Very Good Analysis I Like It A Lot

On Life, Light and HIC

@pagedelight said:

This thought arose from my memory about a post about Meenah and her unwillingness to allow things to develop or grow. I couldn’t find the original post for this, so I may be a bit off base.

Could the Condesce’s name and motifs (and to an extent the motifs of Life players since they’re super closely related) relate heavily to information. In particular, the Condesce’s name is a joke on Meenah’s tendency to reduce information to it’s essentials? Something along the lines of condensing information? 

The weapon of choice, a trident, would also evoke the imagery of a three hole puncher which she ironically uses to kill Rose. This relation between life and information is also semi-shown with the binder that HIC gives to Roxy to construct the matriorb.

Life, the aspect most strongly associated with power, would derive it’s power from the condensing of information. Which is exactly what trickster mode (life-coded grim darkness) is in hindsight. It is looking at characters who are complex and saying “Nope, screw that, I only care about what I want” and extracting that complexity from them. 

If trickster mode is oversimplification/reduction of information and grim-darkness is it’s only known counterpart, that would seemingly imply that grim-darkness would be an abundance of information/complexity rather than it’s presumed lack. It’s not instant nihilism. 

Meaning, Rose’s grimdark transformation wasn’t triggered by receiving meaningless answers alone, but receiving extremely dense, complex (indecipherable) information all at once (multiple answers show up in the cue-ball in [S] Descend). Jade’s grimdark transformation at the sight of Jake’s page outfit would be similar. 

1. This is really strange timing: not two days ago, I was browsing the SomethingAwful MSPA thread and found a post from like 2012 musing that Feferi’s Land of Dew and Glass might be a joke on condensation, linking her the Her Imperious Condescension. I was kind of skeptical tbh, but the way you’re putting it here is making me reconsider cause like..

Recently, it came about that Dirk’s supply of orange soda is characterized as the ‘distilled’ orange essence of the pumpkins Roxy has… 'distill’ being the word of choice because Dirk associates Ben Stiller with the Mobster Kingpin, who runs a moonshine distillery. This set up is probably a result of Dirk 'being’ glasses, the matter of only having orange color is part of being a detached gaze, color is what the eye drinks. (Tangential: Dirk’s picture of Ben Stiller is next to Rainbow Dash)

This aligned with the independent supposition that 'rainbow drinker’ doubles as a euphemism for the eye, with Kanaya’s penchant for boiling complex subjects down to their basics being an act of 'distilling’ analogous to the object > essence work performed by the gaze.

“Her Imperious Condescension” is itself a reference to the domineering gaze of authority, which together with your 'condensation’ reading puts it perfectly in line with the Dirk and Kanaya stuff. What’s more, the first time we see the acronym HIC is an advertisement on John’s TV for the literal fruit juice! The ghostly essence flavor no less, Ectocooler Blast!

So agreed re: condensing information

(Tangent: All this talk of eyes and distilling is making me associate the death of Mobster Kingpin with the skewered olive in Mom’s martini… or Rose stabbing eyes out, for that matter)

2. The thought of HIC using her 2x3dent for paperwork is adorable. Endorsed, even though I’m not sure about the binder’s applicability to everything here.

3. I think the topic of essences goes beyond the Life aspect (as in various aspects intersect with the matter), and I don’t know what to think of the dichotomy you pose between Trickster Mode and Grimdarkness, but I don’t think I can dispute the bit about information density from the cueball, given how many images flash on screen in that last second before Rose’s eyes darken…

Something to keep in mind!

DOOM

All Hail Shadow / Good Riddance

https://medium.com/@Arrghus/doom-7f99a8b4c4a4

The Aspect of Finding Out.

ʜᴏᴍᴇꜱᴛᴜᴄᴋ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴡᴇʟᴠᴇ ᴀꜱᴘᴇᴄᴛꜱ

1 / 2 / 3

HD: Imgur Album

Heart Player Weapons

Actual Weapons

Heart players in Canon (Nepeta, Dirk, (kinda Bro?)) tend to use sharp weapons, weapons used to pierce and cut and tear. I’ll get more into this when talking about themes, but the use of these sharp weapons is very interesting due to phrases like “those words pierced my heart, my very soul” and other such phrases, which I think is fun.

Other weapons that might be appropriate would be Piercing weapons (like needles or lances), again because of their references to certain phrases, Weapons related to those who use their souls to further their goals, I.e. staff weapons due to their relation to monks (people that use their souls to strengthen themselves), candles due to their relation to mediums (people that channel souls), and books, specifically religious books due to their relation to priests (people that use these books to help strengthen their soul).

I suppose you could also use weapons with relation to romance (like chocolate boxes and stuff shaped like hearts, or maybe a bow that shoots heart shaped arrows).

Weapon Themes

A common theme in heart player weapons is of course having romance/love/valentines heart related weapons. While not shown in Canon, it’s like…. Obvious????? I mean, heart players are generally associated with shipping (Nepeta and Meulin are the most obvious, but Dirk has all the romance problems with Jake) and like, why wouldn’t that be reflected in their weaponry?

Anyway, moving on.

