn't make sense, she should have been something else that had cooler power implications and i should just retcon it to something better before anybody notices. this worry resulted in a lot of conversations with my collaborators, ultimately concluding that it was more fun to just play with the hand i'd unwittingly dealt us. so we took the Dana we felt and asked her what Knight of Mind meant to her, figuratively speaking. wrote some scenes, had more conversations. Julia and i have spent a LOT of time discussing Dana's whole situation.

the thing about this is that i don't think our idea of her changed all that much between when she came into her own in like march/april 2021 and when she properly entered the story in summer 2022 (god it feels like that gap should be a lot longer, but i double checked and it's right). much of what we already implicitly understood about Dana remained true. but through our discussions and test scenes, we were able to define those truths in some really useful ways. it was through this process that we textually solidified Dana as someone who doesn't have cool powers, at least not flashy ones anyway. Dana's weapon is her mind-- the ability to use her razor sharp clarity of perception to act on many different forms of knowledge at once. she's not a mind control person, she's not a seeing all eventualities person, she's just a really smart punch person. Knight of Mind, it turns out, was perfect for her, because she doesn't need it. and that realization was very much why i tried to create a similar dynamic with the rest of the upsilons.

so again we ask, does that not make classpects a useful "writing tool" for me? again i answer, i dunno. i don't really care. it's just the process to me. all of it is just the process.

maybe that points to why i was so free with referring to Rose in short as Seer of Mind in that ask. having reached the endpoint of Rose's role in this story, i finally understand what Seer of Light means for her (in godfeels, at any rate). it's that she saw the truth of how the narrative was changing and accepted that it wasn't for her. as in, she saw the light at the end of the tunnel and chose to walk towards it. it's become a shorthand for Rose, you see? i say "Seer of Light" the way i say the name of a friend who was really more of an acquaintance realistically speaking, like we only hung out a couple times a few years ago, but we hit it off so well every time that i was always like "man, i wish we could hang out all the time, we'd be great friends" but just, for one reason or another, it never quite lined up for that to happen. the name of a beloved missed connection, perhaps...

i guess, basically, to put a bow on this: i try not to think about classpects until the character in question is real enough in my mind that they define it rather than the other way around. once again i have no idea if this makes any kind of sense procedurally or if i'm just making my life harder by being stubborn. but then again, the only writing advice any writer can ever give you is how to write the things they already wrote, so

[callmearcturus]

hey arc, classpect the MI team + villains (:

Okay yeah I deserve that. But I'm not classpecting anyone who is only in one movie, I refuse. I need more material.

So let's start with the obvious.

Ethan Hunt is an Heir of Light, which may parse as someone who is manipulated/played by/acts as the avatar of luck/agency/relevance. Light is the aspect of the script, the narrative, the spotlight. It is the driving force that keeps the story going simply because the story HAS to be told.

My recurring thing with Ethan is that I don't think he's great at plans. I think he's incredibly skilled at rolling the dice and figuring out the next hour of his life, and then he has to figure out the next hour after that, over and over. It is EXHAUSTING. He's like a perpetual motion machine but you can see the cracks and hear how the gears grind.

But he can't stop. In a very real sense, the narrative is centered on the fact he will not stop. He weirdly almost has the Unspoken Plan Guarantee as a superpower... But for it to work, he has to keep going.

The deal that fate has dealt Ethan is "oh you will succeed and you will win, but you will keep running until you reach that point." If at any point he gives in and stops, everything collapses around him. IT. SUCKS.

.

Luther is a Mage of Void, I think. His aspect was difficult to nail down but his class absolutely has to be Mage. He's a passive team player and his utility is 99% knowledge. But what separates him from a Seer or Sylph is that yes he can be compelled to do exposition and shit when necessary, but mostly, if he can answer a question with "Because I'm the best at this, baby," then he will. He is not compelled to infodump in the way other classes are.

As for why Void, it's difficult to nail down but basically I think Luther is there to explain very twisty concepts that revolve around obsession. Void is the aspect of Obsession, and Luther as a Mage does deal hands-on with the aspect, yeah, but he has more of an observational role over it than other classes. So he's the one to teach Julia how to be a ghost, he's the one to fnd Ethan when he's hidden, and he's the one to explain Ethan's whole Thing to Ilsa. He's the guy who understands the inexplicable, and hoards that understanding like a dragon.

.

Benji Dunn is a Rogue of Blood. I mean, obviously, right? Benji tricks you at first because he's a tech guy, he's a gadget guy, he's an answers guy (in the way that Luther isn't, actually), so you want to go "oh he's a Doom or Time or something".

But nope, Benji's got blood in the lines of his hands and it's the well-spring he draws from. Blood is the aspect of Obligation, and of leadership. Obviously Ethan is the factual leader of the team, but it's not a coincidence that Benji is the one to direct Ethan, to give the objectives, and in RN flat out acts as Ethan's tether to reality when he's going off the deep end. As a bonus, he's protected by Blood as well. Ilsa sees him through a sniper scope and immediately saves him before she's even met him because of course. Of course she does. Benji compels people so easily to what he wants and needs.

And its also not a coincidence that Solomon grabs him out of everyone. He steals the anchor everyone is tied to, and you can almost see the blood red rope between Ethan and Benji snapping violently taut the moment it happens. It's like Ethan's chained to a runaway train, he has no choice BUT to save Benji.

.

Ilsa Faust is a Prince of Mind in my opinion. This one parses a in service to the aspect of skepticism. Settling on Ilsa's aspect was difficult but to me, her defining struggle is that she's surrounded by all these rules and crossing loyalties and objectives from multiple people, the entire world is pressing down on her... but she doesn't really care. Oh, she says that she does, she says she has to do this, this is how she makes it home, but what do her actions say?

To me, they say Ilsa is skeptical of everything trying to bind her, and at the end of the day she propels the plot simply by making her own choices. She's the one who chooses her path and says "No, but" to everyone, the perfect inverse of Ethan's improvisational nature.

And she gains power as she does it. When she says, "No, but" she changes things for everyone. Like any Prince, she is incredibly potent, but acts like a sword in a sheath, the potential humming through her until she springs into decisive action. And again, with the Prince class, when the player is in service to their aspect, it gives them phenomenal power. When they resist their aspect, they are punished. Every time Ilsa gives into the powers trying to control her, she's miserable and used like a pawn.

So yeah I'm p comfortable saying she's Prince of Mind.

.

