This Suicide Squad Shirt They're Selling At Hot Topic Is Absolutely Killing Me

I drew these in 2020 and completely forgot to post them. They were gonna be for a little infographic thingie around my thoughts on Classpects, but I never found a way to host it somewhere lol. They’re not really fankids or anything, just random designs to represent their Classes.

idk why everyone thinks Blood is the shipping aspect.  Heart is Right There.  Karkat’s only requited definite relationship in HS1 is a moirail, while Nepeta THE fandom shipping avatar troll and drama prince Dirk are Right There.  Yes, Karkat makes shipping grids a few times–but like his morailegiance, his purpose in them was not ‘these people look cute together uwu’.  *Karkat’s purpose for everything he does is harmony*.  His beta kids chart?  Utilitarian; he employs Blood–what he intuits about relationships between the kids, as well as not only the game endgoal of repopulation but the kids’ serious view of incest as Very Serious Things to Consider–to accomplish the game’s goal for the kids’ race, while minimizing the kids’ discomfort, so that the kids’ relationships would maximize harmony in the team and maximize output for the goal, saving their culture despite taboos they took seriously.   Almost utilizing that discomfort even!  The most harmonic pairs were obvious to him, and the way to maneuver forward despite them was obvious to him.  His shipping grid with Dave over Terezi?  Maximizing harmony in their friend group and to each other, while minimizing discomfort with regards to Dave’s culture and relationship needs, while using troll culture’s flexible romance system as a basis, a frame–a tool for harmony.  Karkat views troll romance as the interplay of connection between people, a science with mechanics he’s fascinated by, not squealing adoring fangirl shipping.  Blood may be the Aspect of relation, but relation between people isn’t just romance and isn’t as simple as every relationship matching only one single *western* archetype.  Blood is the Aspect of the flow and ebb of things between other things, its the Aspect of Garnet-style fusion.  Every instance of Blood is unique and on spectrums and *not only romance*.  If you think the only relationship between people past the age of twelve is romance, you need to know more people.  Signed, a slightly annoyed acearo Knight of Blood

ps Blood as gravity and trees and binding/blood magic and valor and protection and vulnerability and earthbending is so obvious yall, pls stop thinking Blood is the boring and hard to parse Aspect, Breath and Blood literally steer and free the plot in HS1.

all the sprite^2 moon+aspect mashups as bases

I didn’t really do bases since there’s a lot of different sprite^2 outfits that can be created, but here are all the moon+aspect mashup signs!

Literary Devices

Anonymous said:

(Me: sees your aspects as facets of reality theory and raises this: Aspects as elements of the story, Light as thematic importance (see aranea being aranea, vriska stealing importance and luck) Time as well pacing but also the timeline of a story. Ect ect       

YES!

YesYes!! YesYesYes ^u^ ^u^ ^u^

This is another Wonderful Frame for analyzing Homestuck, or thinking about the Aspects ^u^ The one thing I’d say is that while some –like Light, Time, Space, and Heart– are pretty directly and clearly related to literary concepts by the text, others are a bit more difficult to figure out; either because their representative characters get less “screen time”, or because the Literary Concepts the Aspect embodies are more esoteric and vague.

Like: I’ve always had a hard time figuring out what Life could represent in a Literary sense. Fef’s story is surrounded by all sorts of Fairy Tale tropes that she’s laser-focused on either escaping(her role as Princess) or subverting(bringing Sollux, her “Hero”, to life with a kiss, rather than the other way around), and Meenah was also focused on escaping and subverting the life planned for her, so THAT could possibly be Life’s Literary side: either subverting narrative, or the way characters can take on “a life of their own” when the author realizes they’d do C instead of the A they had planned for them, and how that can lead the plot in a whole different direction.

Blood’s another stumper for me in this regard …Though… taking a minute to think about it maybe it’s self-criticism? Like: Karkat is obvsl VERY self critical(in a way Kankri very much is not) but both of them are super-critical of the story-itself and the world Hussie, as author, has set it in. So you could think of Blood as being the Critical or Editorial Impulse? MAYBE??

