Classpect discussion

[Alt-Universe Wash]

Mmm, maybe pairing Knight and Sylph would work better. Neither of them know how to shut the fuck up.

Okay, first of all, that is... an extremely accurate statement and stop calling us out already, god damn it!

[egg]

Maids feel really active. I was thinking of Dave competing with Jane for the presidency, and they both want it for their own selfish purposes (Taz distinguishes active and passive with selfish/selfless), so I think that was a dead end from the start.

Yeaaah, I've never agreed with the selfish/selfless thing. I honestly think oD's a competent theorycrafter so I imagine his side of things is more developed than that, but I've had to deal with a whole lot of people who go "[x] is selfish (in the bad way society defines it) so they must be Active". It doesn't quite work that way, people, because anyone can be selfish or selfless for any reason. I dunno about you, but murdering people for no reason and calling yourself the messiah of your clown religion seems pretty selfish to me, and Rose outright calls out John for being a bitch in the epilogues.
I despise discussing Active/Passive, but my own personal pet theory is that Active/Passive has absolutely nothing to do with personal temperament and more how someone interacts with their class verb - and as such I believe that Passive classes generate their class verb in others. This is a bit hard to grasp, but what I mean by this is, say you take a Seer, which is Passive Understand. In this pesterlog, Terezi explains the role of a Seer of Mind, but she also explains Seer (alongside Mind, but that's irrelevant for this conversation). She guides her friends towards an understanding of Mind in order to keep them out of trouble. Through her words, the people around her come to Understand Mind.
This is also based on how Calliope defines Active/Passive, which is "UU: while the more passive bard coUld be seen as "one who allows x to be destroyed, or invites destrUction throUgh x," as if by the will of the aspect.". 'inviting' and 'allowing' is simply a fancy way of saying that Bards gently invite others to destroy their Aspect in themselves, or destroy using that Aspect. And indeed, this is something that we get to see happen, when Gamzee invites Terezi to "destroy" Vriska through Rage (narrowing the possibilities that it could be anyone else but spidertroll)
In my eyes, this is the most convenient way to see it for the purposes of Classpecting real people and fictional characters. I mean, for one, you don't have to go through the embarrassment of saying someone is Active because they're "selfish".

[thorondraco]

Maids feel really active. I was thinking of Dave competing with Jane for the presidency, and they both want it for their own selfish purposes (Taz distinguishes active and passive with selfish/selfless), so I think that was a dead end from the start.

Yeaaah, I've never agreed with the selfish/selfless thing. I honestly think oD's a competent theorycrafter so I imagine his side of things is more developed than that, but I've had to deal with a whole lot of people who go "[x] is selfish (in the bad way society defines it) so they must be Active". It doesn't quite work that way, people, because anyone can be selfish or selfless for any reason. I dunno about you, but murdering people for no reason and calling yourself the messiah of your clown religion seems pretty selfish to me, and Rose outright calls out John for being a bitch in the epilogues.
I despise discussing Active/Passive, but my own personal pet theory is that Active/Passive has absolutely nothing to do with personal temperament and more how someone interacts with their class verb - and as such I believe that Passive classes generate their class verb in others. This is a bit hard to grasp, but what I mean by this is, say you take a Seer, which is Passive Understand. In this pesterlog, Terezi explains the role of a Seer of Mind, but she also explains Seer (alongside Mind, but that's irrelevant for this conversation). She guides her friends towards an understanding of Mind in order to keep them out of trouble. Through her words, the people around her come to Understand Mind.
This is also based on how Calliope defines Active/Passive, which is "UU: while the more passive bard coUld be seen as "one who allows x to be destroyed, or invites destrUction throUgh x," as if by the will of the aspect.". 'inviting' and 'allowing' is simply a fancy way of saying that Bards gently invite others to destroy their Aspect in themselves, or destroy using that Aspect. And indeed, this is something that we get to see happen, when Gamzee invites Terezi to "destroy" Vriska through Rage (narrowing the possibilities that it could be anyone else but spidertroll)
In my eyes, this is the most convenient way to see it for the purposes of Classpecting real people and fictional characters. I mean, for one, you don't have to go through the embarrassment of saying someone is Active because they're "selfish".