SHOCKING NO ONE, Brandt is Maid of Doom. lmao. This parses as one burdened by the aspect of inevitability. I don't even need to think about this one. Doom players are good at understand the systems that have everyone crushed under a boot. They know the laws and the bylaws and the commonplace agreements that keep the system in place, and they're annoyed at it all... but they also know how to play that game, who is important, where they can pry a place for themselves. That's Brandt, who basically quits the field and becomes operations because he knows the team needs cover, and he knows how to provide it, and god-fucking-dammit, SOMEONE has to keep the lights on at home.

And Maid? Maids are one of the Tired classes, and Brandt is sooooo fucking tired all the time. The eternal pessimist. Maids have an abundance of their aspect and thus provide it to their team. They also want something that their aspect keeps them from attaining, and in this case I think of "Doom" as "the CIA-IMF" and the thing Brandt needs is to fucking retire. Stop having a job, Brandt.

.

The only other character I think I can classpect is Solomon goddamn Lane, and oh, he's a Seer. There is no fucking question that Solomon is a Seer. Nailing down what he's a Seer of is more difficult though.

I kind of wanna say he's a Seer of Blood. Knowledge of the aspect of obligation to serve others. Everything about how he functions is about people's bonds. He knows how to get the right people who have been abused by their organizations and governments, he knows how to put people together in a room to force new connections, he openly admits that his weapon against Ethan was the moment he killed the young agent in front of Ethan's eyes. He sees all the red strings and he tries to garrote people with them.

Seers are also very active people in the story, they are always pulling bullshit, and Solomon Lane never stops being a petty fucking asshole pretending to be a calm, reasonable man. Seers fucking loooooove acting aloof and above it all when really they are dramatic and addicted to revenge.

THAT'S EVERYONE, HERE YOU GO PUNCT.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

ok ok of u wont talk abt them on ur official analysis post HERE 🎫 i am handing u a free pass to go OFF about passive/active class and also muse of life/lord of doom >:] ooooo infecting you with classpect brain worms....

*visibly trembling like a chihuahua out of excitement* WELLLLLLLL. I SUPPOSE. IF U INSIST

OK. OK. Tristamp Vash. guy who's got feminine characteristics in his story, narrative foil to his twin brother who's got a lot of masculine characteristics. We got that down we're all caught up!! classpect time :3 (putting this under a read more because this got LONG)

Obviously classpects vary wildly between different people's perspectives, and even within the text of Homestuck itself, but there are some heavily implied roles that each class/aspect has. Time is generally an aspect associated with masculinity, Witches are typically girls, etc. Ofc Vash and Knives can have different classpects than these, but making them a Muse of Life and Lord of Doom respectively just FITS. SO WELL.

Since there's only one Muse and one Lord in Homestuck, there's not much to draw from when analyzing these classes, but there are some insinuations to be made! Muses likely a class more common in women, and Lords are likely more often men. The Life aspect is one that in text, we have only seen in female players, and only male players have had the Doom aspect (not that those aspects are gender-exclusive, but it is a PATTERN).

Life is a nurturing, motherly aspect. Jane Crocker is often treated/seen as a mother (despite being 16, which is a whole other can of worms), and her older self, Nanna Egbert, is one of the few Homestuck characters to canonically be a mother!!! Feferi is the heiress to an entire planet, and her Beforan self is a coddling motherly figure to her empire. Vash is the silent guardian of No-Man's Land, protecting people and being kind and gentle to everyone ESPECIALLY KIDS! We've seen how he is with kids, in Tristamp and every other version! Also in Tristamp, Vash is. a fucking parent now. Knives used Vash to make all these Plants get pregnant. Very violating, but it fits with the maternal themes already associated with him.

Knives and Doom. The only two Doom players we have are the Captors (and I am by no means an expert on Mituna so we're mostly working with Sollux here). However, both are shown to have powers that have extremely destructive potential. Sollux is also a Dave parallel, which means he's also a Masculine Cool Kid, just to a lesser extent. Doom isn't an inherently masculine aspect but there are bits and pieces of it reflected in the people who hold that aspect.

It's also... an extremely lonely aspect. There are only two people who hold it, one of which is a joke character, and the other of which isn't even present for the kids' victory. It's not a needed aspect for a successful session. Neither is Life, but it's still a good one to have in many sessions! Doom is more so an extra, something more directly helpful when it's paired with a negative class (Bard, Prince, Rogue, Thief, etc.). It's not needed to balance anything out except for the Aspect Wheel itself in the coding of Sburb. Knives is a very lonely character. He's not needed. Not in the lives of Plants and humans, and not in the life of his brother.

Now for Classes! Muses are passive; things happen to them, they rarely make things happen. Calliope sat around and waited for someone to come rescue her with a ring of life, doing nothing but telling her story to the poor dead souls who crossed her path. Alt!Calliope finally took action in the end, but how long did that take? How long was she stuck in the bubbles, searching for very specific souls to guide them to the right paths? Aimless and wandering with no one and nothing to keep her grounded, HMMM DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE A HUMANOID TYPHOON WE KNOW??? HMMMMMMM

In contrast, Lords are very active. Caliborn takes charge, makes decisions, and works off of a myriad of terrible instincts and loose guidance. He's also an incredibly masculine character (or so he wants us to think). He takes control over his sister's life, he takes control over the lives of others when he's part of Doc Scratch and then Lord English. He is the puppeteer! Everyone else is just an object for his own gain, HMMMM DOESN'T THAT SOUND LIKE A GENOCIDAL PLANT THAT WE KNOW?? HMMMMM

Maybe if Knives chose a different path, he could have been a Prince, or a Thief, but he's a Lord of Doom. This is the path he's chosen, much like Caliborn and how he chose to kill his sister and enter a dead session. This is what Knives has chosen to do. Both are forcing the world and their siblings into whatever roles they see fit.

The Lord of Time shatters the universe- Space itself, the realm of his sister. The Lord of Doom shatters the Life of his brother. This is not the inherent role of a Lord, but these are the paths they have chosen. The narrative parallels are there. The Lord kills the Muse, he takes choice away from the universe, he breaks it for his own gain.

[aortaobservatory]

Hi :] Very happy you started this classpect questionnaire thing, I was trying to figure it out for quite a while. Here are my answers: 1. What is most important to you? Indulging in my creative hobbies, such as crocheting, sewing, drawing. Stuff that requires me to sit for hours repeating essentially the same thing. Having lots of alone time. I love solitude and I need to have my own personal isolated space in which I feel most comfortable. 2. Why is this important to you? Because it gives me comfort and stability. I feel like I'm in my element, and I want to stay there for the rest of time. I "replenish my battery" when I'm completely alone, and social interaction drains it very very fast. 3. Why do you do what you do? I know that I'm good at what I do, I've been into art since I was born, and it's an important, if not the main driving force of my life. I couldn't live without being able to draw something at least once a day. And the art I do is for myself, for me to put in my room, for me to enjoy doing it. 4. What frustrates or upsets you most?

