Classpect Discussion Thread

Well I think it would be more accurate to say that Roxy mastered a Void ability through Space, not that she mastered Space.

After all of this i'd say a mage is one that "is affected or influenced his/her will by his/her aspect's effects" also "that who has to live his life carried by his/her aspect's influence"

So in short "influenced by his aspect's effects". Sollux always followed and got influenced by the voices of the dead. Meulin got his life changed (became deaf) by events in her relationship and still lived with his love for Kurloz influencing her.

Yeah...I mean, wasn't Vriska's life extremely influenced by Luck? Hasn't Kanaya's life been pretty much DEFINED by various elements of Space?

Part of the problem, also, is that this is...going to be really hard to parse for whatever Mage's paired class is. "One who allows being affected or influenced by X" or "one who invites others to have to live their lives carried by X's influence" is...well, awkward phrasing at best, and even MORE universal than the original. I mean, doesn't Roxy allow others to be affected or influenced by Void? She blacked out her whole session, after all.

Out of curiosity, what class DO you pair Mage with, Gilian? (Given your choice of words, I'm assuming it's not Seer, so I'm curious, as I don't pair Mage/Seer either.)

Edit:
Long story short, I don't like verbs that are so general they can describe any action. "Exploit" is a verb I dislike, because it's really just a fancy synonym for "use (very well)," and every class needs to use their aspect to do stuff! "Steal" and "Destroy" give us example verbs that are evocative, and in a "goldilocks zone" of breadth. They're narrow enough that we can clearly see what they cannot do, but broad enough that they aren't pigeonholed into a single activity. (I'll note that I make a minor exception for Lord/Muse, because they are not part of the "standard" classes.)

spoiling for long and irrelevant to the discussion.

It's entirely possible that Obsid didn't realize they were capitalizing like that, but whether you're right or wrong, I think I can safetly say this is one of the circumstances where if they wanted to defend themself, they would have, and did not need you to do it for them. 


I find it aggrivating to figure out the Mage's verb. 

Going by Meulin, she was said to be a good matchmaker, and since Heart means the soul, I figured it means she was good at pairing up matching true selves together. But while I do see how that works, I don't know exactly what kind of a verb that would be. 


Don't feel bad about it. A lot of people tend to play it pretty loose with the english language. If I had read through the post more intently, I would have figured he'd used it be accident as well. I've never seen capitalizing only the first letter to put emphases on anything outside HS itself. (All caps I have, but not the first letter)

HumbleElitist already covered most of my points (and you already know about how German naturally expects ALL nouns to be capitalized), so the only thing I'll add is this.

Don't apologize for it. Doing so just sounds like you know it's a rude thing to do but plan on doing it anyway, and that doesn't excuse the rudeness. If you actually want to avoid giving offense, ask a question instead of listing corrections. E.g. "Why are you capitalizing words like black hole, mastery, etc.?" Instead of coming across with condemnation and displeasure, you'll come across as open to new ideas and willing to learn. And neither of those things is an offense!

In my case, when I capitalize words without a normal precedent for doing so, it's because I'm trying to "highlight" those words. I'm trying to give them a subtle emphasis that doesn't require italicized text (which, like dashes and parentheses, I tend to over-use). So, for example, if I were going to argue that...certain topics were intimately related to Breath, I might give them capital letters to show that they are very important for that aspect, e.g. "Breath is all about being Free and Dynamic, about keeping your options open and remaining constantly Adaptive." Doing that makes the words Free, Dynamic, and Adaptive stick out from the rest of the sentence--clearly indicating that those concepts are keywords.

Just like any grammatical tool, capitalization can be over-used, which dilutes its effectiveness.

(Edit: Just so it's clear, I accidentally hit post before adding my response to AsherCrane. I promise I'm not just derailing the thread! )
And now here's that reply.

There's a lot of that for several HS classes. Mages, Pages, Witches, and Heirs are all hard to pin down exactly what it is they're doing to or with their aspects.

For me, I compared Meulin's case to Sollux's, and tried to see if any kind of mini-pattern resulted. The thing that really struck me was, the two of them achieve things other people don't even think are possible, let alone practical. Karkat doubts that the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus code is valid, for example, and Sollux manages to translate the frog temple ruin codes into not just meaningful text, but the code of a video game.

But at the same time, the two of them are rarely, if ever, able to see the consequences of the things they do/make. Meulin is fantastic, even preternaturally gifted, at setting up relationships, but she clearly has no idea what a GOOD relationship or a BAD relationship is (see: her clearly-forced relationship with Horuss, the damage done to her by her relationship with Kurloz). Sollux is gifted with computers, capable of wrangling even Sburb's item codes, but he had no idea that the game he coded was responsible for creating the portals by which the meteors would destroy his world. He could employ the English "summoning" virus, but had no idea what it was or what it accomplished.

