#this is the longest post i have ever writen and of course it's fucking homestuck (and trigun but that one's new in my brain)

[ethecookednoodle]

Imma be honest, I wasn't sure if I was gonna do a post about my classpect choices for my TrigunxHomestuck AU but I kept rereading Homestuck and started thinking about things and thought "why the hell not?"

Also @stuck-in-the-ghost-zone and @anachronistic-falsehood tags kept going around my head since I saw them, so this is partially because your tags were very nice thank u guys <3

All that being said, this is just gonna cover Vash and Knives because turns out tired as shit me has a lot to say and no self control so I wrote a lot and if I got into why I made Meryl and Wolfwood's classpects what they are in my AU this was gonna be way too damn long, so I'm cutting it.

Anyway, whole ass essay under the keep reading. Keep in mind I wrote this last night when I was very tired and with a raging headache (still haven't recovered from that) so this might be a bit ✨dramatic✨(and also a bit of a character analysis because, like I said, I had a lot to say but not a lot of self control.)

To begin with, I guess the reason I put Knives and Vash as the Lord of Time and Muse of Space respectively has to do with the fact that they remind me of Calliope and Caliborn for obvious reasons. They're twins of an alien species which, while not extinct per se, they're very much alone since either the other members of their species are not quite like them or, in Calliope and Caliborn's case, they are the only one's of their species in a good, universe-sized radius, among other things I’ll get to later.

But aside from that there's the fact that…I don't really see, or can't see, Vash as a Hope player. Like, sure, he's all about hope and believing in a bright future but Hope players have a very black and white way of thinking (see: Eridan and Jake). And Vash doesn’t really see things that way, he's very much aware that there are layers to the issues between humans and plants, but his insistence doesn't just come from a blind hope that maybe things will work themselves out if he believes hard enough. His insistence comes from the fact that he has spent a good amount of his 150 years of life going around No Man's Land and realizing that yes, humans are stupid and can hurt others just for the sake of hurting people, but the vast majority of them that hurt people do it because they've been cornered and are really out of options in the department of survival (see: Wolfwood, Rosa, and pretty much any petty bandit, since they’re not really out for murder but out for fucking money because they gotta eat), and that even if there are people who go out of their way to hurt others for funsies, there's just as much people out there willing to help others out (Meryl, Luida, Brad (even if he’s a prick at the beginning), Rem). It's all about circumstances and Vash knows this, he just acts dumb as a coping mechanism. Him believing things can work out comes from a place of tribute towards Rem and the knowledge that there is a way things can get better as long as it is given the time and space to be worked on (pun not intended). His vision is nuanced and his feelings towards what his brother does are complicated because he knows he has a reason to act the way he does.

Knives either knows there are layers and doesn't care or he hasn't let himself think about them, because otherwise it would shatter his idea that there's only one true ultimate villain (humanity) that must be defeated in order to attain peace, which the latter is what probably goes through his mind. And this is oversimplifying his point of view, because his disregard of human issues come from the fear of seeing Tesla's body all fucked up by humans on a relatively peaceful environment and thinking that if he doesn’t do something quick they might be next, or more specifically, that Vash will be next. If anything, Knives actually fits better as a Hope player than Vash does. He believes plants to be superior and humans the trash of creation, and thus, he must do what’s right in order to protect what he loves. It might also be because all of the Hope players we see also have this…weird way of seeing themselves as the greatest heroes in their fucked-up/stupid stories, and also because two of them are big, self absorbed assholes. Even Jake is his own kind of self absorbed asshole. One would argue that could be said of Vriska and Meenah as well, but the difference is that they actually have ground to stand on. They say they’re the shit not just for the sake of saying it, they can actually back up that claim. What I’m trying to say is that Knives sees himself as a savior to his species while failing to see that in the process he’s hurting the one person he swore to protect while also subjecting the plants and his brother to become a means to producing his “paradise”, essentially enslaving them, just as humans would have done. And if he does see it, then he justifies it by saying “there’s no other way.” Which, to be honest, reminds me a lot of Eridan in the sense that he, as the Prince of Hope, decided all hopes of beating Jack and bringing back their people were lost, so he decided to destroy the matriorb and go on a murderous rampage. It’s a very “all or nothing” mentality, which is exactly what happens with Knives. He fails to see (or decides no to see) the layers and the nuance of the situation and refuses to listen to any kind of argument against his belief. Because, let’s be real for a hot second here, when was the last time Knives really tried to hear Vash out instead of brushing him off and telling him he’s being delusional/he’s sick and needs to wake up? And by the time he actually listens to Vash when they’re flying up into space, it’s in this high-stress, very emotional moment because he’s trying not to blow a city up. But I digress. 

