#prospit vs derse is always different

[whelpimnauthuman]

Doing my yearly Extended Zodiac quiz let's see what I get this year!

[busterofbeing]

Sylph of Hope Analysis

Uh oh. It’s been a while. Here’s a classpect that WASN’T requested but has been sitting in Google Docs for over a month!

Overview

     Sylphs create and heal their aspect, or they create and heal through their aspect, for the benefit of others. Although Sylphs are great at making their aspect, they tend to over-create sometimes. They are very passive and are usually good-natured, but they can wreak havoc when they decide to be active. The challenge of a Sylph is to know when to interfere, and when to hold back their aspect. Sylphs are natural healers, teachers, and helpers.

     Hope is the aspect of positivity, imagination, belief, possibility, and righteousness. The challenge of the Hope-bound is to know that positivity isn’t always the best solution or treatment and to be aware of the fact that they might be wrong. The Hope-bound tend to be encouragers, dreamers, and paladins.

     A Sylph of Hope creates and heals Hope, or creates and heals through Hope, for others.

Active Equivalent: Maid of Hope

Classpect Inverse: Prince of Rage

Analysis

     A Sylph of Hope is, in my opinion, one of the better Sylph classpects, and is a very helpful and powerful Hope player. Creating Hope in others is very constructive and useful, especially if you’re in a Sburb session where Hope is often hard to find. A Sylph of Hope would instill optimism, imagination, and belief into others. Again, this is VERY helpful in a Sburb session. Optimism to get you through your problems and hurdles, imagination to alchemize cool new items and a belief that what you’re doing is right, and that it will turn out great. In day-to-day life, a Sylph of Hope would be a real team player. If other people are feeling depressed, overwhelmed, or hopeless, the Sylph of Hope would be the one to give them a Hope or tell them the possibilities of what they can do to overcome or deal with whatever obstacle they may be facing. Now, they might not be great at offering concrete solutions or permanently solving their issues, but they would be great at helping people through less dire problems, and the sheer abundance of Hope they would Create would be much more effective at easing problems and Rage than many other Hope players. Not only would they simply give Hope, but they might also attempt to make Hopes into reality. If there’s a goal someone else has in mind, the Sylph of Hope would do their darndest to make that Hope real. Maybe someone has an idea in mind for a cool costume or project, or perhaps someone has always wanted to try a new ice cream flavor. Or maybe, there’s a giant pit that poses a danger to the community and needs to be filled. As long as the Sylph of Hope deems the idea righteous, they’d Make the Hope happen. It might take a lot of energy or meddling, but the Sylph of Hope would do it.

     I imagine that a Sylph of Hope would be challenged by the fact that they are predisposed toward providing Hope for others. In creating possibilities for others, they deny themselves their own Hopes, which could lead to them becoming Hopeless, and is very bad!! Watch out for statements like: “It’s the last piece of pizza...you can have it!” “Oh, I was planning to do this...but if you want to do that it’s okay...” “Really, I have no problems with you dating them! Go ahead!”

     Because Sylphs tend to over-create their aspect, a Sylph of Hope could Make so much Hope that it could prove overwhelming to some, or it would just further infuriate those with problems too big or complex for simple Hope. And while Hope players are great at helping others see the end goal and persevere, Hope is not a very physical aspect, and thus Hope players are not good at offering concrete solutions or advice. Sylphs are healers and natural helpers, however. So they might be better than other Hope players at actually helping people through their problems. Again, Hope is not a physical or concrete aspect, so the advice and guidance of a Sylph of Hope wouldn’t be factual or certain; it would be open-ended and whimsical. A Sylph of Hope wouldn’t tell you exactly what you need to do to handle a situation; they’d give you multiple vague options, or a loosely coherent solution assuming the best.

     Because they Create Hope, a Sylph of Hope would be great at creating hopes and possibilities. A Hope that the team will win, a possibility of how someone can escape a one-sided relationship, a Hope that crushes all negative opposition.

Inversion

Inversion is when a player changes to act like their opposite classpect, due to ignorance of their own title, or some significant event. The Inverse of the Sylph of Hope is the Prince of Rage, one who destroys Rage or destroys through Rage for themselves. I imagine this inversion would occur when someone doesn’t believe or trust the Sylph of Hope or even causes the Sylph of Hope to feel doubt themselves. The Sylph of Hope would desperately try to convince the other person that they or right, or would try to erase their own doubt. This would cause the Sylph of Hope to inverse into the Prince of Rage. They’d be filled with anger at the other person’s disbelief and would destroy any opposition. Princes also destroy They would also attempt to get rid of any doubts they might have, firm in their beliefs. The Prince of Rage is a scary classpect, so a Sylph of Hope snapping would be extremely dangerous. Being righteous and/or being firm in their own beliefs can easily become a fault of the Hope-bound, and this righteous conviction could easily translate into a chaotic conviction that would bowl over opposition (literally, if things get too intense).

Prospit Vs. Derse

This is a section dedicated to understanding the differences between a Prospitian Sylph of Hope and Dersite Sylph of Hope. Lunar Sway plays a huge part in determining a person's’ character and behavior, which can sometimes make the person more difficult to properly classpect or give off the impression of other aspects. My hope is that this section will help you better understand the differences between these two types of people, and how to recognize the two.

Prospit: A Prospitian Sylph of Hope is basically one of the most, if not THE most optimistic person you’ll find. The optimistic nature and generally good-natured attributes of the Prospit sway combined with the optimism and belief of the Hope aspect, WITH the passive and excessive nature of the Sylph, make for a battering ram of optimism. The Prospitian Sylph of Hope wouldn’t be a very cautious or strategic person. Their belief and optimism^2 with the emotional ‘in-the-moment” decision making accredited to dreamers of Prospit make them a person who doesn’t think too much about things, but has an undying Hope that things will turn out well. When offering advice, they wouldn’t offer one solution; they’d offer many. Imagine a sort of bush, with numerous branches and potential fruits, even though those branches are short and the fruit’s quality questionable. They’d believe there’s always good to be found, and would always Make optimism. They’d be one to fling themselves into any project or cause offered to them that sounds good or righteous and has a result. The Prospitian Sylph of Hope WILL save those penguins, they WILL donate money to that charity, and they WILL build a park on top of that pit!

Derse: A Dersite Sylph of Hope makes for a pretty interesting character. Being a Derse dreamer, they would be much more strategic and thoughtful than their Prospitian counterparts. To this end, their advice would be more thought through and potentially cynical, which could make it much more clear and helpful in the long run. They wouldn’t really sugarcoat things, but they would make sure that their advice is tangible. Instead of spamming the Create Hope button for overwhelming optimism, they’d create a clear, singular Hope to guide others. Instead of believing the best all the time, they would recognize that some things are complicated and twisted. This would mean that they might also be more selective of things they choose to Make real. They would very effectively Make that one Hope real, however, they might come off as uncaring or unbelieving the rest of the time.

Powers

Before god-tiering, a Sylph of Hope would possess an imagination full of the Hopes of others. Guardians other players lost, fantastical weapons they desire, and possibly other versions of players; they might be a version that their real self Hopes they could be, or they could be what another player Hopes they could be. Being surrounded by the Hopes of the other players would help the Sylph of Hope better and more clearly encourage others. At times of great Hope or belief, they might be able to heal wounds. The potency of their healing would correlate with their own levels of Hope and Belief. At a pre-god-tier level, however, it’s unlikely they would be able to do anything more than healing a major wound.

Post-god-tiering, a Sylph of Hope would have a powerful array of unique abilities. The most significant would be that they can actually Create the Hopes of others. If another player Hopes they’ll someday be with their Guardian again, the Sylph of Hope (with enough belief) would be able to Create an imaginary version of the Guardian to be with or fight alongside the group. This concept opens a lot of doors and could be an extremely powerful ability. The Sylph of Hope could effectively Create whatever others Hope for. Do they need an army to help them fight the Black King? The Sylph of Hope would be able to Create the army that they Hope for. Or how about a cool fort? One Hopeful fort, coming up! The power of Hope is built almost solely Belief, so the Sylph of Hope might be rendered ineffective if their belief and Hope is weak. Things are only as real as the Hope-player believes they are, after all. I think it could be possible these Hope constructs might be even more real and physical because the Sylph Creates. I can imagine if the Sylph of Hope was reaching some peak Hopeness or whatever, they could actually Create something real, and not just the “real as long as I believe” real, like, ACTUALLY real. An actual human being, perhaps? This ability just has way too many exciting and powerful ideas, I’m sure the Sylph of Hope would be a VERY interesting character to explore.

