Includes: John, Tavros, Rufioh, John Crocker, the Summoner
Breath players are the people who are most likely to be accused of “playing the game wrong.” They are here to wander around and see the sights, to come up with their own goals and quest, and if that happens to overlap with the actual objective of the party, that’s coincidental. They are the people who play big open world games for 450 hours without completing the main quest, too busy collecting cheese wheels or filling out the map or messing around in photo mode. They have entirely lost the plot if they even had it at any point.
Which is not to say they don’t do important things and are not driven. But their power comes in service to the self above all else. And the boon of Breath means they will rarely if ever bump into the boundaries of the game, never meet real resistance. They are not playing the game as intended, but they aren’t breaking anything, and so they meet no push-back. Like the wind, they can slip in and out of any space they want, and thus are kind of unstoppable. No cage or shackle can hold them down.
Of our Breath players, all of them are sort of checked out of the game. John is the first to godtier of his group and gets sassed by Karkat for never learning the more mundane rules of the game. He never needs to. Tavros is happy to play with everyone, but is motivated by his own desires, eschewing what he “should” be doing frequently. Rufioh and the Summoner both share freedom with those around them, but Rufioh has a very hard time maintaining connections.
Breath players can be formidable… but mostly they are doing their own thing. They have trouble staying on task and properly aiming their abilities. They may be easily mistaken as naive or not very bright, but truthfully they have made the decision not to give a fuck about what people around them think. The probability of them having ADHD is bananas through the roof.
Talismans: wind, impermanence, the unfettered, level 56 but still hasn’t done the level 12 quest, didn’t read the tutorials or the manual, not going to google the solution to this puzzle either, boredom.
You may be Breath if… you’ve ever completely on accidentally ghosted someone, and once you realized you felt so bad you let the ghosting lie and just chalked that friendship up as over. Whoops.
Includes: Jane, Feferi, Meenah, Nanna, the Condesce
Life players are coming in with the odds stacked in their favor. Rather than starting at square one, they probably have some things going for them that other people lack, be it material wealth or status. On the outset, Life is cutting them a little slack. However, this does not mean they have it easy by any means. When you start from a pedestal, you have further to fall and the impact hurts more.
The most important skill for a Life player to learn is empathy. They often have trouble relating to the people around them, and if they let that sit, they are going to wind up lonely and isolated and bitter about it. But putting in the work and effort to reach out and try to understand will benefit them enormously. It’s hard to do!
All of our Life players come from positions of dubious privilege. Feferi and Meenah are destined to be Empress and both have strong opinions about what that eventuality should mean. The Condesce revels in her position and even pumps people around her full of Life to keep them around, to keep them subject to her rule. And Jane is introduced as the Heiress Apparent and is the target of assassination attempts for her position.
That is part of their inheritance, the cushy starting parameters the Life players begin with. It comes with an even bigger caveat; they will chafe badly against the status quo. We Live In A Society, and that drives Life players in particular batty. They will often be pushing back against that status quo, but its much harder to fight a Concept than a specific thing. Life players will have big ideas, but struggle with the implementation.
Talismans: Royalty, obligations, end goals without clear paths, tending to investments, status symbols, picking the easiest class in character gen, the inability to relate and working to overcome that.
You might be Life if… you’ve ever listened to a friend vent about something in their life, then realized you can’t relate, then felt guilty you couldn’t relate, then had to realize that’s ridiculous to feel guilty about.
In this dichotomous whirlwind of classification and assignment, a recurring touchstone is how each class and aspect views the system they are locked in. And to Light players, all the world is a stage, and their connection to everything should be seen in that lens. They see the spotlight and they want to control it, control the narrative. The currency they deal with is luck, certainly, but more specifically agency. They want to control who is relevant and when. They want to have the stage directions in their hands and a bullhorn to call them out. And a big red pen to revise them as needed.
As such, Light folks are dramatic. They are here to win in no uncertain terms and are driven by a lot of personal ambition. This does not mean they aren’t personable; in fact, Light people are almost exclusively extroverts who can and will happily talk someone’s ear off. They really enjoy leading a conversation and are happy to bring people along the dialogic hikes. Others may have trouble scaling the same mountain as they do.
Given their realm of influence and interest, Light players are often masters of hyperfixation. They have extremely thorough knowledge that they have put in a lot of effort to study and research. The amount they personally want to share varies, but they would be remiss not to make their expertise crystal clear for everyone around them.
It’s great to have a Light player around because they can be depended on for a certain amount of inertia and planning. When everyone in the party can’t decide where to go for lunch, the Light player is there with the concrete choice to save the day from everyone else’s indecision. Thank goodness.
All our Light players have direct influence over the Spotlight of the story. Rose prefers to remain in the shadows and hand other people their lines and cues; Dave himself complains that all she seems to do is send dudes on quests and he’s right. Aranea torpedoes the game session in her desperate grasp for power, when her good intentions seem to fall to the wayside in favor of her ego. The mechanism she uses, in fact, is essentially injecting Jake with an overdose of relevance that sends his game-breaking abilities into overdrive. Mindfang as well seems to summon and discard people as if they were mere characters in the play of her life she is directing, and her tenor of retelling her story is drenched in overdramatic Light bullshit as well. And Vriska is perhaps the most triumphant example of a Light player, as the Retcon operates by taking everyone’s agency and relevance in the story and redirecting them onto her. She is the platonic ideal of a Thief of Light.
And being successful in the realm of Light often means controlling it for others. In the context of Homestuck, Light seems to be a finite resource, a narrative zero-sum game. No wonder Light players are prone to min-maxing everything.
Talismans: The world as stage, books, writing, going on too many Wiki Walks, high grades, already did the reading, seeing the big picture but rarely the small picture of how people around them feel. Having that One Friend they trust to keep them from being jerks.
You may be Light if… you’ve ever considered starting a podcast.
Includes: Dave, Aradia, Caliborn, Damara, Alpha Dave, the Handmaid
Time players are destined to have a rough time. They start off dealt a bad hand and have to overcome that as well as everything else around them. They hit the ground running and never feel safe slowing down. But as the players who start the game with their eyes open, they sort of know the stakes of what they are doing right away, and thus are ready for the core of their power: windows of opportunity.
To work with Time is to be resigned to the Hurry-Up-And-Wait. There is nothing but critical hits or critical misses here, and the Time player is forced to have patience for the right time to act. Time is a demanding dance partner; but Time players have an inclination towards music, towards inexorable motion.
Aspect is a cruel maestro to all of the Time players. Dave is wracked with anxiety about the tempo he has to keep up with in the game, and only finally gets the chance to grow into himself when everything stops for three goddamn years. Aradia spends much of her time bored and waiting for everyone around her to catch up, and only becomes truly happy when she goes to a place where Time stops mattering. Damara is locked in a drawn out dying gasp of a session, and the Handmaid has so much Time she’s poisoned by it. And Caliborn arguably screws up his entire personal journey by skipping ahead, breaking the rules to accelerate events, and missing his opportunity grow by taking the opportunity for freedom instead.
It’s not an accident that all Time players feel relief when finally freed from its grasp. Their greatest struggling is everything is always going at the wrong speed, too slow or too fast with no middle ground. Predictably, Time players are going to be predisposed towards severe anxiety and the feeling they cannot relax. There is nothing they appreciate more than the ability to breathe, to slow down, to not have a deadline. They are in dire need of a vacation to unspool their wound-up nerves, to have a drink other than a Redbull, and to work on their personal projects a bit.
Talismans: Repetition, timing, music, schedule anxiety, midday naps with the timer set, staying up late to finally work on a project, arriving to any event first and having to wait for everyone else.
You may be Time if… you always know your personal schedule; you may choose to be artfully late or ten minutes early, but you always, always know when you’re supposed to show up.
The manifestation of Blood almost feels like a physical thing, as physical and solid as any aspect can be. It stains the hands and gets under the nails and leaves a copper taste in the air. For those who harness its power, it is a thousand tethers, all pulling with a collective force more inexorable than gravity. Every time a Blood player locks eyes with someone, there’s a ripple. Every time they depend on another person, there is a ripple. Every time they feel the weight of expectation on their shoulders, there is a ripple, and they know just how to turn all of it into a tidal wave. While other aspects may be looking through the rulebooks, examining the ones-and-zeroes, trying to learn how the world works, to the Blood player none of that shit matters because they know how to make people do what they want, and that’s not the kind of laws writ in a script, be it stageplay or code.
Blood is heavy. It only works if the player is subsumed in it. Love is hard to let go of, but hate is all too easy. And the thing about forgiveness is that its a favor, and Blood players know when they give it, the forgiven is now obligated to be better. Blood players are fucking terrible liars (except to themselves) and their greatest weakness is trying to handle a good liar. There is no greater villain than someone who cannot be trusted. But boy, will the Blood player make sure no one trusts that villain either.
Team Blood and Team Vantas is a circle, and all of them are so fucking tired. Kankri is arguably not very good as a Seer of Blood, but their main obsession is trying to examine the bonds that connect people and to diagnose the problems in them. The Signless was a more successful iteration of this, seeing not only the bonds that tie people together but seeing the potential of what they could be if everyone got their heads out of their collective chutes. Karkat, though, was a Knight of Blood and was such able to use his connections to everyone to keep them all from killing each other for an over 600 hour campaign. He knew exactly who needed to be riled up and who needed compassion, and dragged his team to victory entirely and completely in spite of themselves.
Being drenched in Blood is not easy. Compassion is an unusual sword to wield. Those who use it are hard to defeat.
