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Post by optimisticduelist on May 21, 2017 14:40:19 GMT
Of course, this is besides the fact that Hussie later decided the gender restrictions did not apply, and said Princes could be girls--thus overruling Calliope, and implying any Class can be any gender. This doesn't matter either way, anyway. The fact that he referenced it both in canon and out of canon (with the aforementioned tweet about passive males and active females), means he originally intended it to be there, and therefore designed the classpect system with it in mind, whatever you think his opinion of it is now. Yeah, I agree there. Especially since at this point I have strong evidence he had already planned some details for the Alphas by act 3 (dreaming moons, at the least, and some Aspect/Class stuff. Also I'm including Calliope here.), and the troll Ancestor's classes throughout early Act 5. He seems to have decided most of the classes long before he redacted that, so it doesn't factor into my reading that much. It's just worth noting, is all.
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Post by obsidalicious on May 27, 2017 3:10:04 GMT
This doesn't matter either way, anyway. The fact that he referenced it both in canon and out of canon (with the aforementioned tweet about passive males and active females), means he originally intended it to be there, and therefore designed the classpect system with it in mind, whatever you think his opinion of it is now. Yeah, I agree there. Especially since at this point I have strong evidence he had already planned some details for the Alphas by act 3 (dreaming moons, at the least, and some Aspect/Class stuff. Also I'm including Calliope here.), and the troll Ancestor's classes throughout early Act 5. He seems to have decided most of the classes long before he redacted that, so it doesn't factor into my reading that much. It's just worth noting, is all. So if you agree that, at some point, the gender ratios were in full effect, do you have an answer/workaround for the fact that Hussie's tweet hard contradicts your scale? Also, Calliope explicitly states that the Prince is very far on the Active side of the scale, yet you have it as the least active. I also firmly disagree with Mage/Seer. Sollux is only called a prophet because of his psychic powers, which he eventually loses. And even when he has those powers, he achieves nothing with that power. The prophecies he comes up with are either outright wrong, so vague as to be useless, or both. Just as Aranea failed her Game Over plan because it clashes so horribly with her role, I think Sollux is so terrible at being a prophet because that's not what his role actually is. I instead have Knight as the active counterpart to the Seer, refering to how they don't have any actual flashy powers like, say, the Witch, but rather use a combination of instinct, intuition and various tips and tricks to maximise/optimise the more mundane assets they have. The Mage I have paired with the Page as providers. The Page being a passive provider is fairly straightforward, much of the 'serve' arguments can be reused there, and I see the Mage as an Active provider because they manipulate their Aspect into self serving purposes, such as Meulin's shipping being more for her own titillation than anyone else, and how every misfortune that befalls Sollux ends up becoming a positive in some way.
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carcinodesFecit
Moppet of Destiny
1 4ɯ Ju5+ Y0ur N3160rh*0d 1d10+ Wh0 L0v35 H0ɯ35+uck!
Posts: 114
Pronouns: I'd rather not say
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Post by carcinodesFecit on May 27, 2017 4:48:34 GMT
I just have one question about the Classpect system.
How do we know that all of the classes and aspects are all counterparts of eachother? I am not that updated of HS and do not know when or where did all of you get all of this kind of information at all so I am a bit confused. From what I heard a Bard and Prince has been explicitly stated to be counterparts. But how do we know if it's the same for the other classes? We have seen that the counterparts of one class won't be in the same session always, as Dirk was a Prince and no Bards were seen in their session with the humans. Gamzee could be but that's too far fetch as he is the bard of HIS session that was already destroyed so he shouldn't be counted as a player for the humans sessions. Same goes for Roxy as a Rogue, there were no Thieves anywhere in the sessions, well after the retcon there was but you know what I mean! Unless skaia is confusing as shit and I am just typing random shit. From the Squiddle sessions, there were 48 players, meaning 48 different classes and aspects, that gives us a hint that there is a possibility that not all 12 classes are counterparts of eachother. They were seen in both Troll Sessions and on the human Sessions so that's what I think hardens the beliefs that they are, but for all we know that might be wrong. For all we know that is not a popular opinion at all and not many people actually believe that and I am just rambling! For all we know the cake might actually be true!
But hey, that's just a theory
A CLASSPECT THEORY
Thanks for reading
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 27, 2017 5:38:14 GMT
Yeah, I agree there. Especially since at this point I have strong evidence he had already planned some details for the Alphas by act 3 (dreaming moons, at the least, and some Aspect/Class stuff. Also I'm including Calliope here.), and the troll Ancestor's classes throughout early Act 5. He seems to have decided most of the classes long before he redacted that, so it doesn't factor into my reading that much. It's just worth noting, is all. So if you agree that, at some point, the gender ratios were in full effect, do you have an answer/workaround for the fact that Hussie's tweet hard contradicts your scale? Also, Calliope explicitly states that the Prince is very far on the Active side of the scale, yet you have it as the least active. I also firmly disagree with Mage/Seer. Sollux is only called a prophet because of his psychic powers, which he eventually loses. And even when he has those powers, he achieves nothing with that power. The prophecies he comes up with are either outright wrong, so vague as to be useless, or both. Just as Aranea failed her Game Over plan because it clashes so horribly with her role, I think Sollux is so terrible at being a prophet because that's not what his role actually is. I instead have Knight as the active counterpart to the Seer, refering to how they don't have any actual flashy powers like, say, the Witch, but rather use a combination of instinct, intuition and various tips and tricks to maximise/optimise the more mundane assets they have. The Mage I have paired with the Page as providers. The Page being a passive provider is fairly straightforward, much of the 'serve' arguments can be reused there, and I see the Mage as an Active provider because they manipulate their Aspect into self serving purposes, such as Meulin's shipping being more for her own titillation than anyone else, and how every misfortune that befalls Sollux ends up becoming a positive in some way. I do have an answer--I already presented it in another post, but: I've seen the tweet before--I think it's likely Maid is the most active non-master class (Calliope refers to Lord and Muse as 'most active' and 'most passive' explicitly), and the most Passive could be Bard and Knight here. I think it's possible the Serve classes could have a slight predisposition to Passivity where the Steal classes may have a slight predisposition to Activity, and ditto Destroy/Create respectively. The rationale being it takes more effort to Create than to Destroy, and Stealing is more willful an act than what's implied by Service someone or being Served by them. Also, my bad for having the graph be somewhat difficult to understand, but there's been a misunderstanding. Princes are not the "Least Active". The scale is not left to right, but a sort of see-saw. The classes in the top White area are Active, the classes in the bottom Black area are Passive. The further from the center, the more Active/Passive the class, and the more intense the switches between Yang and Yin states for them. If I'm correct and Princes/Bards are less active than Maid/Sylphs, then they're probably only slightly less active. This would make Bards the most Passive class. The second most passive by this measure would be Knights, as Sylphs are somewhat predisposed to being Active. I believe this satisfies Hussie's criteria for the most part, since Knights lean male. I can't say I agree with the rest of your assessment. For one thing, Knights and Seers might have some similarities...but they clearly do not use the same key verb, which is the distinguishing bond between Active/Passive pairs as Calliope has us understand them. That doesn't mean the parallels you've mentioned aren't there, but I will note Knights and Seers both being less directly flashy is only true because their impact is mostly in how they affect and empower others--another case for Knights also being Passive, in my view. Sollux's prophecies are useless...to everyone but himself, as he directly benefits from the relief of being freed from his own Doom, which is explicitly referenced. We agree that Mages are Active due to using their powers in self-serving purposes, but in both Meulin and Sollux's cases this is derived from their Knowledge of their Aspects, which seems fairly clear-cut to me. But it's untrue he achieves nothing through his prophecies anyway, since his Knowledge of Doom is what makes him so good at coding--Doom is partly descriptive of systems, rules, and technology. His Knowledge of Doom is the reason why he's able to single-handedly code Sburb from the ruins in the first place, and he distributes the game himself because he Knows the Trolls are doomed and is misled into thinking the game can save their race. Sollux never loses his psychic powers, either, so I'm not sure what you mean there. He stops hearing the voices, fulfilling one of his prophecies, but he still Knows he's doomed once he does--he just learns of his Doom from a dream of the afterlife, including a literal voice of the dead. As for the idea of "providing", The image of the provider is one of many that binds together Pages and Knights, in my opinion, as Dave and Karkat especially are the characters most beholden to the image of the patriarch--a man who is able to provide for friends and family and be relied on to solve problems and take care of people. Dave and Karkat both provide their Aspects to others nigh endlessly--Karkat offering Blood through relationship counseling and team cohesion, Dave providing Time in myriad ways. Davesprite straight up gives John Time powers in the form of a hammer. And also gives himself Time powers along with a bunch of sick gear by coming back in the first place. That's as "Provides" as it gets, in my opinion. Pages, on the other hand, encourage people to provide FOR them and help them achieve their own aims. The reading of Pages as Passive is kind of a pet peeve for me since it pretty much breaks Jake and Tavros' character arcs, not to mention ignores how Horruss exploits Void to keep Rufioh stuck with him. There is not a single instance where any Page provides their Aspect to another without doing so in order to gain from it themselves, when you get right down to it. You're welcome to try to convince me otherwise, but I've addressed this point ad nauseum. Jake is explicitly described as Selfish much the same way we're describing Mages, and much as Thieves, Witches and Princes are all described. Jane and Aradia are also demonstrably pretty Selfish and self-driven. The consistency of the trend is why I think we can describe Active/Passive this way so cleanly, and why I think Pages are demonstrably Active.