Now, healing. At this level, the Sylph of Hope would have the basic healing powers that other god-tier Sylphs would have. However, as stated before, the exact power of their healing would depend upon their own Hope. Remember, the Sylph of Hope heals through Hope. So if their Hope is weak, they won’t be a very effective healer. If they have incredible Hope (Sylphs tend to create an over-abundance of their aspect, remember), they could effortlessly heal their teammates, and with an insane amount of Hope, they could even revive a dead player. Sylphs can also heal things related to their aspect. Aranea is a Sylph of Light, an aspect about relevance and information, strongly related to vision and seeing. Hope is an aspect of belief, possibility, and positive emotions. So, a god-tier Sylph of Hope would be able to cure depression, filling up the lack of positivity and belief in the future. Temporarily or permanently? I’d say permanently, but a weaker Hope and/or stronger depression might make the “cure” less effective.

Session Strategy

The Sylph of Hope would be a VERY good player. With healing, positivity, and some pretty sick powers, having a Sylph of Hope in your session would be incredibly beneficial. Hope is an aspect of positivity and belief, things that can run low in your typical session of Sburb. All of the canon Hope players we’ve seen have been very bad at...well, bad at Hope. I feel that Hope players, in general, are responsible for keeping Hope up; making sure nobody is going crazy or is losing Hope for the session and the future. So having a player who excels at healing low Hope and creating new Hope would be extremely beneficial to the emotional health and stability of the team. To reap the full rewards of this great classpect, go god-tier. If I had to rank all the classpects based on how soon they should god-tier, the Sylph of Hope would definitely be up there in the top 20. Creating Hopes is a POWERFUL ability! I like the Sylph of Hope because their powers make them one of the best offensive Sylphs. Couple that with their great healing powers both physical and emotional, I’d confidently say this would be the best Sylph to have in your session. As the rule goes for everyone, you don’t need to god-tier, but having a god-tier for the final battle against the Black King would be incredible! If they god-tier earlier though, they could maybe use their Creating Hope powers to create an army or something to help other players on their planet quests. The Sylph of Hope would be responsible for healing the broken Hopes of the players, first and foremost. However, I’d imagine they’d also be great alchemists as they CREATE HOPE. You might want to put the Sylph of Hope in charge of ALL alchemy, considering their passive nature. They’d use their great imagination to create epic items and weapons, certainly better than some of the other players could come up with. So I really see the Sylph of Hope playing a mostly supportive role in their session; keeping everyone chipper and Hopeful, and alchemizing items and weapons. Keep in mind they wouldn’t be a great planner or leader. Hope is not about having a plan. As stated before in this analysis, a Sylph of Hope wouldn’t have concrete plans or answers, they’d mainly provide generic encouragement. The only thing to watch out for would be the Sylph of Hope losing Hope themselves. Because they create and heal through Hope, losing it would essentially handicap them. This is especially important for the final battle against the Black King. If the Sylph of Hope is Hopeless going into the final battle, their powers would be kaput and their healing would be nonexistent or minimal at best. As stated earlier, make sure that the Sylph of Hope doesn’t deny themselves their own Hopes and dreams just because someone else might want them.

TL;DR: The Sylph of Hope is a supportive optimist that gives others Hope and turns dreams into reality with their imagination and excessive nature. They have the power to make things real and heal through their belief. They are one of the best Sylphs, hands down.

Parting Words and Thanks

Man, I really should make these faster. With the Summer here though, I’ll have much more time to play video games and watch Netflix write about Classpects! If it’s any worthy excuse, I want these analyses to be the most in-depth and extensive analyses done for any given Classpect. Thanks to optimisticDuelist for the sweet Class and Aspect cards! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Parks & Rec.

[ardenttheories]

I remember reading at least part of your post on Seer passive vs. Mage active, and it made a lot of sense before I really thought about it. Isn't the active/passive distinction made by how the person interacts with their aspect, not the role they take? I'm not sure if I read the whole post and it was awhile ago, so maybe I'm thinking wrong or missed something, but I'm a Mage, and the big reason I'm not a Seer is the more "active" way Mages interact with their aspect. Am I wrong?

The official definition, as based on the Extended Zodiac, is that “passive” = Prospit and “active” = Derse. This, ultimately, causes a lot of issues.

For instance, who can forget such wonderful PASSIVE players such as 

Vriska Serket, Thief of Light.

Or such strong ACTIVE players such as

Roxy Lalonde, Rogue of Void. 

So clearly there’s something wrong with that distinction, especially when you read the Lunar Sway page and realise that Vriska reads significantly more like a Derse dreamer than a Prospit dreamer. 

The idea that the Passive/Active divide is based on how a player interacts with their Aspect is a fan theory, and one that does make sense, but also poses issues. For instance, if it’s how they specifically interact with their Aspect, then… there would be no easy way to divide Classes into Passive and Active. For instance, Vriska is a much more Active Thief than Meenah, and John is a much more Active Heir than Mituna or Equius. 

Some of this is, of course, because of the actual Aspect itself - which is something I’ll go into in a different post, but the gist is that some Aspects are more Passive and some are more Active, so you’ll have seemingly Active Classes playing out more Passively because of their Aspect - but you can see what I mean.  

How a player interacts with their Class doesn’t allow for an actual divide, something that definitively places a Class one way or the other. Therefore, the role they take seems to make more sense for something definitive than how they interact. 

Which is why I see Mage as potentially more Passive. When you look at our canon Mages… the lesson they learn is much more Passive than that of the Seer - it’s literally the difference between “don’t keep your knowledge to yourself, spread it out and accept other points of view” and “take what you know and act on it, don’t just sit around directing everyone”. 

It’s also the difference between how they See/Know. Mages are passively influenced - things happen to them naturally that ensures they are exposed to every part of their Aspect, good and bad - whereas Seers are actively influenced - they literally have to seek out the answers themselves, and while they’re guided at first nothing is truly handed to them the way it is to Mages. 

This remains the same for every Mage and Seer. It’s a distinct feature of the Class, and means that no matter how you interact with it as an individual, you’re still going to have to get to the same end point the same way. 

This also allows for the influence of Aspect and individuals on the Class itself without taking away from the strict divide. For instance, a Seer can still be Active as a Class definition, but the actual Seer themself doesn’t need to be an overly Active person within that role - because it’s not how they interact with their Aspect, but rather how their Aspect interacts with them. 

A Seer will always have to Seek answers (Active), and a Mage will always have the answers come to them (Passive). 

That’s, essentially, why I think (and personally prefer) this definition. The other definition - that it’s interaction-based - is valid, too, since it’s all just fan theory at the end of the day. But for the running of my blog, this is how I work it. 

[sgrubsauce]

My Thoughts on the New “Canon” Aspect Quiz (+ moons!)

Well, this can’t wait.

I've taken the quiz, read the canon aspect descriptions and the descriptions of what the aspects of the Hiveswap characters are, as well as the descriptions of the moons. Thoughts below the cut:

(TL;DR:  Contains some useful tidbits, but excessively facile and generally underwhelming and inadequate--but also not canon, so we can just ignore it as suits our needs)

ON THE ASPECTS:

The biggest thing about the aspects is that most of them have approximately one line of any value, and the rest is zodiac-like in that it’s basically rainbow reading--that is to say, every single aspect has such a wide list of personalities and traits listed that they will apply to everyone.  There is, however, usually a key description of the aspect in the middle--stuff like confirming Rage as a denier of lies and a bringer of harsh truths.  It also confirms the concept of aspects as opposites matching the standard pattern, and I would like to take this opportunity to politely tell everyone against this theory to suck it.