These reflections were what led me to my original Mage verb, "shape." I have since been convinced that that is not a good verb, no matter how much it appeals to me, and have not really found a word I really *like* to replace it. "Serve" is the closest anyone's gotten, and I am...I guess you could say I'm "cognitively but not emotively" convinced about it. Rationally it fits, but my heart isn't in it. Whether that says more about me or the word, I cannot say.

I look at it and see the opposite: just as both a Prince and a Bard destroy, in themselves or in others, and it's just the nature of the destruction that changes, whatever a Mage pairs with should also be involved in seemingly-impossible, miraculous effects. That is, people seem to think that the active/passive split should be "antithetical" in as many ways as possible, for lack of a better term, and I think that's a really wrong-headed way of looking at it. What's "active" about knowing minutiae? What's "passive" about having access to more, and better, information? That seems like a great way to accidentally pair completely unrelated classes.

So, instead, we should look for a distinctly passive-seeming class that also seems to participate in the miracle-work thing--but as an enabler, assister, facilitator, etc. rather than a direct, personal agent. Ideally, it should also be a class whose members struggle with really understanding their aspect, despite being capable of incredible things with it, and having all the information they need presented up front.

Fortunately, we have just such a class: Page. Pages are shown to have incredible power; as much as the word "awesome" is abused, their power truly can inspire awe, and yet it also primarily works in or with other people rather than themselves. Even post-clock-breaking Caliborn wasn't able to resist Jake's Hopesphere. Tavros, as Page of Breath, was able to do the impossible: befriend seemingly infinite ghosts, and actually be FRIENDS with them, and through that friendship, get them to be willing to risk their afterlives for his cause. A feat Vriska legitimately believed impossible, before she just sort of rode with it (in a certain sense, literally). Yet at the same time, Pages fundamentally struggle with understanding their aspects, having major issues with even the simplest tasks because their boneheaded perceptions are so off-kilter that they just make no sense whatsoever.

There is, though, one really interesting way that the two do form a different--and in my opinion much "stronger"--antithetical pair than just "sees details SUPER WELL" vs. "sees general stuff, which can include details." This was originally posted as part of the "Legendary ZeroTemplar" theory, but basically, Mages and Pages seem to "develop" oppositely. Mages begin as wunderkinds, and then have to learn how to work around and without their powers in the situations and times where they're inappropriate, in order to have any ongoing potential. Pages begin with almost no tools and having to fend for themselves without special aid, but in so doing, eventually grow into (apparently) one of the most powerful classes in Sburb.

I'd also like to say that simply knowing details really well doesn't really explain being a "miracle worker." That's pretty clearly a power of actually DOING something to or with your aspect. Hence why I am rather enamored with the idea that the Seer's verb, instead of 'see' or even 'understand,' is perhaps watch. For the passive Seer, "watching" takes the form of observing the external world. And who better to be a literal "watchman" than the Knight of Time? (Okay it's a wordplay-based argument and I *hate* those, I just think that's a funny coincidence.) But seriously, if Knights are protectors and guardians, it makes sense that they would be "watching" their aspect, guarding it and preserving it, as well as "watching" others via their Aspect, protecting their allies from dangerous threats. Where the Seer "watches" the world through the lens of their aspect, and "watches" their aspect and its effect on the world, the Knight acts as policeman and soldier, defending and protecting. It's a nice, simple word, has room for broad interpretation without being so open that you could interpret it as almost anything, and allows us to have Seers that are not fighters paired with Knights who can be (but, as with Karkat, may not ALWAYS be!)

So, what is your response to amiableTemplar's alternate suggestion? I agree with AT's pairing, even if I am somewhat ambiguous on the active passive alignment of it, so I'm curious. 

"Miracle working" is only barely less universal than "exploit." Doing literally anything with your Aspect, as long as someone was incredulous that it could be done, isn't a very specific criteria.

For that matter, it hardly correlates with either the Mage or Page classes. Sure, Meulin was the origin of the phrase in Homestuck, and I'll grant Jake pulls out some surprising stuff. But what "miracles" was Sollux responsible for? Translating some symbols into a computer program? Is that really more impressive than Equius being able to create and install functional prosthetics at age 13? Flying the meteor to the Green Sun? Remember that faster than light travel is a common power for yellow bloods and that the trolls' entire escape plan took for granted that Sollux would be able to get them there. And while Vriska didn't think Tavros was capable of gathering the ghost army, it was because she thought that Tavros wasn't capable of anything, not that talking a bunch of people into following you into battle is impossible, as it clearly isn't.

Compare that to people like Jade or Roxy, who were told to do something, considered it impossible, then went on to actually do it. Gamzee's attack in the final battle was so unbelievable that even the Black King was shocked. Karkat getting the trolls the work together while Equius says that he'll never listen to him, Dave being impressed that John can defy the alpha timeline's per-destination, I can hardly list all the times that someone was shocked that someone else was able to accomplish something in Homestuck, and there's no real pattern for the classes of the people doing it.