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Post by obsidalicious on May 27, 2017 5:53:40 GMT
carcinodesFecit I just have one question about the Classpect system. How do we know that all of the classes and aspects are all counterparts of eachother? I am not that updated of HS and do not know when or where did all of you get all of this kind of information at all so I am a bit confused. From what I heard a Bard and Prince has been explicitly stated to be counterparts. But how do we know if it's the same for the other classes? We have seen that the counterparts of one class won't be in the same session always, as Dirk was a Prince and no Bards were seen in their session with the humans. Gamzee could be but that's too far fetch as he is the bard of HIS session that was already destroyed so he shouldn't be counted as a player for the humans sessions. Same goes for Roxy as a Rogue, there were no Thieves anywhere in the sessions, well after the retcon there was but you know what I mean! Unless skaia is confusing as shit and I am just typing random shit. From the Squiddle sessions, there were 48 players, meaning 48 different classes and aspects, that gives us a hint that there is a possibility that not all 12 classes are counterparts of eachother. They were seen in both Troll Sessions and on the human Sessions so that's what I think hardens the beliefs that they are, but for all we know that might be wrong. For all we know that is not a popular opinion at all and not many people actually believe that and I am just rambling! On this page, Calliope says: UU: classes always come in +/- pairsAlso, the pairings aren't about specific sessions, it's about the system as a whole. It's like in, say, D&D where the character alignment system always exists and is always the same even if a certain story has no Chaotic characters at all. optimisticduelist Also, my bad for having the graph be somewhat difficult to understand, but there's been a misunderstanding. Princes are not the "Least Active". The scale is not left to right, but a sort of see-saw. The classes in the top White area are Active, the classes in the bottom Black area are Passive. The further from the center, the more Active/Passive the class, and the more intense the switches between Yang and Yin states for them. If I'm correct and Princes/Bards are less active than Maid/Sylphs, then they're probably only slightly less active. This would make Bards the most Passive class. The second most passive by this measure would be Knights, as Sylphs are somewhat predisposed to being Active. I believe this satisfies Hussie's criteria for the most part, since Knights lean male. Oh I see, you're using a totally different system to the mainstream model. Most people reckon that the all Active Classes are all more Active than all Passive Classes. Or to put it numerically, all Active Classes are labeled as -1 through to -6 (-7 for Lord) and the Passive classes are +1 through to +6 (+7 for Muse) and are arranged linearly like a regular number line(albeit with no zero). But if I understand you correctly, if we were to arrange your Classes into a single line by activity, the Sylph, a Passive Class, would appear in between Active Classes. Or am I still misunderstanding? Maybe we have different ideas about exactly what a Class Verb means, but it seems pretty obvious to me that both Seers and Knights get their advantage from the mind, be that in the form of knowledge, instinct, intuition etc. I don't follow. All he predicted is that that he would go blind and die. Those things happened, but it was after those events that he found happiness: When the prophecies no longer applied and he could no longer get new prophecies. In other words, Sollux benefited from getting away from knowledge. Had he not had the prophecy, he would still be where he is, and he'd still be just as happy. The prophecy achieved nothing. It's like knowing that you'll find $1000 on the ground tomorrow. That knowledge doesn't give you power/happiness, it's the fact that you (will) have $1000 that does. You see Dave as more of a Patriarch than John? John, who is instantly made the leader by all his peers? John, who was raised by, and greatly takes after a textbook father figure? John, who actually ecto-fathered his whole crew? John, whose favourite, and oft-referenced, movie scene is about a father trying to be a better father. As opposed to Dave, whose character arc culminated in the epiphany that he didn't want to, nor need to adhere to ideas of masculinity and such cultural roles? I don't see how a Passive Page would break their Arcs. Their Arcs are about how they have a critical misunderstanding of their Aspect, leading to ineffectual behaviours. Becoming less useless doesn't indicate being Active. Also, just because someone benefits from an action doesn't mean they're Active, not unless all Passive classes are utterly altruistic, which is evidently not the case. In any case, I believe the Pages' work benefits others far more than themselves.
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 27, 2017 7:37:07 GMT
You're correct, yes. I think it's true that Active classes are "more Active" than Passive classes in that they are more innately Selfish, Proactive, Self-Focused and Self-Driven: Yang forces on reality, basically. This is a healthier state of mind for Active classes than being Selfless, Reactive, Group-Focused and Group-Driven: Yin forces.
But that's in terms of core mindset, and in terms of activity, any player is going to behave Actively in some ways and Passively in others. This is even true of the Master classes, as Caliborn demonstrably Allows the forces of Time to work for his beneft, and Calliope Exploits Space to create the black hole. Hence, I think the "For the benefit of themselves" vs. "For the benefit of others" mindset is the only really consistent way to sort classes into Active/Passive.
In this sense, Sylphs are inherently Passive. But they show a proclivity for acting as Yang forces--looking to meddle in the affairs of others and willfully make others' problems their own. Kanaya is generally pretty Passive, but she does find herself frustrated by her own desire to take Active roles in Vriska's life, and later Rose's. And Aranea, well...yeah.
Princes, in contrast, tend to destroy their own plot impact and stymie themselves, putting themselves in self-imposed Passive positions despite being Active players. Eridan's hopes for a relationship with Feferi stop him from being truly Active in carrying out his plans of genocide, but really the biggest example here is Dirk, who spends almost his entire session playing reactively to both Jake's will and the AR's. Like with the Sylphs' attempts at being Active forces, this typically doesn't leave them fulfilled or happy.
I don't have a raw numerical system for this and I'm not sure we benefit from one given the flexibility of this system, but I do think Sylphs tend towards behaving Actively even while being a Passive class, which can account for the discrepancy Hussie mentioned.
Maybe we have different ideas about exactly what a Class Verb means, but it seems pretty obvious to me that both Seers and Knights get their advantage from the mind, be that in the form of knowledge, instinct, intuition etc.
I mean--every class gets their advantage from the mind, since they all have to think about and decide how to use their faculties. I'm not sure what you mean here?
I use the Key verb the way Calliope does: As a specific verb linked to both classes, referenced meaningfully by both classes in the comic proper, that describes as many of their meaningful actions as possible and gives us insight into the nature of the classes. The Unifying Myths help inform and flesh out what those verbs can mean, and tie the classes together further under a common themes and aesthetics.
So just as a Prince is "One who Destroys X, or Destroys through X", a Page is "One who Serves X, or Serves through X". It seems to me all classes can both directly Exploit their Aspect through their verb or Invite/Allow it, however, so I think Calliope's definition in this regard defines a tendency or preference--the core distinction between Active and Passive, as I noted, is the "For the benefit of oneself/For the benefit of others".
I don't follow. All he predicted is that that he would go blind and die. Those things happened, but it was after those events that he found happiness: When the prophecies no longer applied and he could no longer get new prophecies. In other words, Sollux benefited from getting away from knowledge. Had he not had the prophecy, he would still be where he is, and he'd still be just as happy. The prophecy achieved nothing.
It's like knowing that you'll find $1000 on the ground tomorrow. That knowledge doesn't give you power/happiness, it's the fact that you (will) have $1000 that does. He did get new prophecies, though--just from sources directly in the afterlife. Sollux still Knew things about the future, since he learned he was Doomed. And while you're right that he benefits from the prophecies no longer being relevant, that doesn't make them untrue. You're also ignoring the miracle-working side of the image of the Prophet, which I argue Mages lean harder on (although Seers still demonstrably perform Miracles), and which describes pretty much all of Sollux's powers.
You see Dave as more of a Patriarch than John? John, who is instantly made the leader by all his peers? John, who was raised by, and greatly takes after a textbook father figure? John, who actually ecto-fathered his whole crew? John, whose favourite, and oft-referenced, movie scene is about a father trying to be a better father.
As opposed to Dave, whose character arc culminated in the epiphany that he didn't want to, nor need to adhere to ideas of masculinity and such cultural roles? During his Session, Dave absolutely views himself as a provider for all of his friends--he Provides his services, time, and resources to his friends continually, and that's pretty much his main contribution to the session. John takes direction from Rose, Vriska, whoever when asked, but he doesn't spend every waking second trying to benefit and empower his friends the way Dave does. While John is definitely more comfortable with masculinity, he doesn't seem all that beholden to the image of the Provider we're talking about.
But by the end of his arc, I'd say I agree Dave has a completely different view of himself largely unlinked from the Patriarch role specifically, though he still gives of himself quite freely--that log with Dirk being the standout example in my head. The Knight as Patriarch I'd actually argue for is Karkat, who is explicitly invested with the responsibility for guiding, motivating, and shaping Troll society in the new universe. I've had friends say Karkat embodies the cultural ideal of Fatherhood for trolls in Earth C, much as Kanaya embodies the concept of Motherhood. This is not a level of responsibility John seems particularly interested in, as far as I can tell.
I don't see how a Passive Page would break their Arcs. Their Arcs are about how they have a critical misunderstanding of their Aspect, leading to ineffectual behaviours. Becoming less useless doesn't indicate being Active.
Also, just because someone benefits from an action doesn't mean they're Active, not unless all Passive classes are utterly altruistic, which is evidently not the case. In any case, I believe the Pages' work benefits others far more than themselves.
Passive classes aren't utterly altruistic, but they are significantly more prone to thinking in Group-Oriented and Selfless terms. Pages typically act expressly on their own desires, for their own benefit, to get what they themselves want--not what the group or others around them want.
Reading Pages as passive breaks their arcs because it turns their narrative victories into moments when they help other people, rather than moments when they develop the willpower to directly get what they want. Tavros raising the Ghost Army isn't about helping Vriska--It's about wrecking her so he can be satisfied and move on from his abuse. Meenah gets the army because Tavros never wanted the responsibility in the first place, and he gets to become a Cavalreaper to boot. Tavros ends up being enormously helpful, but that's a side benefit as far as he's concerned--Tavros is thinking about satisfying himself, not Vriska or anyone else.
Similarly, reading Jake as passive ignores the fact that he pressures Jane into denying her feelings for him so he can have an easy way out. It paints Jake as genuinely oblivious rather than willfuly ignorant and focused on believing whatever's most comfortable for him rather than actually confronting the ways he might have hurt people--whether we're talking about Jane or Dirk. And it paints Dirk and Jake's relationship in a million layers of ambiguity that simply don't exist, because the truth of the canon is that Jake wanted Dirk the whole time, and went out of his way to end up with him. Not for Dirk's sake, but because it was what Jake wanted.
Similarly to Tavros, it takes Jake's agency out of both the Masterpiece and his summoning of Brain Ghost Dirk in Game Over by making them about Jake benefiting a vague sense of Others or acting as a channel for other's powers--when what the narrative puts at the forefront in both cases is Jake's desires, feelings and goals. BGD exists because Jake wants Aranea stopped. The Hope Bubble happens because Jake wants Caliborn stopped. Both times, Dirk is at the center of Jake's feelings and motivations, and both times, Jake's responses are framed as selfish and self-driven--not "the will of the Aspect", but the will of Jake, specifically.
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 27, 2017 18:29:09 GMT
How do you know he still got prophecies from other sources after his death? As I recall, he was ok not knowing the future anymore.
For Another thing, Mituna also had some kind of predictive power, meaning that the ability to know the future was not unique even among Doom players, let alone the fact that Aradia literally had the exact same voices that Sollux did. Knowing that, the future sight isn't unique to the Mage of Doom. Therefore, the only thing we're left with, powerwise, is the "miracle" thing, which can be easily presumed to be defined by something other than knowledge. I just posted the log where he got prophecies from other sources, immediately upon losing his vision twofold:
TA: actually that is kind 0f a relief, maybe y0u're right, i'm feeling better ab0ut this already.
AA: great!
AA: you should be able to relax now that youve been released from the curse of your vision twofold just like you said youd be
AA: you are now merely doomed!
TA: 0h.
TA: that's... awes0me?
AA: being d00med isnt that bad
AA: i spent m0st 0f my life that way remember
AA: at least y0u have the luxury 0f understanding
AA: and the best part ab0ut being d00med is y0u 0nly have t0 put up with it until y0u die This is from his dreambubble log after Eridan knocks him out. Aradia and a literally dead Aradia literally tell him he's doomed, give him insight into the meaning of the situation, and note that he has the luxury of understanding. They also explicitly note that his prophecies for himself came true.