In terms of the actual aspects, the one thing we got (and it’s a big thing!) is an actual reasonable description of what Doom means and how it forms a dichotomy with life.  It’s all terribly vague and buried in wishy-washy nonsense, but the gist of it seems to be that Doom players suffer and need to learn to empathize, while Life players empathize and need to learn to suffer.  I’m not sure this exactly fits Sollux’s arc, and less sure that it fits Mituna’s (although Heirs don’t start with their aspect so it kinda works), but it’s more than possible that I’m misreading this.  My biggest takeaway from this is twofold:

Firstly, that most if not all Doom players are on the Wounded Angel arc in Chuubo’s.

Secondly, that the Buddha is the archetypal Life player.

I’m really not sure how to feel about those things.

Unfortunately, most of the other aspects are a wash.  Describing Time as goal-oriented is fair, if not the first thing I would say, and the description of Hope vs. Rage seems a little over-simplified but good enough for people with no prior background, but then they go and describe Light as knowledge.  While this may seem correct at first blush, I’ve previously ranted about how all evidence in the story points towards Light as meaning stories instead.  I can accept that Hussie wanted Light to mean knowledge, but his own work contradicts him here.  The fact that they posted this makes me doubt the value of the other posts.

ON THE MOONS:

The lunar aspects share a lot of traits with the aspects, in that the descriptions are so broadly applicable as to basically be meaningless.  Once again, there is a single line of valuable information to be gleaned from this, and that is the perceived decider between Prospit and Derse dreamers--Prospit dreamers accept authority, while Derse dreamers rebel against it.  Like the aspects, this makes sense on first blush.  However, there are some issues.  You could easily say that Vriska and Tavros both respect authority, but to say Equius rejects it (as he should, as a Derse dreamer) is patently absurd.  That might not be the best example, as Void players are free from stories about them and can make their own path, so they might not be as affected by their lunar alignment--but what about the other Dersite trolls?  Nepeta shows no signs of wanting to fight the establishment or rebel in any particular way, Eridan wants to strengthen the status quo, and Feferi’s arc is in many ways about her having to learn to rebel because following the status quo is her first instinct!  In short, this theory’s falling apart in a number of ways, and the nail in the coffin is that any theory that fails to explain why Sollux and Mituna, and only Sollux and Mituna, are residents of both moons falls apart--and this one doesn’t even try.

ON XEFROS BEING A RAGE PLAYER:

According to the signs shown, Xefros is destined to be a Rage player.  A lot of people seem to view this as unexpected, but in truth he could be viewed as a Page or Knight of Rage rather easily.  He’s been led by Dammek to believe that Rage is constant anger against “the man”, when in reality it’s tearing about any lies, even comforting ones like the rebellious structure Dammek’s set up.  I don’t really have much to say about this, given how little we really know about Xefros; a lot of his characterization really hinges on how plausible the revolution is.

ON THE QUIZ ITSELF:

It has 8 questions for the moons and 12 for the aspects.  Each of the moon questions has 5 answers on a linear scale between the moons, and each of the aspect questions is a linear scale between the two extremes of two opposite aspects.  If there are ties, it resolves them in a fixed way rather than considering influence of other questions.  In addition, some of the questions are based solely on surface-level traits of an aspect instead of the actual personality traits (”would you rather travel through time or through space”--really?  I expected this from an amateurish fan, not from you).  It has set before itself a monstrous undertaking, and then proceeded by falling flat on its face.  If you were to design a classpect quiz (for I firmly believe that different classes have such different relations to their aspect that it would be impossible to properly determine one without the other), it would need to start with wide-ranging questions, then narrow down between similar ties as you went; it should ideally adjust itself on the fly to tease out nuances; and it would need to perform meta-analysis of the answers to notice overall trends in behavior.  Even then, it might not always be correct.  I may have been somewhat considering making such a quiz for myself with all of those features, but I lack the background in psychology which would be necessary to properly write the questions.  So, to see this quiz which barely even tries, from WhatPumpkin and Hussie himself, borders on insulting.

“BUT WAIT!  SURELY IF THIS CONTRADICTS YOUR THEORIES, THAT MEANS YOUR THEORIES ARE WRONG?”

I’m glad you asked such a leading question, imaginary Karkat!  As it turns out, the author does not have sole ownership of the work, and their interpretation is not inherently more correct than anyone else’s.  This is a principle known as death of the author, and while it may be considered something of a stretch, I firmly believe such a principle applies here, as the quiz is non-canonical.  This may seem absurd at first blush, but there is a clear reason why:

These two trolls are the canon fantrolls, Mierfa Durgas and Nektan Whelan.  They are the results of a pair of $10,000 donations to Hussie’s Kickstarter, which offered to make a fantroll canon.  As such, any excuses you might make--for instance, that Caliope was imagining the signs as hypotheticals--cannot be used; these two characters are definitionally canon.  However, their signs are not included in the expanded zodiac; and as such, because it contradicts known canon information, it therefore is not canon and cannot be treated as such.  It can tell us a lot about what Hussie thinks the aspects mean, but not a word of proof as to their actual meaning.

[elfstuck]

War in the Chessfields

I have realized that, no matter how busy my life gets (guys, guuuuuyzzz, it’s Night of the Nocturne right now and I could be searching for Strange Chests that might contain the new Smirch gene!), I really need to get farther along in Homestuck because it’s starting to creep into mainstream politics. (He was told about Homestuck, and then he started reading it.) Also, Chibipaw says there is “good stuff’ coming up soon (that’s as much detail as my anti-spoiler policy allows) and I need to hurry up and get to it.

So... where did I leave off? Oh yeah. NinjaJade had taken out the wearer of my future cosplay project, but had missed PM sailing off into the sunset (moonset? Prospitset? Do they even have a sun on these planet-things?), so she’ll have to get the ring back to her later. To expediate that, Jade marries herself.

Oh wait. The four dots. Agh. I mean, aside from being equally spaced in a way that would make them endlessly annoying to wear, they... they may signify the four fingers. Homestuckians have four-fingered hands. I’m not sure if I’ve noticed this before.

Jade is immediately overwhelmed with the Spirit of the Ring: she gains wings, a tri-pointy hat with horns, tentacles, and a fake through-the-body sword. So... an amalgam of all the sprite encodings so far.

Next panel, turns out she was only thinking that happened. It doesn’t work that way on humans.

Elsewhere (dammit, I should’ve stuck with the last post a few more panels so the POV shift happened at the beginning) we have yet another WV. This one is WARWEARY VILLEIN who is either an animated stick-man, or is waving a stick on a banner: crossed beams, ragged red-and-purple robes and a white sash. He/it has a bucket on its head with the familiar Sburb spirograph.

Next up (aagh) is something with flash and sound. This is probably the Cool Thing Coming Up Soon that Chibi told me about. eep. Flash takes forever.

WV is being told to “Rise Up,” which is probably not supposed to make me think of Hamilton as this was written several years ago. But those words are gonna be attached to that song for a long time.

I click to the next screen. I am faced with this:

And I remember two things: (1) Firefox always thinks Flash is out of date, because every time Firefox updates ANYTHING, it decides Flash is out of date. My Firefox is a couple of editions behind (I’m not “updating” to Quantum that will kill several of my beloved extensions), so I’m going to see this A LOT. Sigh.

And (2) aaaaagh my laptop does not have a “print screen” button. It had a “print screen” macro that stopped working. (I have an Alienware laptop. WHODAFUK decided that a gaming laptop didn’t need a “print screen” button? Like, is that now an obscure and rare function? I STILL HAVE A CAPSLOCK BUTTON. I DO NOT NEED A CAPSLOCK BUTTON; CAN I REPLACE IT WITH PRTSCRN? (I typed that without using the capslock button, because remembering to un-capslock is always worse than just holding the shift button with my left pinky and using the wrong finger for “A”, and I guess “q” and “z” but those don’t come up as often.)

Quick check to the Alien “TactX” command center... huh. Print Screen is working now. It wasn’t last week. Yay, I guess? (Someday, I will once again have a boyfriend who speaks fluent Linux, and this time, I will get him to TEACH IT TO ME and I will defenestrate my laptop.) Anyway. Here we go.