This question was he hardest to me, I can't really think of any specific thing that frustrates or upsets me the most. I seem to accept a lot of things, I'm not very upset about anything unless it directly meddles with what's important to me, like for example keeps me away from indulging in my hobbies. I usually brush off hateful comments or any kind of remarks about what I like, I don't dwell on them continue doing my thing. Everyone is entitled to have their own opinion about it, but in the end what matters to me is that I like it. So as long as someone/something doesn't directly, physically disturb it, I'm fine. But even if something upsets me, I still forgive pretty fast. 5. What is in your way? What are your flaws? How do you overcome this? I have trouble expressing my thoughts. A lot of times, the point I want to make is more like a feeling, an emotion, or a visualization. It frustrates me that I can't put it all into words. When I do try to explain, I do it in a roundabout way and in the end nothing really makes sense. I struggle to trust people and don't expect too much of them, as well as feeling empathy towards someone in a bad situation. Most of the time. I'm like "oh well, it is what it is", even though I do try to empathize. I'm very passive and indifferent to many things around me, that are outside of my range of interest, and I forget about stuff that I need to do "in real life". 6. Are you okay with that? Mostly. I have a mentality of "everyone has their own flaws, nobody's perfect, all we can do is accept them". I don't really try to overcome my flaws. I can identify them in me, but that's all. I know that I could overcome them if I pushed myself to change, but I do nothing about it.

(journey of creation, crochet repetition -> Space-Time), Breath

(desire to stay in the journey, no ending goal? -> Space-Time), Breath (weak inverse -> Blood)

(Embodiment, deep knowledge -> Heir-Mage), (Self-assured -> Witch), (If knowledge is self-assured, then -> Witch-Seer), (surrounded by aspect -> Witch-Seer OR Heir)

(passive? -> Heir), (confident? -> Witch)

(inverse -> Time), Breath

(unchanging? -> Heir), (content in the self? -> Witch)

[Questionnaire]

Right away, you struck me as one bound to Space-Time. While I tend to focus on Space's other traits within my blog (as they are oft neglected), many say that Space is the aspect of art, and they are not incorrect. Art is, itself, a journey of creation. I believe that to draw so often as you do is to do so for the process of making (Space), rather than what comes of it (Time). You do so for the journey, rather than the ending goal.

You have some wisps of Breath, and you have a weak inverse in Blood - particularly, you favor your isolation (Breath), and are indifferent towards others (Blood). As well, you tend to be detached, and social interaction with others tires you very quickly. You may consider Sylph of Breath, but it is a weak match in my opinion, as Sylphs, even of Breath, are not entirely indifferent to other people. (They merely fear what might destroy their independence.) I'm not sure another Class of Breath has the potential to match what little of Breath-Blood I can see in you.

Mmm. In all honesty, I'm having some trouble. At first, your answers gave me Heir of Space, but I doubt you fit it exactly. You deeply know some things about Time as the inverse Mage would, but a Mage knows both good and bad. A Mage, even an inverse one, is typically even a little bit frustrated with their associated aspect, but you don't mention any negatives regarding this.

However... when I went back through your answers again, I noticed a few more things. You know some things about Time. I now wonder if such knowledge came from voluntary study rather than an involuntary intimate understanding of it via experience. If so, you may be a Witch of Space. Not Jade's kind of Witch of Space, however. The second kind of Witch of Space. Rather than embodying innovation and variation, as Jade did, the second Witch of Space embodies journeys and patience.

How I define Witches is the opposite of an Heir. While Heirs fully embody and perhaps embody too much of their aspect, a Witch does not fully embody and perhaps embodies too little of their aspect because they pick and choose. Typically, classpects can be defined under one basic, vague archetype (classpect definitions, IE, Seer of Heart -> One who Studies Identity). But due to the nature of the Witch, instead of one archetypal kind of Witch, there are at minimum, two. It may be further understood in a more basic sense that while an Heir fully embodies their aspect, a Witch half embodies their aspect (which does mean there can be at least two types of the Witch class within just one aspect, if not more. The Witch class is extremely variant.) Witch of Space (A) -> One who Embodies Variation and Changes Journeys, VS, Witch of Space (B) -> One who Embodies Journeys and Changes Variation.

If you are a Witch, only you can define yourself. Witches (and Seers, for that matter) often have to self-define, because nobody knows them better than themselves. All I can do is provide basic guidelines. Ultimately, you decide what fits.

[hungeringheart]

Aside from the Captors, what are other plausible reasons/scenarios for a human player to have a dreamself on both Prospit and Derse? And/or maybe a classpect that's somehow associated with the reason/scenario?

Hello there! Thanks for the ask, as always!

I think the first point we should consider is that whatever Sollux and Mituna's (by the way, how are we supposed to say Mituna? /MI.tu.nə/, like in Sanskrit, or mih-TOO-nuh with an American accent?) Deal Is, it's not replicable by human players. The Vision Twofold, which is probably responsible for the dual dreaming thing, seems to be a type of psionics, which is a troll sensory thing humans don't have.

That actually doesn't strike me as anything to do with a special exception in the game rules - the game adapts to the abilities of the players, after all. We have preexisting evidence of that (ooh, spooky!).

There are a number of potential interpretations of exactly how, but that's not super relevant just now - what's important is that we should understand that Sollux and Mituna's genetics and culture are more relevant to their two dream selves than any pre-existing game mechanics as such. Not meta-narratively - meta-narratively the relationship is exactly reversed - but within the scope of the story, from Sollux's perspective, the game is reflecting something that's already got a precedent in his lifeway. To us that lifeway and its game consequence is obviously a satire drawing on some of our myths, but from his point of view, SGRUB contains a provision for his vision twofold because it's a game made by people who know about it.

So then, when might it be narratively interesting for someone human to have two dream selves? What kind of human person do you need to be to experience that?

Let's consider some human mythology - and when I say mythology please hear with utmost seriousness that I don't mean to imply anything at all about the relationship of what is mythologically true to what is empirically observable. I use the word "myth" in a strictly anthropological sense -- the way people construct and live with their world, wherever they consider the center of the world to be.

A lot of human cultures have the idea that your spirit bumbles off somewhere when you dream. Given Homestuck uses the imagery of Christianity and Gnosticism and their relation to cycles of abuse extensively (someone once phrased the thesis of the Lord English plot as "life is your dad beating you with a belt, right up until you either become a dad or break the cycle"), let's examine an Abrahamic view.

