#(for the record I AM still planning on doing a classpect post for these characters!!! I just haven't gotten around to it yet!!)

[kingdomoftyto]

Now that I'm thinking about crossovers, my mind somehow jumped to "what if instead of classpects/Avatar bending styles/pony species/etc I assigned my blorbos WoF dragon tribes"

And so:

Phoenix is a SeaWing, not because he's blue (though that's a lovely coincidence) but because I like the idea of him not having any breath weapons or other special abilities. All he has to defend others with are his courage, determination, and bare claws. He'd be kind of a scrawny thing, too, not built for fighting, but that doesn't stop him from throwing himself bodily into harm's way to save someone in need. A fun extra detail could be that the bioluminescence on his wings is especially bright, evoking a phoenix's fiery feathers. Oh, and he still only knows like 2 kinds of flowers, but now it's because he's from the bottom of the ocean.

(...I should say right off the bat that I don't know what exactly Phoenix and co. actually do in this AU, other than "defend the innocent". There's nothing really stopping them from still being lawyers, I suppose, though it seems like there's room for something more, uh, unique to the fact that they're all dragons now, lmAO... Either way, it's largely unimportant as long as the major story beats for each character are able to remain somewhat intact.)

Maya and the rest of the Feys are MudWings with a NightWing ancestor. This gives them a faint purple tint to their brown scales, and is assumed to be the reason behind their strange magic powers. They're not quite animus dragons (though maybe their magatama are animus-touched in some way); instead, they can speak with the spirits of the dead. I like to think their power is connected to family/bloodlines specifically, to relate it to MudWings more; perhaps they can only talk to a spirit if a member of the spirit's family is present. Anyway, Maya's personality would be hilariously stereotypical for a young MudWing--eager and impulsive and always hungry--but her sarcastic wit would set her apart.

Mia left home just like in canon, which was especially devastating for Maya because of course Mia was her bigwings. The mixed heritage of the Fey family means smaller clutches than is typical for MudWings, so Mia and Maya only had each other. Since they're the same age in this AU, Maya was at least old enough to fend for herself, but the psychological damage of being left behind by her only sibling would still have been significant. This plays into how quickly and how strongly Maya latches onto Phoenix as a brother figure later on.

Relatedly, Pearl was raised utterly alone, with no siblings at all, by her scheming mother. Maybe she had some prophetic sign associated with her egg, like it having a certain pattern of speckles, that alerted Morgan to how powerful Pearl's spirit abilities would be. So although Pearl DID have two sisters, she was kept apart from them and never told they existed. This is why Pearl is so odd and poorly socialized in this AU. Luckily, Maya basically "adopts" her as a little sister later on and they grow to be just as close as if they were clutchmates.

Miles is a SkyWing (which again provides the wonderful coincidence of him having red scales) and he has the temper to match. He was of course Phoenix's childhood friend (somehow--don't worry too much about the timeline), and then was whisked away and raised by Manfred after his father died. After reuniting with Phoenix and being set back on the right path, he travels between kingdoms to study their ways just like he does in canon with his European research tour. His big powerful wings are great for all that travel--just like they're great for zipping like an arrow from the opposite end of the continent the minute he hears Phoenix might be dying of burn wounds. ;)

(There's definitely something to be done with Miles' phobias in this AU, but I haven't given that enough thought yet. It would depend on the circumstances of Gregory's death--maybe earthquakes still tie in, but instead of elevators as a trigger, it's windowless caves? Like, there was a cave-in before Gregory's death and now he hates being underground and always needs to be within a few wingspans of an egress or he gets panicky...)

Manfred and Franziska could work equally well as IceWings or NightWings, I think, in terms of sheer vibes, and IceWings certainly work best for their aesthetic. However, I think it might be more fun to have them as NightWings for a few reasons. (Plus it would be kind of impossible for Miles to have been adopted by them if they were IceWings, for a number of obvious reasons. :P)

Firstly, I know I haven't gotten into AU names for the others, but Perfection would be an awesome NightWing name, just saying, lmao. At first I thought the name would apply to Manfred, but I think it makes more sense for Manfred to name his daughter Perfection and for her to later reject that and rename herself, like Hope did. Maybe to something like Whiptail (which is a bit less NightWing-sounding, sure, but if WoF canon can name a dragon Bigtail then I'm allowed to stretch, dammit... plus New Mexico whiptail lizards are obligate lesbians, and idk maybe she fell for a SandWing with glasses and dependence issues, who can say)

ANYWAY, as NightWings, the von Karmas get to keep their superiority complexes, and while Manfred would largely just be an even more scheming, more self-serving version of Morrowseer, Franziska could have some fun extra quirks. She of course has an especially long and tapered tail that she enjoys whipping other dragons with, and in reference to her beauty mark, she has the white "teardrop" mark by just one eye. Manfred and the others have no idea this mark has any significance, of course, but, like Fatespeaker, Franziska actually has very limited NightWing-moon powers that even she isn't consciously aware of--in this case only the weakest of mindreading, but just enough to give her an edge in an argument, or to intimidate an opponent.