Talismans: Soft power, defusing situations, having a temper with a looooong fuse, the Dad/Mom Friend, driving the car, needing to turn off their phone every once in a while to refill their stamina. Kind Is Not Nice.
You may be Blood if… you’ve ever told a friend something like “I think you know that’s a bad idea” and rather than getting mad, they sighed and agreed with you.
Includes: Jade, Kanaya, Calliope, Porrim, Grandma English, the Dolorosa
Space is defined by a very specific duality: being adept and skilled at manipulation of the physical while being aggrieved and oppressed by something very not physical. It is the aspect that is practical if not rigorously objective. Theory is dumb, what can be done with hands is real. Why can’t everything be manipulated so easily?
Space players are going to be almost inevitably into a craft of some kind. Building things that can be touched is their greatest joy. They may try many different things, but will have a hobbyist or enthusiast’s level of skill in something. If not, they are still looking for that something so they can hone in on it. They prioritize their projects very highly, and out of everyone have the much trouble dealing with a lack of work-life balance. If there’s no time for their stuff, they will be very stressed.
The flipside is, of course, things that do not fall under their handicraft. Space players are not naive; they often know about the forces constraining them. They know we Live In A Society. But more than anything they… struggle with how to handle that, to either affect change or come to peace. From the outside its very interesting; people watch the Space player fix their car or build a machine or do a complicated bit of embroidery and cannot imagine how that’s done. But that’s the easy stuff! How do you learn to Live In A Society? That’s the hard part.
And frankly, having to deal with all that stuff is annoying at best and actively depressing at worse.
The duality is carried through each Space player. Porrim and Kanaya share a love of sewing, of creating things, of using tools, but struggle with genuinely very complicated feelings about their roles as Jade-bloods and with sexism and quadranted romance respectively. Jade is an effusive engineer and lover of physics, but doesn’t understand the forces that keep her isolated and lonely (as narrative law falls well outside the purview of Space). We can only assume from the Dolorosa’s incredibly cool outfit she shared the other Maryams’ love of textile craft, but her eternal struggle was with the role of the Jade-bloods and of adult trolls themselves. And poor Calliope wants to create, wants to share her creations, wants to nail down the objective language of Sburb, but is literally shackled to esoteric obligations.
All this to say, when something falls within the borders of a Space player’s influence, they are ready and raring to take direct, physical action. But if something is even a few inches beyond their domain, it’s impossible for them to touch. Limited extreme potency is the name of their game.
Talismans: Building things, collecting stuff, acing the homework but failing the test, an overflowing craft drawer, self-satisfaction, simmering frustration, smiling even though you want to slap someone silly.
You may be Space if… you’ve gotten obsessed with watching/reading the news, trying to understand some complicated current event, only to burn out and blacklist it on every site you use because you can’t deal with it and not being able to affect change makes you fucking batty.
Working with Doom feels like trying to slip a collar around a feral animal’s neck. Most likely result is getting grievously injured. But it has to be done. Those aligned to this aspect are resigned. They more than anyone see the code of the matrix and know precisely how fucked the situation is.
As such, Doom is the nihilistic aspect. That one memetic image of “What is nihilism, the stereotype vs the reality” with the stereotype being a dour sad Nothing in life matters and the reality being a radical kid proclaiming Nothing in life matters!– this is the beating heart of Doom and the only two paths for its players. They are depressed with the inevitability of it all. They are also freed by the inevitably of it all because this is the secret: the Doom player knows exactly what is set in stone and exactly what is not, and thus know thoroughly what can be done and are ready to affect some fucking change up in here.
What is unique to Doom players is their comprehension of the mechanisms and structures around them. They know the rules of the Game (and very much see the constraints of the world in that gamified context) and thus can use those rules to tear victory out of the system. They are the rules lawyer, they are the Letter Not The Spirit, they are the political activist who files a lawsuit to get a bad law overturned. The rulebook is their blunt force instrument.
But make no mistake; the world sucks and we’re all doomed. Having this thorough understanding of things makes the Doom player very prone to depressive episodes. And when the laws cannot be broken, when they are bent and bent to their limits, the probability of those laws snapping violently back at the Doom player is high.
The Captors are our Doom players and all know this terribly well. Mituna was able to assist his party with understanding of inevitabilities and oncoming events until his aspect backfired on him so tremendously. The Psiionic has a similar tale, being a right hand to Troll Jesus himself until the inevitability of being strapped into a shitty ship got him, and the Empress’ own powers made his life dramatically worse. And Sollux as a Mage of Doom was rife with understanding of the Game, even helped create Sgrub himself, facilitating the downfall of his species and friends. As such, his struggle with that understanding as well as his own sense of self-importance was a pendulum.
It’s rough out here for the Doom players. But again: if nothing in life matters, then all that matters is what we do. Let that be a needed light in the darkness.
Talismans: The world as a game, exact words, night owls, coffee or other stimulants, arrogance, terrible impossible-to-foresee events, tragic backstories, speedrunning and completionism.
You may be Doom if… your ultimate struggle in life is knowing that change begins small, that you can make life better on a small scale, but the enormity of how fucked up the world is makes you just want to stay in bed.
On some level, Mind players think this entire venture is kind of silly. Do aspects matter? Do classes? No! This is the great secret of Mind: who cares if someone is really lucky or is really good at understanding time paradoxes or is a natural leader? That’s all table dressing stood on the lodestone of understanding. Nothing matters except the decisions we make and don’t make, and hang the rest.
Mind players really do not understand the domains of the other aspects and may even kind of feel all of them are superfluous. Their aspect, to them, feels like the grand unifying theory of the universe. They reach out their hands and they nudge things into motion, and there is a result. There is always a result, and no such thing as an idle action. The world is spinning! We all exert control on it! Things will move until they collide!
And that is the other hand of Mind. Karma and justice. The scales have to be balanced. It’s not a matter of morality or ethics. This is the way the world works, action and reaction! Consequences!
Mind is the black box of the self. Mind players either already know or learn fast that everyone’s understanding of the cosmos is dictated by their experiences. Philosophically speaking, do we all even live in the same universe at all? Or is it colored by that core of self, our filter of who we each are? You will never know what color red is, only what color you think it is.
If all of this sounds navel-gazey and irritating, then you’re not a Mind player. Mind folks have so much interiority, they can build a goddamn mansion in their head. How is all this not fascinating?
The Pyropes all share Mind, and are influenced by it accordingly, which is to say that none of them seems to be painted very broadly in their aspect. That’s the nature of Mind, it’s all variable! How Terezi sees Mind versus how Latula sees it versus how Redglare sees it, each is different. Redglare had everything stacked against her, and everything about her position on the board was that of a non-player, until she chose not to be. Latula as a Knight of Mind guards her aspect and guards with it, and thus isn’t super interested in even attempting to explain it to the people around her, but feels an innate, strong kinship (as well has a lot of interiority she doesn’t want to share with others). And Terezi. Terezi knows the people around her well enough to see the vortices all their decisions will make, but the Alpha Timeline means nothing to her. The real world is the one she’s standing in. And when the Game pulls the rug out from under her, in the eleventh hour, what she changes is herself. The universe branches from Terezi Pyrope’s feet.
Forget all the metaphors about playbooks and rules and what the world is. It exists in the Mind.
Talismans: The balancing scales, the regression to the mean, picking yourself up and dusting off, a good pair of shoes is the most important part of any outfit. The universe is unfeeling but we are not.
You may be Mind if… you’ve ever mentioned Plato’s allegory of the cave in casual conversation.
Suppose there is a door. The door has a lock on it. There doesn’t seem to be a key to the lock anywhere. However, there is a window nearby someone could break in to bypass the door. Or if they knocked on the door, someone might answer. Or they can walk around the building to look for another not-locked door.
Or, if they are a Void player, there are going to break out one of those squishy mats to kneel on, break out their sturdiest hairpin, and they are going to get that fucking door open or they will never move again.
Void is the aspect for the addicted, the restrained, the people lost in the dark. All Void players begin with something clearly placed in their way, and on the other side is the entire possibility space. If they can just get past that main obstacle, they will not only be able to move on, but in the process they will have a skeleton key. Their hands is on the I/O switch and shit can change. Once they pull themselves with bloody nails from the bottom, everything after is smooth sailing.
But actually getting past that obstacle is… difficult. Borderline impossible. While other aspects are in conflict with external forces and systems, the Void player must overcome something inside themself. Their struggle is personal and small stakes, but it’s their life. It’s everything to them. But since others often cannot see the scope of the trouble, Void players can be bitter and passive aggressive, hiding their frustration with false smiles and politesse.
It’s testament to how perilous Void is, how many of its people are defined by the negative traits. Darkleer fails to fulfill his duty one time and it ruins his entire life, leaving him to obsess over it eternally. Horuss and Equius are both born into a greatly skewed view of class and their role in the world, and even when they repeatedly are shown evidence of their philosophy being broken, they are too obsessed with their status to move on. Roxy, though, is wracked with an obsession with not being important to anyone, with never being anyone’s favorite, with being resigned to emotional roles she doesn’t want. With tremendous effort and work, she pushes through to understanding her own power and becomes capable of truly phenomenal acts.
That is the potential of Void. When the darkness itself is understood, everything can be found inside of it.
Talismans: Breaking glass, sharp tempers with unusual triggers, clinging to old comforts, whistling at night, nostalgia, hatereading your ex, easy bravado, hidden talents.
You may be Void if… if you’ve ever had a crying jag in the middle of doing a task, then gone back to the task as if nothing even happened.