And Breath’s a good example of an esoteric one. While John’s the protagonist, people are constantly telling him what to do in the narrative, and outside of it through the prompt(at least early in HS), so he’s rarely ever deciding anything for himself. His actions drive the story, but his actions aren’t “his”, so what exactly would that make Breath? Plot? Protagonists&Characters?? Is it something simpler and more obvs like Adventure Game Narratives??? Does it include all of these, or is it one thing that covers all of them?x4 Considering Rufioh with John, something you might call “The Irony of Protagonists” seem rather central to whatever Breath is: on the one hand they’re the “hero” of the story and their actions drive the plot; but on the other that also makes them the most controlled, puppeted, plot-significant, and thus least realistic&”free”, of all the characters in the story.

Rufioh(through many years of bad memory, obvsl, so maybe I’m misrepping this) was the center of the primary romantic drama in his Session(which in turn drove the Session), and many of his fellow Players either pursued him, or openly professed their attraction to him. In this respect, they saw him as sort of like the Protagonist of a Dating Sim. Seeing him as attractive they saw him as confident and a player; they cast a particular narrative and identity onto him based on their perspective of him. But that’s not how Rufioh experienced any of those events, or indeed his life. He felt powerless and disrespected throughout; pulled one way then another by both Horuss and Damara, constantly uncomfortable with the desires others expressed for him(and the disinterest of everyone in what he wanted), trapped by his social situation into conditions and roles he never really wanted, and always betraying himself and his own feelings through his lack of confidence, and the inability to take a stand it created. Even thousands and thousands of years later his friends are STILL giving him agency for events he felt were forced on him against his will, and casually hitting on him despite his clear discomfort with it seen in Meenah’s walkaround. So, while he is defined as the “Protagonist” of his story according to those “reading” and telling it, he felt like all he ever did was just what other people told him to do, and chafes against the identity others have forced on him, which he has no control over. In this respect, he experienced all of that as a “Target” of a Dating-Sim; to be dated and wooed, but with no agency of his own.

While much more extreme(and negative), that experience shares some notable qualities with John’s. It suggests that Breath might be “The Illusion of Freedom” literary characters have, and Rufioh’s story suggests audience collaboration is a pivotal aspect of this illusion.

Wow, that kinda got a bit grim, didn’t it |:T |:T

The heart aspect is clearly connected with lions (the trolls’ heart player being Leo the lion, and the Prince of the aspect having the lion-headed God Yaldabaoth as a denizen), but I wonder if that means anything for any of the other aspects?

Maybe it’s lions for heart and dragons for mind?

The lion is the symbol of God, and is king of the land animals, while the dragon is the devil and the king of the skies. Nepeta is a lowblood who uses her physical strength instead of psychic powers, and Dirk is Homestuck’s resident manly dudebro machofighter, and Yaldabaoth is the God of the physical realm; meanwhile dragons are capable of a whole bunch of powers associated with psychics (laser eyes, telepathic communion) and Terezi was a master manipulator.

(of course, heart is the aspect of the soul, not the body, so part of a heart hero’s quest must be rejecting some of this focus on the physical aspect and becoming more spiritual; so I wonder what the equivalent of this is for mind heroes?)

Im just going to throw this hat of mine into the Classpect Analysis ring and see what happens, and a blank version for this if anyone wants it

The Distinction Between Light and Rage (With Some Gushers)

One of the things I’ve seen come up in discussion about the aspects is some overlaps between them to varying degrees. One good example of this Light and Rage.  I think it’s pretty much consensus at this point that Rage = Truth or Revelations. But it gets really interesting when talking about Light because Light also presides over the concept of truth. Some people have tried to smooth over the similarities by saying that Rage is “emotional truths” or truths that make you feel bad, but I think it’s a bit more complex than that. I think the distinction between the two is as follows: Ragebounds are “correct” and Lightbounds are “right”. Generally speaking? What do I mean by this?  Well, for the sake of this post, I am defining “correct” as presenting facts or evidence, and being “Right” is possessing an understanding of the facts in such a way that allows one to provide new insights, or form new arguments. Ragebounds are a deconstructive aspect, as the Extended Zodiac states. 