The positive to negative stuff can easily be blurred depending on how someone uses their power. In a way you could evne call Dirk's current use of his powers more on the passive metric.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

It kind of feels wrong to go from "active classes are selfish" to "passive classes are passive-aggressive." It's like going from one bad connotation to another. Seems like you can't win.

Vriska does encourage copying in others. She wants Tavros to copy her attitude because that would be evidence that he's become stronger. She gives John her clothes because it signals her ownership of him to Terezi. Is that inviting? No, because she does it to promote her own fortune, rather than promote the fortune of others. Making it about personal intent rather than consequences means it's more personality quiz friendly.

So, even if Aranea's action, making a doomed offshoot so she can heal it, sounds selfish to you, her intentions are selfless. Selfless acts have just as much potential to be toxic, if not more, because selfless acts always involve others in your business.

[thorondraco]

It kind of feels wrong to go from "active classes are selfish" to "passive classes are passive-aggressive." It's like going from one bad connotation to another. Seems like you can't win.

Vriska does encourage copying in others. She wants Tavros to copy her attitude because that would be evidence that he's become stronger. She gives John her clothes because it signals her ownership of him to Terezi. Is that inviting? No, because she does it to promote her own fortune, rather than promote the fortune of others. Making it about personal intent rather than consequences means it's more personality quiz friendly.

So, even if Aranea's action, making a doomed offshoot so she can heal it, sounds selfish to you, her intentions are selfless. Selfless acts have just as much potential to be toxic, if not more, because selfless acts always involve others in your business.

At this point with all the ultimate selves and narrative powers, i wonder if she was serious about actually doing what she said she was gonna do. That maybe she was secretly an ultimate self herself, but maybe did not entirely understand what her powers were?

What she says was disturbingly like what Calliope claims to be doing.

Worse part is she is probably out there still. We till don't know if the ring needs to stay on the user's finger to keep them alive or if it immediately grants them permanent life. Or at least, the life given does not need the ring to sustain it. If it does, it means a living ARanea remains. And worse, one that John punched with the same kind punch he threw at Vriska, feeling the exact same emotions he felt before. With him seemingly not having any real control of his powers.
She is out there somewhere with whatever Retcon significance magic that Vriska got punched into it.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

https://www.homestuck.com/story/3620

Darn. I called Doc Scratch a Prince of Void to make my point about the so-called destroyers being driven by fear, but here he calls himself (I think it's himself) a passive gunslinger. This throws a wrench into things, because despite his words, I still stand by my interpretation of him being a Prince of Void.

If I am going to be honest, I see thorondraco's point about Dirk acting passively and egg's remark that Gamzee, as the messiahs of his own religion, seems to work for no-one other than himself, and I'm even more convinced that this is the direction that we need to be going in. I mean, until I decide that we shouldn't.

https://www.homestuck.com/story/3360

PTC: HeY BeSt fRiEnD.
PTC: nOw wHaT ThE MoThEr fUcK WiLl i bE SuPpOsEd tO Do?
PTC: i'M nOt FoLlOwInG.
CCG: PAST GAMZEE, GOD DAMN IT.
CCG: I AM TRYING TO WARN PEOPLE OF YOUR MURDEROUS FUTURE SELF.
CCG: THIS PRACTICALLY DOESN'T EVEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
CCG: NOW GO BACK TO GROPING YOUR HORNS AND BEING DISTRACTED BY COLORS YOU USELESS FUCK.

CCG: HEY ASSHOLE
CCG: CONSIDER OUR "PACT" OVER
PCA: wwevve got a pact
CCG: NOT ANYMORE
CCG: YOU ARE DEAD TO ME
CCG: PAST YOU, PRESENT YOU, FUTURE YOU
CCG: AND ABOVE ALL, UGLY SCARFNECKED DOUCHEBAG HIPSTER YOU

Golly, the difference in Karkat's treatment of Eridan and Gamzee is so wide. Gamzee's using his spooky misdirection magic, but I don't know how to parse that at all. I'm pretty sure is obscuring (bard) the truth (rage)/perpetuating misplaced (rage) fear (bard) with some bullshit force field, but the fear interpretation falls apart when you get to Eridan, because he's more confused than scared. But confusion and doubt are also part of Rage, so maybe he really isn't doing anything in particular.