All that being said, I don’t really think the Hope aspect fits Knives either. 

The reason I think Time and Space fit the twins so much is because of the fact that the aspects seem to encompass the rest to some extent. They’re, to quote the wiki, “the two basic fabrics of reality” which means that without them, nothing else can exist. It’s why every successful Sburb session needs to have a Time and Space player. And if you think about it, it makes sense. For example, Space seems to be similar to the Hope aspect in the sense that their players have a very strong hold on their beliefs, they also resemble the Light aspect because their players also seem to be very knowledgeable (to some extent, i.e: the messages in the clouds in Skia and how Space players seemed to be the ones that paid the most attention to them) about stuff other aspects are not, and of course, it also has a strong relationship with the Life aspect, since it’s the Space player’s duty to breed and care for the frog that will eventually become the new universe in which life will proliferate (and not to mention, all space players have been somewhat related to life, with Jade being a botanist, Kanaya and Porrim being in charge of bringing back trollkind and Calliope being fascinated by the lives of other beings (i.e: trolls and humans) in general, despite her kind being extremely asocial). And the same can be said of the Time aspect: it’s related to death, this of course being a direct relation to the Doom aspect, the Time and Heart aspect seem to share this ability to become splintered (one with time loops and the other via soul splinters), and even though it’s more of a reach, you could say Time and Rage have relation because of the fact that both seem to be related to destruction (although the instances we’ve seen the aspect being used are by destructive classes, that’s why I say it’s more of a reach). I put very specific things as examples, but with the exception of the life and death thing (and maybe the Heart aspect thing), I think the things the Time and Space aspects encompass of other aspects are on a spectrum, and may even vary from player to player.

Obviously, all of the above is more my personal speculation than anything else, but that aside, now that I finally got to the point in my re-read of Homestuck where I’m reacquainted enough with Calliope that I understand why I think her and Vash are similar. And wouldn’t you guess it, it has to do with the fact that they were hoping for their brothers to change. Like, to be fair, in Calliope’s case, she was straight-up lying to herself, but again, to be fair, this stemmed from the fact that she had hope the game would help them understand each other and…well, you can see where I’m going with this. Vash hoped his brother would change, even if deep down he knew he wouldn’t, or at the very least, he wouldn’t change without things going south first. And it wasn’t until things started to go very south where they, both Calliope (the version that overpowered Caliborn) and Vash decided it was enough and sprung into action. I am well aware that the brother thing can also be applied to Knives and to his situation, but you get what I’m saying. 

If I wanted to go through the Caliborn and Knives comparison, then I would point out that Knives, as far as I can tell, was never squeamish about killing (at least not after the Tesla incident), and sees it as something necessary in order to make sure his plans come to fruition. That being said, I think the other thing I would point out is how driven he is. To quote the wiki yet again, Time players “value action over passive acceptance” and “tend to value the destination over the journey”, and what is Knives if not someone with a huge drive to make his dreams of a peaceful paradise for him, his brother and the rest of his kind come true, even it comes at the expense of the human race and the happiness, free will and general freedom of his brother and his kind. Since day one he’s been scheming and finding ways to make things happen, and I don’t know about you guys, but I think at the very least the amount of research he put on to Vash’s powers and how to unlock his gate despite how unbelievably limited the data on Independents were, without actually having Vash captive for 150 to study him is very impressive (and kind of (very) scary). But that’s where the similarities with them end, at the end of the day Knives is 1000 times smarter than Caliborn (and more likable, even if he’s a genocidal maniac). I just think that Knives possesses a lot of the qualities that make up a Time player, and him being a Master Class is because both Vash and Knives are stupidly powerful.

In the end, I guess it’s because the duality of both Vash and Knives’ ideals and personalities can be perfectly encompassed by the duality of the Time and Space aspects. 

(And also because I thought of a great scene between Vashwood and the image has been ingrained in my brain to such a degree that I refuse to change the classpects to something else. It’s like 50% all those things I said 50% gay stuff, ngl.)

Anyway stay tuned for the “why did you make Wolfwood the Knight of Doom and Meryl the Rouge of Light” post. It’ll hopefully be a lot shorter and less convoluted lol.