3x3 chessboard; the kings move a bit, and then run into each other and the whole thing turns white silhouette. This means this is a meta-story-thing, related to the previous Grand Chessboard event, which I have mostly forgotten. (I have the link saved, though, so I can watch it again anytime. It’s on my schedule. “1. Run out of Stucky and Stony fanfic. 2. Rewatch Homestuck chess scene.” Blame dsudis for the delay.)

Clownsprite image appears. Chess pieces keep moving in the background. I have to screencap several times to get a good picture of the chess pieces (sometimes there’s only one visible) and the sprite with the pretty shade of aqua in the middle instead of white. I’m sure you’re all thrilled that I’m focused on the important parts of the story.

Next, he flickers and I fail to s’cap the transition between that and the full-layout chess set.

Please, someone tell me that someone makes these chess sets. That several people make these chess sets. Tell me the are sold with the label, “This Is A Chess Set, Not A Collection Of Marital Aids. We Promise.”

Birdsprite appears. (At least, I think that’s birdsprite.) Oh wait, no, that’s catsprite in the princess outfit. It is lavender, Rose’s color. Or one of them. Does that mean the davesprite will be red? (Do I really need to screencap all of these? Probably not, but this is as much for my entertainment as anything else. Also, I want to be able to reread them and figure out what I was thinking.) I considered re-trying to catch one with a darker purple circle or other higher contrast, and decided not to bother.

The music seems nice enough, what I can hear of it before I hit stop so I can screencap. (If you’re new - various suggestions have been made on how to deal with the Flash bits in ways that aren’t “stop & screengrab every couple of seconds.” I have nixed all of them. I enjoy doing this one fragmented piece at a time.)

And then the scene changes: the board is replaced with a WHOLE PLANET BOARD.

Rose and John’s sprites are in the upper corners, starting with top right and moving widdershins. Widdershins is a destructive direction; they are unmaking the world. (Erm. As obscure as Hussie gets sometimes, I have doubts that that particular bit of symbolism applies here.)

Aaaand here comes the davebirdswordsprite. Orange, not red.

 Davesprite tucks away into the bottom left corner, continuing widdershins, and the cubeworld backs off or is replaced by a round world, very bright and faint, with VERY BRIGHT FLASHING blue lines around it. (Same blue lines as above. They just got brighter.) Then the planet darkens (this is what happens when you stop the Flash every second or two; you wind up  giving far too much import to transition scenes.)

Imma make a prediction: Jadesprite is due to make an appearance. (Does Jade have a sprite yet? Something with a pumpkin?)

BUT NO! The world gets bigger, moves closer, until it FILLS THE WHOLE SCREEN! Then it fades out to white, and gradually (well, gradually if you’re stopping every time something moves or flickers), we get a new scene:

Aww, the rolling hills of Chesslandia, with its famed pixeltrees. We float over the landscape until we reach the castle. (Or maybe, “a castle.” I dunno. Maybe there are hundreds of castles in Chesslandia.) The pixelgrass fields bring color to the landscape, and a couple of pixelfolk play hide-and-seek in the tall grass near the aqua river.

Well, it’s got a turret and banners, and that kinda says “castle,” along with the whole, y’know, chess kings & queens motif, but that looks kinda small for a castle. Also rather isolated. Why build a castle if there’s nothing near it to defend? I see that there are people, but no town. Is the castle all that remains? Am I looking upon the desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland of Chesslandia?

We pass the people and zoom in, seeing the yellow banner waving madly in the gale-force breezes near the castle turret. This is, apparently, to introduce the army of Chesslandia, because the scene whites out again, and then switches to the marching hordes.

I am probably not supposed to think their little ± symbol reminds me of a leviathan cross, a.k.a. the Satanic cross. (Hey, if I make a CD cosplay outfit, can I have a purple banner with a pentagonal ± symbol on it? Or is he not part of this army?)

Then we pull back to see the huge crowd of them, and they fade, and a different banner fades in: this one is purple - and behind it is a yellow-clad army.

AAAH! The yellow flag is for Prospit, and that’s the Dersian army marching on it. And the purple banner here is Derse, and the Prospit army - complete with the same ± symbol - is marching. Here, have some Prospit army:

This isn’t because you need the picture, but because I captured the flash at that point so I can watch them marching and waving weapons, with the sky flickering in the background. It’s very soothing. Wish I could capture it as a gif.

And then... FIGHT! Armies meet on the battlefield! Sparks fly from their blades, which are apparently made from different metals. They both wear stripey shirts and chessboard tabards, of different color combos.

Guys. Gals. Whatever. Readers. I have been cheated. I thought Homestuck cosplay was limited to “t-shirts with a zodiac symbol + horns & weird sunglasses,” or “one of these four kids (also t-shirt with symbol).” There is AWESOME cosplay opportunities in this series. Nobody told me.

I mean, they told me about the tentibulges, because my friends know where my interests lie (or squirm, as the case may be), but even the friends who knew I’d done 6+ years of RenFaire didn’t bother telling me, “omg you should see the amazing costume options, and also, they wouldn’t be impossible to make!”

(I mean, I’ve looked into WV’s costume, but it looks difficult and too hot to wear at most conventions.) (See how I focus on the important parts of the story?)

Spaceship takedown attempt. Or maybe this is a drop ship. Looks like there are many such ships. Anyway, we see battles, and it pulls back to show the larger scene, and the horrors of war:

Well, the horrors of neon, purple-vs-yellow war. ... Is that a giant horse shadow with tentacles on its back?

Why, yes it is. Knight vs... King? Queen? We’re back to the chessboard, with only a tiny hint of a pixeltree in the corner to let you know this is the large-scale war happening above the ground. Then we get this:

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but they’re too cute to pass up. There are 9 little fellows, so they’re not “pawns.” Then a giant black chesspiece stomps into the center of them and they fall aside, scattering (I didn’t catch that picture), and then... the WV banner thingie is raised again.

That makes it seem like we’re wrapping up this storything, because that’s the image that we started on. It slowly pulls back to show an empty Chesslandia with a flower stand, waving a red banner.

The pixelgrass has return to the fields, although the pixeltrees have not. Or maybe they just don’t grow here.

AAuugghhh nooo... that was a picture of the past. Now, the lovely flowerstand is in ruins; fire everywhere, and a lone derseling wanders the war-ravaged fields of Chesslandia. :( We pull in tight to his grief-stricken, bleak expression (don’t ask how I can identify that from two white dots on a black circle; I just can) and then he (or she) oversees the huge battle on the fields below.

Woe. Woe has come to Chesslandia. Woe, and fire. Woe, and fire, and pixels.

Zir face is shadowed by woe and fire and pixels.

Zie is not looking nearly as woeful in this image. Hrrm. Then we see the Black Queen rise...

Then we zoom in again, this time to the scepter, which is full of clouds and the spirography thing:

This is all getting a little too “Men in Black,” with the world in a marble and all that. Are we going to zoom into the scepter again, to the center of the spirography symbol, and find ourselves moving into John’s balcony?

Well, no. We do zoom in, into the world and the cubeworld and such, but we get a black-and-white image of something shadowy flying over Chesslandia.

We zoom in again, and we see... not Spades Slick, despite the cut on the eye. That other character with the same appearance.

It flies with malice (don’t ask me how I can identify malice from that), but is faced with a lone Dersian defender:

We cut back to the war on the ground, the clashing swords and all that, but the combatants move aside. And this had better wrap up pretty quickly, because my printscreen macro just stopped working. (WTF? If anyone knows how to give advice on this, plz contact me.) Anyway. They move aside, and then snap into line.

Our lone Dersite with the tattered red banner leads them through the pixeltrees toward a set of checkered ruins.

Elsewhere, PM lands, and notices the missing ring. White Queen is not happy. There’s another huge scepter waving. White Queen flashes white all over, and shrinks - and hands the scepter to PM.

Looks like PM is in line to be the new WQ. However, the handoff is spotted by someone who is Definitely Not A Member Of The Midnight Crew.

Meanwhile, the Dersite hordes march to confront the Black Queen. Our purple-robed hero(ine) glares, and then looks upward, sees the flying not-a-bird person overhead. The Spadesy-person waves a swords and slices through the black scepter.