Hope is the force the world just cannot contain. While everyone else squabbles over plans and rules and spotlights and inevitability, Hope players are looking at the clouds and seeing their dreams. Everything around them feels soft and malleable, gilded in the yellow glow of excitement. They have big visions and while they don’t have a plan to bring that vision to reality, they just know its there, just beyond them, they just have to reach a little further. Hope is the thing with feathers.
But the world doesn’t want to answer. Rules, structures, laws, blah-di-blah, all of it is holding the Hope player back from their goals. It’s very hard not to take it personally. Everyone thinks the Hope folks have their heads in the clouds, that they’re ineffectual and easily distracted. Why can’t they understand? Can’t they see how wonderful everything could be, if the universe stopped dragging its fucking feet? We’re all teetering on the precipice of something new and exhilarating, if we could just get free!
And oh, it makes the Hope players want to tear at their hair and scream. It’s an agony, being so close to the thing you want, the thing that’ll make everything better. If their friends and allies just worked together, helped them reach a little further, knock a little harder, maybe the map would change. It’s so goddamn fucking close, how come no one else can see it? Stop obsessing over petty boring shit and look! Reach!
Hope is the thing with talons.
The longer the Hope player is denied, the more they press and strain against everything that holds them in place. They are fettered and can hear the creaking of the bindings, see where the cracks are forming. Anticipation is their constant companion and guile is their shadow.
At its manifestation, Hope breaks the system, bucks the narrative, and arrives like a natural disaster. Cronus and Dualscar both fail to reach that fission point, languishing in their failed dreams and growing increasingly bitter like the death of their ambitions is festering within them. Eridan’s desire to control his destiny, for relevance, for power after being ignored for so long, it snaps into place with a force that shatters the team and breaks the concrete reality that Kanaya is tending to, all in a near instance of pure disaster. And Jake, the most triumphant Hope player creates impossible things with careless words. When Aranea infuses him with his full potential, the game itself strains, and gold seeps through the cracks he’s made in the foundations until the whole timeline needs a reset.
Hope rattles and hums in the back of its players’ skulls, this constant whisper of what if, what if, what if, dogging their steps like an incredibly insistent voice of reason. Its impossible to tell if its the angel on their shoulder or the devil. Hope is hungry, and everything is just barely beyond their grasp. Just reach a little further.
Talismans: Screw The Rules, I Have God Mode, playing with cheat codes, comfort media, daydreaming, misdirection, hedonism, raw talent.
You may be Hope if… deep down you genuinely think you could fix, like, everything if the world made you king for a week. If you just had a chance, you could literally make everything better. It’s not even that complicated.
Includes: Dirk, Nepeta, Meulin, Bro Strider, the Disciple
While others step into the fray wielding tools like the flow of time or a lit stick of God Mode dynamite, the Heart player’s medium is their self. Which does admittedly sound a bit lackluster in comparison to the various possibilities. But it is romantic, is it not, to face your fear armed only with your self? To be reliant on no outside forces, no capricious willpowers, only your Heart?
Heart is something of the Occam’s Razor of the Aspects. It is the domain of self-exploration, self-iteration, and evolution. It’s a sword (or pair of claws) to be sharpened and learned thoroughly. Thus, Heart players have a particular knack for being whoever is needed in a given situation. They wear a lot of hats metaphorically speaking, and the self is very much a performance enacted based on the situation. To be clear: performance of identity does not mean that identity is fake. With every role the Heart player enacts, they are fully themselves.
The concept of being fake or being a liar is one that haunts the Heart players often. They struggle with feeling duplicitous or even being a liar. A huge part of their journey of self-discovery is accepting themselves. No matter what Class a Heart player is, they will struggle with this basic truth. But that in of itself is wheting the blade; when they put in the work, they get better, they become more refined, they know themselves more and more. They can comprehend strange emotional bedrock that is difficult for others to grasp.
This also leads to being sort of obsessed with cerebralizing those emotional truths. Through charts or grids or theses or whatever medium is preferred, the Heart player is inclined to care a lot about relationships, emotions, romance, as if they can be quantified. It’s all on the same path of turning wisdom into hard intelligence.
As the Heart players go, all maintain this level of scholarship. The Leijons are all known for categorizing matters of the heart (small H), with Meulin and Nepeta both coming from a culture that believes strongly in emotional destiny, in a Right and Correction combination of romantic interests, and thus do their best to try and divine what those are for the people around them. Meulin perhaps reached a higher level of emotional wisdom through her following of the Signless, understanding the constraints of the quadrants, and wrote all the intelligence she could into the walls in hopes it would help someone someday. And Dirk similarly uses his self to try and help people, to be the person his friends need, even as he struggles with fitting the roles blocked out for him. There are some internal truths he cannot suppress, even when Roxy for instances wants him to. His conflict is one of knowing himself too well as much as not well enough.
Unified, Heart players are dramatic, eager to help, and wardens of the emotions of those around them. They know maybe more than most that everyone has an important job to do.
Talismans: Code-switching, many acquaintances but few truly close friends, secret keeping, a playlist for every mood, extreme acts of loyalty, self-deprecation, +50WPM but enjoying writing things out in longhand.
You may be Heart if… you genuinely have some kind of Tragic Backstory but it takes years of friendship levelling for anyone to unlock it. They don’t need to know, it’s not important, even if it made you into the person you are today.
At the core of the Rage player is the idea that something is wrong. There is something inherently fucked about the universe around them. And while that is not unique to Rage certainly as many other players struggle with a pervasive sense of wrongness, what sets the Rage player apart is their reaction to it. They are not here to seek answers, they are not here to try and fix it. The only solution in their eyes is smashing the system into glittering pieces.
They are fiery and empowered and aren’t worried about the small stuff. All the details and problems that other aspected people may struggle with— Rage players cut to the chase and ask, “Alright, how can I throw a wrench in the works? How can I throw a dozen wrenches into the works?” They want to see the machine come the fuck apart and are willing to do what it takes to get there.
That sort of drive is a powerful tool, and the unity between the aspect and the person tends to be more closely entwined. But on the flipside, Rage players can be a bit… Hollywood Anarchists. True Neutral people who know the Man is holding us all back and we’ll all be better if we throw society out and start another one, scorch that fuckin’ earth, baby. But… Rage doesn’t think ahead very well. It can follow immediate impulse and organize short term plans, but there’s not a ton of effort put into figuring out what’s next. What comes after you smash the system? Who’s going to do the work to build something new?
Not the Rage player, that’s for sure. This can cause them a lot of turbulence. When they cannot affect change, all that energy and inertia doesn’t have anywhere to go, and like built-up static, it will lance out and strike those around it.
Think of Rage like a stone starting to roll down a hill. Once it gets going, it will not stop and the risk of collateral damage is high. The Highblood and his kin may have been devoted to a different belief system that would supplant the imperialism of the empire, but it was capricious (ha) and violent to anyone they deemed even too boring. Kurloz devoted himself to aiding Gamzee to bring about that perceived paradise as well, an indistinct concept of something Else, something Better. But Gamzee’s work was incoherent, indiscriminate, and functioned as a narrative device of pure acceleration. The paradise did not exist. It never would.
All this dourness to say: Rage is an aspect of immense potential, but its players have to work not to be led astray. Anger is a good tool and a powerful weapon. But pure retribution instead of rehabilitation leaves nothing but destruction. Be wary of bystanders. Don’t lose sight of real people in the pursuit of something different. Above all else: make sure that different world is a better world, not simple another hell.
Talismans: Breaking things to feel better, scream therapy, trolling people, mutual aid, arguing with people about what Real Punk is, compassion in the dark.
You may be Rage if… you’ve ever had an argument that, in hindsight, you realized prioritized The Cause over The People. It’s a rough one.
Observant readers will notice immediately the deviation of the Bard’s role definition. Humor me.
There is a thing in kabuki theatre, the kuroko or kurago. They are the stagehands of the performance, who move around the stage to assist in costume changes, to move props around, to strike the stage and set new pieces. They dress in head to toe black, wearing a veil over their faces, and as such they are a device of the theatre that is meant to (and reportedly does) fade into the background of the audience’s perception, as if they became invisible. The story could not unfold without them, but they aren’t actors or playing any specific role. They are the hand of the narrative itself, the embodiment of necessity and impetus.
The Bard is such a stagehand unmasked. They exist in the story only so much that they are ready to be plucked up and put into place to instantiate whatever must happen. And when the story doesn’t need them, they are no one of consequence.
As such, the Bard is not playing by the same rules as every other class. They are not playing at all. They are staff caught under the spotlight, they are the choragus asking direct questions from stage left, they are a tool. And as such are resigned to a non-arc.
Gamzee is a nice, goofy, but ultimately not narratively significant character until he is activated as a villainous accelerant to the story, and his character arc is all but dumped into the trash. Cronus, stuck in a failed session that needs no facilitator anymore, is locked into the same maturity level as he died in and has no affect on the story. Dualscar’s influence peaks at a failed attempt at shitstirring.
It would be hard to define this class to someone. It is the diametric flip of the Heir in a sense. It is a blank slate. The Bard’s strengths are what the story demands. The Bard’s weakness is a lack of definition or purpose. You, dear reader, are not a Bard, I assure you.
Includes: John, Equius, Mituna, John Crocker, the Helmsman
Note: The Heir is unique among the classes in that they are better understood if you know your Aspect first.
The Heir revolves around one core concept: the Heir is being played by their Aspect.
The Heir is interesting in that they are most defined by the qualities of their aspect. When reading the aspect of Breath, you may think “huh that’s just John” or when reading Void “huh that’s just Equius.” This is because yeah, the Heir can be considered the embodiment of the will of the aspect.