As for Mituna, their situations are somewhat different. I already noted in the essay that The Change and Know classes demonstrably use both Knowledge and Change, since they are the two parts of the scientific method and are pretty much inextricable from one another. So it's no surprise to me to find ambiguity there. But check out the actual text Aranea delivers in regards to him:
The Heir of Doom was once a powerful psionic. He was gifted with vision twofold, and had strong prophetic insights wherever a 8leak future was concerned. He had much to say when it came to warning us a8out the path of doom and destruction we were all headed for, 8ut no one took him very seriously. 8ut one day he lost all those abilities when he 8adly overexerted himself. It's hard to get any specifics from him, 8ut indications are that he applied every last 8it of energy he had toward some great act of heroism, saving us all from some looming threat.
Unlike Sollux, who's prophecies were almost completely self-focused, Mituna's prophecies really did concern the group. In the end, no one listens to Mituna either--and Mituna's fate is ultimately to change the nature of the Doom the group experiences, saving everyone from a particular threat but ending up permanently changed by the experience. They're still Doomed, but just to the dreambubble situation we see them in in canon. They still both Know and Change things, yes. But Sollux is defined by what he knows and understands about himself and his situation, while Mituna is defined by what he changes about the situation for the group. There's that focus on Self vs. Group again.
But crucially, Sollux succeeds AS A PROPHET--others acknowledge the correctness of his prophecies and affirm that he was right, even if he's the main benefactor. Mituna does not--no one ever really listens to him, and in the end he changes the nature of the very prophecy he was preaching.
The parallels to Meulin shouldn't go understated here, either, since she is defined pretty much exclusively by her Knowledge of shipping and the satisfaction she derives from gaining it. The fundamental point that only Mages and Seers are described as being Prophets by the narrative and carry out the role of the Prophet successfully is the takeaway here--no other characters are linked to prophecy like they are, just like no characters are successful at acting out the role of the Fairy outside of Maids and Sylphs.
Tavros didn't even know he was going to come across Vriska again. The army thing happened completely independant of her.
Literally word one out of Tavros' mouth when they meet up implies he was looking for (Vriska):
TAVROS: hI AGAIN FINALLY, uHHHH,
TAVROS: aLIVE VRISKA?
TAVROS: tHAT SEEMS LIKE A DIFFERENT TWIST OF EVENTS, i DIDN'T EXPECT, aND DON'T UNDERSTAND, bUT,
TAVROS: iT DOESN'T CHANGE MUCH ABOUT MY CURRENT MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT,
Which makes sense, since the ghost bubbles are moved by thought and memory anyway. Tavros came across a Vriska who he could prove wrong to his satisfaction instead of the one he was thinking of.
Dirk is another story though. Part of Dirk's whole arc is that he bullied Jake into a relationship with him (and the last half of that sentence comes directly from the canon). I see nothing in canon to suggest that Jake wanted Dirk from the beginning. Saying Jake always wanted to be with Dirk and went out of his way for Dirk takes a huge amount away from Dirk's character arc. Yeah I guess I'm doing a canon recap since this is exactly what I'm talking about.
Dirk's arc is not about how he bullied Jake. Dirk WORRIES that he did because A) He's conflating his identity with the AR's and assuming responsibility for AR's, despite the fact that he did not agree to AR's behavior and choices. The AR, in fact, bullied Dirk as much as Jake himself in some pretty vicious ways, which ALSO comes directly from Dirk's mouth despite his simultaneously claiming responsibility for all of it:
TT: Sometimes I look back on stuff and think I might have essentially bullied him into a relationship with me.
TT: Actually, it's more complicated than that. Parts of me were operating independently from myself.
TT: So it's like I was bullying myself into bullying him into liking me. If that makes sense.
Dirk also thinks this because...Jake messed with his feelings growing up and led Dirk to believe he was straight and not interested in him. We see this happen in their pesterlog together when they're 13, when Jake uses gay as a pejorative:
GT: Excuse me but i fail to see what could possibly be gay about some huge elegant blue men and women having really spiritual intercourse with their tails or something.
TT: Well yeah, obviously not literally.
TT: Jake, where I'm from that word hasn't been used as a pejorative, or even much at all, in a really long fucking time.
GT: But youre from friggin texas! Arent you?
Jake references other ways he's done it himself:
GT: And years ago i used to joke around with him that we would probably be totally into each other if he was a girl.
GT: But of course that was before i started to realize he was probably serious about those feelings for me regardless.
GT: Heheh come to think of it maybe that was unwittingly poor form on my part kind of leading him on or something?
And we know Jake is right to think it messed with Dirk, since...Dirk tells us so:
TT: Or maybe it was more like I was aware of them, but on some level decided they shouldn't matter, because I felt like you had a natural advantage over me.
TT: Cause you know. You're like.
TT: Not a dude.
But critically, what Dirk THINKS is Jake's perspective is not the truth. This is demonstrable. Jake's primary concern talking to Jane isn't that Dirk is implacable and it'll be easier, because Jane mentions that Jake shouldn't HAVE to date Dirk if he doesn't want to and Jake hesitates specifically because he worries Jane will think he's weird if he does:
GG: I don't think you have to do anything you don't want to, Jake.
GT: Yeah.
GT: Um.
GG: Wait.
GG: DO you not want to?
GT: Like i said jane i am inclined to entertain certain ideas and what ifs thats all.
GT: I mean we do get along really well and share a lot of interests.
GT: Im not saying im really GUNG HO TO THE MAX about the proposition but yeah ive given it some thought.
GT: I dunno.
GT: Do you think thats weird of me? For even considering it?
And talking to the AR, Jake is frustrated not because he didn't want to date Dirk, but because he wanted the courtship to go differently:
GT: I just...
GT: This isnt how i pictured it going.
TT: Pictured what?
GT: Between him and me.
GT: There had to be a better way than this!
TT: This is the only way it can be.
GT: I guess if it was going to go this way...
GT: I kinda pictured something different?
GT: There was stuff i wanted to say.
GT: To the real him i mean.
As for BGD, well, you yourself provided the answer. The same way a Passive class can do things actively, an Active class can also do things passively. Jake wasn't directly creating Brain Ghost Dirk, but Brain Ghost Dirk exists wholly and exclusivley for Jake's benefit and through Jake's will--no one else's. Dirk isn't at play in BGD at all, because Dirk was out in the bubbles trying to fly back into the session and gather intel about the situation, and BGD never so much as mentions a sudden jump or having Dirk's awareness or anything. And at this point in the narrative, Dirk--as you mentioned--is worried that he bullied Jake into a relationship and considers himself toxic to Jake. He's also already broken up with Jake.
Which means Brain Ghost Dirk's line:
DIRK: I am Brain Ghost Dirk.
DIRK: You kissed my boyfriend.
DIRK: Prepare to die.
Is really only indicative of Jake's desires and fantasies. Especially since, you know. It's quoting an romantic comedy adventure movie all about the power of true love that echoes Dirk and Jake's entire narratives--the Princess Bride. The exact sort of movie Jake is inclined to like? If Jake were selfless/group focused/focused on benefiting others, you might expect a series of shots where his Hope Field empowers all his friends or whatever at max level. That doesn't happen, and creating Brain Ghost Dirk isn't even something Jake does for the benefit of anyone else, either. All Brain Ghost Dirk is there to do is make Jake safe by getting rid of Aranea--despite the fact that Jake's powers at this level would be genuinely useful re: taking down the Condesce. Jake isn't interested in the team goals at that point. He's interested in feeling safe, and Brain Ghost Dirk is meant to achieve that for him.
And Jake's creation of the Hope Bubble in the Masterpiece definitely Active, since he uses it as a weapon against Caliborn knowingly, out of anger, to stop Caliborn from doing something Jake is seeing him do and wants him to stop doing.
So yes, Jake achieves aims both passively and actively. I've already argued in favor of this idea. What Jake doesn't do is prioritize the group or other people's desires above his own--Jake is motivated by what he wants himself, which the entire narrative concerning him demonstrates.
EDIT:
Oh also Jake knowing what the word 'Gay' means explicitly means that Jake is trolling Caliborn in this entire pesterlog with him, and he makes lots of comments alluding to enjoying dating Dirk and outright flirty wordplay so:
uu: NO. GOD. DON'T MAKE UP TERMS FOR WHAT I AM. I WILL DO THAT.
uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE.
uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO.
GT: Sounds pretty gay.
uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?
GT: Whats what?
uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK.
GT: Oh right.
GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo.
GT: Its like...
GT: How do i explain.
GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together.
GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay."
uu: I SEE.
uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT.
uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. GT: Oh goody. Just the way i like my hijinks!
GT: Tell you about hope?
GT: Um well its something i think everyone should have in their hearts.
GT: That would be hunky dory.
GT: In my view distinguished gentlemen should always strive to be as gay as possible with each other.
uu: BECAUSE I DID NOT HAVE A CHANCE. TO GAZE SOULFULLY INTO HIS BEAUTIFUL EYES.
uu: AND COMMUNE WITH THE DOLL. IN A PERSONAL AND INTIMATE WAY.
GT: Gosh...
GT: That might just be the gayest thing ive ever heard.
uu: THANK YOU.
uu: YOUR HUMAN CONCEPT OF GAYNESS. ADEQUATELY DESCRIBES THE FEELINGS I HAVE. WHEN I EMBRACE MY PERFECT FLOPPY LITTLE MAN.
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Post by ashercrane on May 27, 2017 20:52:48 GMT
How do you know he still got prophecies from other sources after his death? As I recall, he was ok not knowing the future anymore.
For Another thing, Mituna also had some kind of predictive power, meaning that the ability to know the future was not unique even among Doom players, let alone the fact that Aradia literally had the exact same voices that Sollux did. Knowing that, the future sight isn't unique to the Mage of Doom. Therefore, the only thing we're left with, powerwise, is the "miracle" thing, which can be easily presumed to be defined by something other than knowledge. I just posted the log where he got prophecies from other sources, immediately upon losing his vision twofold: TA: actually that is kind 0f a relief, maybe y0u're right, i'm feeling better ab0ut this already.
AA: great!
AA: you should be able to relax now that youve been released from the curse of your vision twofold just like you said youd be
AA: you are now merely doomed!
TA: 0h.
TA: that's... awes0me?
AA: being d00med isnt that bad
AA: i spent m0st 0f my life that way remember
AA: at least y0u have the luxury 0f understanding
AA: and the best part ab0ut being d00med is y0u 0nly have t0 put up with it until y0u die This is from his dreambubble log after Eridan knocks him out. Aradia and a literally dead Aradia literally tell him he's doomed, give him insight into the meaning of the situation, and note that he has the luxury of understanding. They also explicitly note that his prophecies for himself came true. As for Mituna, their situations are somewhat different. I already noted in the essay that The Change and Know classes demonstrably use both Knowledge and Change, since they are the two parts of the scientific method and are pretty much inextricable from one another. So it's no surprise to me to find ambiguity there. But check out the actual text Aranea delivers in regards to him: The Heir of Doom was once a powerful psionic. He was gifted with vision twofold, and had strong prophetic insights wherever a 8leak future was concerned. He had much to say when it came to warning us a8out the path of doom and destruction we were all headed for, 8ut no one took him very seriously. 8ut one day he lost all those abilities when he 8adly overexerted himself. It's hard to get any specifics from him, 8ut indications are that he applied every last 8it of energy he had toward some great act of heroism, saving us all from some looming threat.