(I think I figured out the screencap problem. It won’t work if I have the Flash selected. Which is stupid. Really stupid.)

Black queen, missing her scepter and its four spinny baubles, also shrinks.

Heartsy spy leaps out and attacks the new white queen. (Gonna knock her into next week. This is a problem, because next week is a massive international holiday and it’ll be hard to find time to liveblog.) White scepter goes flying over a waterfall.

We see, inside the white scepter, the purple-robed defender, and it pulls back to see the world, and then the scepter itself, which lands by the banks of the aqua river surrounded by pixelgrass.

(That picture’s superfluous; it’s not relevant to the story. It’s here becaue I think it’s pretty.)

Aaand now I should watch it again and get a sense of the whole story instead of stopping every two seconds to ponder the meaning of each cut scene.

***

Two minutes and 15 seconds of flash that takes me an hour and a half to write about, all the while worrying that Tumblr’s going to have some weird hiccup and lose the whole thing.

So: back queen dead; white queen deposed by losing her marbles; new manager of each; war possibly stopped at the moment. White scepter maybe recoverable and could be combined with Jade’s ring to fix it. Black scepter broken; would need something else to fix. (Superglue?)

Jade has not yet entered the chessgame at the macro level. Jade needs to install Sburb and get into the game.

[homesception]

May 30th, 2013 - Part 1: Wherein Lobac writes a book

I am constantly humbled by my own peerless capacity to capture Lobac’s sublime essence in the form of Homestuck panel edits.  This one is, if anything, my finest work yet, an exquisite realization Lobac’s deepest and most fundamental inner truths, the very core of her personal being.

lobac said:

Right then, I was gonna say stuff about those weird destiny/mythology/title/element/RPG class thingies!

Ok, so... this page is just a huge text post of classpect speculation, plus some troll chat name discussion, and I’m not really sure what to do with that, or what commentary I could add that wouldn’t be confirming or denying her guesswork in a spoilery way.

Eh, we’ll just wing it.

(By the way, this is all more about what I’d LIKE to see, story-telling-wise, and about what I WANT to be true because this could potentially be a really neat system It’s less about what I think is LIKELY to happen)

Fair enough

Oh MAN I am so excited about this though

Classpectulation was always very popular among the fanbase.  Some people got way, way into it.  Me not so much, though, actually.  Not sure if there’s any reason behind that, just wasn’t really my scene.

So much speculation to be done!!! (*~▽~) So many things to be confused about!!! (~▽~*) SO much disappointment in my future once I realise that everything I guessed was wrong!!! (*T▽T*)

I mean, I can see why Lobac and others found it exciting.  

Ok, first of all, we’ve finally shed some light on the whole “Title fits player? Title… doesn’t fit player??? Title challenges player????? No????” debacle (Finally I will be able to sleep peacefully again)

Oh, yeah!  The light thing!  Hahaha, that’s, that’s still pretty funny.  :p

SBURB tells players what their general role in the grand scheme of things is, their “destiny” if you will, and assigns them in a way that makes their party likely to succeed It’s like wanting to have a healer, fighter and wizard in your party I think? Offense and Defense and stuff all need to be strong and work well together if you wanna get anywhere, so SBURB balances things out and makes sure every angle of the game is covered by someone

Eh, I don’t know.  I mean, by this point in the story we know there are parties / player groups of different sizes, and the troll group includes elements that the human group doesn’t have, like Blood and Mind, so not every angle can be accounted for in every group.

(I still don’t know what the actual POINT of SBURB is supposed to be, and why we’re even doing all of this to save a world that the game created in the first place… Why do you even need the kids? Why do you need them to go on a journey of character growth and self-discovery??? There’s obviously some bigger purpose but??? I don’t think we got any hints toward what it is)

Can’t comment on this bit

However, these are HYP3R FL3XIBL3, meaning that you’re supposed to decide what your title means for yourself and how to utilize your powers in a way that fits your personality and the path you choose So, it’s not quite as simple as everyone’s title being purposely unfitting and challenging, or everyone’s being unproblematic and fitting perfectly, it’s all about personal growth, it’s all about how the individual interprets their role

There was a lot of theorizing trying to create a one size fits all model o how Sburb assigns classpects to players, but I always sided with this interpretation, that some players are challenged, others not so, that not just the class and aspect but the experience is tailored to individual players and varries arbitrarily.

What I mean by this is that, at least for now, since it’s up to the kids to both grow into their roles and shape them, there’s no point in making any “general” statements about any elements, it’s probably a better idea to look at what they might mean for the specific character they were assigned to

This is a good approach, I think, and Lobac goes on to break down her thoughts on some of the asspects and classes, but before we jump into that I’d just like to point out that there’s a third axis as well, even if it doesn’t make it into the kids’ titles, of prospit vs. derse.  I don’t think its too much of a spoiler to say we don’t get to see any examples of players with the same class and aspect but different moon assignments, mostly because I don’t actually remember if it’s true or not, but I do remember thinking it would have been interesting for comparison purposes to see what difference that would make.

BREATH ~~

Ability to (subconsciously??? seriously what even was that) manipulate the wind and conjure up storms, of course! I imagine John will not be very, precise, or subtle, when using his powers, so he probably won’t be able to make himself “fly” by redirecting the air around him? Or rather, it’ll take him quite a while to get there, the kid needs some kind of challenge

seems straight forward enough.

Maybe he’ll fall of a cliff

NO COMMENT.

Storms can also be fucking terrifying and destructive - John could possibly be like that if something awful enough happened? His father’s death, maybe

What, like a break the woobie kind of situation?  I guess the plot could go that direction.

I’m already seeing the whole “flexibility” thing here, you can interpret this any way you want to

Basically.

BLOOD ۵۵۵

I’ve no idea who’s supposed to be the Knight of Blood, which means there isn’t that much to say but of course there’s the obvious implication, and also… Eh I’ll get to that later

There’s probably spoilers on that page somewhere.

LIGHT ☼

I don’t have any good commentary on Lobac’s speculation, here, possibly because I’m getting pretty tired, it’s about 9pm as I’m writing this and it’s been a long, long day.  But it’s all really good stuff, and I highly recommend you just follow the ‘lobac said’ link above and read it for yourself if you haven’t in a while.

SPACE   ҉

Yeah, this one and Time are pretty much the odd ones out I mean, is there any way to interpret Space other than, well, space?

Well, there’s like personal space, or when people are breaking up they might say they need some space...

I don’t know, I got nuthin.

TIME ⏳

Travelling through time! Stopping time! Seeing the past and/or future! We’ve had an entire act full of random-ass time powers I don’t think there’s even anything left to say (Except for POOR FUCKING SAWBUCK. That can never be said enough)

Homestuck has lots of great time shenanigans and a positively silly number of examples of distinct weird and amusing (if not always useful) weird time powers, mostly thanks to the Intermission’s Felt.  Even if in all the Felt’s cases time still just meant literal time and not a metaphor for some other more abstract concept, it still gives an idea of the range that, Breath or Light powers or whatever could take, even if they were restricted to just blowing and illumination.

MIND ⍰ (Yeah no clue how to put a symbol to that)

AAAAaaand apparently there’s a limit to the number of videos tumblr will let me embed in a single text post?  Boooh, that’s no fun.  Bluh.  Was gonna put that samurai jack clip here, the “I knew that you knew that I knew you would cheat” bit, but... eh.  oh, well.

Right, GC is a Seer of Mind! Mind probably just refers to the ability to understand other people, and use it against them or help them with that knowledge in any way you see fit It does make her really good at trolling people, by definition

It does make sense that she, at least, isn’t an abject failure in that regard.

And now onto the classes...

...

..

Actually, I’m too tired to go on, so I’m going to cut this one short here, and put her discussion of classes and troll handles in another post later.

[utopianparadoxist]

“Jake isn’t selfish, you idiot”: A Response

So Vikomprenas has written out a pretty thorough response/criticism to much of my writing re: Active Pages and Passive Knights, and they actually make some pretty good points that I think are worth addressing. 

