While I’m on the topic of Hiveswap and classpect, I wanna talk about Xefros as a rage player for a little while here.

I’ve always found the rage aspect fascinating, because on a certain level, like Gamzee himself, it’s always been intended to be a joke. When asked about the connections between Gamzee and the Rage aspect, Hussie had this to say;

I kept all designs conceptually distinct from the characters they correspond with. But the Rage symbol was sort of the one exception. Since he’s more of a wildcard, I thought it would be funny to tie that one a little closer to Gamzee in some obvious ways. Both color and theme. It’s the arcane iconography equivalent of an angry clown face, and somewhat mockingly reminiscent of juggalo face paint. Anyone who wears this shirt is either proudly or inadvertently parading around as a faux-juggalo. This is what I wanted.

It seems like Hussie was of the opinion that there would never really be a relevant rage player in Homestuck that wasn’t Gamzee. And within the comic, that held true!

But now Xefros? What’s up with that?

Well I think the connection between juggaloes and the rage aspect is actually really relevant to the aspect! Because what are juggaloes mainly interested in? Rock-inspired rap music. Which is exactly what Xefros is talented at.

If you interpret Xefros as someone forced to play the role of a time hero by society, then his actual fatefully assigned aspect is the aspect he actually wants to take! It’s a typical fate versus wishes duality.

Consider also that Xefros weapon is a bat, and that within the Homestuck universe juggaloes tend to be servants of Lord English…