Let's see, who else... Godot is a SandWing, on vibes alone if nothing else. Wouldn't he fit right in at the Scorpion's Den, playing slow jazz and sipping a hot, bitter drink? Also, maybe Dahlia's murder attempt involved dragonbite viper venom, which is why it's so shocking that he survived. His visual impairment could be made to fit the desert theme somehow, too, maybe being affected by the sun's glare or creating mirage-like distortions.

Thalassa is a SeaWing because she HAS to be with a name like that, which means both Apollo and Trucy would be at least half-SeaWing. Could be fun to make them both hybrids of different tribes--I'd say RainWing for Trucy, because the Gramaryes dazzling others with their color-changing/pulling disappearing acts with their camouflage seems appropriate, and combining that with the glowing spots she inherited from her mom, Trucy would REALLY be a visual spectacle. (Plus maybe being raised by a troupe of capricious, nomadic RainWings would mean she never learned Aquatic growing up, so Phoenix would be the one to teach her. 🥺)

As for Apollo, I haven't played AA6, so I don't know enough about his dad to speculate on that front. Could be funny if he was half-SkyWing though, to keep his color scheme red. What if he looked mostly like a full SkyWing but had smaller, more compact wings from his SeaWing side... the equivalent of him being such a short king in canon dgasjfhjksdf

The Gavins are SandWings because Kristoph having a venomous tail is just too good to pass up. Sorry, Klavier. Though, it does also match their blond hair, and Klavier does strike me as having a similar aura of (secretly insecure) suavity as Qibli, so really it's not a bad match after all.

Athena is undoubtedly a RainWing who unconsciously reflects other dragons' emotions in her scale colors. It takes her a long time to learn to control this, and even longer to learn how to use it to help others, but her dogged quest to save her uncle Simon (and a dash of classic RainWing optimism) is enough to help her push through.

And finally Blackquill himself is... hmm... he almost strikes me as IceWing-like, in both personality and aesthetic, but without the narcissistic self-aggrandizing. I dunno, which tribe I put him in would depend heavily on his backstory and how he met Metis and all that. Or maybe I could go FULL tragedy and make him a RainWing that's so broken by what happened and so determined to keep others out that he keeps his scales monochrome black-and-white at all times.

... wow, this post got long. Sorry not sorry lmao this was a shockingly fun exercise

[utopianparadoxist]

Xefros Tritoh is a Page of Time. also, class roleplay is real.

I’m still too sick to record for the Joey video, so while I don’t have the time to make a full-scale analysis post on everything about Xefros right now (theres a lot) I figured I’d make two crucial things about reading his character clear:

A) Xefros’ unhealthy relationship with Dammek is the latest example yet of unhealthy Class Roleplay dynamics. If anyone remembers, I speculated weeks ago, before the game dropped, that Xefros’ relationship to the role of Butlering might well turn out to be both unhealthy for him and reflective of Classpect behavior. As it turns out, I seem to have been correct. Specifically, Xefros is roleplaying a Knight through his unwilling assignment of the role of the Butler. B) Xefros is a Page of Time.

Let’s explore them in order, considerably more briskly than with the Joey post. There’s more to say about Xefros, obviously, but unfortunately, I just don’t have the....

Time.  Something I have in common with Xefros, fittingly enough.

Xefros’ general lack of time to keep up with the various demands on his time--mostly Dammek’s demands on his time--is a strong focus point of his character.

And just in case we’re not super sold on it yet, Xefros does us the Time-saving  courtesy of establishing his relationship to the aspect by reinforcing Time’s longstanding relationship to music and rhythm! How nice of you, Xefros. 

Now where were we?

Right. Xefros has a lot on his plate: Band practice, revolutionary lectures, butler practice, and only the occasional reverie about getting to spend time on something Xefros himself finds interesting.