Both Jewish and Muslim tradition, and iirc the tradition of many of the Orthodox churches, has it that the soul leaves the body when sleeping, to go somewhere else. This soul is singular, often in the form of some sort of bird (which is why I really like to link birds to the Heart aspect in my fanon), and the body and its breath may or may not learn what the leaving soul saw on its journey. This is why you forget most dreams.

You don't really get two of these under normal circumstances -- you can have many soul parts or souls depending on who you are and what your lifeway is (this is a kind of view common among some indigenous cultures that aren't Abrahamic), but you dream with one soul.

However! I'm a firm believer in the idea that you can do whatsoever the hell you want with your fanon, and I happen to know of a concept that will help.

In some parts of Eastern Europe (independent of religion) there's an old-fashioned autochthonous folk belief in "two-spirits", but not in like a cool gender way; in the sense of one person with two souls or hearts. This type of person can be any gender, and they have one good human soul, but that soul shares them with an animal or evil soul, which leaves at night along with the regular soul. It then goes around causing harm, in its own shape (an old explanation for sleepwalking) or in the shape of an object or animal. The person won't remember what it did, necessarily, unless they happen to be a witch -- they'll be busy remembering their normal dreams...

And so, see, if you were to have this person (who is an unlucky charm, by the way, often someone conceived while their mother was menstruating) as a player in a session, they could absolutely dream on two moons simultaneously, their selves totally unaware of each other. That could be a very strong Heart plotline, if you wrote it right, but then you'd have to lean hard into this aspect of their identity, probably. Lots of sifting through dicey Rodnover websites, down that road.

That covers one fairly regular and banal way for one individual to dream on two moons. There are other cultures with similar ideas, and for characters in these contexts it would be possible to do that. Homestuck is about growing up, and that's about identity in no small part, and that, in turn, depends a lot on where you are.

Another even more regular and banal way for a double dreaming situation to happen is if the individual is a chimera, and absorbed a twin -- plenty of such people have their own spiritual beliefs about the twin they form a mosaic with, again modulated by culture.

If you're not tethered to that limitation (that it be grounded in something connected to how the world is structured), your character could have a dissociative disorder and their distinct personality states could possibly each dream separately -- but then you come into the weeds of having to figure out whether and how they negotiate the possibility of being two people, and whether they still qualify... it's not easy! It's a decision you have to make for yourself, in your own writing.

My instinct, obviously, is to connect this to some sort of instability they have to overcome as a player of Heart or Blood -- but you could probably do the same thing with Mind, and of course the canon characters who have this distinction are heroes of Doom.

Whatever you decide to do, do it with your whole heart (or two ;)) and don't feel tethered to the limitations of canon! I think the whole point of the limitations of canon is that they're shaped by who the players are just as much as they shape the players, you know?

[rogue-of-heart-classpecting]

Hiiii!!!! hav u done a witch of heart and a heir of space yet??

WITCH OF HEART

The witch is someone who thinks outside the aspect box. They have strange opinions about what their aspect means and should be. The witch of space jade could see into the future and would fulfill time loops for fun. The witch of life feferi created an entirely rethought governing system for alternia which was more gentle and nurturing, if more overbearing and restrictive. They think about their aspect in a different way than everyone else. Jades fucking dog can teleport her, not in the way teleport usually works on tv, but by… BECOMING the new setting by expanding into it like a tunnel turning inside out. Feferis planet is built on blood and entrails. Grubs are culled for being different. Every troll over 18 years is called into active service for the interstellar army. Witches just… have a different opinion than the rest of the crowd. They twist their aspect around, changing it into whatever they see fit to make it look like. Jade can manipulate the shape of whole planets and snap people to the outer ring of the universe. Feferi can revive people and, I assume, suck the life out of them as well. I wonder if she could move the life from one person INTO another person. She probably could. The rule with homestuck powers is if you can imagine it, it becomes real. The kids imagine ways to use their powers and they discover they then have that ability.

Heart is about… who you are, what you believe, and how you feel. It is emotional, it is raw. Heart is feelings. A witch of heart… would be able to change… who people are. You could switch peoples bodies or give them different opinions. You could make emotions bigger or smaller, you could move them out of their body perhaps, pulling out their emotions into a little… endorphin ball, I guess. A witch of heart would have strange opinions about emotion compared to their culture. A private culture would have a WoH who thinks everyone should express themselves freely, an open culture would have a WoH who thinks people should keep their feelings hidden. The witch would want to change the world; the way their aspect is used and viewed in their world. A witch of heart could direct emotion toward an object or person of interest. They could turn a crowd against someone. Witches are very powerful, and can be very dangerous. But when you move aspect around, it always has to go somewhere. You have to remember that when writing or imagining classpect powers.

HEIR OF SPACE

The heir is probably the most comfortable with their aspect that a class can be. Say your aspect was… bananas. This guy would already be a grocer, have a yellow bedroom, slip on things a lot… actually, they might be adept at NOT slipping. They could be an ice skater. Banana skater. Jesus this analogy sucks. The heir is also powerful and their aspect comes to their aid early in their session when they need it. This banana heir would be able to summon a banana when starving… or a peel to trip an enemy.

The heir of space will be prolific at some kind of creative activity. Building, weaving, drawing, sewing. Anything like that. But since the heir is kind of low key about how they interact with their aspect, they would refer to it as a kind of casual hobby despite their skill. And the amount of time they spend doing it. An heir of space would be able to throw enemies (or themselves) away from a fight if they were in danger. They could build a bridge or move the ground closer or keep a crumbling cliff up while standing on it. Imagine they’re maybe falling from a height and they just build the ground up like in the sims with the build tool. … Would that still kill you? Whatever. The writing’s up to you. As the heir gets more powerful they would be able to command this power more. John had to do some serious soul searching and thinking hard to discover his potential power-wise. Maybe this person would be able to make a new other website or something. Like how Dave made sbahj and we can just go to that site and see them? Even though they were made by Dave? Something like that. They could put something in the REAL world. It depends what you need the character to do… maybe they could freeze the narrative somehow… not time-wise, but by actually creating snow and ice everywhere to like. “Pause.” Maybe like Aang froze himself in ice to run away. Aang is actually maybe… a great example of a potential heir of space! He INHERITS mastery over the natural world. Heirs inherit. John “inherited” power over the narrative, equius became the void… mituna embodied doom. This person would BECOME space. When Aang masters the elements, I guess he would inherit the title of “being” space, via the 4 elements.