This comes with a lot of baggage, as you may imagine. The Heir’s aptitudes are deeply ingrained in them; truly, what they do well comes to them as easy as breathing. The power curve rises very early for them and stays at that height. An Heir might find themselves pulling off something incredible and then stopping to ask how they even managed that. And they’ll never truly know.
But it is not fun to be propelled by an outside force. Brace yourself for a downer; the Heir will never truly feel in control of their life, and the amount of angst they feel is entirely dependent on how at peace they can be with that idea. Can the Heir find enjoyment from being tied to a comet? That’s up to them.
As such, Heirs have a more intense case of Single Player Syndrome than even Witches and Thieves. They have such trouble with making connections, they need other people to reach out, to reach back. When someone manages to take the Heir’s hand, it’s important not to let go, because getting back in touch again is a crapshoot. Personal growth is slow for Heirs, and they struggle with feelings of stagnation.
John Egbert is the pinnacle of the Heir, as his very existence in the story follows the ruleset of Breath, so fleeting and sinuous he slips from the very boundaries of the narrative through the gaps. Equius is also drenched in Void, and never wrests himself from its grip. Mituna is puppeted so aggressively by Doom, it does him irreparable changes he must live with. The Helmsman is similarly doomed.
It’s a rough one.
The Heir’s greatest strength is the biggest pro of their aspect.
The Heir’s greatest weakness is the biggest con of their aspect.
Includes: Dirk, Eridan, Kurloz, Bro Strider, The Highblood
Think of the Prince as the platonic ideal of royalty (as opposed to the reality). They are the rulers of their aspect, but the concept of fealty goes both ways. They must exert the will of their aspect, and in doing so the aspect empowers them to act with terrifying force. It is true that a Prince is capable of extremely destructive acts, but they are something of a sheathed sword. As soon as it is drawn and readied, shit is going to go down to a heretofore unseen degree.
Princes truly do strive to be worthy of their position and feel its weight very heavily. They hone themselves, do the work, and make the effort. They think their hot shit because frankly they have put in the time to get themselves to a level of ability that folks around them might frankly find exhausting. In return, a Prince is emotionally intense and dependent on validation. Big egos and big self-esteem issues simultaneously. As such, they crave connection, and unfortunately may feel kind of entitled to it. After all, they are royalty. Don’t you see the crown?
The true downfall of a Prince comes from isolation. They are at their lowest when they don’t feel appreciated for their work, and since the duties of royalty don’t just go away when you aren’t having a good time, the weight is crushing.
On the flipside, no one is more adept in a crisis. When the sword is finally unsheathed, the situation will radically change, in alignment with what their aspect can do with the circumstances. Hopefully its the right tool for the job, because a Prince has no concept of “disproportionate retribution.” Civis romanus, baby.
Of the Princes, everyone has a strong thread of legacy tying a noose around their necks. Dirk feels forced into his role by the destiny Skaia laid out for him, compounded by his idolatry of his ancestor. Eridan similarly models himself after the ideal of his ancestor, and gets extremely skilled in the service of what he thinks the Empire should be. Kurloz, in counterpoint, seems to undergo a traumatic event when he doesn’t march in service to Rage enough, and his path is forever altered. As the Highblood, he is basically ordained to be at the apex of society, and wields that power and influence with great relishment.
The Prince’s greatest strength is their dedication, a sort of clear-visioned selfless devotion to their domain.
The Prince’s greatest weakness is the fragility of their ego, and how reliant they are on outside validation.
The Mage is defined by natural aptitude for understanding their aspect. They are the students who ace every test they don’t bomb, who have no idea how to study, but who are experts in their chosen field. Everyone is baffled by the sheer depth and breadth of their knowledge, but boy is it specialized. Not every Gifted Kid has Gifted Kid Syndrome, but the ones who do are probably Mages. As such, they haaaate having to learn about anything outside their wheelhouse, because its hard, and they resent things that don’t come naturally to them.
While they are a wellspring of knowledge, they also know the value of it and don’t just hand that out to everyone. It’s a lot of fun to show off their expertise, to give people a glimpse of their talents, but a Mage is not going to sit people down for a lecture. They aren’t here to be your tutor! You wouldn’t even understand all this stuff! So leave it to them.
There is definitely a martyr complex to Mages. Because they think only they fully understand their aspect, they are automatically the steward of that aspect, the suzerain, the seneschal. It is a solemn duty and they would prefer to be left to their work. Not that a Mage doesn’t enjoy talking to people and even hanging out, but they tend to be totally fine on their own for long periods of time. They’ll occasionally take a break to show off to friends, but temperamentally, they are never the people who are starting shit and instigating conflict. They will fucking end a fight with extreme prejudice though if they are forced into one.
Sollux had really comprehensive knowledge of his aspect but was always reluctant to share details. He wasn’t a teacher and had to be cajoled and dragged into doing anything he didn’t want to do. Meulin also kept much to herself and her closest allies and focused on her own interests, very solitary. This was mirrored in the Disciple, the keeper of the Signless’ teachings, who as we all know spent a loooooooong time in a cave.
(An extra clarifying note for those on the fence between Mage and Seer: the Mage should be associated with the High Priestess or the Gandalf, archetypically. The Seer should be associated with the Magician or Miss Frizzle.)
The Mage’s greatest strength is a truly staggering, if specialized, intellect.
The Mage’s greatest weakness is their reluctance to engage with topics they don’t already know. If it was important, they’d already know it!
Greed is good. Greed works. Such is the creed of the Thief.
Among the classes, the Thief is the closest to a solo-player, a self-interested operator. There’s no need for a tank or a healer or a DPS when you’re a Thief. You’re going to figure out your own way through this alone, and damn the consequences! Being a Thief is inherently selfish, but its important to remember that selfishness is not an inherent evil or sin. A lot of people would benefit from learning the virtues of selfishness. It’s important to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you.
That latter bit is important to remember though; Thieves should keep in mind that sometimes people around them need help. Because a Thief is extremely capable and adept and self-driven, but when they are moving so fast, they run a very real risk of getting too far away from their allies, which at best leads to isolation and at worst leads to the Thief’s downfall as they fail at a task they could have beaten, if only they had anyone around to support them. Which is real rough.
Of course, a Thief is going to bristle at being told all of this. Ugh, obvious, much? They know what they are doing, they accept the risks, and don’t have time for a lecture. It takes a lot of guts and drive to be a Thief, and while they talk and play a big game, being so goddamn good at what they do is hard. It’s a skill they work at. It takes a lot of willpower. No one appreciates that, do they?
Vriska, Meenah, and the by extension the Condesce are all engaging in the narrative game like its a single-player adventure and have a lot of resentment rooted in every time they have to work with other people. Vriska’s entire arc is blighted by how her “pathologically competitive” nature is not shared among her peers and feels her attempts to “help” her team are not appreciated or understood. She literally refers to her impending battle with Jack as her final challenge as a gamer. Meenah is more than a bit of a loose cannon who decides how she thinks things should go and then will do anything to make that outcome happen, certain of her own correct vision of events. And the Condesce is a more extreme extension of Meenah’s habits, literally stealing the Life of people around her to perpetuate her singular vision until there is no one left to stand beside her.
The Thief’s greatest strength is their ambition, and how it gets them concrete results. They cut to the chase.
The Thief’s greatest weakness is their struggle to rein in their mean streak, going too fast even with people they like.
Includes: Rose, Terezi, Kankri, Alpha Rose, The Signless
The key to understanding Seers is to understand that their power is the power of Context. There is a whole collection of aspects, right? Not if you are a Seer. Everything about the Seer is channeled through their aspect, everything else is just shadowplay. Practically speaking, they listen to people talk about Other Aspects and internally just know none of that shit matters? It’s all about their aspect.
The philosophical concept of “the universe only exists in my perception of it” might be appealing to the Seer. Observation is existence.
Personality-wise, Seers are very active and driven people. Telling them to sit still or allow things to happen idly around them would drive them batshit. They are chronically allergic to idle hands. But this also leads them to be busybodies, and second only to Sylphs in the meddling department.
Talking is a free action for Seers. They are the kind of people who may not be extroverts, but who do feel restored or healed by having conversations. It’s important for them to remember when they want that much interaction and dialogue, especially with people who don’t gain HP from talking, that it will fall onto them to lead be steward of the conversation.
Rose and Terezi have a lot of operational overlap. Both are able to use their aspect to divine the paths of people around them and sort of skip past any lack of knowledge of other people’s aspects. Everything is Light to Rose. Everything is Mind to Terezi. Kankri was not a particularly successful Seer, but saw the world as a lattice of obligations connecting people. The Signless, however, was defined by how he saw the potential in everyone’s connections and aggressively tried to share that knowledge.
(An extra clarifying note for those on the fence between Mage and Seer: the Mage should be associated with the High Priestess or Gandalf, archetypically. The Seer should be associated with the Magician or Miss Frizzle.)
The Seer’s greatest strength is once they get ahold of a smidgen of confidence, they truly shine like a beacon.
The Seer’s greatest weakness is the struggle to gain that confidence. It’s an uphill climb.
Includes: Roxy, Nepeta, Rufioh, Mom Lalonde, the Summoner
Rogues have sticky fingers and big ideas. They are the people with the ten foot view of the situation and are extremely ready to move, to act if that’s what’s needed. They have a lot of personal propulsion, and anyone around them would be lucky to get an ounce of that determination.
