Soooo, With The New Aspects Descriptions And The Traits They Are Focusing On And Putting In The Spotlight

Root Spells

Base spells with one core objective that may be modified or specified for certain functions. Some classes have a focus on certain root spells, while some root spells are class-locked. This is not to say that a class can only use magic derived from one root spell, but that their magic is tailored better for certain functions. They are able to use other root spells but often to lesser effectivity if it is not compatible with their class. Some classes, however, are fully unable to access certain root spells due to the innate nature of their magic. This does not mean, however, that they will be unable to fulfill certain goals, as magic should always be seen as a tool to achieve a means.

ROOT SPELLS (VOLUME ONE)

ENCHANTMENT

The act of imbuing a target with one’s own magic. This target can either be an object, a person, or a make-spell (objects or creatures that can created from magic). Proficient enchanters are also able to do self-enchants, which is the act of enchanting oneself to achieve specific functions. Enchantments allow power sharing, grant power ups, or create enchanted items for other people to use. This is most useful when aiding non-combat classes.

MANIFESTATION

The ability to take existing abstract concepts, ideas or emotions and make them a reality, either by the caster’s magic manipulating circumstance to achieve the nearest possible match to the concept being manifested, or by amplifying certain traits of an object, person or aspect. This differs from Creation due to the fact that it solely relies on concepts, ideas and emotions being present - either from the caster or the people around them - alongside the caster’s magic as those are the things that will be exploited, while Creation only needs to rely on the caster.

KINETICS

Ability to consume the magical output of another caster / another object and transform it energy into one’s own magic. This is set apart from Heist and Distribution due to the fact that it does not forcibly take magic from a target but rather catches magic from a target, and the energy is not redistributable as it is subsumed into the caster’s magic. destruction classes can destroy consumed magic as they take it, while other classes can take the magic and blast it back towards the opponent.

CREATION

The ability to create objects or entities out of one’s own magic or an object that is governed by one’s aspect. This is categorized as a separate root spell from Protection due to Protection’s nature to take already-existing objects or circumstances and use it to manifest a caster’s spell, while Creation’s mode is solely the caster’s magic given physical form.

MANIPULATION / TRANSFIGURATION

The ability to shape, manipulate and customize a certain aspect and all that is governed by it to one’s wishes. Depending on the class, this is not locked to only physical things or concepts, but applies to the aspect as a whole entirely.

INHERITOR

The ability to become certain aspects or certain things that are governed by certain aspects. This is an Heir specialty.

GENERATION

The ambient, innate ability to be made out of or to generate certain aspects. This is a Maid and Heir specialty.

DESTRUCTION

The ability to destroy the very make-up of magic, or the ability to destroy a certain target. While most classes’ offensive spells are destruction-aligned, in terms of raw firepower, this is a Destruction class specialty.

PROTECTION

The ability to give one’s magic physical form to protect oneself or a certain target. The magic may or may not have specific modes of manifestation in order to achieve this form of protection. This is a Knight class specialty.

SCRY

The ability to forcibly see into the timestream of the universe, or see into other universes within the same infinity set. Scrying is often an ambient ability, but can be honed with practice and time. This is a Seer class specialty.

HEIST

The ability to forcibly take magic from an enemy, or a portion of an aspect from the universe, and add it to one’s arsenal, either to restore one’s magic or to use the opponent’s own magic against them, proficiency in spells included. This is a Thief class specialty.

DISTRIBUTION

The ability to forcibly take magic from an enemy, or a portion of an aspect from the universe and redistribute it to certain targets. This is a Rogue class specialty.

RESTORATION

The ability to restore lacking aspects or heal injuries. This ability is sadly in accessible to Destruction classes.

CONNECTION

The ability to connect with people or objects, or create connections between people or objects. Hope players are known to display this ability in ambience, often attracting people to them.

TERRITORY

The ability to mark a certain area as a surefire target of one’s magic. Territory magic locks onto certain coordinates as fixed points and release magic onto the area at the caster’s whim; this is a root spell that never misses. Space players achieve easier proficiency of this root spell due to the nature of their aspect.