[mabeysomeclasspecting]

Hey, I think your classpecting blog is really cool, and I especially find the fact that you give classpecting analyses to be the coolest part! As a result, I was wondering if you could give me one too? (Also, if I wrote too much, I apologise.) If you do so, thank you in advance!

From, ♦️🧡🟨

What are your interests/hobbies?

I have several of them. They include:

- Creating many forms of 2D art and animation, such as digital art, watercolour painting, and gouache painting.

- Producing music (but I don't take it as seriously as my art, so I'm not well-versed or experienced with it).

- Playing video games. My favourite ones are either story-focused, or those that pose a challenge that I find riveting.

- Listening to music. I enjoy trying to introduce myself to as many new albums and EPs as I can, especially while drawing.

That's not all of my interests, but those are ones I am the most emotionally invested in.

How do you see yourself?

I'll be honest about this one: it's not in the best light.

I tend to see myself as a weak and incompetent person trying so hard to prove they are anything but, especially by being incredibly self-reliant, even in times where deep down, I want to be helped yet I feel undeserving of it.

I also tend to have really intense emotions, and can act recklessly based on them if they are left unchecked. This is something that I've learned through several occasions that it isn't a good thing, so I try my best to not be so emotionally intense. This goes to the point where I just straight up repress my emotions and act very aloof and passive most of the time due to this. Still, there are times where I will snap (especially when no one is around to see it).

Though, I guess one good thing I see in myself is that I like helping people. I'm trying not to be cheesy about this, but I try to go out of my way to help others, especially those I care about to show them exactly that. Even if I constantly feel a disconnect from other people, I still care about those I choose to let into my life. Other than that, I actually suck at showing people that I care about them, either by acting too standoffish or by being too annoying about it.

In the end, I feel like a being who tries their hardest to prove that they are enough of a human to be worthy of acceptance from others.

How do you think others see you?

This is a tough one, but I'll try to answer it anyway.

Apparently, people see me as someone worth admiring. I would say this is especially due to the artwork I create and the knowledge I am willing to provide, especially about matters relating to art.

However, those closer to me often see me as cute and innocent, with a side of sass and bluntness that somehow manages to coexist with it. Though, I do worry about being seen as innocent because even though I know it's a way of acting that I took on to try to avoid conflict, it makes me feel like I can't be taken as seriously when I feel like I need to be.

Back to the question, I feel as if to most people, I'm only worth perceiving because of what I do rather than who I am. In fact, I only managed to acquire the friends that I currently have because "I was helpful". Now that I think about it, I was literally told that everybody liked me, and even though I tend to doubt it, I try to not let it get in the way of things because I care about them and I don't want to drag them down with me. That and I prefer being private about myself, especially when it comes to my interests. Still, It's stuff like this that makes me question and overthink it all when people see me as a worthy person to admire or care about, so I constantly strive to do what I can to prove myself wrong by not disappointing them.

How do you interact with your friends?

As stated earlier, I am a passive and aloof person, and I can safely draw this conclusion due to how I interact with my friends.

I care about my friends in ways that feel difficult for me to show to them. I try to do what I can for them to get the message across, but it never seems like it's enough. Sometimes, I might even break my own strict set of rules for my own behaviour to fulfill favours for them.

Most of the time, I don't often start or participate in conversation; I'm often just listening. Occasionally, I might throw in remarks here in there, and on occasion, they're accidentally funny enough to make around half the group laugh. But on other occasions, these remarks might end up starting conversations that my friends themselves seem to participate in, giving me more to listen to. What I'm basically saying is that I'm the quiet friend who doesn't really contribute much and is occasionally funny, especially by accident.

However, they don't really seem to come to me about any deep emotional stuff, yet they'll come to each other for that. I guess I can blame how shallow I seem from an emotional standpoint, and how scared I feel to even talk about anything like that. Due to this, when I feel absolutely stressed or unneeded, I isolate myself from them to deal with things by myself, only to come back when I'm sure I feel okay again.

What’s important to you? (Specific people, ideas, morals, objects, ect.)

Having good interpersonal relationships is something that I consider to be important. Sure, I might want my own space for a good amount of the time, but I still want to be with people. Unfortunately, having this sort of thing is difficult to achieve, let alone maintain from my perspective.

Being able to do what I want to is also something I consider very important. In fact, I spent a good amount of my life chasing the dream of becoming an artist who can live off their work. Such a dream (along with other things) has also made me into a sort of "black sheep" in my family, in that in trying to chase it, I stubbornly refused to take up any interests that older family members had. For reasons I won't get into, this ended up being a good thing.

Being a good person is also something I see as important. I especially feel this way due to realising that there was a point in life where I lost a group of friends I had from being a toxic person. I still find it hard to forgive myself for that because being a toxic person was the thing that I never wanted to be at all. So naturally, I try everything I can to do better than that.

Describe the ideal you, what kind of person do you strive to be?

There's so much I want to be in life, and even though I don't feel sure that I can achieve it all, I try anyway. I want to know how to settle down with and connect to other people, mostly because I know from a rational standpoint that I shouldn't keep relying on myself for everything I could ever want, even though I continue to do so anyway out of fear. I wish I could feel in control of myself, and that especially shows through how I try to get a handle on my feelings by isolating myself. I also want to be an emotionally and mentally strong person, so that I can be more helpful to people in even more ways that don't just involve my knowledge and skill with art.

Hi, thanks for the compliment! I'm always happy to do a request

Aspects: Space, Void, Mind

Classes: Rogue, Sylph, Knight

Out of these, I think that Rogue of Space, Sylph of Void, or Knight of Mind would suit you best!

Hope this helps!

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[takashi0]

Why do you like Homestuck?

The original Homestuck was an experience quite unlike anything else. 

I tried getting into it when it was still kinda early on but it just didn’t click with me, but I tried again at the insistence of my cousin and the second time the jokes started landing with me better. I’m just one of those people who needs to be sufficiently motivated to start reading things like novels or else I’ll lose interest, but thankfully Act 1′s jokes (and the question of “What’s the deal with those troll weirdos?” I wanna find out) kept me going. I could go on about how Homestuck was a fantastic representation of 2009 to mid 2010′s internet culture. And about how even though Hussie got rid of the command box as the story outgrew its roots as a successor to Problem Sleuth and his earlier works that were homages to old text adventure games, the way Hussie himself would respond to theories and predictions from the fandom itself made it clear that the story had outgrown him and become something bigger that in a sense was owned by the fandom itself.  But other people have already done that and done it better than I could hope to.  I could also mention Hussie’s usage of metanarrative themes and just how insanely hard he goes when it comes to thematic significance of how he builds characters, the trolls especially. 