I guess I'll accept that.
However,
I'm open to new ideas, but I'm not gonna start capitalizing words I feel are "important". It's like a miniature OCD. I MUST refrain from capitalizing any words in a sentence that are not capitalized normally or else my body will degrade inside-out.
It also irks me endlessly, so do it if you want to annoy me.
I will no longer be a bitch about it, though, since it's a okay thing to do.

Well, I was saying it could potentially be a Mage of Doom thing, not a Mage thing. It's not like we have any real proof Mituna had 2 apart from him also being a gemini and him skating between the two sections in a flash, but that's beside the point. Things that I really see as being classpect related for Sollux are his essentially giving his life to get (was it KK or Feferi in? Not sure, think it was Fef) into the game, and giving his life in order to propel the meteor. Regardless of your views on whether or not doom refers to order, or systems or whatever, those both seem to be doom related things that relate directly to Sollux, and neither of them, as far as I could tell, had that much forethought put into them. It was more like Sollux did something, and Doom came about as a result, or something like that. 

All we have are thin threads and tiny sample sizes, so of course it's going to be hard to find good fits.

I just think that it's weird logic, to assert that Seers not only can but do miss significant fine-detail information, and therefore that's *all* Mages can see. We have, in fact, had little reason to conclude Seers specifically do or don't see anything, other than Rose's purple prose, and may even have reason to conclude exactly the opposite. Doc Scratch had to "speculate" about what would happen if Terezi chose not to kill Vriska on the meteor, but explicitly said that a Seer of Mind would not need to speculate, that it would be perfectly clear to her what this "ever narrowing dark pocket" would contain because it would be "fully within [the Seer of Mind's] domain." That doesn't sound like solely high-level stuff--Terezi could clearly see the specific consequences, including whether or not Vriska would ultimately defeat Jack. Rose can't just look wherever she wants into the future, but when she does see something, we have no reason to believe it is vague and hazy; she knew, for example, the precise trajectory needed to reach the B2 Incipisphere through her Sight alone, and also knew that they needed to linger for a little while, but not too long, because another passenger (WV) was coming.

Rose describes her own abilities as "illumination of the road to victory for all." In the same discussion, she describes Terezi's abilities as "command over the outcomes of decisions made by individuals." The former is one of the only places where we see a suggestion that Seers look only at the big picture, though even that is ambiguous ("illuminating...victory for all" could be big-picture or small-picture). Terezi's powers, on the other hand, appear to be far more fine-grained. She can "sift through dross of her comrades' poor tactical inclinations," and "behold the fortunes of friends and foes in totality, and appraise the contrivance of luck itself." Rather than big-picture stuff, that sounds pretty detailed. If anything, Rose's own words about her powers make them sound more like random or uncontrolled details, rather than neat and accurate bigger pictures. "I can treat my finite glimpses as an additional source of information. If you combine that with the knowledge we've gathered from these texts, and things we've learned from our various encounters with the deceased, with a bit of inference and deduction, a more detailed picture is coming into focus."

So, beyond simply disputing the Mage association with fine details (which I still do), I dispute the Seer association with the big picture--Seers are perfectly capable of considering the big and the small, simultaneously even. It's just what they do with that knowledge that's a problem. They do suffer from blindness, but I don't think that's a matter of being blind to details. It's a matter of failing to "ask better questions," a matter of letting their awareness become a belief in their own omniscience (or close to it). They say knowledge is power. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does that say of absolute knowledge? Still more, what does it say about believing you have absolute knowledge, when in truth you really, really don't?

As for the vagueness of "miracle working," it's only vague if you're looking at it as a source for the verb that the class has. And on that front, I absolutely agree--it's worthless. But by that same token, Bards being "wildcards" is also useless for determining their verb--being a wildcard is largely, though not entirely, unrelated to destruction in general--while still useful for comparing to other classes. All three of our Princes have engaged in unexpected, situation-redefining behavior, or broken patterns established by other characters. Eridan spent his session useless and alone, only to become a terrifying threat right before the end of Act 5. Dirk killed himself to save everyone, and maybe even started a (short-lived) revolution on Derse. Kurloz followed his dancestor's pattern of being the one everyone thinks is a harmless clown (or mime), but who was actually a terrifically dangerous and controlling menace. By comparison to the other classes, it's hard to argue that Princes aren't the ones most apt to be called "wildcards" as well--responsible for huge victories and huge defeats in equal measure.

TL;DR:
Evidence seems to favor Seers having variable sight, not big-picture-only.
"Miracle worker" is vague as heck for verb stuff, but perfectly cromulent for pairing stuff.