In some cases, I guess so. But I don’t really give Kanaya’s line about that that much weight, because I see the Classpects as just being descriptions of who the characters really are already. The characters are going to face challenges because there are challenges in life, and health and unhealthy ways to use their latent power.
Being kids, the characters often don’t know how to use that power in a way good for themselves or others. Learning how to use their power goes hand in hand in learning how to construct their own identities in a way that works for them.
He bottles up his emotions/feelings/self-expression, good or bad, to protect other people from his power. Then his power builds up through emotion and explodes in massive, usually highly destructive blasts of power. Inviting destruction through Heart/Emotion/Self/Soul/Being, or inviting destruction of Heart/Emotion/Self/Soul/Being, for others. Either effectively describes Mob, I think.
Fwiw, I’ve only watched the anime, so if more of that comes out or I eventually read the manga my view might change eventually. And with all of this stuff there’s always a possibility there’s a better/more precise reading. I’d be interested in seeing the case for Mob as a Page–I can see that too, honestly!
Why not both? My honest advice is that it’s a pretend superpower system, and it’s probably best to not stress yourself out about it too much. Personally, at this point, I’m kinda batting around Mage, Prince, Page, and Maid as classes that reflect different parts of myself. I have no idea which one I think is really the “real” me, but I’m kinda past the point of caring.
I kinda feel like the best ways to figure out how classpects help you think about your “true self” prooobably don’t necessitate ruthlessly trying to cage yourself to a particular interpretation because you believe there must absolutely be only one that “feels” right.
This is especially true since I don’t even think it works that way in canon. At this point I’m pretty certain Alternia’s trolls almost all deal in two aspects simultaneously: Their sign’s specific aspect, and the aspect of their caste’s true sign.
And I’m constantly talking about roleplay theory, which ultimately suggests every single class is available to everyone, always, because classes are ultimately vague cultural ideals of kinds of identities/behaviors that people are drawn to.
Everyone might be born linked to a particular kind of behavior/verb, and thus a particular class, but that just means their instincts and talents are particularly proficient there.
Mindfang p much implies you can learn other behaviors/archetypes and assimilate them into your person pretty effectively, as long as you understand yourself and gain experience/put work and thought into how you present yourself and behave in the world around you.
So does Doc Scratch. So do Dirk, Rose, Dave, Jake, Kanaya, Gamzee, and Karkat, in various ways–some of which i’ve talked about, some of which I haven’t. So I’m *fairly* confident Homestuck’s view of classpects as a guide for your behavior is more nuanced than beginning and ending with the player’s designated class.
If it does really matter to you to figure out the one specific class you feel you are, though, don’t let me discourage you, either. More power to you, pursue your happiness, etc. It just means I’m probably not the guy you wanna ask.
I’m honestly not super sure what the classpect scene is like nowadays, but even if she’s not currently doing classpect asks–she might be, i’m just not sure– @homestuckexamination might be a good place to ask.
I’d say just go with whichever one you like more/the one that makes you feel best and most inspired about yourself and your own potential. if you change your mind later thats ok too. it’s for fun, so have fun with it! 🙂
There’s some news here for the tiny godtier army! The extended zodiac revealed a lot of Life player, this is so great!!
Also, we have more and more Hope and Light player! And because they’re SO important to a session, I’m very happy to have a new Time and Space player in the army! 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜
I was SURE I reblogged this ages ago but woops it looks like not, but hey guys check out the adorable mini godtier I got from the amazingly talented nightcigale!! Thanks to @commakaze for commissioning it on my behalf, too–you guys are awesome ^^
I’d say Light, I think? Spot on with the Lord, though.
Thing about Gwyn is that, like Caliborn, he’s also a take on the figure of the Demiurge. Yaldabaoth was somewhat of a Gnostic criticism of the Christian “angry, jealous” god, but he’s really just a version of the Patriarch Sun/Sky god.
There’s plenty of those in mythology, and Caliborn at least relates to several, it seems to me–the Egyptian god Ra, and the Greek patriarch Zeus, for starters. Zeus is particularly interesting because the idea of the Demiurge originally surfaced in Greek philosophy, and Zeus himself was considered one such figure.
And Gwyn, with his lightning bolts and assorted pantheon, resembles Zeus more than any other fictional figure. Like all Demiurges, he’s a commander as much as a direct threat–he makes the world of Dark Souls what it is, even as he either exploits or degrades basically every single character in it.