Another theme is related to emotions, and phrases involving the heart. Broken hearts might be related in like, the usage of broken weapons, or, non breaking weapons like Dirk’s katana representing his supposedly unbreakable heart (both of which break in Canon funny enough). Or piercing weapons like when something cuts deep enough to touch your soul or someone’s words pierce through your carefully constructed emotional shield.

Heart players are all about that stuff.

Finally is weapons and the soul.

I don’t know much about various themes of the soul in heart weaponry, other than the fact that various interpretations of the soul from various cultures (i.e. the Ba from Egyptian culture or the spirit in more western cultures, possibly even ghosts and stuff like that if you can logically connect the two)

Think about it, having a weapon that summons all the ghosts of failed marriages past, or splitting a foe into all the separate parts of their soul with one sword strike; heart players can incorporate various ways of messing with their foes metaphysical presence with their weapons.

~Weapons Master Blu

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!

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. 

Musing on Pages and Thieves

One interesting connection between Pages and Thieves I think is poverty. Both experience a form of poverty, though there is subtle differences.  A thief experiences a poverty of their aspect in themselves (a form of spiritual poverty), and this desire to “fill in the gap” motivates them to acquire material wealth. For example, Vriska pursues treasure heavily and Meenah is interested in large quantities of money. Even Tagora is interested heavily in money which he uses to buy rainbow drinker skincare products and decorate his hive (space coded). From their perspective, their aspect is a material that they can buy or acquire. And while this provides temporary relief, it ultimately leads to them being terrified of being backstabbed or betrayed (having their aspect stolen from them as they do to others), or endlessly attempting to pursue more, even at the expense of others. The Page, in contrast, is not remotely poor in spirit. They embrace their aspects quite wholeheartedly and as a result are contented in themselves. While they are blessed to be free from the curse of “incompleteness”  and instead with spiritual wisdom, they are initially cursed with powerlessness in the form of material poverty or the poverty of others of their aspect. The Page is objectified as their aspect. Jake is seen as desire incarnate to his band of friends (though is only truly respected by Dirk). Tavros too is objectified as “detachment” and “freedom” by Vriska though is resisted by her as she drives forward with her attempts to be relevant (materially important). Vriska’s suppression of Tavros is a suppression of “enlightenment” (the part of her aspect which she perceives will make her weak). While the Thief compensates for their weakness and insecurity through things, Pages compensate for it through love and consideration from others. 

Clownhood is masculine -> rage aspect is respresented by clowns -> rage aspect is masculine -> rage aspect is contrasted to hope aspect -> hope is feminine as rage is masculine -> hope is represented by cherub/angel wings -> cherubhood is feminine -> Caliborn overcoming cherub nature and transitioning to clownhood can be taken as a transition from feminine/female to masculine/male

it feels counterproductive to label cherubs as one particular gender, and counterintuitive to say that transitioning is overcoming cherub nature when it is in fact the very core of their nature... I'm also hesitant to say any aspect has a sexual sway outside of the fundamentally feminine space and masculine time, though I can concede that clowns being men in Caliborn's paradigm would lend itself toward Caliborn associating rage with masculinity (the same way Calliope genders certain classes based on her preconceptions?), and therefore making attempts to feminise the hope bloodline?

Classpect Fanmix Collection

“But Momo!” says no one, loudly and in the hypothetical; “I want to reblog your bullshit mixes, but six posts is TOO MANY!” Well, I agree! At your convenience, this is the final release of the collection of aspect mixes in one handy place, one handy post. Featuring a new bonus track on each mix. That’s 54 songs in total!

On 8tracks, in order; Blood & Breath, Light & Void, Life & Doom, Space & Time, Heart & Mind, Hope & Rage.

For lyrics & tracklists, check the classpect mix tag!

on the page right after talking about lowly Pages and noble Lords, Caliborn does drop this line pretty clearly in support of keyword theory:

uu: WHEN I SAID "MEANT TO SERVE". SERVE MEANT MORE THAN ONE THING. YOU KNOW. LIKE KICK MY ASS??

it's, ironically, a very literalist permutation of keyword theory - in Calliope's paradigm a Page serves their aspect, while to Caliborn a Page merely serves, full stop - but it certainly seems to put a big roadblock in the way of the many interpretations theory of classpect.

but the fact that Alternia's entire society is built on this idea of pompous, regal Princes and servile Pages and Maids still feels quite explicit in its implications about Caliborn's perception of class, i.e. that he sees "class" in literal terms, as a synonym for "caste". I guess it's possible Calliope and Caliborn merely have different headcanon "keywords" for each caste, but it'd be hard to believe unless we had a case where they openly disagreed with each other on the interpretation of a class...

i guess it's also worth keeping in mind that Calliope and Caliborn's interpretative modes are still different: Calliope observes while Caliborn authors (the fact that this is sort of the inverse of what one would instinctively assume about the twins is worth thinking about). so when Calliope "observes" the Prince as a destroyer class, she's actually re-interpreting the vision of the Prince imposed on reality by Caliborn. as long as we're still tentatively comparing class and gender I'll be annoying and pull out the quote for the millionth time:

oUr view of hUman cUlture indirectly inflUenced alternia’s development, which in tUrn affected yoUrs [...] it’s all so very circUitoUs and arbitrary.