This sucks. I've miscounted the number of double negatives. I am really stupid right now.

[JakeMorph]

I don't think Scratch CAN be an active sort by any definition. by design he exists as the passive manipulator to Lord English's active destroyer, and if we go by the active/passive selfish/selfless angle, Scratch, again by design, acts only to assist English, who he considers a different person and his master, and never for "himself".

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

The conspiracy method of analysis is assuming that everything is loaded with some sort of meaning, even if it's meaning meant to misdirect.

Scratch has always been subservient to Lord English, but so is Damara, and, well, I'm not sure if he'd consider Damara to be passive.

https://www.homestuck.com/story/4069

"While I am his weapon of subtlety and precision, the Handmaid is strictly an apparatus of terror and suffering."

[JakeMorph]

serving someone is different to acting only out of their interest. damara is very clear at all times about having her own interests that she makes attempts to pursue. scratch is, and again, i must stress that this is by DESIGN, interested in SOLELY furthering english's interests, and has none of his own.

[thorondraco]

The conspiracy method of analysis is assuming that everything is loaded with some sort of meaning, even if it's meaning meant to misdirect.

Scratch has always been subservient to Lord English, but so is Damara, and, well, I'm not sure if he'd consider Damara to be passive.

https://www.homestuck.com/story/4069

"While I am his weapon of subtlety and precision, the Handmaid is strictly an apparatus of terror and suffering."

Damara is a witch so it fits. Though that particular damara was very much an unwilling slave unlike her prior incarnation. Then again that is because of Kurloz i wager who basically played the Gamzee of the alpha trolls. But he did so passively weirdly enough despite being the prince of his session. Though he might have used his powers invasively considering he seemingly has mind control. Could have caused Damara to utterly snap. Could even have amplified Meenah's aggression in general.
Kinda shows that the Handmaid probably threw that damn fight against the Empress. Damara actually killed Meenah in their fight, and the Handmaid's abilities were likely utterly juiced up from what would have been the normal levels. Though we don't know if Damara was mortally wounded but it seems implied she god tiered.

[thorondraco]

serving someone is different to acting only out of their interest. damara is very clear at all times about having her own interests that she makes attempts to pursue. scratch is, and again, i must stress that this is by DESIGN, interested in SOLELY furthering english's interests, and has none of his own.

He does so with a lot of pride and arrogance over his own abilities too, the inevitability of everything he does. So while he devotes his pride towards lord english, he still thinks super highly of himself and in his ability to accomplish his goals. I would imagine that Lord English's ultimate fate would also play into his pride as well.

[JakeMorph]

being proud isnt LEAGUES near being selfish, nor does being proud go hand in hand with being active. i wouldnt even say scratch is proud. i think being proud requires a certain personal distortion of the facts, which scratch does not have, because he's omniscient. he's more confident than proud.

[egg]

Doc Scratch can't be anything because his personality is an amalgam of like four or five different others. What seems to be Prince is actually the Lil' Hal in him shining through, which domineers due to the fact that it's also Heart.

[thorondraco]

Doc Scratch can't be anything because his personality is an amalgam of like four or five different others. What seems to be Prince is actually the Lil' Hal in him shining through, which domineers due to the fact that it's also Heart.

The cueball seems to make the Dirk, and presumably Equiuss, aspects of Doc scratch dominant. I say equiuss cause of Doc being subservient to a superior. When he becomes lord english, The puppet and cueball are both destroyed in the process. He shows tendencies of neither Caliborn nor Gamzee.

Though technically speaking if Lord english actually has access to all the aspects of his parts, then Doc Scratch has more abilities. First guardians seem to have some power over the Space aspect as seen with all three known versions, albeit manifesting in a fiery manner. And then there is the cueball, which is destroyed in Lord english's rebirth, which basically gave Doc script reading powers, knowing how the story begins and ends and the important stuff between, short of blindspots because of void powers and or parts he needed to be unaware of. Which is strange has he has the void aspect.