A lot of stuff they cite is either misunderstanding my points, missing context, or based on my own writing’s execution being flawed, so I think it’s worth clarifying a lot of it. The following is my response to their post, and as such I’ll be referring to them directly from here on in. 

First off, thanks for writing this. I appreciate people being willing to talk to me about this stuff, and even if you were kind of ornery, if most of your anger really is sourced in thinking I think Jake was actually the hypermanipulative abuser and that makes it ok, well--I get that. No hard feelings.

As such, just know the response is v much appreciated!

I’m gonna break this down into sections per character in hopes that’ll help me keep down the length. 

But first, on the Active/Passive distinction:

I’m against the lines “Yang to the wills of others” and “Yin to the wills of others”. I’d argue they should be dropped entirely. 

I’d be curious to hear why you oppose that bit specifically--I think it’s probably kind of stilted and ineffective since most people probably don’t have a strong grasp of those concepts anyway. I’m not exactly married to any particular bit of terminology, so yeah I’m willing to consider that aspect should be dropped.

I also argue that Page and Knight specifically are very close and malleable passive/active-wise, which is the main reason it’s easy to find evidence for either way.

I don’t think we disagree here as much as you think. I don’t think Page and Knight are particularly close or malleable exactly, but I do think the system as a whole incorporates malleability. Which brings me to...

Which of those do you think is closer to what you meant by saying that? Personally, I think the version with “selfless” is nonsense, but the version with “receptive” is very reasonable — and I completely agree with it. But you’ve defined passive, in the classpect sense, as much closer to “selfless” than “receptive”.

[...]

Which of those do you think is closer to what you meant by saying that? Personally, I think the version with “selfless” is nonsense, but the version with “receptive” is very reasonable — and I completely agree with it. But you’ve defined passive, in the classpect sense, as much closer to “selfless” than “receptive”.

I’m curious--did you see the part of the Class Masterpost that goes into the Lord and Muse classes? It’s totally on me if you didn’t--I added that section way after the fact, specifically because I thought it helped clarify this.

Suffice it to say, you’re right--Passive constitutes two different definitions. It’s not that I downplay one over the other exactly, but that I think the Receptive/Proactive distinction is one that can shift over time, while the Selfless/Selfish distinction is much more consistent. 

Alt!Calliope is certainly receptive to Space for untold years, but when she takes action, she exploits it knowingly--she simply does so for the benefit of others. Caliborn, meanwhile, describes himself as having to become “At ease with the forces of inevitability”, which definitely sounds like being Receptive to letting Time benefit him to me.

Hence why I stick to the primary definition of Active/Passive as being “For oneself” vs. “For others”--which can easily be parsed into Selfish/Selfless when framed as general mindsets. 

However, in this particular context, with Jake, I believe both apply. Reading Jake as receptive to whatever Dirk “Forces” him to do is part of why people read Dirkjake as abusive. Reading him as primarily motivated by making Dirk and the others happy is also part of it. 

The best way I’ve seen this put, hilariously, comes from the man himself. I don’t usually quote Hussie on stuff--I prefer to steer clear from Word of God, because by and large, I don’t think it’s necessary. But this is a pretty complicated subject, and this quote puts some ambiguity on Knights as active along with clarifying my point, so I may as well put it here.

You could also look to the passive/active nature of the classes in making some retroactive sense of the Derse/Prospit dreamer duality. Passive/active classes are also a pretty vague thing, and don’t resolve so easily into simple dualities like defensive/offensive and such. Those are the guidelines for understanding them, but there is clearly a lot of flexibility within that system. They seem to suggest tendencies rather than absolute capabilities. 

Like there isn’t a rule that says a passive class could never use an offensive technique. The system is meant to be very flexible, and in the story, classes suggest a little more about a hero’s path and role in the greater quest than what their battle capabilities are. But if we’re saying active/passive literally translates to offensive/defensive for the sake of this topic, then Derse would be very active and Prospit would be very passive. Derse’s job is to attack. Prospit’s is to defend. 

This seems to carry over to the roles of the dreamers too. Dave and Rose turned out to be very active players. Dave time traveling all over the place, making a fortune on stocks and such. Rose went on her crazy solo mission to break the game and fight Jack. 

Jade and John had more passive roles through most of that, players who were “acted upon” by other players and circumstances. John was always being led around by trolls this way and that, drifting around wherever the wind took him. Jade was especially passive for a lot of the story, spending a lot of time falling asleep (or being put to sleep) at key moments. 

It wasn’t until she reached god tier as a Witch (said to be a highly active class) that she became extremely active, making lots of stuff happen, rounding up planets and all that. Rose may have been a similar case, being excessively active as a Derse dreamer, but then flipping over to a passive role upon reaching god tier as a passive class.

Being from Derse means you are from a culture of offense and aggression. Being from Prospit means the opposite. You could argue that these are qualities that either rub off on the dreamers, or they are designated as those dreamers in the first place because of those qualities. 

You could take the view that these are innate tendencies to overcome, as seemed to be the case for Jade and Rose. Or maybe sometimes they are tendencies that are resisted, and need to be understood and embraced. 

As a Prospit dreamer, did Karkat struggle because he was actually passive in nature, but had a very active self image as a leader and conqueror? Was Vriska an even more extreme case of misplaced active behavior from a Prospit dreamer? 

These are yet more things to consider when looking at everything contributing to the hero story of an individual in this game.

Maybe that helps frame what I mean. Any player can behave Actively or Passively in terms of being self-directed or directed by others, or in terms of being proactive or being reactive--of course. People are flexible and multifaceted. But where do they shine? Where are they comfortable? What leaves them feeling fulfilled and happy? 

These are the questions I consider in proposing this system, and they don’t really dissolve into simple answers per Class--instead, the execution depends on the individual. 

Dirk is a very Active player, for example--but his happiest state of being is in being wanted and helpful to Jake specifically, and he spends most of his narrative being incredibly reactive to Hal’s behavior--a period of time in which he’s thoroughly miserable. 

Similarly, Jane is Active, but spends months tending to Jake’s emotional needs...even though she hates it and it leaves her feeling drained and unhappy. And like Rose, Karkat and Dave both grow more Passive as they get older on the meteor--Dave to the point of swearing off Time, Karkat to the point of giving up on Leadership. 

Which brings us to the characters, finally.

Tavros:

So he wants the best for his friends, but he’s not willing to just follow their instructions, preferring to figure out how best to help them himself?

When does Tavros think about his friends all that much, though? Tavros does not demonstrate the fixation on others that Knights, Sylphs, Bards, or Rogues have. He spends most of his session indulging his own personal desire, sleeping the adventure away because it’s what’s best for *him* specifically, and what *he* wants to be doing.

When Tavros reaches out to others, it’s pretty much always to get help from them in some way. 

I would argue that that’s more a matter of Vriska’s personality than it is of Tavros’s, personally — Vriska consistently giving away that she’s not all that comfortable with how hellish their world is, as much as she’d like to pretend otherwise — but analyzing Vriska is well past what I’m trying to do with this.

In your own words: Why not both? When a character showcases the ability to get pretty much every other character to help him in some way or another, and is part of a Class that *also* demonstrates that pattern, it seems kind of weird to remove their influence entirely from one particular case of...a character wanting to help them. Events in Homestuck are regularly caused by more than one thing.

Taking it doesn’t make him a selfish person, it makes him normal. Incidentally, it makes perfect sense for him to be more selfish when dealing with Vriska than he usually is. He’s rebounding from abuse, of course he runs the risk of going unusually far in the other direction. 

It feels like you’re putting a moral prerogative on Selfishness that I actively argue against, and that does not innately exist. Tavros being selfish about this doesn’t mean his contribution is worthless or compromised--it just means he was largely thinking about his own satisfaction and methods while making it. 

Vriska does the same thing, and nobody denies that she’s effective and adds value to the team at various points. Ditto Jade. 

Also, you ignored the part where Tavros immediately followed up the Ghost Army by getting something he wanted in his introduction out of Meenah. By talking her up, much the same way the other Pages do. It’s important to keep track of those consistent behavior patterns. 