And most of that time is lost in various forms of service to Dammek. Serve is, at this point, basically inarguably the key verb for the Knight/Page class pair--combining connotations of providing service/help, dealing defeats/ownage/sick burns, and literally serving/giving items to others, as the verb counterparts to Thieves/Rogues’ ‘Steal/Take’. 

So Xefros’ unhealthy position of servitude to Dammek is explicitly linked to his unwanted, forced assignment of the role of Butler--which in Homestuck terms loosely correlates to the role of Knight. Dave’s biggest contribution to his session is to serve all his friends time or provide them with resources through the use of his time, for example. 

But where doing so comes naturally to Dave, for Xefros it is an effort to play the role. Xefros does not find butlering fulfilling, and he’s not particularly good at it, either--it’s not where his natural talents shine. 

This is a common thread with most kinds of class roleplay--it usually doesn’t work out well for a player character to pretend to be something they’re not. 

Perhaps particularly so when the role the character is playing encourages them to adopt the opposite class alignment, as when an ACTIVE player is conditioned into acting PASSIVELY. This line comes from Xefros’ FLARP book, by the way, which has a bunch of Classpect references. Fitting, since FLARP is what introduces us to the concept of Class Roleplay in Homestuck proper.

Because this line kind of has to be taken in context. The truth is, Xefros would rather be playing a game.  And it’s in the context of that game, along with Xefros’ childhood and natural effect on others, that we’ll find references to his true classpect, buried under the burden of the imposed Butler role. 

Pages, like Knights, are linked to the image of the Butler--but not as players who fill the role themselves. Rather, Pages seem to have a talent for inspiring other players to act as Butlers for them. Or to close the ouroboros loop of classpecting: To get others to act as their Knights.

Xefros’ affinity for Arena Stickball immediately strikes this echo, as one of the things Xefros immediately remembers is having his Brawler defending him-- a relationship echoed by Tavros’ affinity for using animals as his warriors, and Jake’s summoning of a splinter of Dirk to protect him from Aranea. 

Xefros’ demeanor quickly turns around an overwhelmed and exhausted Joey, making her quickly grow concerned and then adamant about helping him in return for his own kindness. 

This ability of Pages to inspire others around them to want to help them is part of the reason why I think it’s likely Dammek’s concern for him is at least somewhat genuine--though that’s by no means the same as healthy. Vriska’s concern for Tavros was genuine, too, lest we forget.

And Xefros is prone to both Giving things to others and trying to make others happy in ways that ultimately turn out to benefit him. This comes through clearest with Sloth Dad, whom Xefros would give gifts or receive food from whilst always benefiting from the arrangement in some way. 

Xefros’ first cuebat, his physical strength, and open passage from his house are all things achieved by giving. But past the key verbs, Xefros’ clearest indication for both his class of Page and his aspect of Time come through in his relationship to his ancestral figure: Xultan Matzos. 

Xefros’ text logs on Xultan are drowning in both references to Time and a profound personal admiration. He likens Xefros to a figure from history, imagines convoluted alt-timeline crossovers featuring various versions of Xultan, fantasizes about having the kind of psychic power Xultan had, and more. 

He also admits to fantasizing about just imagining Xultan standing around, believing in him. This fits Xultan squarely into the archetype of the Pages’ imaginary friend, a slot filled by Rufioh for Tavros, and Brain Ghost Dirk for Jake. 

Perhaps most telling, however, is his imitation of Xultan--a copycat approach to self-improvement that Xefros credits with at least occasional success! This has common ground with Homestuck’s Pages too, as Tavros ultimately finds narrative success as he fully embodies his imitation of the role of Peter Pan. 

Jake English also famously copies female action movie tropes in both fashion choices and his eventual fall into the damsel in distress trope, whereby it’s his imagination and faith that Dirk can save him that saves the day. 

And finally, Xefros’ copying habit and Page role are referenced in a two-for-one reference combo, through Joey’s persistent early habit of calling him Xerox. 

In the 90′s, Xerox (Logo pictured above) was the colloquial term for both a product and the company that produced it. Particularly, Xerox was a popular brand of photocopier, meaning a machine designed to copy text and images onto a blank Page. 

I haven’t come close to covering half of what I want to say about Xefros, but I hope this will at least give the rest of the fandom an idea of how he’s set up.  Just for the record, I don’t think the X on Pa’s globe was pointing at Dammek. 