Unlike Sollux, who's prophecies were almost completely self-focused, Mituna's prophecies really did concern the group. In the end, no one listens to Mituna either--and Mituna's fate is ultimately to change the nature of the Doom the group experiences, saving everyone from a particular threat but ending up permanently changed by the experience. They're still Doomed, but just to the dreambubble situation we see them in in canon. They still both Know and Change things, yes. But Sollux is defined by what he knows and understands about himself and his situation, while Mituna is defined by what he changes about the situation for the group. There's that focus on Self vs. Group again. But crucially, Sollux succeeds AS A PROPHET--others acknowledge the correctness of his prophecies and affirm that he was right, even if he's the main benefactor. Mituna does not--no one ever really listens to him, and in the end he changes the nature of the very prophecy he was preaching. The parallels to Meulin shouldn't go understated here, either, since she is defined pretty much exclusively by her Knowledge of shipping and the satisfaction she derives from gaining it. The fundamental point that only Mages and Seers are described as being Prophets by the narrative and carry out the role of the Prophet successfully is the takeaway here--no other characters are linked to prophecy like they are, just like no characters are successful at acting out the role of the Fairy outside of Maids and Sylphs. I'm going to go ahead and concede on this point, not necessarily because I agree, but more because there's not really all that much on Mituna to argue with. Anything more in depth either of us could say would likely descend into speculation. I would like to point out something that I didn't see stated in your mage section though. Sollux created the game in order to save the troll race, not for himself particularly. The fact that he might leave the voices behind was pointed out by him, but the line right after Aradia points out that this won't save the troll race, but will end it, Sollux doesn't want to play any more. You could say that he wanted to save the troll race to stop the voices, but the voices would still be there if he did save them, since trolls would still die, but if they all died at once, the voices are gone (apart from, later on, the trolls who are doomed in-session). What concievable selfish reason would he have for using his knowledge to save them, classpectually speaking? You could likely argue that it was an instance of passive action by an active person, though, in which case, I have no answer. Good point. There are people who still use gay as a pejorative. I fail to see how this is messing with anyone. I always read this as that Jake genuinely didn't know that Dirk was gay, and so he realized that he was accidentally causing Dirk to think Jake liked him in that way at the time. Like I said, you put a lot more stock in Jake's intelligence than a lot of people I've talked to. I honestly never though Jake was ever exactly into Dirk. He just figured that they had a lot of shared interests and stuff, and they had fun, so he started to wonder what it would be like if they actually did end up dating. I would geniunely love for someone else to jump in here to say they initially thought the way i did, or the way optimisticDeulist did. Because it never crossed my mind that Jake was initially into him, just that Jake got all wrapped up in everything that happened they ended up together. Disagee with both points, but I'm dropping it because my disagreement with the first part is irrelevant, and my disagreement with second isn't really capable of being resolved. That... is an alternate definition for gay though, and could perfectly well have been what he meant. But then again, you seem to attribute more intelligence to Jake than I do. The other thing I'd like to point out is that, While true, creation and destruction can be opposites if used with opposites in aspects, Service and Theft are really similar as you're describing them in your post. If one inspires others to serve their aspect to them, it proved nearly the same effect as stealing from them. The only real difference between them is that with theft, the person who is losing the aspect is unwilling, while the service classes offer or get others to be willing to offer it. I point this out because, while Creation and Destruction are basically actually opposites, and Knowledge and Change are relatively different, having someone take your aspect, and offering it to them yield the exact same result. While it is true that offering your life to someone else, and stealing doom from someone else, or being served doom or allowing someone to steal your life are both circumstances of opposites... Stealing someone's life and causing them to offer their life to you, as well as letting someone steal your life or offering your life to someone both end with the same result. In the first pair, you have received doom from someone else, and in the second, someone else has your life. The outcomes of both active classes and both passive classes seem to be too similar to warrant a difference.
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 28, 2017 3:06:18 GMT
Sollux created the game in order to save the troll race, not for himself particularly. The fact that he might leave the voices behind was pointed out by him, but the line right after Aradia points out that this won't save the troll race, but will end it, Sollux doesn't want to play any more. You could say that he wanted to save the troll race to stop the voices, but the voices would still be there if he did save them, since trolls would still die, but if they all died at once, the voices are gone (apart from, later on, the trolls who are doomed in-session). What concievable selfish reason would he have for using his knowledge to save them, classpectually speaking? You could likely argue that it was an instance of passive action by an active person, though, in which case, I have no answer.
Basically, yeah. Sollux investigated the ruins at Aradia's behest, too. However, he's pretty quick to try to turn on the plan against Aradia's wishes once he finds out that's not the case, and Aradia is able to veto him. I don't think any player is 100% Active or 100% Passive according to both definitions Calliope gives us simultaneously, so it makes more sense to look at trends, imo. MOST of Sollux's prophecies concern solely himself. He usually takes direct action of his own rather than trying to influence other people. And ultimately, Sollux prioritizes his own desire to stay in the bubbles over his ability to "Adventure", or Karkat's desire to have him stay with him. There are people who still use gay as a pejorative. I fail to see how this is messing with anyone.
I always read this as that Jake genuinely didn't know that Dirk was gay, and so he realized that he was accidentally causing Dirk to think Jake liked him in that way at the time. Like I said, you put a lot more stock in Jake's intelligence than a lot of people I've talked to.
Sorry for confusing you. I don't mean that Jake was literally, maliciously messing with Dirk when they were 13. I mean that Jake was kind of unwittingly callous about sexuality stuff, realized this years down the line, and correctly deduced it probably affected Dirk negatively, as he tells Jane about just before Unite Synchronize. The fact that there are people who use gay as a pejorative is true...and is exactly why it would bother Dirk to have Jake doing it. Most people don't currently read Jake the way I do, so I'm going to guess most people are closer to your views on the matter. This is exactly why I think it's important to interrogate the idea of Pages as Passive, since my reading A) Gives Jake and Tavros far more agency in the story, B) Makes them more compelling and interesting characters, and C) Makes their respective endings seem less arbitrary and out of nowhere. Tavros had a pretty good ending in the comic, since he got to get his revenge on Vriska, prove himself, and then do what he wanted from then on. Reading Pages as Active also gives due weight to all the myriad ways Tavros resists and fights back against Vriska's will when he's alive, rather than rendering him a simple pushover who goes along with whatever she wants. Jake got a good ending since he and Dirk are living together and working out their issues, which is what Jake wanted in the first place. People are wrong about a lot of stuff re: Homestuck. I read Pages as passive for years, not to mention took inversion theory as basically canon when it's been utterly jossed. There's a lot of "conventional wisdom" to that makes Homestuck out to be a worse story than it is, simply because it wasn't the story some thought it was. We know for a fact that Jake understands Gay as a word that means homosexual and which is used as a pejorative, particularly in conservative areas such as Texas, as early as 13. That's what I'm getting at. Because we know for a fact we know that Jake knows what gay means, and because he himself implies that very definition of gay in conversation: uu: BECAUSE I DID NOT HAVE A CHANCE. TO GAZE SOULFULLY INTO HIS BEAUTIFUL EYES.
uu: AND COMMUNE WITH THE DOLL. IN A PERSONAL AND INTIMATE WAY. GT: Gosh... GT: That might just be the gayest thing ive ever heard. uu: THANK YOU. uu: YOUR HUMAN CONCEPT OF GAYNESS. ADEQUATELY DESCRIBES THE FEELINGS I HAVE. WHEN I EMBRACE MY PERFECT FLOPPY LITTLE MAN. (The emphasis here is not on being jolly and festive.) This log is pretty good evidence of the fact that Jake is smarter than he lets on, and he frequently uses the image of ignorance or obliviousness he gives off to avoid accountability or responsibility--or in this case, to troll the fuck out of an alien. Another good case study is his conversations with Roxy early on, when she literally tells him Jane has feelings for him--Jake is aware of the social implications of this misstep on her part, remembers the fact, talks to her about it, and takes his own actions with the information, lying about it to Jane all the while. The other thing I'd like to point out is that, While true, creation and destruction can be opposites if used with opposites in aspects, Service and Theft are really similar as you're describing them in your post. If one inspires others to serve their aspect to them, it proved nearly the same effect as stealing from them. The only real difference between them is that with theft, the person who is losing the aspect is unwilling, while the service classes offer or get others to be willing to offer it. I point this out because, while Creation and Destruction are basically actually opposites, and Knowledge and Change are relatively different, having someone take your aspect, and offering it to them yield the exact same result. While it is true that offering your life to someone else, and stealing doom from someone else, or being served doom or allowing someone to steal your life are both circumstances of opposites... Stealing someone's life and causing them to offer their life to you, as well as letting someone steal your life or offering your life to someone both end with the same result. In the first pair, you have received doom from someone else, and in the second, someone else has your life. The outcomes of both active classes and both passive classes seem to be too similar to warrant a difference.
I'm not entirely sure I follow. It sounds like you're saying they're too similar, because say, a Knight of Doom and a Thief of Life could end up mechanically very similar? Which is something Calliope literally tells us is possible: UU: bUt there is always more to examine. UU: for instance, a hero of life and a hero of doom have aspects as different as can be. UU: bUt if their classes are different enoUgh as well, that is, one active and the other passive, remarkably there is a chance they coUld end Up with very similar abilities! We see this ambiguity in the comic already, anyway. Isn't Roxy "Stealing" the matriorb out of the Void to give it to Kanaya? I would actually argue that Serve/Steal are more existentially opposed than Change and Know, since to operate effectively on the Change/Know scale entails both changing things and knowing things, with a focus on one or the other. The scientific method/systemic approaches to magic/the performing of miracles all share this thematic connection between having specific Knowledge and being able to Change the world in specific, desired ways. And there's other connotations to the verbs that I went over in the essay anyway. Serve in particular has at least two important definitions besides "giving", both of which are referenced in the comic--the providing of service, and rhetorical battle, hence why Knights and Pages are described as warriors.
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Post by ashercrane on May 28, 2017 5:12:46 GMT
All previous responses were either agreements from me, or points where i misunderstood something, so I won't quote it to respond individually.
You posit that the reason the Knight is called a warrior class because it uses an alternate definition of your verb "serve". Can you cite other instances where another definition of the class's verb was used similarly? Steal and Destroy both seemed to be used pretty straightforwardly, from what I could tell, and it feels off to me to link a class via alternate definitions, but only in one out of six definitions. I'm not saying it can't be true, it just seems unlikely to me.