But that’s what people like LaureledEevees, OptimisticDuelist, and the MSPAwiki are for.

There’s really a lot of things that draw me to Homestuck.

The Character writing is really strong, pretty much everyone involved has strong personalities even if their time in the spotlight is relatively short, and they grow in interesting ways and bounce off the other cast members in fun ways

For that matter, Character Design alone’s pretty good too, especially on the Troll side of things and once the human kids start alchemizing actual outfits/ascend to godtier.

The worldbuilding from SBURB itself to Alternia is pretty rich and memorable, and the Classpect system is just one of those things that’s fun to build OCs with and implement on other characters.

The music that accompanies it is one fucking banger after another (which is to be expected when Toby “Undertale” Fox is involved with a good portion of it)

It’s really goddamn funny a lot of the time. If you so much as chuckle at the followup to “John: squawk like an imbecile and shit on your desk”? Chances are you’re probably hooked. Assuming it doesn’t take until Act 2 or 3. 

Without spoilers, the sheer level of STAKES the plot goes through and the overwhelming, dominating aura of dread where characters can and WILL die at any time, repeatedly, and if they don’t fight tooth and nail and accomplish things in just the right ways the depths of their failure are beyond fathoming is pretty awe-inspiring.

The characters go through Hell and back and through tons of tragedy and bad shit that makes for some damn good storytelling

And to be fully honest to God truthful it just takes me back to a much, much better period of time in my life. A time when the absolute Hellworld of the discourse that’s spread to the entire world via twitter and is currently ensuring the collapse of society/sliding of it into further nightmarish dystopian authoritarianism was contained solely to tumblr and was small enough for people to rightfully mock it instead of it growing large enough to ensure that your life was ruined because of how the powers at be realized what an amazing tool cancel culture was.

It takes me back to a better, simpler time. When it shared its spot with MLP as the king of fandoms. When the HUB existed and we thought it would be the savior of western animation on television before it burned out like a candle at both ends. Back in the era that tumblr calls “Cringe” as if overly enthusiastic doofuses weren’t INFINITELY PREFERABLE to the absolute joyless and spiteful Hell that exists now. Back when there was an outpouring of creativity that wasn’t stifled by FanPol. The last shining years of the internet’s Live and Let Live culture that would soon be shredded by the woke zombies who want everyone to be miserable and gain clout from it. 

Back in the day when I still had some measure of hope for humanity and when I wasn’t horribly nihilistically depressed and constantly in fear for the state of the world. 

Before the SU fandom. Before Voltron’s fandom. Before Kpoppers. Before hollywood started taking the fun out of movies and the normies just let them do it. Before Funimation fell from grace and Sony gained a monopoly on Anime distribution in the West. Before the constant fucking screaming of ORANGE MAN BAD!!!!!!! for four fucking years straight when people just adamantly refused to let you talk about ANYTHING OTHER THAN TRUMP FOR FOUR. FUCKING. YEARS. 

And especially before the absolute abomination that was the Homestuck Epilogues and HS^2, which I and many others already covered on how much it took everything that people loved about Homestuck and shat all over it. 

Just.

It gives me good feelings, you know? And I think we could all use some of that these days. As much as we can. 

[murdereraisuha]

Classpecting TWST: Savanaclaw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[dyketubbo]

my ask didnt send i am going to murder. anyway BEEP CLASSPECTING... now im thinking abt that and aimsey. from the top of my head/only briefly thinking, beep as rage or void vibes with me? (obvs not the typical rage player you see, more like the nuance we were discussing). and aimsey as a life player?

oooo void beep would be suuper cool :oc rage too, he is very fucking stubborn and does have outbursts rather often (also rage players in canon usually have connections to magic, and then the homestuck rage players all had religious themes so, god stuff). meanwhile void fits beeps heavy "this is all irrelevant and you could never understand any of this", and his own belief that even what he does just doesnt matter. personality under a veil (not necessarily a facade), fundamental inability to understand and truly perceive it all.

id say he doesnt fit rage enough, if only because rage players are fundamentally about survival instinct, and, well. beeps already dead, and he seems to be perfectly fine with the fact that one day he just wont exist at all. hes not scared, though he is easily pissed off, but in the end he just sort of likes messing with shit and being in control. lil dickhead (affectionate)

honestly, since he almost fits rage but not quite, he.. almost acts like a prince of hope (unfortunate eridan kinnie). destroying beliefs and asserting his reality as the Absolute Truth, dragging others like aimsey into his delusions and being in a situation where aimseys putting her faith into him even though hes not a good person because she feels the need to believe in him and connect with him, because she genuinely feels like hes the only friend they have left, and because aimsey wants desperately to believe in what beep is trying to show her, desperately wants to understand. he shuts down things he believes to be false, to the point where he can make them false by simply destroying the problem.

hes a force of outward destruction, destroying what he believes to be flaws in others. theyre heavily defensive, putting everyone beneath them, believing hes the one thats doing it Right, and ultimately, he believes its his right to control things. he doesnt trust anyone, he reacts to any fear he may have with anger, lashes out, and the "TELL. NO ONE" scene almost showcases beep shattering and hurting aimsey before he steps back and give a quick "sorry!". his arc seems to be leading up to him realizing he can care about aimsey, that he can trust her to believe him and in him, and he seems to be dealing with the concept of trusting aimsey with his beliefs

hes definitely not a general hope player, but specifically prince of hope could fit. onto possible void class combos, with, first, the notable fact that we dont know what kind of person beep may have been in the past, other than that he was destructive. we know about some events in his past, and how he feels about them (kinda), but generally, this means hes very versatile and has many class possibilities, depending on how we want to interpret what we do know.