But it’s a bit like wading in a river with a bucket and getting soaked; their aspect does not come from inside. They just know where it is and how to move that shit around. This is to the benefit of everyone and they know that, but Rogues have a lot of issues with lingering, targeted resentment. Someone didn’t say thank you last time you helped them? They better say thanks twice next time, or it’s gonna stick with you.
Rogues are vital to unit cohesion. They see where there is lack and they work to fill those spaces. Without their contribution, everything is going to hell, it’s only a matter of time. If you are a Rogue, you may silently be of the opinion that your presence in your friend group is irreplaceable, which makes you feel important but also makes you frustrated no one appreciates what you do.
For the canon rogues, getting all the upside and and downsides of their aspect is rote. Roxy winds up being able to navigate impossible paths to do remarkable things, but is also drenched in Void’s pain points of addiction and obsession and fighting against restraints. Nepeta is able to speak to people and help them strip away the bullshit and get to the heart of who they are, she is keeper of many important emotional truths, but struggles to properly define herself to people around her. Rufioh is flighty and has trouble connecting to people, even as he provides them with outlets of expression and freedom from the systems that haunt them. And the Summoner spread revolution and freedom to many, but even as he influenced the societal systems around him, he didn’t have the mechanism to write any change, as Breath players have trouble even interfacing with The Rules, as they are.
A Rogue carries a powerful knife with the ability to help everyone around them. But they are doomed to keep fucking knicking their fingers on its sharp edges. That’s the compromise of wielding it.
The Rogue’s greatest strength is their ingenuity, finding unusual solutions, and being clever as hell.
The Rogue’s greatest weakness is the resentment that follows them like a shadow.
Knights are the class of protectors and proficiency with their aspect, while not conjuring their aspect from within themselves, but standing guard over it. They might be unmatched in the actual utility of their aspect. This shit comes naturally to them, as if they have been moulded their entire life to this specific type of work. More than anyone, they would have trouble doing another job, another role.
If you are familiar with the RPG Party Composition Meta of DPS/Healer/Tank, the Knight is a tank, and they are the Main Tank. They set the pace and everyone else in the party kind of has to march to that tune or risk being left behind. But that role comes with a lot of responsibility to the party and the Knight knows this intrinsically. Everyone is in good hands.
But man, is it fucking work. That cliche “if you love your work you’ll never work a day in your life”? Knights laugh at that. They make this shit look good, but fuck it’s work every damn day. When you’re carrying the entire party, your back starts to hurt. This is the greatest struggle of the Knight, the battle with burnout and fatigue. They often find themselves positioned as the load-bearing pillar of the situations they are involved in. They are the people who don’t feel like they’re allowed to take a sick day. It sucks.
If a Knight’s sword is their unparalleled use of their aspect, their shield is emotional repression and cognitive dissonance. You’re a Knight, you’re observant and smart, you can extrapolate. You know the world around you sucks, right? Nah, no, fuck that, everything’s fine. You don’t want to handle that on top of all your other responsibilities, so you choose not to. Holding up that shield can get fucking exhausting sometimes though.
Our canon Knights are all unified in specific ways. They have an innate, powerful understanding of their aspects, and all of them feel the need to compartmentalize their emotions about the world around them and hide behind a shield of bravado. Dave is plagued by the expectations human masculinity dumps on him, from his emotions to his sexuality to his duty to the narrative, and hides behind a cool aloof persona. Karkat is haunted by the violent nature of his society that would consider him worth nothing but a culling, and hides behind a paper-thin facade of self-aggrandizing importance and lies about how he feels about Alternia’s culling. Latula struggles to stand out, to be likeable, to be unique among her group, and has a strong persona of Radness to cover up her vulnerabilities. Even Redglare wears the mask of the dutiful public servant over her hidden emblem of the Signless, of justice and equity.
Such is the plight of the Knight.
The Knight’s greatest strength is the satisfaction of having their desire to help those around them matched by their abilities. Confident aptitude.
The Knight’s greatest weakness is fatigue, the looming spectre of burn-out, and hella anxiety.
Ah, the Page. The slow burn class. The low-powered class. The class that can’t keep up.
There’s no one else here, so let’s tell the truth: Pages are one of the most powerful classes. They are served by their aspect with a loyalty that cannot be shaken or dogged. It has always been with them, and as they grow in power, so does the singularity of their aspect. This is a subtle process; imagine finding a dragon egg under your bed as a child and keeping it a secret from everyone. After it hatches, you feed it every night, letting it grow until suddenly you show up to see your friends riding a fucking full-sized dragon, and it loves you, and no one knows how you managed to pull that off.
Pages are the class of subtlety, of getting the things they want with soft power. They have boatloads of intuition and understanding of their circumstances, but god forbid anyone catch on. No, it’s always better to remain underestimated. Of course, the flipside of this is the guilt; Pages are plagued with guilt, as the gap between what they know and what everyone around them assumes gives them the heebie-geebies, like peering over the edge of a canyon.
The Page’s power, their connection to their aspect, is a steady hand. That aspect is very much not inside them, but something they can direct and lead. For the most part, at least. That’s the thing about big friendly dragons; they can slip your control if you’re not careful. This very much happened to Darkleer, who’s inability to break from his restraints made him largely ineffectual. But Tavros was for a time an exceptional Page, who didn’t give a damn about the objectives the game and only wanted to pursue his own freedoms, and was aided by Aradia, Kanaya, and Vriska, often despite their misgivings. And Jake? Blithe manipulation and plausible deniability were his left and right hands, held out open-palmed until he got the things he wanted.
It would be easy to say don’t underestimate the Page, but most people cannot help it. Which does become a problem when the Page gets in over their head. And when they lose grip on their aspect, everyone is going to get burned.
The Page’s greatest strength is their ability to manage situations, to keep themselves and others comfortable and avoid rocking the boat. Their intuition is unmatched.
The Page’s greatest weakness is the guilt constantly dogging their heels, that little suspicion they struggle with, the fear that deep down they might not be a good person.
Includes: Jade, Feferi, Damara, Granda English, the Handmaid
Here is the ultimate test of the Witch: has your aspect ever tried to kill you?
Witches are incredibly potent. They can see their aspect everywhere around them, can draw it in, can touch the entire range of its domain. A witch is cloaked in their aspect.
But here is the caveat. Unlike Heirs and Maids and some others who sort of reach inside and unearth their aspect, Witches stand solidly separate from theirs. It is similar to the relationship between a sponsor and a warlock, and for the mastery of their aspect, they are gonna pay. Arguably a Witch has a quietly antagonistic relationship with their aspect. The rules of the universe are immutable to Jade and lead to her isolation and trauma. Damara is lousy with Time and her long, long, long life is horrific. Feferi’s position as royalty has her marked for death from the moment she’s hatched and its arguably what leads to her death.
A Witch gets all the power and all the cost to use it. They are casting from HP all the time. But the spells are so fucking useful! And even if they try to sit on their hands and try not to use them, the aspect is not kinder. It will not spare them, there is no Denying the Call. What Witches need, more than anything, is support. After all, they’re the high-damage DPS!
The Witch’s greatest strength is resilience, as they are just better at struggling through to the other side after so much practice.
The Witch’s greatest weakness is trouble forging meaningful connections because they believe knowing them must surely be a burden. Knock that off!
Sylphs are the helpers, the healers, but they are not soft. The memetic image of the person in a labcoat with a gun saying “I’m a doctor, but” is the core of the Sylph. Alternately, the MO of the Sylph can be summed up by the quote from Mordin Solus from Mass Effect 2: “Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients. Sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps.”
And make no mistake, Sylphs are helpful! Their knowledge of their aspect is very strong, very innate and natural, though if someone asked them to explain how it works, they might struggle. But that’s fine; they understand well enough for everyone, and they can handle it.
There is an extreme clarity of vision and determination to the Sylph, and an emotional maturity that outpaces everyone in the vicinity. They are likely a realist, with a lot of understanding of what is possible. Decisive action is the medium they work best in, and while they seem reserved at first, when pushed to act, they are incredibly potent. Kanaya enforced her view of reality with a fucking chainsaw, and Aranea stepping into play single-handedly torpedoed the entire session.
It’s not all hardcore drama. Sylphs do get joy and fulfillment out of using their aspect, and in doing so gain a stronger connection to the people they’re helping.
The Sylph’s greatest strength is the genuine joy from helping people and being appreciated.
The Sylph’s greatest weakness is bitterness felt when their help is not appreciated, and a tendency to try to solve every problem with their aspect, even when it’s not quite the right solution.
Includes: Aradia, Jane, Porrim, Nanna, the Dolorosa
It is a silly pun, but still accurate to say that Maids are made of their aspect. They can be seen as a wellspring of their aspect, providing it to those around them, acting as a source of support and power that their allies are lacking in.
But having that much excess of an aspect is a heavy burden. Unlike Rogues and Sylphs, who also serve as support with their aspect, Maids are not really self-selecting. They start the story with a surplus, and its their job to dole it out. This can easily lead to a feeling of apathy and a sort of emotional disconnection from the aspect.
A friend once offered a useful metaphor to me, about the pitfalls of trying to help people. She said, “It’s hard to fill a cracked mug.” No matter how much you want to assist the people around you, when it never seems to stick, when people never seem to be fulfilled by your actions, things get frustrating. And that is the plight of the Maid; to have their aspect on tap for the service of others, but to struggle with feeling overdrawn.