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Post by Gab on May 28, 2017 5:31:44 GMT
As for Mituna, their situations are somewhat different. I already noted in the essay that The Change and Know classes demonstrably use both Knowledge and Change, since they are the two parts of the scientific method and are pretty much inextricable from one another. Hey hey, did my bit about the scientific method make it into your posts? Orrr was it in there already and I didn't completely notice then I mistakenly thought I came up with the scientific method thing on my own XD; I would geniunely love for someone else to jump in here to say they initially thought the way i did, or the way optimisticDeulist did. Because it never crossed my mind that Jake was initially into him, just that Jake got all wrapped up in everything that happened they ended up together. Jake makes it known relatively early on that he's aware all of his friends seem to be into him, Dirk included. AR's first conversation with him leaves little to the imagination, and Jake's tone implies he was expecting Dirk to come out to him on his 13th birthday. On the one hand, in reading I tended to believe the ideas about him being oblivious and afflicted by his multiple concussions, but I also hated to admit he was actually dumb. Basically, I think AR sums it up best: I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. They are similar to each other, yes. That's why they're grouped together. Creation and Destruction are opposites, but still linked, as one cannot exist without the other. Knowing and Changing are somewhat subtle to parse as different and are closely linked. Steal and Serve are conceptually grouped around possession and society in my opinion, so like the others they are similar, yet opposed. Service I figure is closer to the 'society' part of that analogy, how people can help one another and, in the more modern and day-to-day usage of the term, adherence to rules and customs. Theft is obviously more about possession, frequently ignoring rules. That's where their differences shine. About OD's selfish/selfless descriptor, since I know it can be a subtle thing here's how I look at it. Obviously we know all classes can have both active and passive elements in the examples we see through the characters. Caliborn, possessing the very most active class at all, explicitly describes how he must be at ease with the forces of inevitability, allowing the aspect of Time to independently act of its own accord, requiring no direct action from Caliborn, a very passive trait. Yet we know Time will always be on his side and serve him faithfully, lending us to OD's argument on the subject. I think Gamzee and Jake (that is, if you do think of Page as an active class. If not, then, say... Jade) are good cases for examining the subtlety, but reliability, of this angle, as long as you know what exactly is meant by "selfish" and "selfless". These are convenient shorthand terms. I don't like to think of Jake as selfish, for instance (At least not when he's at his best). When OD describes stuff like him manipulating his conversation with Jane to suit his ends, I don't see him as being some sort of cold calculating manipulator, just that he's typically more thoughtful and observant than he likes to let on, but will stop himself from considering certain things to suit his convenience. Living a lie, including lying to himself, because he thinks it would be easier than facing the truth. Which explains Brain Ghost Dirk, a part of his subconscious that lets that natural intelligence shine through, and also calls Jake out on his bullshit. Anyway, being "selfish" doesn't mean ever doing something to the benefit of another, nor "selfless" necessarily meaning being altruistic. Ergo, Gamzee. He's selfless alright, but singularly devoted to exactly one person: Caliborn, to the point of letting him mutilate his body without raising a hand in defense. That doesn't make him a caring, giving person by nature. Just that his thought patterns, and the way he influences reality, revolve around his devotion toward another person. Then you have someone like Jade, who I don't think many will contest is quite the Active player. She is very friendly to everyone she meets and does much to help her friends progress in the session. Passive traits? Possibly. But her motives are more inward-focused. Her actions, ultimately, self-serving. As an active player, she strives to get what she wants. And what she wants is for everyone to be happy and everything to be okay! So what sets her apart from a passive player who is more "genuinely" invested in the interests of others? She has her limits, for one thing. A passive player, when things get bad, can let others destroy them. See above again about Gamzee. Karkat lost weeks of sleep to maintain his leaderly duties. Rose ends up badly suckered in by Doc Scratch. Calliope. Active players, even when acting for others, will stick up for themselves more regularly though. Once Jade has had enough of Karkat, she lets him have it, and also tends to be more snappy and demanding toward Feferi when she's lost her patience with trolls. Dirk when he breaks up with Jake. Tavros, though he is described as a format, didn't exactly put himself in that wheelchair, and tended to tell Vriska no constantly, both before and after being crippled (note: his destruction was imposed upon him against his will, rather than something that was essentially voluntary or a consequence of their actions like the other examples I listed) Another thing is she tends to think she knows best without asking. John lets people order him around without much fuss, generally being pretty trusting of people. Dave and Davesprite tend to know their friends well, but aren't presumptuous and let people explain themselves. And it's not like Jade is often wrong either, but she isn't always the type to listen, but more often indulging people, playing along, being a bit condescending (Like Feferi! Who is the same class even). And that's the problem active classes have to face. Where passive classes struggle with irrelevance or self-destruction, active players tend to have to worry about taking too much control and destroying others. Jade's arc falls more in line with these patterns, despite being a selfless person at heart. Similarly, someone who is more typically self-absorbed might tend to express themselves for the sake of others, even to the point of self-destruction. Like, say, Dave actually. Or for a potentially less controversial example, Equius? You posit that the reason the Knight is called a warrior class because it uses an alternate definition of your verb "serve". Can you cite other instances where another definition of the class's verb was used similarly? Steal and Destroy both seemed to be used pretty straightforwardly, from what I could tell, and it feels off to me to link a class via alternate definitions, but only in one out of six definitions. I'm not saying it can't be true, it just seems unlikely to me. That is a pretty out-there definition of the term, sure, but I think it fits with what we see of how classes and aspects can be used. Like how Roxy somehow steals Void in such a way as to actually create objects, essentially doing the exact opposite of stealing. Or how Vriska "steals" the spotlight, which is more of a metaphorical application of the term, like how this definition of Serve is metaphorical. One way to look at it is to point out that you can generally affect a person in more than one way, either beneficially or maliciously. For example, either of the thief classes can take away something good or bad to influence another person. Conversely, a server class can provide those around them with either good or bad things. Good things, like favors. Or bad things, like ass whoopings.
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Post by obsidalicious on May 28, 2017 9:04:39 GMT
You're also ignoring the miracle-working side of the image of the Prophet, which I argue Mages lean harder on (although Seers still demonstrably perform Miracles), and which describes pretty much all of Sollux's powers. On the contrary, I think the Miracle aspect is what the Mage is actually about, rather than being Knowledge based. For that matter, why exactly are you lumping "knowledge" and "miracle" together? Not only does that make the Class far too broad and versatile, but it goes against what we know about Class definitions. Both Calliope and Hussie consistently refer to the Verb format, where Prince/Bard are 'Destroy', Thief/Rogue are 'Steal' and Seer is 'Understand'. So exactly what Verb do you use to encapsulate those two very different actions(without picking something like 'use' that's way too generic)? I know you refer to Jesus in your Tumblr, but I really challenge the notion that all the pairs must have some unifying myth behind them. Like I said, all exposition points to the Verb format being the preferred, if not only way to properly understand the Classes. It all strikes me as a case of over-thinking and over-categorizing the System. If there's one thing that Hussie wants us to understand it's that the System is flexible, and to directly equate the Classes to existing stories only limits them. That's why I prefer a minimalist system where an Aspect is just a collection of associated concepts and ideas (Which get reified by virtue of being in a narrative) and a Class is simply an interface with the Aspect, specified by a verb and an activity state. (Plus, let's be real here, Jesus is a pretty weighty and powerful Myth to be wasted on the Mage of all Classes don't you think? I can't imagine that Hussie would do that when he likely had 'Lord' in the works) Also on the Jake thing, I agree with ashercrane here. Dirk's whole arc is about how his domineering attitudes get out of his control and abuse the goodwill/ignorance of a friend. That whole idea kind of falls apart if Jake was equally scheming towards the same goal. Combine that with how Jake handled the failing relationship(i.e. he didn't), and more importantly how he continued to aggravate Jane with his relationship, it's clear to me that Jake has a generous scoop of actual naivety on his plate. Also, his conversations with Tavrossprite are perfectly in line with our interpretation too. Unless Jake is also leading Tavrosprite on as well for yet another machiavellian scheme we've all missed.
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carcinodesFecit
Moppet of Destiny
1 4ɯ Ju5+ Y0ur N3160rh*0d 1d10+ Wh0 L0v35 H0ɯ35+uck!
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Pronouns: I'd rather not say
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Post by carcinodesFecit on May 28, 2017 11:19:36 GMT
On this page, Calliope says: UU: classes always come in +/- pairsAlso, the pairings aren't about specific sessions, it's about the system as a whole. It's like in, say, D&D where the character alignment system always exists and is always the same even if a certain story has no Chaotic characters at all. Well my point is that. Yes they always come in pairs. But are you sure that the 12 classes are all paired with eachother? Well 8 cause we are sure the Rogue and Thief and Prince and Bard pairs are canon, but the rest? Well technically I am just saying the exact same thing!There is such thing as the Waste Class and Gent Class but I am not even sure if those are canon. It's still a theory
A CLASSPECT THEORY
Thanks for reading
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Post by obsidalicious on May 28, 2017 11:42:00 GMT
On this page, Calliope says: UU: classes always come in +/- pairsAlso, the pairings aren't about specific sessions, it's about the system as a whole. It's like in, say, D&D where the character alignment system always exists and is always the same even if a certain story has no Chaotic characters at all. Well my point is that. Yes they always come in pairs. But are you sure that the 12 classes are all paired with eachother? Well 8 cause we are sure the Rogue and Thief and Prince and Bard pairs are canon, but the rest? There is such thing as the Waste Class and Gent Class but I am not even sure if those are canon. No those Classes aren't Canon. I also wouldn't put too much stock into the squiddle session either. That was just one of the many nonsense non-answers Hussie gave in his Q&As alongside other 'facts' like Trolls having two penises.
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carcinodesFecit
Moppet of Destiny
1 4ɯ Ju5+ Y0ur N3160rh*0d 1d10+ Wh0 L0v35 H0ɯ35+uck!
Posts: 114
Pronouns: I'd rather not say
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Post by carcinodesFecit on May 28, 2017 11:47:25 GMT
Well my point is that. Yes they always come in pairs. But are you sure that the 12 classes are all paired with eachother? Well 8 cause we are sure the Rogue and Thief and Prince and Bard pairs are canon, but the rest? There is such thing as the Waste Class and Gent Class but I am not even sure if those are canon. No those Classes aren't Canon. I also wouldn't put too much stock into the squiddle session either. That was just one of the many nonsense non-answers Hussie gave in his Q&As alongside other 'facts' like Trolls having two penises Alrighteo... I don't know about the 48 Squiddle session though. As much as it sounds like nonesense, it is canon the the Trolls have 48 Zodiacs. Well I think it's 48, but still. Anyways thanks for your insight.........