Particularly given Pa’s own status as a Page, Joey’s budding friednship with one puts us in a very interesting position. How will Xefros and Joey’s personalities mesh in the long run, and is Xefros involved in whatever plans Pa seems to have devised?

Interesting questions to consider as we wait for Act 2. 

If you’d like to enable me to expand on this subject, and so bring more questions like these to light in the future, please consider throwing a couple bucks my way on Patreon. This is basically definitely my last written post for a good while, as I am going on hiatus to get my financial life in order as detailed in this post. 

I’m really overwhelmed and grateful by the support so many have shown me, and excited to take posts like the one I did on Joey and this one to Youtube, where more of the fandom can engage with classpects in an accessible way!

You can also feel free to drop by and chat about this and other interesting Hiveswap and Homestuck topics in the r/Hiveswap discord! 

Hope to see you soon, and until then--Keep Rising!

[Patreon] [Hiveswap Discord]

[utopianparadoxist]

HERALD OF THE POST-APOCALYPTIC POG ECONOMY- Jude Harley, the SEER of DOOM

When you say you’re going on hiatus, that means you ramp up your posting massively, right? I was going to leave this by the wayside but I am, lucky for you guys, I’m still too sick to record. 

Plus the Xefros and A.Claire posts are doing really well and frankly winning over the fandom is my best shot at long-term stability and things changed for the better for me in a big way recently, so I have the time to get out a couple more of the things I’ve really wanted to say before I start focusing on video--these will all be useful scripts for me soon anyway.

Let’s talk Jude Harley, who has already given us a likely Class and a definite Aspect. And who knows--maybe he’ll lead us to a bit of prophecy on the threats our heroes will face in Hauntswitch? Maybe, maybe not, but either way it’s clear I was doomed to make this post from the start.

So let’s dive right in, and let’s start with the side of Jude’s title I’m surest about: His affinity for the Aspect of Doom.

If Jude’s psyche is concerned with anything, then it’s concerned with death, risks, threats, and the rules you follow to avoid them. While not exactly cynical, Jude is certainly cautious and wary. Even his interest in aliens and cryptids frames them as mysterious threats to watch out for--his shirt isn’t depicting a simple alien, but an alien abduction.

He keeps a flare gun because the chance of a life-threatening emergency is a basically constant presence in his mind, and his interest in POGS is linked to his belief in their eventual post-apocalyptic value. Jude sees the worst in the world, and he prepares for it.

Apparently pretty well, too! I’m not AS sure that Jude is a Seer as I am that he’s a Doom player, but if this is a case of Class Roleplay, then it’s an oddly successful one. The big twist of the first half of Hiveswap is, of course, that Jude was right about basically everything--even if he muddled the execution a bit.

The Seer/Mage key verb--Know--is repeatedly linked to Jude’s biggest contributions, and it’s his foresight that keeps not just Joey but her beloved dog Tesseract safe. 

All of this squares quite nicely with the verbiage we can extrapolate for a Seer: One who knows Doom (or through Doom) for the benefit of others.

And we should stress that “for others” part, because where his plans stumble, Jude himself is the one to pay the price. For Joey’s benefit, but also for ours--the audience’s-- as his tragedy give us the deepest glimpse into his psyche and character we get during Act 1.

As @curlicuecal ‘s excellent post on Jude tells us, Jude’s pigeons actually each reflect his relationship to one of his family members, and how he experiences the loss of each of them in turn. Of course we start off with Frohike, apparently Jude’s favorite. Jude is devastated by Frohike’s tragic death, but nothing about it necessarily links the bird to A.Claire except context.

Langly makes things far clearer. When Jude finds himself abandoned, his fury is outright vicious. He makes it clear that he regards this as both betrayal and abandonment, an act of cowardice. He also alludes to being unable to communicate his anger properly and needing to suppress the emotion in order to focus on the task at hand.

Given that we’re talking about Jude, who basically ALWAYS has a task at hand, this all reads as a clear analog for his feelings about Pa. Emotional repression is something of a hallmark of the Harley line--John, Jake, Jade and Jane are all known to dabble in it. If he’s this upset when a bird abandons him, how does he feel about his own father doing so?

All this loss had already gotten to him before the attack on the Harley manor--Joey refers to all of this stress on Jude growing bad enough that Roxy took him to a doctor.

And the losses of his birds leave Jude isolated and desperate--he begs Joey to protect Byers and refers to him as “all he has left”. Not long after, he begs Joey not to go near the portal, saying he can’t lose her, too.