INFESTATION

The ability to invade another target with your magic. This is differentiated from Connection and Destruction due to Connection simply being a bridge while Infestation burrows into a target’s being, and differentiated from Destruction due to Infestation not being destructive on its own. 

I have found the original HD size of the extended aspects from 4archive

this is a repost, I only reposted this because I think the original creator has deactivated their Tumblr. If by some chance the original creator messages me, I will take this post down.

Since I do not trust Tumblr to not destroy the image quality I will post this on Imgur. here

of course it could just be that Lord English is using his vast network of recooperacomputers to mine for calcoins

heir of time or prince of mind?

Daily 6 - Prince of Mind

looking over Calliope's dialogue exploring her bias about passive and active classes essentially being "selfless" and "selfish", respectively, the fact that she calls herself selfish on multiple occasions jumped out at me; seemingly betraying some kind of hypocrisy that Calliope is aware of herself, deep down?

UU: i really thoUght i was going to be someone special. UU: that i coUld Use my abilities do something no one had ever done.

and when Calliope does prove herself to be special with an ultimate expression of the Muse's power, it's by actively inserting herself into Caliborn's time loop, forcing her way into the infrastructure of reality; meanwhile, despite all his own selfishness, Caliborn's greatest strength is that he passively bends reality around him merely by existing.

Musing on Rogues and Knights

While the Thief is inspired to take what’s around them for themselves, the rogue is inspired to share themselves with others. This selflessness affords them a veneer of morality and care from others, no doubt. I mean, who doesn’t love Roxy? Or Nepeta?  Of the two “stealer” classes the Rogue appears to be the most well adjusted. Yet, like their counterpart they are infected by a feeling of incompleteness. As though their aspect is an unrequited lover they are constantly pursuing in the form of the people around them. Nepeta desires the pure heart of Karkat, but her feelings are largely ignored. Roxy idealizes the physical reality of Dirk and his “manliness”, but his identity prevents him from being in a relationship with her. it as though the rogue is invisible to their own aspect at times. This is the fatal flaw of the Rogue. Like the thief they have locked their powers outside of themselves. Except, their power is not just outside of themselves but inside the hearts of others in the form of ideals. And so they relentlessly attempt to pick the locks of the hearts of those around them. They are in a constant battle with their greed for love which results in them doing amoral things in the pursuit of it. Whether that be enabling a facist dictator to rise to power, or unwanted romantic advances. However, this is balanced by their innate sense of empathy and responsibility to those they love. Transgressions lead to guilt and their guilt ultimately leads to them growing as a person and doing the right thing. The Knight, like the page, is complete in and of themselves. They perceive a lack in themselves because society tells them that their uniqueness, their eccentricities, their empathy (the part of their aspect which humanizes them) makes them deeply flawed. Seeking comfort in others they remove the parts of their aspect that are ridiculed and criticized at worst and obscure them at best. Of course this is false knowledge acquired by being caught up in the lies (void) of society. Dave’s empathy and giving nature is not any more of a weakness than Karkat’s ability to deeply connect with those around him. But this feels like reality to them. Karkat and Dave both ignore the empathetic components of their own aspects in favor of the “powerful” elements. They see themselves as tools that need to be refined. Beings somehow broken. And so the Knight pursues an ideal just as the Rogue does and live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction until they learn that they are whole and it is society that is incomplete. Like the thief, they are pushed for more, but rather than acquiring more they seek to become more than what they are. 

Not an Enigma, and Certainly Not a Curse: the "Ultimate Self" in Hussie's Own Words

I've found myself, lately, in several conversations in a row where the other guy and myself weren't on the same page about what the Ultimate Self meant; and though I welcome the opportunity for discussion, explaining my position over and over again has cost me minutes of my screen life that I simply won't win back. So this post is a departure from my usual fare in that it's more for my own benefit than that of anybody else.

I've been over Davepeta's "superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space" enough already, so if you're interested in the Ultimate Self as it is in Homestuck, I recommend you read "Homestuck's Gnosticism: The Conflict", and then, if that piques your attention, you continue with the follow-up "The World/The Wheel". For the purposes of this post, though, I want to keep analysis, interpretation and hypothesising to a minimum. As the title indicates, this is the Ultimate Self not as I describe it, or as characters describe it, but - so to speak - straight from the horse's mouth.