The “true” objective reality that Ragebounds seeks is noted to be covered up by “lies” (something Hope would preside over as Hope is an aspect of illusions, and beliefs). For the rage bound, the truth is something that must already exist and is being covered up, and their primary goal is to rip and tear things to find their irreducibles. The cold hard facts.  The Extended Zodiac paints Lightbounds as the exact opposite in this regard: 

Where Ragebound pursue the facts to destroy faulty arguments, Lightbounds pursue facts to form new arguments. The EZ funnily describes them as “alchemists” linking them to the Sburb Mechanics of Alchemy, which utilizes a resource called “Grist” (which is substance used to back up an argument). 

The limitation of Lightbound’s relationship with Truth and a Ragebound’s is that a Lightbound constructs new perspectives, arguments, and grants themselves more options while eliminating the bad or unwise ones. Ragebounds use their evidence to deconstruct arguments and systems and get to the heart of the matter. But don’t ask them for solutions any fallouts or results of radical behavior. The end result being anarchy/confusion. “What the heck are we supposed to believe now?” everyone shouts. This dynamic may be in part influenced by their neighboring aspects Mind and Doom.  Light sits across from Mind on the EZ potentially indicating that some elements of Mind’s options, and lack of bias are carried over. Conversely, Doom is across from Rage indicating the limitation and narrowing down of options that Ragebounds experience as they discover and move towards the truth. 

Cut content

The following content was cut from the essay DOOM for purposes of thematic consistency (that is, it didn’t add much to the reader’s understanding of the Doom Aspect’s symbolism) but is preserved here for posterity.

Mental illness

It takes a certain kind of person to bear up under all this pressure. Sollux’s visions, at one point likened to a chronic pain condition, leave him fatalistic and irritable, with a temperament that can change from calm to angry, from proud to self-recriminating, in an instant. Accordingly, the narration dubs him bipolar. This is precisely backwards. While Sollux’s fatalism is reminiscent of depression, the key characteristic of depression is listlessness, a lack of feeling and motivation, and Sollux is anything but unmotivated. Similarly, though mania (and the less well known hypomania) can take many forms, it is most commonly associated with a feeling of euphoric joy, another trait largely absent from Sollux’s emotional makeup.

More importantly, bipolar mood swings are measured in days, not instants. Because of this, it is actually impossible for a story that packs nearly all of its action into discrete segments of no more than 24 hours to convey the full experience of bipolarity in any meaningful way. Ultimately, Homestuck is a work designed to challenge both reader and author, and with that challenge unfortunately comes the possibility of failure.

Mituna continues this theme of authorial challenge. Like most of the dancestors, he is presented first as a joke, a mockery of the psychologically disabled, the full weight of his story and sacrifice only reluctantly hinted at by Aranea after the fact. He is part of the Hussnasty Hell (medium link), a complex, artistically lofty experiment that by design can be very difficult to properly digest after enduring the bitter, unpleasant first bite.

Heir of Doom

PRIMARY: CONCEPTUAL

SECONDARY: PHYSICAL

Primaries and Secondaries are how a player’s powers manifest. Conceptual primaries mean they manifest conceptually and manifest physically as a secondary.

ABILITIES

INJURY SINK

Not so much an ability but a physical feature (or a bug, depending on who you’re talking to) - Heirs of Doom, due to their nature of inheriting demise, often have frail health. They bruise easier than most and break bones faster, but because of a lifetime of having to deal with constant pain, they have a ridiculously high pain tolerance which cancels out their injurious nature.

CHEMICALBLOOD

Also due to the inheritor nature of the Heir of Doom, they often have a high tolerance of drugs, alcohol or other substances that may dampen or enhance their senses. Their body immediately begins to break down the substances in alarmingly fast speeds, which means that while they’re not immune to these things, they have to consume/be dealt with large amounts of them. 

IMAGINE DRAGONS

When in danger, or when afraid, an Heir of Doom can go radioactive in order to eliminate surrounding threats. As such, they themselves are immune to radiation. It is still not recommended for Heirs of Doom to go around eating glowing radioactive rocks despite the fact that it will do nothing to them.

RACCOON

If the Heir has to resort to physical violence and feels as if they are in danger, they can go rabid and infect someone if they bite them. At any other moment, however, they will show negative in rabies tests.