One recurring motif with Maids is that they have an inexhaustible supply of their aspect, but they want something else. Being in an ocean doesn’t mean you are not thirsty, and the things Maids tend to want seem counter to the comfort of their Aspect. Aradia has nothing but Time, but becomes happiest when she breaks free from inevitable outcomes and gets to connect to people and make her own choices. Jane is drowning in affluence and castle comfort, but is always reaching for connections and truths that would shatter her domestic peace. Porrim has a strong struggle with being born into her caste of caretakers, wanting to escape that, but also wanting the ability to accept it on her own terms.
Ergo: If you know, deep down, that you are bountiful with something that should by all merits make your life easier but are still left wanting for something else, and you will not be happy until you get that thing, that’s a sign of being a Maid.
The Maid’s biggest strength is confidence in their aspect without being a know-it-all.
The Maid’s biggest weakness is frustration and lack of patience with their friends and allies who don’t share innate understanding of their aspect.
Hello. My name is Arcturus. I am here to talk about classpect. Why? Hard to say.
I’ve been percolating this for quite a while now, and I feel I have finally settled on a unified theory of classpect. But I feel I have to do a few disclaimers up front, so if you don’t vibe with what I’m laying out, you can hit that back button and be free to go about your day.
Disclaimer One: I am an archive reader of Homestuck, and only consider “canon” to be the actual comic from page one up to the Act 7/Credits flashes. Nothing from friendsim, pesterquest, or any of the “”“Post Canon”“” content will be taken into account here. This also includes the “official” quiz that WP finally put up, because I find it lacking in several metrics.
Disclaimer Two: I strongly consider everyone in HS to be an Unreliable Narrator, and I heavily doubt anything that is outright ‘told’ to the reader by specific characters. My profiles of each aspect and class come from observation of actions. More specifically: I think Calliope’s infodumps in Act 6 are interesting theorycraft but nothing more. Meaning…
Disclaimer Three: I don’t give much stock to inversion theory, to gendering the classes, to passive/active classes (and outright disagree with some of Calliope’s assessments), and frankly to a lot of the sort of Assumed Truths of classpect. Going into this, you can expect to see some ideas that I think go against the popular fanon.
If any of these are dealbreakers for you, then smash that back button and have a lovely day!
Let’s get started! How do you explore this project?
My preferred method of figuring out classpect is the self-doxxing method. I have written some pretty thorough (but hopefully not overlong) descriptions of the common traits of each class and aspect. I would recommend starting with the Classes and begin to navigate through and read them.
This project has been pretty thoroughly beta tested at this point, and the common refrain is someone finding something that feels like a person attack. That would be the correct selection for you, the one that makes you feel particularly seen and observed.
Now, personally, I think its extremely hard to test for classpect. I think Aspect is slightly more feasible but Class is impossible. This is because I believe Class should be understood as what role you play in the narrative. When the audience is handed a playbill with the Dramatis Personae, what is the little descriptor next to your name? That is your class.
As such, it’s hard for someone else to tell you what it is; it’s about your personal journey and how you interact with the world. In the end, the person who is best going to understand what class you are is you. not me.
Aspect is slightly easier to assign from the outside. For that, I am currently working on a quiz for the people who truly have no idea or who just like quizzes. But for the time being, I would suggest figuring out your Class first, then moving onto Aspect. There have been a handful of people who found it easier to work the other way around, though, so don’t feel like you’re not allowed to look at Aspect if you want.
Nah. I don’t think I can extrapolate the similarities of the class from a single example. The games of Sburb seems to only use Muse/Lord in the event of a two player game, as they don’t appear naturally in any of the four other sessions we get to look at. So nope.
Hey this is a lot of information and I’m still struggling to decide my class/aspect.
I’ll make a post outlining some similarities and delineations to help you out later.
Final Thoughts
This was a metric fuckton of work. I have struggled with a lot of other analyses of classpect, and every time I go to HS wiki and look at their page on in, I see red, because none of it makes sense! None of it has internal logic! This project has been me throwing out everything I’ve seen on the topic and trying to create something that makes sense.
Thanks to everyone who tolerated me working on this project, especially my Whomstve server. If it were for all y'all going “GASP I’VE BEEN DOXXED” and “WHY IS THIS SO ACCURATE” I would’ve quit.
For the curious, the hardest class to nail down was Prince. Trying to fucking unify Dirk, Eridan, and Kurloz was a nightmare, but I actually am very happy with the final product. Though admitting that shit about myself wasn’t fun.
The hardest class to write was, hilariously, Heart, for the same reason. Unifying the experiences of the characters was difficult.
I am a Prince of Heart, but my favorite class is Page. My favorite aspect is Blood.
After months of work, it is up! This is an attempted overhaul of Homestuck’s Classpect/Mythological Role system in an attempt to have it make any sort of sense.
I’ve been plugging away at this for ages now, and have been refining and beta testing. It’s good enough to let people see now, I think.
There’s a whole blog already up and ready for you to pick through, including an intro post and table of contents. To be brief, I would start with Class and then go to Aspect, though some people find the opposite to be easier.
Hey, love your work! I've just started reading through it and a lot of the classes describe your relationship w your aspect. Is there a reason why you recommended figuring out your class first before aspect if class speaks so heavily to your aspect?
Howdy hey! So to me, Class is essentially the role you play and Aspect is the medium you use to affect the world. Class is a lot more personal and harder to nail down, to decide which archetype speaks to you the most.
Aspect sort of augments that, heightens certain facets of yourself. Both are important to know, but choosing Aspect first is sort of like picking your tool out of a box before knowing what your job is.
Most people seem to have an easier time going from Class to Aspect, but a couple found the opposite easier. It’s not a hard rule, but a guideline.
love your classpect theories!! im still mulling over mine atm, but im having a lot of fun classpecting various blorbos lmao.
do you have any thoughts about sorta self-contradictory titles? heir of blood, for instance, sounds like itd be hard to reconcile using your definitions. what dya think an heir of blood would be like?
I don’t find Heir of Blood to be contradictory? That to me parses as someone who’s life is directed by the many tethers between them and others. It sounds to me immediately as a deeply fraught existence. Someone who has no choice but to be tangled up in all those red threads until they can’t get free. what made Karkat a frankly mind-bogglingly good knight of blood was he had full utility of blood, he could reach out and grab the tethers and drag his cavalcade of shithive friends to where they were needed. its the nature of the utility of the Knight that made him so damn good at what he did.
(sidebar, i’m of the opinion that Karkat Vantas is the best leader in whomstve, that he’s the punctuation point on the running joke about leadership. but that’s a different story.)
in contrast to knight of blood, an heir of blood has zero grasp of the aspect. it’s not a tool to be used like a knight’s aspect, it’s just the will of the aspect dragging the heir around. so to me an heir of blood is going to be this sort of gravity well of connections.
i conceptualize blood as a viscous, thick pool, one that is so heavy it takes effort to stand up in it, to keep on your feet. the heir is not going to keep on their feet. they’re going to have to hold their breath.
hello! huge fan of your hs works--your fic actually got me into hs in the first place, so when i saw this blog i clicked so fast i made my laptop almost shut down skjdfhs ANYWAY i read your classpects and i must say your interpretations are absolutely godtier (to pardon the pun)!!!!!! i especially love your heart vs mind -- i think the pervading theories are that heart players are more emotional while mind is more cerebral, but your interpretation of identity vs interpretation is really clever!
huh are those the normal theories? that seems strange to me. like Dirk is a highly emotional person for sure but tends to keep a lid on that as much as he can (the way he suppresses his extreme discomfort at roxy’s drunken flirting immediately comes to mind) and nepeta is passionate, but she is not especially emotive? meulin seems the outlier there to me and even that is performance of a kind.
also like over half of latula’s dialogue is her talking in depth about her emotions sooooooooo
you're really not wrong about the self-doxxing thing, huh? I was reading through stuff like 'maybe, maybe' but when I hit the right one I had to look away from the screen like 'damnit, stop calling me out'. anyway, hello from another heart player! (a mage, as I've sorted out)
indeed I was not! trust me Prince and Heart were both some of the last write-ups I did because it is slightly uncomfortable to doxx myself like that. glad it helped you nail down yours tho!
1) how does it feel to be so right about everything, especially the aspects? :P
2) where would you draw the line between the rogue and the knight? in both your descriptions you have the aspect being wielded as a weapon where the rogue/knight can really effectively help others, but not their self. what’s the distinction (other than guarding vs distributing)?
3) i see what you’re saying about a bard’s relationship to the narrative, but what about their aspect? is that secondary or even irrelevant? is a bard’s aspect arbitrary or is it more like a method, with the aspect acting as a class because the bard class is such a blank slate?
thanks in advance if you choose to answer these, i’m really curious about your opinions!
Well I spent literally months working on this and iterating so it feels really good! LMAO to me like the moment I went “okay I think…… calliope is wrong about Prince being active that seems wrong” and then “wait is anything she says correct” and then throwing all of her theorycraft out, like that truly opened up the possibility space for what the fuck classpect could actually mean. I had a lot of fun! Glad you dig my interpretation!
AH SO at some point I do intend to do a supplementary post that examines some of the similarities between the classes and aspects. Some are easy to group up, and Rogue/Knight/Maid are what I like to call the Tired Classes. They are so fucking exhausted and their jobs are so rooted in team cohesion, I think they are very easy to look at as a group. And when I was diagnosing a few friends who had the Tired vibe, those are the ones I would offer them and explain.
To me, the delineation between our Tired folks is:
Knight: I don’t have a personal relationship with my aspect really, it’s a tool that I use, I wouldn’t think of it as ‘alive’ in any way, also I’m sad. Main tank. Maid: I give and I give and I give but I want something that my aspect specifically makes it difficult for me to have. My aspect is inside of me. Main healer. Rogue: I am here to help but if you forget to say thank you, I am gonna remember it forever. My aspect is outside of me. Off/Second healer.