Much later, it also allows him to build the army which is crucial to English’s defeat — after all, I doubt he would be particularly inspiring if he were still in a wheelchair. Any Prospit dreamer could easily have seen this in a cloud. Like, say, Kanaya, who conveniently enough also happens to be directly involved in the amputation. 

Holy shit, I am not touching that. Homestucks’ kind of bad treatment of disability aside (and you’re wrong by the way), are you arguing that Kanaya’s clouds could have shown her visions of *the very end of the story, in the Dream Bubbles*? 

Because...no. We have no evidence of that. 

The clouds have never shown events in the Horrorterror’s domain before as far as I can recall, and such reasoning would need to be justified in the story to make any sense anyway. 

As long as we’re indulging each other on being harsh, I can’t believe how bad this argument is. Tavros robolegs don’t even factor into building the army!

 Tavros can walk in the dream bubbles because he DIED AND IS A GHOST, it has nothing to do with his robolegs, he could’ve been evaporated into molecules and he’d still be able to walk and stuff as a ghost because he’s...dead!! Tavros exists as he imagines himself in the bubbles, this was an established thing! 

The end impact of Tavros’ robolegs are that Tavros benefits because he enjoys being able to walk. That’s literally it. Moving on. 

Dave:

This is using “passive” as “receptive” again, but even besides that, it’s just a matter of being a Time player — or anyone in Sburb, really, but Time players have it hardest by far since they’re the ones with actual time powers. I can’t see this as a sign that Knights are passive without extending it to mean that all Time players are passive, which goes against the fundamentals of the class system as Calliope described them. 

This is demonstrably untrue. It’s true all Time players will largely have to comply with loops or die, but Dave by and large managed to keep to his loops incredibly well. 

Contrast with Aradia--who exploited her own tendency to break loops to end up with thousands of copies of herself, and went on to use Time entirely for her own benefit besides after God Tiering, and who has additional Time-based psychic powers even beyond that.

Also contrast with Damara, who actively broke timelines just to hurt the other players--an extremely willful and selfish use of her Aspect, to be sure. All of the Time players must comply with loops on pain of death. That doesn’t mean they all will, or that they’ll do so the same way. 

The scene you linked reads fairly clearly to me exactly opposite of how you’ve read it. Dave simply ignores John telling him that he doesn’t care to hear rap at that moment, and raps anyway. Actually, you later describe a very similar eventas “overwhelm[ing] Tavros with a time-consuming and epically sassy document”. I don’t doubt that doing this to Tavros was far more intentional and malicious than it was to John, but it’s basically the same thing happening.

Uh… you’re giving examples of Dave forcing his aspect on others, and overwhelming them with it. This is exactly the opposite of Karkat refusing to offer his aspect to others. They’re not at all comparable.

I mean, you could read them both more generally as Knights picking and choosing where to send their aspect, but that could be done selfishly or selflessly, and both of these uses are selfish.

Basically. Here, I’m arguing for the use of the verb “Serve” as the delivery of rhetorical defeat. Karkat is “serving” Eridan by cutting off their former bond, Dave is “serving” Tavros by overwhelming him. Don’t know that I’d call Karkat’s behavior selfish, since he’s motivated by thinking about Feferi and Kanaya. 

I’m not sure I’d stand by the John case, in retrospect--all I’m trying to say is Dave is prone to giving his friends his Time, whether they want it or not. That’s not Passive behavior in the sense of receptiveness, but it is indicative of his focus on others. 

I personally read this as him being pushed into a passive persona (note, once again, the persona contrasts its owner in the passive-active dimension) by necessity — after all, someone needed to take care of the minutiae, Dave happened to be well-equipped for it powers-wise, and it already jibes with his persona being cool, collected, and capable of solving problems. And again, I want to stress that Dave certainly isn’t doing this illegitimately or deceptively — only that it’s not necessarily his default position.

This would make sense, if Dave getting healthier and more at ease with himself coincided with him getting more Active. But it doesn’t. Dave coming into his own coincides with him getting more Passive in an activity sense--much like Karkat and Rose. 

It certainly doesn’t diminish the fact that Dave’s focus is consistently on others--the group--rather than himself. This is also true of both Karkat and Latula. 

Karkat:

Actually, here’s a thought. What if the persona is the relationship-aid role? He does quite a bit less of that later in the story, and it would fit the idea that personas oppose their players on the passive-active spectrum as well — leadership can be selfish or selfless, but helping others with their relationships inherently can’t be selfish… Food for thought.

He doesn’t do that less at all. He focuses his behavior in that regard pretty much exclusively on Dave, is all--who sorely needs it. Dave specifically comments on and singles out Karkat above his friends in talking to Dirk and talks about how instrumental having people who cared about him was in helping him understand his own abuse and how to have relationships. 

He also pretty much defaults to engaging in the same behavior with John and Terezi, which notably calms him down. 

As for the leadership thing...did we read the same comic?

DAVE: just wondering how you felt about vriska usurping your leadership role DAVE: and if maybe you wanted to throw a vintage shitfit about that or... KARKAT: OH! KARKAT: OH!!!!! KARKAT: HAHA! KARKAT: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! KARKAT: THAT'S A GOOD ONE DAVE! KARKAT: WOW! HAHA, HA, HAHAHAHA! ME LEADER?? TOO FUNNY! KARKAT: I AM ENTIRELY AND SINGULARLY BAFFLED THAT IT COULD STILL EVEN *OCCUR* TO ANYONE TO ENTERTAIN THE NOTION THAT I MIGHT STILL BE PLAYING *ANY* ROLE EVEN WITHIN SNIFFING ORBIT OF A LEADERSHIP POSITION OF THIS RIDICULOUS PARTY. KARKAT: WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I DID *ANYTHING* OF A LEADER-LIKE NATURE, WITHOUT BEING TRUMPED BY VRISKA'S MACHIAVELLIAN LIMELIGHT GLUTTONY? KARKAT: OR FOR THAT MATTER, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THERE WAS ACTUALLY ANYTHING LEADERY *TO* DO, THAT DIDN'T INVOLVE SNUGGLING UP ON THE COUCH TO WATCH "GOOD LUCK CHUCK" FOR THE FIVE HUNDREDTH TIME?!

Karkat is not acting like a leader for most of the retcon timeline. This is in fact a huge point of grievance for many Karkat fans. 

I’ll say this much: I think it’s pretty much canon Karkat takes up a leadership role again, and I don’t think being a Passive player implies an inability to take on that mantle--Roxy and John are both described as leaders, and both are passive players too. 

But it seems implied to be one focused on relationships and society building rather than ruthless combat and victory over enemies, which seems fitting, because that’s always where Karkat struggled. It’s also easy to think he’d be a terrifically effective leader if he responded to people’s wills more and took them into account rather than imposing his own will. 

Both of which are fitting, because those were p much Karkat’s weaknesses in the first place. 

Actually, I honestly don’t get how you could think that at all. Karkat, throughout the story, spends a lot of time openly leading people, not just “Allowing” things. I honestly don’t understand why you could read him as “Allowing” anywhere near as much as he actively exerts his will.

I’m talking about instances Karkat seems to use his actual Blood *powers*. Dropping Sollux down the stairs is one example, establishing a Bond with Jack Noir is another. He resolves the conflict with Gamzee by entering a relationship with him, and resolves the conflict with Clover by making him *want* Karkat in a relationship. 

I think it would be significantly more lucky for Clover to not get distracted by stupid sexy Karkat — after all, he does have a job to do — but let’s call back to Act 5 Act 1, where Karkat runs a virus Sollux wrote, and then we get told that “Karkat and his friends and everyone they would ever meet thereafter would experience great misfortune on account of the curse” that the virus placed on them.

Pretty sure I’ve written about this. First off, Clover isn’t particularly noted as giving a shit about the job, and he’s described as being motivated to flirt with pretty much anything that moves--so I disagree. 

Kanaya questions the virus’ effectiveness in a pesterlog with Vriska, for one thing. And the bad luck virus is literally never mentioned or drawn attention to again, which...if it was relevant this far in, would be pretty poor storytelling. 