for example, he could be a maid whose now in the apeshit stage, stubborn and repressive. its entirely possible he got so tired of listening to the other spirits that he got to the unhealthy stage, exploded, and now without anything stopping him, hes doing whatever the fuck he wants, because hes decided none of it matters, that its all irrelevant and he doesnt have to care because its his fucking universe and no one can stop him from playing god. he spends his time doing menial things, because to him, its all equally unimportant, so why not waste time? he cuts down unnecessary tasks, weeds out what he finds useless, etc etc. basically, he should still be independent, but he needs to be brought back down to earth (metaphorically), because hes kind of burnt himself out and is now fucking with things because he feels none of it matters anyways

sylph of void sort of works too, mainly his meddling and tendency to shut down anything that could reveal something he doesnt want revealed, as well as shutting down others viewpoints and he covers up shit whenever he wants. his motivations are, really, mostly unknown to us, other than that he seems to think this is fun. otherwise, he also has a tendency to try and fix things he thinks needs fixing (like getting rid of fairies and space creatures), and will often try to fix mistakes he sees in mortals. however, slyphs are ultimately healers, and beep just. is not a healer, and he doesnt necessarily invite creation of void in any way, since void isnt really destruction of anything, and what he does invite is destruction of things. hes also just too active to be a slyph

so, with the previous prince assession, theres also the possibility of him being a prince of light, which would mean he would act more like a void player. hed destroy light with light, destroy the importance of information with information. they strip away the importance of things, uses plain fact to force the perception that nothings really important. he dismisses the importance of things, purposefully acts ignorant to draw away from what he knows, destroys knowledge itself from a power standpoint (wiping aimseys memory), and in extreme cases, can physically destroy anything in his way, or assert over and over that what he said/did isnt real, that nothings true or important other than what hes saying. again, little shit. if i had to make up my mind, i think prince of light fits the most

as for aimsey, i think life does fit him really well, shes definitely got the similar "girl next door" kind of vibes, while still being really interesting in her own right. she definitely starts out as a typical fictional life player, enthusiastic, energetic, genuine, wanting to effect the world. shes a normal girl (and this isnt an insult, rather, her being so normal ties the magical themes of the bear smp together really well, and its a perfect way to use a life player, make them be a catalyst for both the normal life player and eccentric others to shine). however, as she struggles with losing trust in bear and not being treated well, not having anyone that cares about them specifically, the energy starts to falter, but comes back when they feel the need to be rebellious. notably, while aspects arent super literal, she contrasts beep so much in just how alive she is, which fits her being a life player rather well. except, as i said, aspects arent literal, which means aimsey being a life player translates to her showing what life means in a metaphorical sense.

life is about agency. its about what you do, your ability to do so, its about asserting your will. not what drives you, but simply you doing at all. interesting enough, life players can be hard to pin down because life is about desire and agency, while the players class defines their ideology. life players can become obsessed with an idea that they need to do something, that they need to change how systems work, and often can cloak their want to fulfill their individual desires as altruistic want to fulfill others needs and desires (i.e., aimsey wants a friend and someone who pays attention to her and is genuine towards her, she feels like shes found that in beep, and as such starts to cloak her want to be his friend as aimsey wanting to help beep rather than aimsey themself).

as for said class.. this was, hard. because of how heavily influenced life is by the class its paired with, and because aimseys arc right now is trying to deal with feeling like shes too much and unneeded, it means that i have to really consider how that connects with which classes struggles. so, i ended up with sylph. aimsey is a creator, and she tries to heal as well. "allowing creation/healing of life or inviting creation/healing through life". from a literal standpoint, she tries to help bear heal by trying to get him to open up, to live, to make friends and interact with people. this could almost seem like a blood player move, but while a lot of aimseys arc is about bonds and relationships, shes not really a strong connecter or leader, shes just good at inspiring others to be, to her own detriment.

also notably, unhealthy sylphs crave, whether craving more of their own aspect, or craving another aspect when they feel theirs is not enough. aimsey talks a lot about how she grew up doing things by her lonesome, and now that she feels like people are moving on without her, she may be craving blood (that sounds so awful out of context). she wants attachments, wants to be the person that brings everyone together, but.. she isnt, not in a way thats appreciated. and due to her insecurities, she sees this as a flaw within himself, and as something to fix. so, she latches onto beep, and desperately tries to have as much of an effect on their life as they do on hers. like life players in general, sylphs try to solve their problems under the guise of helping someone else with theirs. currently, aimsey seems to be trying to find what she needs to do, because when she tried to do what she thought she needed to do, she (from her perspective) failed, so now shes trying to make up for her perceived failure within herself by trying to help herself through helping beep. i would think into it even more but i think its probably best to just leave it here KEKW

[homestuckexamination]

ive always thought that any of the Destruction class seem to 'ghost' the opposite aspect's general personality traits. like how Gamzee is a Bard of Rage yet he acts chill all the time. When Rage is generally thought of as 'angry, mad, insane, etc' (if you dont dig enough of course), but then when you dig into Gamzee just a tiny little bit deeper the true meaning of what his aspect is shown (him doing the murders on the meteor, that one time someone said he snapped and did a lot of damage to his black king, etc). what i mean is that Destroyers always seem to do a double reacharound with their aspects. this also applies to Kurloz (seems chill, does a lot of stuff for lord english)

another example is Dirk being seen as a cool kid and thought to be always calm and collected and never shows emotions (like how Bro is), but you dig a little deeper and its a mess of emotions down there.

at least that what i think, the only one that doesnt seem to fit with my theory is Cronus but maybe that's because i dont really know him that well

It does fit in that sense but also I think that in itself is a misunderstanding of Aspects in themselves! Rage is not only anger and madness, and Mind Players aren’t cold, collected, emotionless machines, and that is why I really dislike the Destroyer Ghosting idea, because it is based on a very basic assumption of what the Aspects have to act like.

Even working within those parameters, Gamzee for example is angry and mad, he just muddles it with Sopor. Afterwards he doesn’t even mellow out- Remember him beating Terezi within an inch of her life in Game Over? But beyond that, the seemingly ‘carefree’ and ‘helpful clown’ persona, the turncoat nature, his subtle manipulation, he’s such a chaotic and theatrical character, he fits Rage so well!

Likewise with Dirk. As I said, Mind Players aren’t emotionless, cold machines. God, look at Terezi. She’s such a complex, conflicted character with so much depth and personality and emotion. But even going by the idea, Dirk isn’t a Cold and Emotionless machine either. Even AR, a literal robot, shows himself to push an agenda because of his existential conflict- Trying to ‘help’ aid in Dirk’s romantic endeavors, trying to make something out of himself despite his major limitations. And similarly Dirk himself tries to keep a cool facade in the same way Dave does. Dirk is heavily driven by his emotions. He has a deep existential dread and fear of disappearing, of failure, of being forgotten. He has an overbearing ‘knows best’ personality, that may make him seem detached, but that stems from thinking he knows people like he knows himself, and as such is able to try and push his own personal way of being upon them. He has a deep appreciation for his friends- Trusting Jane to a fault, having such a deep appreciation with Roxy that mixes with regret of being unable to provide what she wants when they’re young, because he knows who he’s attracted to, but he also loves her deeply and platonically looking up to her, valuing her worth more than his own, seeing her as the one holding the group together and having her shit the most straight, DESPITE the fact he had to bear with drunken advances during her teens. And don’t even get me started about Dirk and Jake. Good lord that can of worms. Dirk is almost entirely driven by what he feels for others, and his fuck-ups in reading and handling them, and his own mixture of ‘knows best’ toxic behavior, and ‘you lack worth, you need to prove yourself’ insecurities.