Is that helpful at all?
I mean I think of aspect as the medium/tool a person uses. So does it matter for the Bard what their aspect is? Sure, if you want to know what they use to do their bullshit. But it doesn’t factor much into how they are doing their bullshit, if that makes sense. If you have a villain in an RPG, does it matter if he’s a fire mage or an ice mage? Mechanically, sure, but to The Story, probably not.
@slimequest: not the anon but the traditional interpretation is that prince is a class that inverts its aspect, which is why dirk has such a tight lid on his “heart”
sorry you said ‘invert’ and i immediately broke out into hives
also wait a fuck, keeps a tight lid? who are we talking about? the boy who built Jane a protector bunny and the SECOND it was activated messaged her to check she was okay? and then joked and jibbed with her about teaching her the ironic arts? or the guy who weathered an intensely uncomfortable series of romantic advances from roxy before still reassuring her that “I already have enough to do with you, and I like it just fine”? Or the dork who earnestly tried to get Calliope to share her friend-fiction with him and was bummed when she said no? or Dirk Fucking Strider, who fell in love with a guileful boy living scared in a room and sent a steel avatar of himself to protect him so he could explore the hellmurder island he was stuck on?
that dirk strider?!
sigh. when are people going to understand the key to understanding all the alpha kids is knowing that every one of them is a liar.
LOVE these breakdowns, such a refreshing take on things that had been somewhat "set in stone" by the past fandom per calliope. i've finally gotten close to actually figuring out my own, space is definitely my aspect but i'm torn between maid and heir. any insight on how they would work with space specifically?
HEY BUDDY GOOD TO SEE YOU.
A Maid of Space, so one who is burdened by Space. As they tend to seek out something that feels impossible due to their aspect, and the big limitation of Space is that you’re really constrained to a very rigid domain and tend to struggle with a specific part of Living In A Society, I’d say you’d be a Maid is there is a thing about modern society that is pressing down particularly hard on you or is difficult for you to come to terms with. For Jade it was being a narrative toy constantly being shoved back in the box which is a little amorphous for us, but for Porrim it was sexism and the role impressed on her by her caste, and Kanaya it was her struggle with quadromanticentrism (oh my god fuck me for typing that). Now we all live in A Society of course, but the arc of the Maid that if they’re successful, they will get to the other side and reach some sort of peace. So, if you’re a Maid, you may feel a boot on your back but have hope you’ll get free of it.
An Heir of Space is going to be the exemplar of the Space aspect, so the tactile reality of things. Space is about being locked inside a specific possibility range and having great control over that domain but zero beyond it. And the power curve of an Heir peaks early and stays constant. So I would posit an Heir of Space would feel more trapped than many other classpect combinations. The boundaries of possibility would feel like the edges of the universe. There is nothing beyond. They would be draped in a feeling of stagnation, of having seen it all already, and be like intensely world-weary even in their twenties. To which my advice would be to be better at reaching out to friends who do still have hope and who seem to be flourishing, to try and understand where that comes from inside them and try to emulate it. Fake it until you make it.
But that requires the step of actually reaching out and not letting yourself be convinced you’re a burden. Which is hard but is a struggle worth having.
Worth noting that a Maid’s source of their aspect comes from within and is under a lot of their control. An Heir also has a very strong personal connection to their aspect, but its impersonal and entirely not under their control. They are under control of their aspect.
Hiya, loved reading through your analysis', just curious if you were planning on covering specific classpects as well. Lots of love ❤ -Anon
I mean I’m doing it for followers and mutuals when they ask (or people who drop me a kofi tbh) but I don’t have plans to outline every one, no. And I’m very unlikely to do it for anyone using anon, sorry to say.
I really enjoy your take on the classpect system and how you define the classes especially, but I had a question on Heart in relation to the Knight and Page classes. When describing the way that knights can use their aspect and the ways pages interact with it, you said it wasn't inside of them but something they can wield or lead. I was wondering how that looks with the heart aspect, which is entirely your personhood??? I would love to hear your take please!
Well, would you not think that a Prince of Heart is also using personhood? A Prince gains power from fealty to their aspect. To be kind of tawdry and cliche, it’s as if being True To Your Heart gives you more power in a way that leads to incredible limit breaks.
In comparison to a Prince of Heart, I think the Knight of Heart is not really up for talking about Personal Stuff or trying to sort through their shit. They start out with a really strong sense of their Self; it’s something else that is their barrier.
(Worth nothing, both Knight and Prince are Tanks in my reading.)
Knights kind of feel like the “Hey I just work here” class. The actual functions of what they do with their Aspect, that’s really easy. Karkat was always good at Blood, Dave was always good at Time, it was their Other Issues that tripped them up. (Being queer and troll queer/cullbait respectively.) If you’re a Knight of Heart, I think you’re journey of growing up is easier than others, but complicated by Something Else. Knights are super queer to me, so someone who figures out super early they’re trans but then has to contend with the new expectations of gender they weren’t socialized with, that feels to me like a very KoH arc.
Now a Page of Heart lmao feels like the Disney Movie Protagonist to me. The one who learns in the end “you have all these cool abilities but the power came from inside you all along.” It’s incredibly twee. Thought I will say, the guileful nature of the Page paired with the romantic nature of Heart is very funny to me. I think a Page of Heart would be an absolute heartbreaker, like would make Jake English seem like a fucking nun in comparison.
I also think a Page of Heart might have a “oh no my true love was hurt so I accidentally burned down a village, whoopsie daisy” moment.
Sup, someone dropped me a tip and asked for more thoughts on the Rogue Of Breath classpect. Sure thing!
We already have one Rogue of Breath, but as we all know, the majority of the Dancestors are used primarily as jokes, which makes it a little hard to use them as a basis for analysis. My main goal was to just try to keep things consistent. Rufioh does not tell us as much about Rogues as Roxy does, but I don’t want to just discard stuff because it makes the task more difficult, obviously.
So, Rogue of Breath would be one who distributes freedom to their team. The big takeaway I had from trying to close-read Rufioh Nitram was that he was often an outlet for other’s people’s freedom and exploration but he himself didn’t always get a lot out of the relationships, and was himself rather flighty. (lmao? eh)
Thus you may think of a RoB as someone who helps the members of their team break loose from something that is confining them. Or, break is not the word… Break is the Hope word, not the Breath word. Breath lets a person slip sinuously out of the bounds that hold them. So a RoB would help their allies do that, to slip the leash of their restraints as it were.
But I think it would be like guiding someone out of a Labyrinth that you were then required to go back in. A Rogue of Breath would do the work, guide each of their friends out of the confinement, but feel like their own escape was being put off and off, and it would make them jaded. Which becomes difficult when they want a break, or for someone to free them for once, but they’re the only one who knows the way.
For a Rogue of Breath, I would suggest they explain their frustrations to a capable friend they have to see if someone can’t share the load a bit.
someone dropped me a ko-fi and asked for more thoughts on the idea of a Page of Heart, and I wasn’t sure I had anything until it hit me out of the blue.
so the thing about Pages is that they get people to serve them without knowing that’s what’s happening. with Tavros, his goal was to have fun and to fly around, even when what he wanted to do was not strategic to the overall team plan. (Breath players don’t super care about the overall objective of the game, after all.) Aradia, Kanaya, and Vriska all contributed to this.
With Jake, his whole thing is being a liar who doesn’t want to do anything to upset anyone buuuut also wants to get the things he wants. He manipulates all his friends, wins the English Sweepstakes, and is ‘served’ by everyone until it all goes to hell.
So what about a Page of Heart? I think a Page of Heart would be someone who just so happens to encourage the people around them to aid them in their personal journey, who help them with their self-iteration and evolution. Page’s power curve is very steady and gets super high without many people noticing, so I think a Page of Heart in a narrative would have a really strong character arc, nothing but the hits, to the point the people around them feel stagnant.
The Page’s guilt is relevant here of course. A Page of Heart probably knows full well that their growth is at the hands of the people around them, but may not feel… equipped to turn around and give that same effort. They may be plagued with that feeling that they are demanding too much “emotional labor” from their friends. (Let’s allow it to be tacit that the entire concept of applying emotional labor to non-professional context is busted. I know, and I hope you know this too.)
A PoH needs to learn how to give back, or to at least see clearly if they are taking advantage of people and temper that. But Heart players already have trouble wondering if they are duplicitous, so being a Page as well? Oof. It’s hard to ask them to “be real” with folks.
I got recommended your blog for classpecting stuff and gods I think you have one of the most coherent guides I've ever seen that isn't so tightly bound to what's been "considered canon".
Yeah to me there’s different type of canon. Like, I keep coming back to Calliope’s theorycrafting in Act 6 because in some ways I think that’s what established a lot of the framework that makes classpect just…….. less functional. Calliope canonically believes all that stuff, but Calliope also is working on limited information and is extrapolating. She is the first person in the comic to try and give the classes these specific translations and they aren’t commented on by anyone else. There’s no corroboration. And she is the metatextual avatar for fan speculation and fan creation. I rag on her theorycraft a lot but lemme be clear: I adore Calliope.
To me, the reason I focus on character’s actions is because that’s a better indicator of what their classpect is. What do they do with it? What do they say about it (which informs their view of it)? That’s the meat of the topic to me. But I treat everyone in whomstve as an unreliable narrator, especially in act 6 where Everyone Is Lying Oh My God Y'all.
Just because you asked, Jaboody. I attempted to repeat my Alpha Kids TED talk. Starting with Jane, then Roxy, then Dirk, then Jake.