Still Doc scratch likely had his pride and confidence shattered thanks to John changing the narrative. A coincidence i think not that the final change happens right in the middle of his dialogue about Vriska dying. But we have absolutely no idea how he exactly reacted.

As of right now he seems to be either behind or working with whomever is behind, Hiveswap and thus Friendsims. And of course we don't know at what point he is operating from either. By the start of pesterquest he was dealing with Spade Slick, whom i think he implied was his unwanted guest. Motivations are very much unknown as well.

Doc scratch in Homestuck acted passively. in the Hiveswap related stuff, largely Friendsims, he has acted in a much more active manner. He was actually removing the Reader from the failed timelines. We have no idea why, either some attribute to whatever was going on to make Friendsims in universe, some attribute to the reader maybe? But while not physically there he was constantly monitoring it. And worse, admits he had no idea how things would go to begin with. Quantum spaghetti against the wall.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

If it's frustrating that I'm willing to pick up and throw away ideas so quickly, I would find that sensible. I often come to a conclusion right after a night's sleep, so I'm not sure how I do it either.

I think it's still difficult to posit fear as the opposite of understand. It's not the best. It's also more like an emotion than an action? It doesn't work, but the verb is still in the general area of paranoia. One that might work better for describing the behavior of Princes and Bard is To Misdirect.

Misdirection is all the red herrings. It's when the premises are set up in a way to make you come to a false conclusion, as I am pretty much always arriving at. This happens to include the sorts of self-deception I included in the previous definition, but it's a lot more flexible. Misdirection describes the actions of Bards and Princes in the following ways:

• If this holds up, the initial definition of Bards and Princes is a misdirection
• Doc Scratch avoids telling the truth by coming up with a variety of exceptions for why something shouldn't count as a lie
• Doc Scratch deceives himself when he comes up with a variety of exceptions to justify calling himself omniscient
• Doc Scratch set up Rose to have certain beliefs about the nature of her suicide mission so she wouldn't be culpable for her actions, so she and Dave would not fall victim to a Heroic or Just death.
• Doc Scratch intentionally put the God Tier in the same room as Spades Slick, knowing that he would want to smash it. Slick forced it to land on Just, keeping her dead. From the epilogues, we now know that she wouldn't die a just death if she thinks she did Nothing Wrong. The misdirection is Doc Scratch acting as if he didn't desire this outcome.
• The Bard of Rage misleads other characters into thinking that he is a harmless, stupid clown, rather than someone who gets really deep into contemplation when it comes to miracles and higher purpose
• Gamzee intentionally blurs his hero mode silhouette in a few Act 5 Act 2 panels
• Gamzee's God Tier costume
• The Prince of Hope misleads himself into thinking Karkat isn't genuinely angry at him
• Feferi claims that Eridan's thing for genocide is a pretense to socialize. Pretense is a misdirection.
• Eridan lets himself believe that the magic wand is a science wand, and keeps the belief that magic isn't real despite his own observations
• Eridan misleads himself into thinking Feferi is incapable of feeling pitch for anyone despite Feferi's blatant attempts to argue and provoke
• The fandom is mislead about Eridan being a whiny bastard, even though he is socially isolated for reasons that, from his own perspective, are beyond his control.
• Cronus exploits Kankri's warped sense of ethics by positioning himself as more oppressed than Mituna
• Irony, when it is layered, serves to obfuscate Dirk's emotions, thus the stoicism.
• But Dirk is fooling himself if he thinks he's not wearing his heart on his shoulder tattoo
• The Auto-Responder misleads Jake into thinking he is Dirk.
• The Auto-Responder comes up with justifications for why simulations of emotions shouldn't count as emotions
• The Auto-Responder misdirects Dirk when he distracts Dirk into arguing about the digits of Pi
• The scene where Dirk fires the tranq gun illustrates the exact sort of schemes a Prince would get up to.
• Dirk uses his narrative powers to lead Kanaya into making the wrong conclusion
• I've never read Machiavelli, but that's probably why Dirk wants to get into politics
• I initially used "I warned you about the stairs" as a manifestation of Dave's upbringing by Dirk, but now the illustrative SBAHJ panel is "The sock ruse was a distaction"

I haven't read the posts above me, because I want to keep this fresh, but I'm wondering what sort of insight the posts above and below will bring.