A Lord to a T–in true Caliborn style.
(Not saying all Lords are necessarily evil or bad, btw. The Demiurge is just an interpretation of the archetype that emphasizes the Lord’s flaws and the consequences of their power, and stories that lean on the idea to explain why the world is so wrong obviously cast the Lord in a murky light.
Lots of people could point to stories of Lords who they consider positive figures, too–like ofc, the Lord God in Christianity. And that’s totally ok and just as valid–different stories will employ and interpret Archetypes in different ways, because archetypes themselves are just character patterns we recognize. They are absent of morality in and of themselves, I think.)
my opinion is that he’s a thief of blood, probably being forced into roleplaying a Knight (by way of butlering) to some extent, and ghosting “Breath” either as a result of that stress, the influence of the Breath-coded Bronze caste, or both.
so Thief of Blood->Knight of Breath, with the latter being unhealthy behavior he’s forced into. because of that influence, he’s taken at least one notable action that comes off like a Thief of Breath and Blood, simultaneously.
That would be the theft of Xefros’ hoverboard. Dammek takes Xefros’ stuff because Xefros lets him, and Xefros lets him either because they’re moirails or because of Xefros’ feelings for him. Either way, Dammek is stealing through the strength of their relationship–stealing through Blood.
But the hoverboard itself is a distinctly Breath item. It flies, it allows for motion and freedom, it advances the plot, and the laser it emits is distinctly Breath blue. Which means Dammek is stealing Breath.
Blood is how he actually achieves the theft–fitting, since it’s his natural strength. But Breath is what he’s choosing to steal, and imo that speaks to Dammek’s likely unhealthy state of mind and skewed priorities/self-image.
there’s actually not that much to go into on this one. There’s a tweet rolling around somewhere of Hussie saying that girls could be Princes when he was asked, so at least for fan-content purposes, the gender rule is simply Word of God debunked.
There’s also stuff like how Jake seems to roleplay a Witch. Which is roleplay, but y’anno, its still an example of a boy interacting with a traditionally “girl” coded Class. Of course, Jake also deconstructs some toxic tropes typically linked to femininity.
So at the very least, there’s some ambiguity to how gender is parsed in Classpects built into the text itself. That said, while Classes don’t seem gender-locked, I do suspect that some if not all of them partly describe challenges and patterns that are commonly imposed on or associated with a particular gender.
So at most, I’d say they might maybe relate to cultural views on genders, rather than biological sex or chosen gender per se.
The difference between Heirs and Witches in particular strikes a chord with me here. Heirs have so far been boys, and are allowed immense power over their surroundings that they are scarcely aware of, and can easily perpetrate harm through unintentionally.
Juxtapose that against Witches, who’s power is initially linked to a seperate figure that can veto and control them–in the Handmaid’s case, a literal Patriarch who exploits her for his own purposes. Witches aren’t allowed to just have power–their power is subject to the whims of an authority, and they have to fight for the freedom to wield it.
I wouldn’t argue that that’s CANON gender subtext or anything–I am very much not an expert on this stuff, and I don’t think I’ve picked out enough canon text really pointing to that interpretation to be comfortable vouching for it.
I’m only saying that it resonates with me on that level, and it’s one of many potential ideas I consider about Classpects as I try to sift through what we do and don’t know, both in the text and in upcoming content.
This is one of those things I’m really curious to see explored further in future Homestuck content/Hiveswap in particular, since it seems like a likely focus for Lanque.
Not really. Personally, I find the very idea that he did tiresome, because people only ever seem to use it to downplay the canon dirkjake built into it.
As things stand, there’s just no real reason to think so from a writing perspective. Like yeah, ok, unreliable narrators are a thing in Homestuck. But that logic doesn’t really work to just discredit whatever point a character makes that happens to be contentious.
There has to be an in-character or in-universe reason for a character’s perspective to be discredited, or it’s just bad writing. And I don’t really agree Homestuck is written badly! You might know this about me by now.
So focusing in on Caliborn.
Caliborn is quite aware of the Alpha Timeline, and the role he plays in it. He’s also pretty much the only character who actually likes the Alpha Timeline, and revels in his coming existence as Lord English.
He’s explicitly okay with and willing to endure whatever negative consequences are necessary to get him to that point, and he thinks he and his actions across his timeline make him the hottest shit ever to grace paradox space.