Thesis: The Alphas are liars, they lie to you the reader, they lie to each other, they lie to themselves, and if you take them at their word you will literally miss The Point.
I cannot fucking believe I forgot to mention in the Jake Section that RIGHT BEFORE the janejake friendzone convo, RIGHT BEFORE, when jake is talking to roxy, he literally fucking slips up and refers to jane’s feelings as “unrequited” he literally says it
i love jake english, that lying bitch, i love him to fucking death
Someone asked me what I mean about the Alphas being liars. Coincidentally I did basically an extemporaneous TED Talk on the topic a while ago. There are a few details I would rephrase (my meta about Okay What Is BGD Really changes a lot) but broadly speaking, this is a primer on how The Alphas Are Liars.
Catch me here listening to Let’s Read Homestuck at work and laughing my ass off at Jane’s entire intro page but ESPECIALLY the “luckily, she’s not the type to hold a grudge.” like oh my god l m a o.
@anonezumi I got into it pretty late but I always assumed homestuck, but especially sburb in particular, was meant to be hard to understand. tell me you understand what “circumstantial simultaneity” is. tell me to my face..
(tumblr keeps eating my direct reply to the post, sorry)
but yes? “circumstantial simultaneity” happens a lot of stories that involve time travel, Hussie just gives it a pretentious name. its just a common narrative tool used in a lot of non-linear stories to make things easier for the audience to understand. the events are not happening at the same time chronologically, but they are grouped together for the audience in such a way that makes it easier to understand. like, imagine for a moment that Cascade was told to you piecemeal across like 100 panels interspersed through Acts 5.1 and 5.2 instead of the way it was. it would become incomprehensible.
i’m genuinely not trying to Gotcha here, I just don’t…. actually find Homestuck that difficult to understand as an archival reader. I have many reasons to side-eye Hussie, but the one thing I will always give credit for is the pace of the storytelling and the way they slowly teach the reader the Language of the story before testing that knowledge. That part if truly very masterfully done, in my opinion, and I’ve talked a lot in the past how [S] Jade: Enter is essentially your midterm exam on “hey are you understanding this story” before your final exam at [S] Cascade.
(i have requests in for Knight of Doom and Page of Blood, but I’m not feeling very well today, so I’ll get to those tomorrow. Just wanted those folks to know I’ll get to those soon!)
so about Pages, because two people asked wherehence comes my Thing about Pages secretly being the most powerful class.
let me give you what was my personal epiphany about how Jake Fucking English was never a “slow burn” as a power player.
So do you remember back in Act 6, how Jake spends the entirety of 6.1 thru Synch-Unite just trying to talk to Dirk? He wakes up in the morning and wants to get ahold of Dirk, is waylaid at every turn, and complains to everyone who will listen that he just fucking wants to talk to Dirk goddammit. It’s his primary motivation for the entire pre-entry sequence.
And then Jake gets bonked on the head and proceeds to have a dream about Dirk talking to him. He proceeds to dream about Dirk talking to him for 31 pages before Aranea finally interrupts. THIRTY. ONE. PAGES. It’s one of the longest logs in Homestuck by page count and word count. And its all a memory of Jake’s birthday, when he got to talk to Dirk, and Dirk was nice to him and complimented him and told him a story and indulged him.
This isn’t a coincidence. This is Jake, fed up with not being able to talk to the boy he likes, finally just having a Hope-fueled tantrum and dreaming about the one thing he wants for thousands of words. It’s unfettered desire and an aspect that’s sympathetic to its Page. Everyone mistakes them for lower-level players with big endgame potential because they don’t realize Pages don’t really choose to do shit, they just get what they want. (compare this to Tavros and his Breath-y desire to just have fun with the Game of the game and how everyone bends to enable this for him, even vriska under pressure from kanaya)
ppl be like “oh jake you used the combined power of hope and heart to make a copy of the boy you like in your brain to protect and guide you” but also “oh pages are a slow burn” bitch pls
anyway i love pages and i love jake english, hope you all have a smashingly good day
You know who’s a Knight of Doom? Neo Matrix, from the Matrix movies.
I’m only kind of joking. The concept that comes to mind for Knight of Doom is someone who is aware of the ones and zeros of the world, can “see the matrix”, but views it as a tool to use essentially. I think what would stand about about a Knight is that… I tend to think of Doom players being very angry at The System, because that system is what is going to lead to everyone’s demise. The mechanics and cogs that propel that system feel like the Doom player’s enemy, right?
But I don’t know if a Knight feels that way. Knights are one of the Tired classes, and thus have all that resignation and burnout that go along with it. I think a KoD is going to look at Doom as inevitability, but would be able to see better than most the actors that put the system into place. Another person says “we need to make the oil companies pay!” while a Doom player is like “Here are the names and addresses of the people who should pay,” if that makes sense.
IDK why I associate Doom with activism so much, but I do.
Also given the “I just work here” vibes of the Knight, I think a Knight of Doom is going to be very good at self-moderation. AGAIN THE ACTIVISM METAPHOR but the KoD is going to look at the people around them and go “dude, I know your mad but go take a weekend off before you burn out and fuck us all over.” They know more than most that the struggle is going to be of attrition, and come ready with comfortable shoes and a sleeping bag.
folks, i have a full time job, I’m working on fanfic, and I try to relax every once in a while with games and stuff. it was never my intention to block out every single specific classpect separately. the write-ups are meant to be tools for you to use. I’m doing specific classpects for people who drop me a tip as a thank you, but I’m vanishingly unlikely to do them for out of the blue requests, especially from people anonymously go “X of Y???” which i find kind of rude.
How much influence does each part have on the aspect (talismans, “you may be” and the main paragraph)?
Like personally I felt the most called out on reading about heart, but the other pieces didn’t click as much? The talismans of blood were very on the dot for me and the “you may be” section for hope was verbatim something I’ve thought about lol (also I think??? Im an heir if that helps) (thank you!!)
The talismans and the “you may be” bits are the least important and are meant to help you if you’re super torn between two Aspects, basically. if you don’t vibe with them but do vibe with the overall write-up, that’s totally okay.
(sorry this took so long, it’s been a Week at work and then I wrote a primer on mechanical keyboards, whoops)
Someone requested Page of Blood and ever since I have been kinda snickering at the idea of one because I am not sure but I think that a Page of Blood is just Sora Kindgomhearts. I say this as someone who only played, like, two of those games and drinks the Disney haterade. But the archetype that comes to mind for me is the Fool With Friends, the sort of protagonist in a story who doesn’t really know what the plot happening around them is but they keep walking into the background of important cutscenes until they stumble into a character arc, you know what I’m saying?
That’s the least hospitable read I have on the classpect. A kinder one would be someone who is the beating heart of team of people, the gravity well that holds everyone together, but isn’t the leader by any means. Pages cannot be leaders, I’m sorry, but no. But they can be the person everyone else looks at and is like “I’ve only known the Page of Blood for twenty minutes but if anything happened to them, i’d kill everyone in this room and then myself.”
Because a Page of Blood is going to have amazing innate affinity with Blood without putting in the work, but it’s all gonna feel incidental. There is a charmed quality to the way they operate. All the red chords and tethers of Blood form a safety net for the Page to fall in.
But… I always come back to Pages losing control, and I always come back to Blood’s cost, and the thing about a net is that it can catch you… or it can catch you. The Page of Blood may stumble their way into a tangled mess of emotions and bonds without knowing how to actually deal with them. Blood benefits heavily from being someone who knows how to communicate well (and here I gesture to Karkat Vantas), and I think its a muscle the Page never feels the need to exercise. They might be actually bad at communication, at anything beyond the surface level connection, so when things get difficult, they might feel left adrift in the ocean of red without knowing how to do more than doggy-paddle.
I really like reading all of your analyses. Not even from a "i want to figure out my own classpect way" but just like. Yeah i like reading it all, pls post more whenever you want to on anything, i am reading it and nodding. You dont have to respond to this, i just want you to know you have a captive audience
hahah thank you for saying so! projects like this are strange, like, they’re a bunch of superfluous work, so knowing someone gets a kick out of it is nice.
Hi! A while back you mentioned Knight/Maid/Rogue as “The Tired Classes”, which I thought was very fun! I was wondering if there are any other groupings that you have? No need to elaborate on them or anything, I’m just curious :’)
yeah i still plan to do a post about the similar classes and aspects. i just think i’m getting a cold????? 8C but it’ll happen as soon as i can work up the gumption and tarnation and such to do it.
hi!! this question is more concerning of sburb itself rather than classpect sorry bout that! but what do you think are the roles of each class in a session? do classes have to specifically do something in a session or does it just depend? like for example a knight supposedly exists in a session because of a lack in that aspect and such, or a prince existing because their role is to destroy the abundance of an aspect in that session. thanks for reading that long ass question :')
“a knight supposedly exists in a session because of a lack in that aspect”
Is this someone else’s theory craft because I have never heard it before. Also I literally don’t agree with the Prince as a “destroyer” at all and don’t think these sessions had a surplus of hope or rage or heart (respectively)
I guess my answer is “nah” which is admittedly boring. To be clear, I both don’t think whomstve was That Deep and I also don’t think Hussie put a lot of effort into making the classpects balanced and consistent in the first place, which is part of why I sat down to make this work.
The only cross session role thing is Space players gotta do frogs and Knights are supposed to help them. If you’re Knight of Space, you’re pulling double duty lmao.
Beyond that, if you personally find interesting coincidences like that to explore, that’s cool but I don’t think they’re intentional.