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 28, 2017 17:59:46 GMT
Gab Hey hey, did my bit about the scientific method make it into your posts? Orrr was it in there already and I didn't completely notice then I mistakenly thought I came up with the scientific method thing on my own XD;
Augh woops! No, I think I misworded and used your approach while saying that I've written about stuff that's quite similar. That tidbit slipped into my way of parsing it because I think it's genuinely the easiest/simplest way to sum the idea up. That was my bad completely. I am gonna edit it in and credit you in the Change/Know piece, though, I just haven't done it quite yet. Sorry for throwing you off and/or seeming like I was appropriating your great contribution--it was an honest mistake on my end. For that matter, why exactly are you lumping "knowledge" and "miracle" together? Not only does that make the Class far too broad and versatile, but it goes against what we know about Class definitions. Both Calliope and Hussie consistently refer to the Verb format, where Prince/Bard are 'Destroy', Thief/Rogue are 'Steal' and Seer is 'Understand'. So exactly what Verb do you use to encapsulate those two very different actions(without picking something like 'use' that's way too generic)? I use the verb 'Know', so the sentences would parse roughly as "One who knows X, or Knows through X", or possibly "One who invites the knowledge of X, or invites knowledge through X", as the case may be. I think Knowing translates into miracles quite naturally for a couple of reasons. In Homestuck, reality is created through thought and perception--Terezi literally tells us so, the dreambubbles showcase it, the Alchemy system showcases it, pretty much everyone getting exactly what their thoughts and wills made manifest at the end showcases it. It is a pervasive theme. In the case of a Prophet, their ability to perform miracles is linked directly to the Knowledge they hold. They are magicians by another name--but where Witches and Wizards use arcane Knowledge to enact Changes onto the world, which is what we focus on in thinking about them, Prophets are more regularly distinguished for the Knowledge they impart or hold rather than for the miracles they perform while giving that Knowledge credit. Jesus is explicitly described as Magic, just like heirs and witches at various points. The difference is the focus of the execution of the magic. And I already pointed out the Seers pull off things that could only be described as miracles using their Knowledge. Rose leading everyone through the Void is underappreciated, but it should be literally impossible to do. Ditto Terezi being able to guide John throughout causality to change her choices, simply by Knowing what those choices are and how best to change them. We sort of agree there, in that I'm not about to argue that all Knowledge classes should be understood solely through the label of Prophets. I think it's a useful archetype that fills us in on a lot of what they can do, but this system can propagate infinite stories and the verbs themselves are indeed more versatile, so I do stick to them as well. For example, the Archetype continually referenced for Maids and Sylphs is Fairies, which ties them together into a unifying motif and tells us a lot about the nature of the classes. But you could just as easily take the "Make" verb and build a character using it around the archetype of a Creator God/Goddess instead, like say, Gaea. My point isn't to assert that the classes are strictly only to be understood as These Ideas. My point is that Homestuck is a well-constructed story, and that these broader archetypal images are always linked to two classes in particular, which it seems to me gives canonical weight to particular sets of pairings where before we've only had endless speculation. We agree with the minimalist verb approach with regards to producing fan-work: My only aim is to provide a view of the canon that posits it as more cohesive and satisfying, and which gives us clearer ideas of what each Class is capable of on the back of which to expand further in interesting ways. (Plus, let's be real here, Jesus is a pretty weighty and powerful Myth to be wasted on the Mage of all Classes don't you think? I can't imagine that Hussie would do that when he likely had 'Lord' in the works.
Um. No? That the image of the Prophet is so powerful and well-understood through the cultural image of Jesus is exactly why I think it shores up the relative lack of direct viewing of Mages we get. Regardless, some broad speculation on Hussie's motivation doesn't really change the fact that the term Prophet is only used for Seers and Mages, or characters influenced by the cultural images of Seers and Mages. Even then, only Seers and Mages deliver successful prophecies. Jesus does not really fit the description of what the Lord class does by any measure, and we have a literal Christ analogue who is described as both a Prophet and a Seer in the Sufferer. Jesus is an accessible representative of a cultural archetype here, not a mark of worth or value, and it seems weird to say a class would be marked with him simply because it's the "strongest" or "best" class. All of that besides the fact that Caliborn already has an Archetype he follows in the story in the form of the Conductor and his emulation of Hussie. And as far as Cultural, spiritual images to emulate, Caliborn already also has a clearer one: Yaldabaoth, who Caliborn is explicitly linked to and who echoes pretty much all of Caliborn's character arc and identity. Also on the Jake thing, I agree with ashercrane here. Dirk's whole arc is about how his domineering attitudes get out of his control and abuse the goodwill/ignorance of a friend. That whole idea kind of falls apart if Jake was equally scheming towards the same goal. Combine that with how Jake handled the failing relationship(i.e. he didn't), and more importantly how he continued to aggravate Jane with his relationship, it's clear to me that Jake has a generous scoop of actual naivety on his plate.
Also, his conversations with Tavrossprite are perfectly in line with our interpretation too. Unless Jake is also leading Tavrosprite on as well for yet another machiavellian scheme we've all missed. Dirk's whole arc is about how AR gets out of his control and manifests those domineering attitudes without his consent, forcing him to confront his own worst potential. Dirk himself is never domineering towards any of his friends, and there is a mountain of fanon overblowing Dirk's agency, conflating Dirk's agency and AR's, and erasing Jake's completely confusing people in this regard. Getting into that would be veering off Classpect stuff for the most part, but I've written about it extensively.But I don't think there are any machiavellian schemes where Jake is involved. I'd reccomend banditAffiliates' description of the subject, since it's a pretty good descriptor. The fact remains that Jake knows for a fact Jane has feelings for him, and what it means for Roxy socially to have told him about it, and is aware enough to respond with tact and grace: TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much
GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection?
TG: nope nope nope nope nope nope TG: hey look who didnt say nothin about that why it is this silly fuckin drunk girl over here GT: Its a tricky issue. And you know i adore jane and please dont think i havent given some thought to...
GT: Well that angle on our relationship i guess. TG: ooof jake jake no please TG: this is a conversation that cant happen cause i started it and i blew it by saying stuff so u have to foroget it TG: * 4get it GT: Oh. Yeah i can see the dilemma this causes for your friendship with her.
GT: Ill drop it. And later remembers the fact and follows up with Roxy about it: GT: Should i expect a serious exchange about feelings and whatnot? TG: depenbs on the present magnitude of her tightassery TG: someone needs 2 move you fuckers along an get some stuff out in the popen already GT: Wait would this be about certain unrequited pinings you may have alluded to earlier? TG: i didint say nothin and aint sayin anything to that effeft
GT: Indubitably. Miss zipper lips was it? Humorously misspelled of course.
TG: mmmmm! TG: *zuip* In the pesterlog directly before talking to Jane, where he lies about Roxy telling him about Jane's feelings and chooses to believe Jane when she denies romantic feelings for him: GT: I just got off the horn with roxy. GG: Wait... GG: What did she tell you? GT: Well. Not anything all that specific.
And then that whole conversation with Jane happens. The bottom line being: Jake, like Grandpa, has a history of escapism and self-delusion where it benefits him.
That doesn't make him Machiavellian, it just makes him a character who is like, aware? And has agency in this story all about agency? It's just that where Jake has agency, he routinely prioritizes his feelings for Dirk, almost as much as he prioritizes his desire to avoid confrontation. I'm not sure what you mean by the Tavrosprite conversation, but by that point Jake has decided he's inherently terrible and should be alone forever, which Credits and the Masterpiece demonstrate is something he gets over. Neither what Jake nor Dirk say about themselves at their lowest points is to be taken at face value. My point being that writing Jake off as unaware and agencyless requires assuming Homestuck is an inconsistent narrative with regards to writing him, because Jake himself demonstrates the capacity to understand social situations early in his narrative, as well as how to best handle them for his own benefit.
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Post by Gab on May 28, 2017 19:58:32 GMT
Well my point is that. Yes they always come in pairs. But are you sure that the 12 classes are all paired with eachother? Well 8 cause we are sure the Rogue and Thief and Prince and Bard pairs are canon, but the rest? 12 is sort of a peculiar number to land on, and it is possible there would be more than that. I don't think the story ever directly suggests there aren't. I think it's something that's an easy conclusion to come to because we never see or hear about more than the 12 we learn about (aside from the master classes), and fan ones never really took off. It's a good thing to ask about, because I don't know of a very good reason why we all assume 12 is the complete table. So I thought it was worth addressing. On the contrary, I think the Miracle aspect is what the Mage is actually about, rather than being Knowledge based. For that matter, why exactly are you lumping "knowledge" and "miracle" together? Not only does that make the Class far too broad and versatile, but it goes against what we know about Class definitions. Both Calliope and Hussie consistently refer to the Verb format, where Prince/Bard are 'Destroy', Thief/Rogue are 'Steal' and Seer is 'Understand'. So exactly what Verb do you use to encapsulate those two very different actions(without picking something like 'use' that's way too generic)? I think it's quite logical, personally. If we agree a Seer is the passive Class of Understanding, what would the active version be like? A Seer provides knowledge to others, allowing others to act with that knowledge to benefit the group. An active knower would use knowledge to benefit themselves, or take action on their own through the knowledge they acquire. This is OD's description of "miracles", an act performed by a prophet. I think your pick for the active counterpart to Seer was the Knight, right? I can see why you would think so, but I don't think it's quite as good a fit. Knights demonstrate intuition with their aspect, but we've never seen them given to visions as Seers consistently have. Dave accrues knowhow about time travel and how it works through firsthand experience and guidance from others. But really, most players will tend to have intuition, or affinity, or a connection to their aspect, so Dave's or Karkat's intuitions aren't really that special. Compare to Rose and Terezi, whose actions in their sessions revolve much more significantly around the gathering of information and the imparting of said info to others, or using what they know for the benefit of the session. Everything revolves around their knowledge, how effectively they provide it to others, and what they do with what they know. Knights don't have to worry about knowing, they are preoccupied with doing. But while we get only a tiny glimpse of what Mages are like through Sollux (and Meulin), I think they show very many similar traits to Seers. Sollux has knowledge (about coding) that none of his friends possess, and he does things no one else can thanks to that fact. People turn to him to do things they don't know how to do, like setting up all the computer terminals in the meteor, or getting John's rocket pack to work. An emphasis on the acquisition and application of information. I also think 'Mage' kind of lines up with that, title wise. Mages or wizards are people who have arcane knowledge not possessed by others. Typically a wizard has use of magic because they studied how to use it. Like Doctor Strange! I disagree, I think OD's use of unifying myths helps expand the mileage we can get out of exceedingly simple verbs. It's his logic about prophets and the miracles they perform that allows us to better understand the ways "Knowing" can be used in a somewhat less abstract, more direct fashion. Actually, it kind of bugs me he doesn't give one for the destroy or steal classes, because I'm an awful completionist that way. Augh woops! No, I think I misworded and used your approach while saying that I've written about stuff that's quite similar. That tidbit slipped into my way of parsing it because I think it's genuinely the easiest/simplest way to sum the idea up. That was my bad completely. I am gonna edit it in and credit you in the Change/Know piece, though, I just haven't done it quite yet. Sorry for throwing you off and/or seeming like I was appropriating your great contribution--it was an honest mistake on my end. Haha, it's okay. Don't worry, I hadn't suspected you of trying to steal credit or anything like that. You don't really strike me as that type. ;P