There’s no real reason to think he’d knowingly lie about events in the Alpha Timeline–especially the events that result in the creation of Lord English–because Caliborn is on record as thinking all of that is RAD AS FUCK! Including Jake beating him up, since its what leads to Lord English having his very name.
This comes through in the Masterpiece. Caliborn is noticeably excited to share these events with the audience, and ultimately pleased with the result of the event–he’s using it as a form of self-aggrandizement.
So if someone tells me they think Caliborn is lying about the Masterpiece, my immediate question is how–and why? And most importantly, what is there in the story to contradict or replace the Masterpiece, if we can’t accept it as part of the story?
As of right now, there isn’t anything. I wouldn’t be surprised, for example, if the Epilogue happens to cover the Masterpiece or part of the Masterpiece, and follows the Beta kid’s release from the Juju and/or the Alpha kids being picked up by John after the end.
We were viewing the Masterpiece from Caliborn’s perspective, so there could definitely be more to see after his particular role in the story is finished. I just don’t think that means Caliborn was lying, per se.
This is kinda unrelated but I’ve been thinking about it so here we go. This is basically the same as people dismissing Calliope’s exposition on the Classes–in that a critical source of exposition on a certain area of the comic, with no equivalent anywhere else in the text, goes disregarded because of some hazy claim of “unreliability.”
Remember how I said there has to be a textual reason for such a source to be disregarded on a particular point? Homestuck actually does do this with gendered classes, so it’s a good example of what I’m talking about.
Yeah, Calliope says classes are gendered–but Calliope is explicitly as susceptible to biological essentialism as anyone else in the cast, believing she’s incapable of red romance just as John believed he was incapable of black.
Think what you will of the message, but by the endgame Homestuck is loudly stating that both views are inaccurate. Calliope’s ignorance is contextualized in the text.
That she’d make certain assumptions about gender makes sense–especially if she’s working her understanding of the classes off the sample sizes in Homestuck itself–which she explicitly is, and which explicitly do have gender biases.
But that doesn’t inherently discredit every other statement she makes, especially since without the exposition she provides it becomes ridiculously harder to prove anything about Classes as a system. Almost as if the author included that text as a source of important exposition or something.
Nah his stuff parses as pretty Blood oriented to me. He’s super concerned with the relationships enforced by society and how they enact violence/lack of choice on each other. That’s all blood stuff.
Hope is highly idealistic, it’s rooted in the imaginary and abstract. Kankri isn’t focusing on abstract ideals, he’s focusing on the material power dynamics he observed in the physical world of beforus.
That doesn’t mean he’s right or accurately assessing/prioritizing what he sees in that world, though. Just that that’s what he’s focusing.
There’s usually an explicit or implied source of influence when a player roleplays, like an ancestor figure or societal norms with the castes. I don’t think kankris implied to have anything like that other than his karmic connection to the sufferer/Karkat.
I DO think he’s drawn to/lightly exhibits some typically Knightly traits–he views himself as being of service to others, and wants to take people under his wing. apprentice them, basically, as knights seem rather inclined to do.
P sure Porrim even asks Karkat if he’s interested in what Kankri is “serving” at one point. So I do think he’s hampered by roleplaying, I just don’t think it’s got much to do with hope.
Kankri isn’t ignoring the blood part of his class, but the Seer part. Just look at how often he talks with his eyes closed. He chooses to live in the tumblr-esque fantasy world of fictitious/irrelevant problems rather than see the actual ones in front of him (the team falling apart, Porrim’s legit social justice concerns).
I think this is a great example of a person not embracing or working with their class at all. Much in the same way Rose embraces blind rage to go grimdark or Terezi had her vision restored and lost her sense of self, Kankri seems to be stuck or arrested in his development as a seer. He didn’t respond to the challenges of SGRUB because he’d never had to DO anything before, he could just pontificate ad nauseam. Also, he’s an idiot.
On a serious note, I wonder if questioning their vision/learning to trust themselves is a trial all seers must go through. It certainly seems that way from the seers we have examples of.
Pretty much exactly this, I agree. And re: seers’ recurring challenge, I’m inclined to agree! I haven’t nailed this down to any 1:1 canonical basis in a way i feel super comfortable arguing for, but it seems to me that the classes have a looot of resonance with Carol S. Pearson’s 12 heroic archetypes
Check out the description for the Sage, which seems to me like a pretty close match for Seers and Mages both, if Seers a bit moreso:
Flying through Storytelling 