AMBIENT ABILITIES

As an Heir, this class has ambient, uncontrollable abilities as every other Heir does. This is because Heir classes are served and protected by their aspect, meaning Heirs of Doom are naturally protected by Doom.

MISFORTUNATE

As Heirs of Doom inherit Doom, they have unnaturally bad luck and tend to attract danger, both in the form of people and coincidence. Their high pain tolerance helps them get through their accidents / physical injuries, while their Cosmic Monster helps ward off their physical threats. Their Danger Sense helps them minimize and survive their bad luck.

DANGER SENSE

As Heirs of Doom are naturally protected by Doom, they often have hunches of where and when something bad will happen. It doesn’t always work - often only coming up when the danger will result in their death - but it is always right. The specificity of this sense gets more precise the closer and worse the danger, and the higher the Heir’s level is. Their Danger Sense is the conceptual manifestation of their ‘protected by Doom’ clause.

COSMIC MONSTER

Due to the fact that Heirs of Doom are protected by Doom, the most dangerous person in their session is often metaphysically linked to them and forced to protect them, drawn in by hunches and an emotional attachment manufactured by the cosmic bond. If there is no person dangerous enough, then their classpect will attempt to find something else, like an adversary. If this is also unavailable (especially while the Heir is still progressing through the ranks and hasn’t encountered anything sufficiently dangerous), their aspect will generate its own Cosmic Monster creature, often reflective of the Heir’s personality. The sentience of this Monster depends on the Heir’s personality. 

If an Heir’s protector is eliminated, Cosmic Monster will immediately look for a replacement. If the Heir is continuously exposed to danger and cycles through protectors too quickly, a creature will be generated for their own safety. This creature is linked intrinsically to their magic.

KINETICS

When taking physical blows, Heirs of Doom have the natural ability to convert damage into strength. The stronger the hits, the stronger the Heir gets.

STARTER SPELLS

Any spell this class can use at Level One, including but not limited to:

NULLIFY - the ability to nullify magic. At level one, the range of this nullification is localized to the Heir, but at higher levels, they can expand their nullification field.

TECHNOKINESIS - since Doom governs processes, technology and systems, Heirs of Doom have technokinesis. At low levels, this technokinesis manifests as being able to manipulate software or machines without touching them, but at higher levels it allows them to fully link themselves with the machine or software, similar to being Drift Compatible with it.

DECAY - the easiest spell in the Heir of Doom’s repertoire. If the Heir touches an object, it rots and decays, making it an effective combat spell, with the downside of needing close contact.

REAPER

Similar to how Heart Players have Stands, and Rage Players have Berserkers, Doom Players have a magical state unique to them called Reaper, which is essentially a power-up state that physically changes a Doom player’s appearance alongside the massive rise in magical power. Reapers differ from player to player, and though  some classifications share names, they often look different due to player personalities and magical level.

Some Reapers are class-locked due to their nature.

AZRAEL Archangel of Death

In this state, an Heir of Doom can curse / condemn targets to death, which will result in misfortune after misfortune until death catches up to them. They can attempt to outrun it, but it will keep hounding them Final Destination style, and eventually catch up to them. The danger of this ability is that it is not only limited to the current fight but will last until the end of the targets’ life. This state also opens the Heir’s senses to Death, which makes them sense if someone is injured or ailing, who’s dead or who is close to death. 

Please do not touch the Azrael reaper mode, as their body is made of pure death and touching them would either make your limbs decay or kill you on the spot. In this state, any spell or object that hits the Azrael reaper mode automatically decays said spell or object.

Please note that Azrael is a classification, not the name of a person’s Reaper. Players often name their Reaper based on personal preference.

Thinking back on the idea that sprites represent the Platonic “geists” of their associated heroes, when we consider that both Roxy and Calliope contain “Nepeta-ness”, it starts to look a lot like the theory put forth in Plato’s Symposium that humans, having been created with two heads and then split into two, search for a romantic partner who literally completes them; Roxy and Calliope both contain different parts of Nepeta, and they attract each other because these different aspects of Nepeta-ness want to join together into a whole Nepeta.

Which makes complete sense in Homestuck, because that’s exactly what the cherubs are: “two-headed” beings who split in two upon reaching maturity, and spend their lives seeking out a mate who matches their missing half!