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Post by obsidalicious on May 29, 2017 7:28:23 GMT
I think it's quite logical, personally. If we agree a Seer is the passive Class of Understanding, what would the active version be like? A Seer provides knowledge to others, allowing others to act with that knowledge to benefit the group. An active knower would use knowledge to benefit themselves, or take action on their own through the knowledge they acquire. This is OD's description of "miracles", an act performed by a prophet. I see three problems with this: Firstly: The myth you're basing this on doesn't even fulfill this. Exactly what Knowledge was Jesus using to be able to walk on water or summon food out of nowhere? Secondly, again, I don't see Sollux as matching this either. Feel free to cite something I've forgotten, but I can't think of anytime Sollux has done something particular notable as a result of his prophecies. And I don't just mean an event tangentially related to a prophecy, I mean, can you show me a miracle that Sollux performed, that he couldn't do at all with out his prophecies? Thirdly, and most importantly: So you're lumping 'miracles' in because someone can use Knowledge to do amazing things? What about when Roxy does amazing things with her powers(she could even recreate Jesus' feeding miracle)? Is the Rogue "One who steals and performs miracles"? This can be applied to every Class, every Title. Everyone with their superpowers unlocked can perform miraculous things. It's practically the definition of 'superpower'. It becomes trivial and pointless to include it in a Class definition. Even worse if you're making it out like only these 2 Classes can do them. First of all, there's no solid reason to believe that the Seer's counterpart must also have similar visions/prescience. Hussie himself describes the Seer as loosely translating to 'Understander', and that term there does not imply prescience at all. As for intuition, yes you're right, I would expect all players to have some intuition about their own Class, their own Aspect, their own Powers etc. But I see the Knight as going beyond that. I see them as actually having and applying their Knowledge outside of themselves, to other contexts that have little to do with them besides the Aspect. When Dave is talking to John about his new powers, Dave not only calls himself an expert, but shows concern not for John's ability to Time Travel, but whether or not John knows what he's doing with the power. Clearly Dave feels that the most important part of Time Travel is the knowledge/understanding of the process and its consequences. This is the sort of attitude I'd expect from an Understander. Similarly, Karkat's knowledge of Blood isn't just limited to his own powers. Throughout his Session he provides romantic advice to all who ask for it, even when those relationships have little to do with them. Whether or not he was actually successful in this endeavour is up for debate, but the point is Karkat believed that his forte was being a scholar of relationships/social interaction etc. And for Latula, we have her stating that she intuitively understands the Post-Scratch Pyrope/Serket revenge cycle even though it has nothing to do with her. This shows her as having an Understanding of the Mind Aspect in general, rather than just about how she can use it. I'm not sure I follow. By the simple fact that the Verbs are indeed 'simple', we can already get lots of mileage out of them. That's not to say comparisons are completely useless, Roxy herself makes one with the Rogue to Robin Hood. My point is that marrying one particular Myth to a Class/Pair is limiting, because other relevant myths exist and no single myth is ever going to fully explore the Verb in question. Another reason as to why I disagree with the Myth notion is that I think of the System in a more Watsonian way, i.e. in-universe. Sburb is a super-cosmological phenomenon, responsible for the reproduction cycle for entire universes. I don't think it really gives a damn about what the ancient cultures of one particular species have to say about its Classes.
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Post by Gab on May 29, 2017 21:23:13 GMT
So you're lumping 'miracles' in because someone can use Knowledge to do amazing things? What about when Roxy does amazing things with her powers(she could even recreate Jesus' feeding miracle)? Is the Rogue "One who steals and performs miracles"? This can be applied to every Class, every Title. Everyone with their superpowers unlocked can perform miraculous things. It's practically the definition of 'superpower'. It becomes trivial and pointless to include it in a Class definition. Even worse if you're making it out like only these 2 Classes can do them. It's just a turn of phrase, dude. A linguistic tool to describe how it works, tied into the myth thing. And speaking of, the myth thing isn't meant to totally define how the classes work. It's a way to extrapolate from patterns in the story to expand on what was previously thought about the system. Just because the myth doesn't ALWAYS hold 100% true in every circumstance doesn't mean it holds no water whatsoever. There is undeniably a Jesus parallel in the Sufferer, who was revealed to be a Seer. That doesn't mean every Seer in Homestuck follows that same pattern. Nor does it mean every Seer or Mage always makes the best prophet. Meulin is not described to have visions of any kind, nor is her intuition or knowledge of Heart well known. Yet the effect she has on the Hearts of others (such as Horuss) can still be described as stemming from the exploitation of Understanding. Admittedly by stretching a little bit, but the engineering of specific social situations as intended seemingly with no supernatural powers involved speaks of Knowledge better than it does any other Class descriptor if you ask me. I don't disagree, Knights tend to be very intuitive intrinsically. I think they have to be, to be the most effective they can be. As such, their knowledge is somewhat irrelevant to their character arcs and personal challenges, compared to the very act of doing things for other people. Karkat's obsession with being a leader. Dave's assisting throughout the session via time travel. Latula's way of wanting to help others without talking down to them, as identified by Kankri. The intuition needed to do these things comes naturally and is typically never in question. What is in question are their comfort with their own identity. Each of them puts up facades to mask deep-seated insecurities. This pattern is as prevalent in Knights as their intuition, but it 1) has nothing at all to do with Knowledge or Understanding, and 2) is much more relevant to the struggles they go through in realizing their full potential. That's what separates them in my mind from Seers. You're right in that Seers don't necessarily need to have visions. Rose and Terezi aren't known to have any visions during the course of their games. When Terezi kills Vriska, she starts to be plagued by self doubt about whether she did the right thing, a crisis revolving around lack of clarity of vision, a compromise of her Understanding. Rose also has a habit of obsessing over the things she doesn't know. Searching for a solution to their null session. Alchemizing drinks on the meteor. Being an auspistice. Her lack of understanding tends to be what weighs on her the most and leads to her making her worst mistakes. Kankri has lofty sociological goals, but doesn't have the knowhow to achieve them, and his incompetence is his worst enemy. I think that pattern is relevant to Mages too, for what little we see of them. In Sollux's case I'd say it seems sort of like the inverse. The things he knows from his prophetic visions of doom, or the things he brings about with his knowledge such as Sgrub, are what weighs on him, rather than lack of knowledge. He feels put upon when people turn to him for help. Which isn't to say his magical spirit quest is to become dumb or something like that. But the purpose of a Seer is to provide knowledge to others, or to use knowledge to benefit them. Thus it weighs on them when this is inhibited in some way, when they lack the means to accomplish this. A Mage on the other hand uses knowledge to benefit themselves. They prefer to forge their own path. Sollux liked coding and showing off what he could do with his codes. He would help people out with their problems to prove what a badass he was, like cracking John's rocket pack problem. Thus where his woes come is when knowledge works against him, when his understanding creates problems where it should be the solution. If that makes any sense. I don't know. That could use some workshopping. But I ran out of energy to keep thinking very coherently on this for right now. Well, me saying it gets more mileage is understating it a bit. The problem with such simple terms is that they're too nonspecific. So it's a little easy to either be really literal and specific on the verb, or stretch out a lot of meaning based on nothing. That's why eventually "Exploit" was retired from describing any particular Class because it was way too generic. The myth uses patterns that exist in the story to allow us to hit a happy medium between too generic and too theoretical. But again, it's not anything that is supposed to TOTALLY REDEFINE how we think about Classes, they're just another angle by which we examine systems and patterns that have been part of the discussion for a long while now.
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Post by optimisticduelist on May 30, 2017 20:08:21 GMT
His knowledge of being the son of God. Jesus attributes his ability to perform Miracles to his communion and understanding of the Word of God, and connection to the divinity of the Father. His miracles generally serve as proof of his divinity. This is like, the main Jesus thing--his Miracles are performed in service to the spreading of his message.
Sollux's Psiionics are a direct reflection of his communion with and understanding of his own Doom. They cause him great suffering both emotionally and physically, but through that sacrifice he also develops massive telekinetic abilities. Sollux's are the only troll powers implied to cause harm to the user in this way. Doom is also linked to technology, rules, and programming, and Sollux's ability to program the game is contingent on his Knowledge of those subjects.
His miracles and prophecies aren't necessarily DIRECTLY correlated--although he is successful at delivering prophecies which do indeed come true. But they draw from the same source, which is what I'm getting at. Sollux isn't the only one, either. Rose's miracles largely come about through her communion with the Horrorterrors--also divine entities--early on, and once she God Tiers they seem guided by her communion with the Light aspect itself. Terezi directly attributes her effectiveness to her ability to Know other people's minds and choices, and when she loses confidence in that, she loses effectiveness.
That's a fair criticism, if I've come off that way at all. It is not my opinion--every class is a God, after all, so obviously they can all perform miraculous acts. I stress the focus on Miracles with the image of the Prophet for two reasons:
One, because in the context of Homestuck, it is explicitly another term for Magic, which is a common focus between all four of the Change/Know classes (as well as the Make classes, who are described as fairies and are literally Made of magic/their Aspect, and who are described as being More Magic than magicians as such.)
Two, because I think it recontextualizes the Seers somewhat. At least to me, it's always seemed that Seers are typically described as being almost wholly guides/information providers to other players, and while that's largely true, I think understanding them as miracle workers makes things like Rose's magic make a whole lot more sense as a part of their Class. Rose is essentially doing the same thing Terezi does when she guides John through causality simply by Knowing a thought powerfully enough in her head--she is influencing reality directly through her Knowledge, as if by magic.
I'd be curious to see a source on Hussie using that descriptor, just because I'm curious and haven't seen that particular quote. I pretty much agree with it though I think Know is the most elegant/encompassing verb I've found yet, but if you're right about that particular phrasing it only makes my case stronger.
AA: being d00med isnt that bad
AA: i spent m0st 0f my life that way remember
AA: at least y0u have the luxury 0f understanding
AA: and the best part ab0ut being d00med is y0u 0nly have t0 put up with it until y0u die
Since understanding is explicitly referenced in one of Sollux's few moments of focus. I don't have much of an argument for you on the Knights thing--I think the parallels you're seeing are there, it just seems to me that the amount of canonical referencing for Knights Serving in all manner of ways and being coded as Butlers and Warriors outweighs them as far as establishing a Class pair, and I don't think the verb 'Understanding' accurately captures most of what Knights do. Karkat in particular has a habit of benefiting others or solving conflicts through Blood without having a clue what he's actually doing.
But I am fairly secure in the notion that the Classes feature all sorts of parallels and synergies even outside of their specific verb pairs, so I don't really disagree with many of the parallels you've drawn.