In any case, Karkat’s behavior already fits into a pattern of resolving conflict through forming or inspiring relationships, so I don’t really see a reason to overcomplicate Clover’s plot beat with an unmentioned virus when Classpects and Occam’s razor already explain it neatly. 

Jake:

Pretty much the entirety of your approach to my writing on Jake is based on a reading of him I advanced through poor execution, and then immediately regretted and took back. You seem to be basing it quite heavily on the piece on Jake’s relative intelligence, which I’ve posted about disliking in retrospect several times, including at the very beginning of Serving, Service and Ownage.

My view of Jake is not that he’s callously manipulating Jane OR Dirk. I’m not gonna comment on your rough timeline much, mostly because it’s pretty plausible, although there’s nothing in the text to really suggest he’s exactly panicking much.

It doesn’t really change anything though. Whatever Jake’s exact mental processes, he prioritizes his own desire to avoid confrontation even when he *knows*, for a *fact*, it requires sacrificing Jane’s emotional well-being, and does so for months. 

As you said yourself, Brain Ghost Dirk *is* Jake, and knows the truth, so Jake recognizes what he’s doing is wrong on some level. Still, his fear of confrontation leads him to ignore it. And he uses his ability to convince himself to believe anything to do so. 

Do I think he’s hyperaware of this and using it maliciously because No One’s Feelings Matter? No. I think Jake loves the hell out of Jane. All I’m arguing is that because Jake loves Jane a lot, his immediate response is to want to find a solution where he doesn’t have to hurt her feelings or let her down--and that ends up looking like Jake choosing to believe Jane never had feelings for him all along.

It’s not some hypercompetent display of malicious insight, and it’s not Jake being totally brainless either. It’s a teenage kid being shortsighted and scared of confrontation and handling his friendships badly as a result. 

Still, Jake is neither taking Jane’s feelings/needs primarily into account, nor is he being reactive and go with the flow here. By either definition, Jake is behaving Actively. That’s the important takeaway. 

I would personally say that Jake’s Adventurer Persona would be a pretty textbook active player if it were real.

Cool, except that part of Jake’s persona is a constant awareness of others that does actually come to Passive players but which he explicitly lacks:

Like Tavros’ general personal of hapless affability, Jake’s persona also allows him to get away with things he’d normally be held accountable for. Hence the point. By seeming passive and reactive in the extreme, Jake is able to indulge his own will to the maximum. 

Not saying he does it on purpose--the same way I don’t think Dave or Karkat are misleading anyone in setting up personas that are very active and in control in order to get others to rely on them. But it is the end result. 

This reading of Dirk and Jake’s relationship is utterly appalling. It’s no better than the one you spent four essays arguing against, and shipping it is just as reprehensible.Let’s recap. In a four–part essay series (with which I wholeheartedly agree), you describe a reading of Homestuck where Dirk manipulates Jake throughout their relationship, with no regard to what Jake wants or needs, and lay out all the ways in which this reading is flat-out wrong.

And now, you’ve just declared that you think their relationship is exactly the same thing in reverse.

No, don’t deny it. You’ve just explicitly stated that, as you see it, Jake’s only motivation for anything he does with Dirk is to get what he (Jake) wants out of it, ignoring everything Dirk needs. Actually, you’ve gone further — by reading Dirk as trying to live up to the image of Dave (who you still read as selfless, of course), you’ve implicitly established a dynamic where Dirk is far more vulnerable to this manipulation from Jake than Jake ever could have been to it from Dirk.

There is no reason that reading Jake as the abuser here makes a relationship with this dynamic any healthier. At all. Fortunately, Jake isn’t an abuser.

I will say, if this is the source of your heated approach to this, I understand. I will readily admit I kind of overstated things with Jake, at least partly because I’m--as I’ve readily admitted--so motivated by countering the popular perception of Dirk as an abuser. 

That said, all I attempted to describe in the section you quoted is why Jake fell in love with Dirk in the first place. Obviously, all the Alphas have made mistakes that they need to overcome in order to understand each other properly and treat each other well. 

I’m not arguing that Jake can’t and shouldn’t ever think about other people’s feelings--including Dirk’s--and take them into account in living his life. What I am arguing is simply that Jake’s canonically established love for Dirk is rooted in Jake feeling that he personally benefits from Dirk’s company, which runs a pretty strong counter to Dirk as abuser discourse. 

The fact that Jake and Dirk both fell into self-loathing and took the OTHER extreme--choosing to stay away from others--by the end of the story should tell you that Jake’s made some of that growth, though. 

As does the Masterpiece, where--as you stated--Jake acts to save Dirk’s life. That said, is every act done for another innately linked to selflessness? What do we make of Jade saving the entire session, in that case? Or Vriska wanting to fight Bec Noir to protect the others?

So if your view is rooted in me thinking that Jake does not and need not ever take Dirk into account, well--rest assured, that’s not what I think. I’ve written novel-length fanworks expressing otherwise, lmao.

Still, That’s down to poor execution on my end to some extent, to be sure. But if you’re writing thoroughly researched responses to people’s work I do suggest you try to take into account elements of it which they might have discredited.

If your premise is that Jake valuing Dirk being helpful to him is inherently predatory, though...no. It isn’t. Relationships are posited on give and take, and both Jake and Dirk get valuable things out of their relationship. 

For Dirk, that’s a sense of worth and goodness that he struggles with holding on to--he values that Jake believes in him, explicitly. For Jake, it’s that Dirk makes him feel safe and cared for. That’s all I was getting at. 

Sorry I didn’t make that clearer, for what it’s worth, because it’s a completely valid issue to take. My language falling onto the other extreme in counteracting Dirk as abuser discourse has been an issue before, but of course the ideal--and in my view, canonical--scenario is for them to reach a healthy balance with open communication. This is true of all relationships. 

I’ve already explained why I think that Jake is fundamentally a selfless person. But I’ll call up one more example specifically relevant to this point.

Tricksters are essentially the very core of a personality placed in an environment where it can never be unhappy again. When Jane becomes a Trickster, she immediately runs to Jake. Selfishly. She turns Jake Trickster as well, and guess what his basest personality turns out to work to do above all else?

Pleasing literally everyone who ever wanted him.

Yes, because Jake doesn’t want confrontation and already stated he’d been open to considering relationships with all his friends. Jane initially raises an objection to Roxy marrying Jake in that sequence, and Jake presses the issue to convince her. 

Jake is A) Attracted to all his friends and B) invested in the approach that solves all problems without causing conflict or unhappiness, because he’s personally frightened by the prospect. I don’t think it’s as simple as Jake just looking to make everyone else happy, is what I’m saying. 

While we’re at it, Roxy selfishly tries to steal Dirk, too, but she’s explicitly Passive. The tricksters are more complicated than just being the Alpha’s “True Selves”--Jane is the exception, not the rule. 

Finally, re: Jake saving Jane and Dirk

There’s not even any room for interpretation — not wanting to disappoint others is obviously selfless.

No...it isn’t? Do you not want to disappoint others out of a desire to live up to their expectations, or because you want to avoid judgment and confrontation? Those are pretty different motivations. One can obviously also be motivated by a mix of both. 

I’ll agree the rest of my execution is muddled and comes off pretty weak, though. It’s largely an attempt to contextualize Jake’s behavior in the context of his past--explicitly selfish--behavior, but I’m not even sure that that’s necessary. 

Someone can act selfishly at some times and selflessly at others, and Jake’s behavior for the majority of the narrative is self-centered. 

Dirk’s in particular is still questionable, given that the Masterpiece is immensely coded as being indicative of Caliborn demonstrating some blackrom attraction to Dirk, in which case even a degree of jealousy makes sense.

But whichever way you read Jake’s motivation, his behavior is pretty simply Active--he doesn’t really give anyone Hope, he doesn’t buff or empower anyone else. He gets really pissed off that Caliborn is beating up his boyfriend--the possessive language in explicit in the comic--and beats Caliborn in turn, using Hope as a weapon to do so. 

Once you establish that Pages can exploit that aspect as well as Knights can, it becomes a matter of taking stock of trends. Knights spend most of their time throughout the narrative thinking about others or advancing other’s wills. Pages spend most of their time thinking about themselves or advancing their own wills. That’s all I’m getting at.