[JakeMorph]

Doc Scratch can't be anything because his personality is an amalgam of like four or five different others. What seems to be Prince is actually the Lil' Hal in him shining through, which domineers due to the fact that it's also Heart.

this is definitely not true. an amalgamation of personalities is still a personality of its own. it's not like scratch is rapidly switching between ways of acting: it's all distilled into the one character.

in fact characters being made up of pieces of other characters is integral to the way classpects work, and to the platonic buildup of homestuck characters in general. as a witch of life, feferi borrows from both jade and jane in personality (or rather, jane borrows from feferi). aradia borrows from jane (*) and dave. roxy borrows from nepeta and equius.

it could easily be argued that this more strongly indicates that scratch MUST "be something", rather than that he can't.

snip

you're definitely falsely attributing the nature of homestuck villains to be manipulators as "a prince bard thing". I could easily fit vriska into this archetype you've built.

you also seem to be using the assumption that scratch is a princebard as a load bearing pillar of this theory which I thought was what you were trying to prove in the first place?

[thorondraco]

Doc Scratch can't be anything because his personality is an amalgam of like four or five different others. What seems to be Prince is actually the Lil' Hal in him shining through, which domineers due to the fact that it's also Heart.

this is definitely not true. an amalgamation of personalities is still a personality of its own. it's not like scratch is rapidly switching between ways of acting: it's all distilled into the one character.

in fact characters being made up of pieces of other characters is integral to the way classpects work, and to the platonic buildup of homestuck characters in general. as a witch of life, feferi borrows from both jade and jane in personality (or rather, jane borrows from feferi). aradia borrows from jane (*) and dave. roxy borrows from nepeta and equius.

it could easily be argued that this more strongly indicates that scratch MUST "be something", rather than that he can't.

snip

you're definitely falsely attributing the nature of homestuck villains to be manipulators as "a prince bard thing". I could easily fit vriska into this archetype you've built.

you also seem to be using the assumption that scratch is a princebard as a load bearing pillar of this theory which I thought was what you were trying to prove in the first place?

He has their traits but doc doesn't portray them evenly, nor does lord english. For Doc he primarily shows traits of Equuis and especially Dirk. Lord english himself shows more traits of Caliborn and, arguably, shows even more of Gamzee in terms of being incomprehensibly violent and angry. Noir English seems to show that attribute more too though we don't see much of him.
Weirdest of all neither really shows much of the Voidy aspect from Equius. in fact Void is Doc's greatest weakness. That and dorks with omnipotent narrative powers.

A question to ask is if something like Lord english and Doc scratch effectively have access to the classes or just the aspects. Then again we don't have much evidence of them really using other aspects short of some odd abilities they bestow onto others. And doc scratch seemingly shutting off Friend mode in the Reader and speculation that English's mouth lasers kill ghosts because of the heart aspect.
We seriously have no idea how conditional mortality works either.

[JakeMorph]

conditional mortality is pretty straightforward. lord english has an aura of cherub immortality. he can give that to someone and then take it away. not all powers are going to be classpect powers. he also has some space powers by virtue of being part first guardian, but is not composed of any heroes of space.

[thorondraco]

conditional mortality is pretty straightforward. lord english has an aura of cherub immortality. he can give that to someone and then take it away. not all powers are going to be classpect powers. he also has some space powers by virtue of being part first guardian, but is not composed of any heroes of space.

I don't think Cherubs are immortal by the norms we know in paradox space and their use of the snake form seems situational. And its a form lord english lacks as he is not a true adult cherub.

We don't know if conditional mortality is a real state of being like the conditional immortality or if its simply a link to lord english that keeps them from dying. Could be either or and could in fact relate to ASpects more than likely. Like he uses his heart powers to link their souls to his own.

[JakeMorph]

see you quite often say things like "this could be because of that" but you haven't provided any reason to actually believe that, in which case the most likely answer remains the most simple one, which is "it's just something he can do with the various powers we already know he has"