I agree in the sense that, as I said, I think the unifying myths we get are only the case in the context of Homestuck, as clues for the reader. There are certainly other archetypes one could use to build other characters off the same verbs, or one could use no archetype at all. I use these myths as identifiers, but there are plenty of ways to build off and deviate from what they present.
I disagree about that reading of Sburb, but only because the engine of Sburb itself is the ideas and forms of identification the Players bring into it from their culture. Sburb isn't handing down archetypes from above with it's Classpects, but simply describing the patterns of thought the Players already choose to exhibit. And the way players think about themselves and actively try to present themselves factors into how their God Tiers manifest, much like dreamselves. Vriska leaves fairy trails and stuff only when she's living up to the image of a Sylph, and then drops those traits afterwards.
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Post by ashercrane on May 31, 2017 14:23:44 GMT
His knowledge of being the son of God. Jesus attributes his ability to perform Miracles to his communion and understanding of the Word of God, and connection to the divinity of the Father. His miracles generally serve as proof of his divinity. This is like, the main Jesus thing--his Miracles are performed in service to the spreading of his message. The reason Jesus was able to perform miracles was because he was able to use God was working through him, as the bible says he gave up his divine powers when he became human. Does this mean you think all Prophets have some kind of other thing they draw power from (Sollux's voices, Meulin's... I dunno, something), or is that taking your metaphor too far? Where does it say Sollux's Telekinesis was powered by his communion with the voices? And by that, would Aradia's telekinis be linked to her communion with the dead? wheals.github.io/formspring/formspring.html#andrewhussie1935493605^The link to AH calling Rose an "understander of fortune". To be fair, if you look at the tweet where AH said the most active standard class is female, and two most passive are male, a few tweets down he does reference having to merge social responsibilities with myth archetypes, so he seems to have had some kind of archetypes in mind. Whether that means individual or unifying ones, who knows. web.archive.org/web/20120621061654/
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Post by obsidalicious on May 31, 2017 21:46:23 GMT
His knowledge of being the son of God. Jesus attributes his ability to perform Miracles to his communion and understanding of the Word of God, and connection to the divinity of the Father. His miracles generally serve as proof of his divinity. This is like, the main Jesus thing--his Miracles are performed in service to the spreading of his message. That doesn't make sense. Simply knowing that you have powers doesn't mean that your powers are Knowledge based. Is Superman a Knower because he knows he has super strength etc. with which he can perform miraculous things?
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Post by legendary on May 31, 2017 22:09:04 GMT
I'm really confused by everyone using JC as an example of an active class when his biggest deal was taking on human form for the purposes of being a blood sacrifice for the good of mankind. Jesus is practically a fucking Muse in terms of activity. Most prophets were prophets for less extreme but still similar motivations: using their godliness to tell Jews how much God was pissed at them for not honoring the covenant or tell Jews how much pain God was going to inflict on their enemies to properly honor the covenant, depending on who controlled Jerusalem at the time.
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Post by Gab on Jun 1, 2017 1:41:32 GMT
He was used as an example of the prophet mythological archetype for the Knower classes, both Mage and Seer in this case. I don't know why people keep harping on that one specific thing when it's not even a major component of the theory.
Seers are prophets that use divine or otherworldly knowledge to benefit others, such as by spreading a message. Occasionally they will use their knowledge to perform 'miracles', to make their case more convincing.
Mages use said divine knowledge as power for themselves, like a wizard learns to bend the elements through studying the supernatural forces of magic. Sometimes they may provide prophecies, but they are not typically motivated to share their knowledge with others.
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Post by optimisticduelist on Jun 1, 2017 2:46:19 GMT
I'm really confused by everyone using JC as an example of an active class when his biggest deal was taking on human form for the purposes of being a blood sacrifice for the good of mankind. Jesus is practically a fucking Muse in terms of activity. Most prophets were prophets for less extreme but still similar motivations: using their godliness to tell Jews how much God was pissed at them for not honoring the covenant or tell Jews how much pain God was going to inflict on their enemies to properly honor the covenant, depending on who controlled Jerusalem at the time. I'm not arguing for JC as a Mage--I'm arguing for JC as a Prophet, an archetype that includes both Mages and Seers. Not sure I know of any examples of Mage-style prophets historically, and I definitely can't think of any reference in Homestuck. Jesus himself I would argue fits plainly into the title of Seer, given that...a Seer literally emulates his story, and Rose herself emulates one of his most notable miracles. But the fact that Mages are the only characters besides Seers explicitly DESCRIBED as Prophets, and who fit the mold of Prophet behavior in terms of soothsaying and divine communion with a supernatural force, fits the bill for me. Also, prophets of Doom are the most common and well-known styles of prophets outside of Jesus himself or Seers, at least in Western culture. So there's that. To be fair, if you look at the tweet where AH said the most active standard class is female, and two most passive are male, a few tweets down he does reference having to merge social responsibilities with myth archetypes, so he seems to have had some kind of archetypes in mind. Whether that means individual or unifying ones, who knows. I'd be super interested & grateful if you could screencap that or something because the wayback machine link you posted doesn't show the tweet you're referring to Relatedly: Thanks Where does it say Sollux's Telekinesis was powered by his communion with the voices? And by that, would Aradia's telekinis be linked to her communion with the dead?
That doesn't make sense. Simply knowing that you have powers doesn't mean that your powers are Knowledge based. Is Superman a Knower because he knows he has super strength etc. with which he can perform miraculous things?
Ok. Let me see if I can answer these three points in one swoop, and elaborate on the nature of Prophets in the meantime. Superman is not like Jesus, because the focus for Superman rests on his abilities, not on his knowledge. Jesus is distinguished by the fact that he: A) Delivers prophecies about the future, that are then proven true. B) Attributes both his abilities and his knowledge to his communion with a divine, supernatural force. C) Uses his abilities to serve as evidence for the truth of both his prophecies and the will of said divine force. For pretty much every Prophet ever, the focus is not in the powers they manifest, but in whatever creed and/or prophecy they're preaching. And in Jesus' case, we can go even further, as he claims he is able to endow others with his miraculous abilities if they take his message to heart. John 14:12: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”
This is why Christians pray in Jesus' name, to the Christian God: There is a belief that knowing the Word of God and the name of his Son allows the divine force of God to work in one's life, and this is a belief some choose to trust. But the Knowledge of the message and the working of the power are inseparable. This dynamic is clearly also at work in the Seers--the word Seer itself ibeing another word for Prophet, according to the wikipedia page for Prophets.Rose performs a miracle in navigating the Void. Is this because of her communion with the Horrorterrors, or her communion with the Aspect of Light? I'd argue it's both. Either way, her ability to navigate it is impossible to differentiate from her knowledge of both the Gods and the Light aspect. Terezi performs a miracle in helping John navigate causality to change reality--so long as he Knows the sequence of thoughts she leaves him--one of which she intensely Knows herself, to serve as an initial anchor point--she is able to guide him through an infinite labyrinth of possibility to achieve a single beneficial result. Her ability to do so--and enable John to do so--is indistinguishable from her Knowledge of both her own choices, and the nature of reality as created through Mind itself. Now, for Sollux. "Your mutant mind is hounded by the psychic screams of the IMMINENTLY DECEASED. Your visions foretell of the planet's looming annihilation, and yet unlike the typical sightless prophet of doom, you are gifted with VISION TWOFOLD."
His brain forces him to hear the psychic screams of the Doomed and give him visions of death and apocalypse--through which he makes predictions which are proven to come true. These visions are transparently pretty Doom-y. Sollux and Meulin are the only characters noted to be issue predictions which come true in this way other than Seers. This same brain ALSO endows him with Vision Twofold--making him one of the most powerful characters from the outset...but through great personal Sacrifice, since using these powers to their fullest potential is unsustainable and harmful for him. This means there are rules he has to follow with his powers if he wants to stay alive. Sacrifice, duality, and rules are also all part of the Doom conceptual umbrella.I'm not saying Sollux's visions are the source of his telekinetics. I am saying that both his visions and his telekinetics are products of his link to Doom. So yes, all the Prophets have a "thing they draw power from", just like every class: Their Aspects, which are divine forces in and of themselves anyway. They're "invisible" but "everywhere", they make up the entirety of the universe, and they're basically just Ideas/Aeons in the Gnostic sense. The prophets, uniquely, however, seem to draw a lot of highly specific knowledge from their Aspect, seemingly supernaturally--like Sollux's ability to code, Meulin's expertise with shipping, Terezi's ability to track and understand people's Minds and the realities their choices lead to, and Rose's understanding of what's important, relevant, or fortuitous. This knowledge includes literal knowledge of the future, which is accurate and describes events that do end up becoming true. This connection to their Aspect also endows them with an affinity for performing styles of magic, and so the Prophets tend to be described as magical or capable of sorcery, much like Heirs and Witches. I use the phrase miracles here because it contextualizes their capacity for magic within the cultural image of the prophet that both classes are already explicitly linked to. The focus on the consistent link is important. Just as only Maids and Sylphs consistently get described as Fairies and carry out the behavior of Fairy classes, and only Pages and Knights consistently get described as warriors and butlers, only Mages and Seers are successful at carrying out the image of the Prophet--issuing true predictions being the most obvious way to judge their success. A couple of characters are referenced as providing prophecies besides them: Namely, Mituna and Karkat. In both cases, the prophecies are rendered untrue. In Mituna's case because he changed the nature of the Doom he warned against, in Karkat's because his shipping grid was wrong in the fist place. Dirk is referenced as creating a self-fulfilling prophecy once, but the prophecy turns out to be untrue as well, and he isn't actually trying to provide a prophecy anyway. This is an image exclusively linked to this pair of Classes, and both classes live up to this image exclusively. Given that other classes in contention have similar images they live up to as well, I think that's worth taking into account. As for Aradia's telekinetics, yes, I do think they tie into her Classpect. Her summoning of ghosts is demonstrably a case of her Making more time for the dead. Her literal telekinesis she doesn't actually use until she's a ghost, where she's put under a corrupting influence by the Horrorterrors, and while she uses it afterwards, she downplays the ability significantly once she God Tiers and focuses instead on her Time-based abilities. Given that both Aradia and Damara are exploited and corrupted--Aradia by her society and the Horrorterrors, Damara by her friends and Lord English--it's easy to see their more Space-focused telekinetic powers as being indicative of Calliope's description: UU: player abilities may also manifest in ways in defiance with their aspects if they are heavily resistant to their trUe calling. or, if corrUpted in some way by an oUtside inflUence. Do note I am not describing this as inversion, however. But really, that the troll powers are actually Aspect powers is kind of obvious once you think about it. The Aspects describe and make up all of reality in the first place, so obviously any psychic powers any species manifest are going to be manipulations of Aspects on some level, simply because..Aspects make up everything there is to manipulate. e Tex Talks' raised pretty strong arguments for Tavros and Vriska's psychic powers as aspect powers, not to mention Equius' super-strength, and Gamze explicitly references Rage when he uses his chucklevoodos. May as well link Tex Talk's Gamzee video, too, since it's the shortest of his and amazing.
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