Byers, of course, is the bird that represents Joey in Jude’s heart, and he leaves with her when she’s abducted. However things work out between him and Dammek, for the time being, Jude is now alone. 

And maybe worst of all is that this always seems to have been the plan, because Jude is the victim of Act 1′s titular Kansas City Shuffle.

In order for a confidence game to be a "Kansas City Shuffle", the mark must be aware that he is involved in a con, but also be wrong about how the con artist is planning to deceive him. The con artist will attempt to misdirect the mark in a way that leaves him with the impression that he has figured out the game and has the knowledge necessary to outsmart the con artist, but by attempting to retaliate, the mark unwittingly performs an action that helps the con artist to further the scheme.

Given that we know that Scratch was expecting Joey, and that he is involved in the events that have put her here, we know for a fact that the swap between her and Dammek was always the plan.

Jude assumed the cult wanted the Cherub Portal for themselves, and that may well be true, but it’s his very defense of the thing that leads Joey right to it--and so, right into Scratch’s plans.

In this regard, Jude’s fears have come fully to fruition, as his knowledge of Doom helped the aliens who abducted his sister in the first place. Jude’s shirt is not just a mark of interest, but a prophecy of the fate Jude himself was doomed to witness, and Joey to experience.

And here is where it gets interesting (and somewhat speculative), because Jude’s Classpect is only half as relevant to his family as it is to his relationship with the source of all their troubles, the true antagonistic force behind both Hiveswap and Hauntswitch.

Homestuck’s Doom players were always marked by a duality motif, largely centered on Red and Blue. This was fitting for the trolls, as everything that Beforus and Alternia were doomed to was ultimately linked to the Red/Blue bomb that would eventually lead to the creation of the Green Sun.

Notice how once the sun is created, Sollux’s red/blue motif expires, and reaching the sun is basically the end of his relevance to the plot.

But even then he maintains a focus on Black/White duality. As is fitting of a Doom player, because Duality seems to be one of the biggest fundamental principles of Paradox Space. Everything in Homestuck comes in pairs: Aspects, Classes, Class Verbs, Players--all of it.

Duality is the rule, the boundary--just as death is a rule we all must follow, just as some fates are unavoidable. And so Jude, like the Captors, is similarly marked by a motif of duality. Only instead of the Red/Blue that the Captors are bound by, Jude is marked by the Red/Green color contrast linked to all Cherubs and, specifically, the cherub responsible for these games’ events:

Lord English.

Jude’s Red/Green motif directly references Lord English at least once, when the red and green marbles are used as the Lion’s eyes. Yaldabaoth--the evil, flawed creator God that Lord English is partly based on--is commonly depicted as a serpent with a lion’s head. And this lion has its gaze planted firmly on a globe of Alternia, reflecting Lord English’s indomitable control over the planet.

It goes further.

Whether or not the Cherub portal is a literal doomsday device, as has been hypothesized, it’s undeniable that every member of the cast is doomed. Both Alternia and Earth are doomed by Sburb in a matter of decades, so Jude, Joey, Xefros and Dammek are all on borrowed time.

Hell, this even extends to Trizza, who must inevitably be ousted or killed as Heiress in order to make way for Feferi’s short-lived reign. And on both sides of the Portal, the fates the characters are being led to are tied to agents of the

Lord of Time himself.

Because while Joey and Xefros seem to be dealing with the nefarious influence of Doc Scratch, Jude still has his Cultists to deal with--and they’re likely more linked to Lord English than it initially seems.

After all, The Condesce spent time on Earth before her dissapearance--perhaps enough to craft the perfect Heiress, but almost definitely enough to continue her habit of empowering clown-themed cults to carry out her agendas for her, just as she did on Alternia through Subjugglators and as she will on Alpha Earth through the juggalo presidents.

And while we never learned about the cult of the Mirthful Messiahs in too much detail in the comic, they are described as being spread across the cosmos. It makes sense to think they may be a smaller operation on the Beta Earth, where the Condesce spent relatively little time. But it is still altogether likely that they are already here.

And if so, Jude and his friends seem to be the only ones watching.

I’m really overwhelmed and grateful by the support so many have shown me, and excited to take posts like the one I did on Joey and this one to Youtube, where more of the fandom can engage with classpects in an accessible way!

You can also feel free to drop by and chat about this and other interesting Hiveswap and Homestuck topics in the r/Hiveswap discord!

Hope to see you soon, and until then–

Keep Rising!

[Patreon] [Hiveswap Discord]