Sorry I always go on rants when Ghosting is brought up, and I do think Ghosting has its uses! Specially also in the power sense. Like, if you Destroy Light, you’re probably leaving Void in its wake, right? so mechanical applications work like that. But when it comes to Aspects as a core of the character, none is chosen because they’re Actually More Like The Opposite. You CAN draw these ghosting or inversion parallels with many characters, not JUST Destroyers, you can see influence that goes beyond with Roleplay, and you can always see the Classpect Kernel, no matter how far gone or how different they may be in one Timeline or Another. Classpects are a majorly convoluted system with so many intertwined branches, and that is why, when people ask me about Classpects, I always mention ‘tendencies’ and ‘possibilities’. There’s not One Way for a Class, or Aspect, or Classpect to be. And often times, in different circumstances, for different people, two players with the same Classpect may literally seem like polar opposites. So yeah. That’s my take on the idea of Destroyer Ghosting.

[pyrotechnicperigee]

TommyInnit - Knight of Blood

SMP Character:

TommyInnit is almost a textbook Knight of Blood. His SMP character "cares deeply about those close to him" and "Tommy's care for those close to him lead him to fight for their cause."¹ He is motivated by his attachments to people and things. He is "stubbornly loyal" and "won't hesitate to stop others from harming his friends."² Tommy is also “terrified of being lonely” and refuses to confide in others or ask for help regarding his own internal struggles or weaknesses.³ These are the foundational elements of Tommy’s character, and make up the majority of his interactions with the main plot.

Aspect: Blood

Tommy embodies the Blood aspect through his motivations. He is the person who is the bringer of ‘attachments’ to the server. “Those bound to the aspect of Blood draw their strength from bonds, from the trust and camaraderie that blooms among a group of people who all share a single vision.”⁴ Tommy draws his strength from his friends and allies and the things that he cares for deeply, like the discs, Henry, and more.

Blood players are more inspirational leaders, rallying together people in the darkest hour, like Doomsday. Blood players can get diverse groups of people to work together to fight against a common enemy, like with Doomsday and in the Hall of Attachments. Dream’s speech in the Hall of Attachments also cements Blood-bound Tommy, acknowledging Tommy’s connections throughout the server and how those connections shape the plot around him.

Tommy is also a Blood player in his slight incongruence of ideals and actions. Blood players “can be very "do as I say, not as I do" types,” and Tommy occasionally finds himself making decisions that go against what even he expects.⁵ Most of his decisions are influenced by his loyalty to others, but they sometimes conflict with his closest values. For example, the stream where he tortured Fundy and the fight with Tubbo at the Green Festival. While both were choices made by Tommy, he regretted them and realized that he was becoming someone he didn’t want to be.

Class: Knight

Knights are defined as “one who serves [aspect] or serves through [aspect] for the betterment of others” or “one who protects/conceals [aspect],” both definitions apply to Tommy’s character if we acknowledge his aspect as Blood.⁶ Tommy is fiercely loyal to those he is attached to. His loyalty to Wilbur is what prompted him to stay by Wilburs side in Pogtopia, his loyalty to Tubbo is what caused him to leave Techno’s side, his loyalty to L’Manberg is what prompted him to continue to try and rally people to save it, even when others had given up on it. One could even argue that Tommy’s dedication to L’Manberg is born out of a continued and unwavering loyalty to Wilbur and his ideals. Knights commonly have unwavering loyalty to those closest to them, or to those who they consider to be the leader.

Knights of Blood “will do anything to mend friendships together and stop their team from falling apart,” similar to how Tommy would be reckless and impulsive in order to mend his relationship with Tubbo, and grasp at straws to bring everyone together for Doomsday.⁷

The Knight class masks a perceived lack of something or insecurity by putting up a front in order to seem strong, capable, etc. Knights are also unwilling to be vulnerable about their struggles and they “have a tendency to mask their true feelings in order to showcase themselves in a specific manner.”⁸ This correlates with Tommy’s ‘Big Man’ persona and his unwillingness to share his mental health struggles with anyone. The mask that Tommy puts up is the comedic and strong persona in order to cover up or make up for his insecurities.

Other Possibilities:

Most people seem to agree on at least some part of this classpect, and I’ve even seen some people label him Knight of Blood, or at least offer it as a possibility. However, there are some other classes and aspects that are commonly given to Tommy or debated and I’m going to argue why those don’t fit his character as well as Knight of Blood.

Knight of Time

I know he’s already got so many things in common with Dave, but the classpect is unfortunately not one of those things. Time players have a much more ruthless tendency that Tommy lacks. Time players are usually connected to the timeline, time travel, time manipulation, and have a death motif.⁹ Tommy lacks the connection to the aspect of Time (I’d argue Karl is a shoe-in Time player) and he also lacks the ruthlessness and one-track-mind that Time players possess. His attachments play a much bigger role than any other element does in his motivations, which is why Blood was chosen instead of any other element.

Thief of Blood

Thieves are active classes that “steal or take their aspect for themselves,” and I don’t see Tommy stealing attachments from others. Another aspect of Thieves is that they usually “lack” their aspect and have to steal it, and Tommy is in no way lacking Blood/attachments. Thieves are the “lone wolf” class and they are usually hesitant to form bonds with others due to their distrust. Thieves are also usually egotistical in nature and they have a tendency to work alone. To contrast, Tommy is a social person who needs to be around others, he prefers to work with other people, and isolation is extremely detrimental to him, which are all extremely uncharacteristic traits for a Thief.¹⁰

Thief of Heart

See above for the Thief class. The Heart aspect also lacks a lot of traits that would explain Tommy’s motivations. Heart players tend to be self-absorbed. They struggle with their own identity and are preoccupied with it. Heart is connected with the idea of the Soul, and is the emotional/intuitive foil to the Mind aspect. Heart is the aspect of attachment, but not in the same way Blood is. Heart players are more concerned with relationships, romance, and attraction. A Thief of Heart would steal attraction/emotions/souls from others for personal benefit. None of this sounds like Tommy’s motives or methods. ¹¹

Feel free to debate any of this! If you have a different opinion/different proof, the ask-box is wide open! ^u^

Citations:

1. DreamSMP Wiki

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. The Extended Zodiac

5. Ibid

6. Homestuck Wiki

7. Homestuck Examination

8. Homestuck Examination

9. Homestuck Wiki

10. Homestuck Examination

11. Homestuck Wiki