In Andrew Hussie's commentary on Homestuck: Book 6, p. 312:

Oftentimes, when characters lose certain qualities that came to define them, there's this sense of liberation they seem to experience. They become a happier, more relieved, easier-going version of themselves. When Aradia ditches a defining quality we came to know her by (being dead), she becomes a much happier and self-actualized Aradia. Sollux also seems to be chilling out now that his defining properties (bifurcation, etc.) have been KO'd. He had a mouth full of gnarly teeth that gave him a wicked lisp (gone), eyes full of nasty laser beams (gone, along with his eyesight), and a brain full of doomsday visions and bipolar disorder (also gone—well, maybe not the bipolar thing, because that's probably not how that works, but whatever). You get more of this kind of thing in even higher degrees with some of the fusion stuff that happens later (Arquius, Davepeta), where characters become almost euphoric versions of themselves for having been completely liberated from certain self-limitations which previously defined them. The concept of an "ultimate self," which appears much later, probably has its roots way back to stuff like this, which got the ball rolling on the idea that a more complete or fulfilled self is one that becomes free from mortal limitations, or the idiosyncrasies which comprise a specific instance of one version of yourself. Hence an ultimate self is an aggregate of someone's full potential. It's not just doing away with negative traits, but summing up all iterations of yourself, including ones without those traits, allowing you to move beyond them. Or maybe more accurately, to view them as insignificant in the grand totality of what a person really is.

Importantly, what Hussie does here is draw the conceptual line from the themes of Acts 1-5 to what are often interpreted by some as radically different, even left-field themes through Act 6. Think of this as an extension of one of Homestuck's meta-themes, where the comic undergoes a series of escalations that take simple conflicts to their logical extremes: we start the story worried about a Reckoning which might destroy the Earth, then end up with the more pressing concern that a Rapture is about to end reality as we know it. The Ultimate Self is the end result of the exact same kind of escalation; where the God Tiers are a method of becoming a better version of oneself by merging with one's "ideal" dream body, the Ultimate Self is the logical conclusion that one can become the best version by unifying with every body.

To draw my own conceptual line back to Homestuck: Book 5, page 409:

This connects to the basic question of whether to embrace the regimentation of a heroic path conveniently laid out for you (the expectation), or to reject it as the shallow and rigid confinement of personal destiny (the deviation). These issues are expressed through the fundamental language of platonic idealism: perfect ideas of things, and then specific, imperfect instances of those ideas, or varied permutations, evolutions, or hacks of those ideas through alchemy. The way Sburb "should" go is an ideal (expectation), but the disastrous, chaotic way it actually goes is an imperfect instance (deviation). An "idea" of a person, such as Rose, along with her regimented heroic quest for growth, and all the great things she might imagine herself to become if she followed it, is an ideal (expectation). The messy, flawed, yet more genuinely human individual she does become resulting from her errant choices and rejection of formalism, is an imperfect instance of an ideal (deviation). What's the bottom line here? This is a lot. I know it's a lot. Homestuck is, in fact, a lot.

I've added some of my own emphasis there again, but that whole extract is worth reading. The reason I bolded that part is because this "Platonic idealism" is something Hussie talks about a lot in his commentary, and I think that commentary is essential reading for anyone who wants to even get their foot in the door on this topic. Again, this is something I've blogged about extensively already, so there's more than just Hussie's word to take for it if you're really interested; but for the sake of this post, I'll finish off with, again, what Hussie himself has to say on the matter, all the way back in Homestuck: Book 1, page 123:

With things like Athenums and Perfectly Generic Objects locked and loaded, Sburb architecture seems to be circling widely around a game abstraction-based systemization of Platonic idealism. Homestuck deals with what I am going to roughly characterize as THEMES.

If Maids are creators, and Hope is associated with positive emotions, could a Maid of Hope have the power to summon a laugh track whenever they wanted?

Rule of Thumb: It's ALWAYS correct to use Classpect Powers for bad puns, references, and dumb jokes. 👀

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. 

I just had an epiphany on the Breath aspect, and how intricately it connects to the concept of ghosts/the afterlife