Clownhood Is Masculine -> Rage Aspect Is Respresented By Clowns -> Rage Aspect Is Masculine -> Rage Aspect

The recent discussion of the-character-sheet-as-a-soul led me down a very strange mental rabbit hole which ended with “could the character sheet be a piece of origami?”

I do not know nearly enough about origami to continue

(With reference to this post here.)

There's probably some design space to be explored in using flexagons as character sheets.

To illustrate, imagine a martial arts RPG where a character's stats vary depending on what stance they're in, with each of their stances' traits being written on one particular face of a flexagon, and some cost – probably an action economy cost – associated with changing stances (i.e., reconfiguring the flexagon).

Consider the traversal network of a hexatetraflexagon, for example:

Presuming a character's initial stance is represented by face 1, at the start it would be possible to transition to the stances contained on faces 2, 3 and 5, while the stances contained on faces 4 and 6 would be inaccessible.

Lots of fun tactical possibilities there, assuming you could find a way to express a sufficiently rich set of mechanical traits in such limited writing space!

Masculine (Yang) and Feminine (Yin) and the Distinction

The distinction between Yin and Yang interpretations of aspects is proactiveness versus reactiveness.  For example, emotions are generally a heart associated thing. However, identity and the construction of a cohesive self requires conscious thought and awareness beforehand. Feelings, in contrast, are inherently reactive. They require an external stimulus. Thus feelings are part of the yin interpretation of heart and identity is the yang interpretation.  Thus heart players of derse are less concerned with experiencing their feelings and more concerned with compartmentalizing and keeping them under control to the aid of whatever mask/persona they strive to project.

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!

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

Either I need more sleep, or "patching your transhuman RPG’s mechanics by positing the existence of an immortal soul is rather missing the point" is some Zen koan shit, because it gave me a goddamn brainblast: of course a tabletop RPG is going to posit an immortal soul, it's in your hands at the table, it's the goddamn character sheet.

It's an object that the (metatextual) gods can mold and rewrite, but there's guaranteed continuity of "the character I play as is the one written on this particular piece of paper." It's only natural that porting that concept back into the universe it's used to describe fixes at least some of the ludonarrative dissonance.

I don't know if any of that's news to you, but if you want to totally deny the concept of soul in your erstwhile magical girl RPG, I think you need to throw out the character sheet, or at least transform it beyond what could be recognized as such. Which would be t h e m a t i c.

(With reference to this post here.)

If you've been following my recent projects, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that considering the character sheet as a form of user interface for the underlying mechanics is a particular area of interest of mine. Useful points of reference for this particular design conundrum might include Danger Patrol's two-part character sheets, Ironsworn's asset cards, Fireborn's stats-as-resource-pools conceit, and whatever the fuck Mythender thinks it's doing.

(I'd also like to make a small but significant correction to your wording there: "denying the concept of [the] soul" is not identical with merely avoiding game mechanics which explicitly posit the existence of an immutable foundation of identity that's separate from a player character's body and mind. You'd make very different game design decisions if your goal was the former rather than the latter!)

Absolutely this. An aspect’s opposite/adjacent aspects are all related to it on a deep level.

Mind’s rationality + Breath’s heroism = Hope’s focus on justice in the test description, because justice is based on principles.

But at the same time, Blood = Organized religion (The Sufferer as a Jesus figure) and Heart’s romance are also related to Hope.

Space’s creation + Hope’s imagination = Mind’s emphasis on creativity in the test description.

And on the other hand, branching timelines are driven by Mind, and Mind’s rationality is linked to Rage’s hatred of false beliefs to produce a hatred of lies.

Hmmmst (Aspect Synthesis Theory)

Sorry, I had to get one in.  I’m considering that maybe the aspects are literally built out of each other. And so they are reducible/irreducible at the same time (which in hindsight sounds very homestuck).

Some examples would be: Light would be split into the aspects of space and doom as they are the two complimentary aspects on the aspect wheel. Which would make logical sense, since Light players are defined as “rule-breakers” and “resourceful” (being able to draw from their environment.) Light’s closeness to time on the aspect wheel positions it as an aspect of disparity, and thus allows them to navigate both space and the limits contained in those spaces, finding gaps in the rules. In contrast, Void would be a synthesis of Life and Time. It would make sense to be these two since time is connotated with the father and thus paternalism (which Equius is in alignment with, but also to an extent Roxy in her adoption of gendered norms as Mom Lalonde). Life would be the imposition of will onto others/force. Void is more aligned to the aspect of space, which is in opposition to time (disparity). And so, Void must be seen as having a perspective of homogeneity. The implication would be that void players don’t see disparities of time (how things change) which fits with their general rigid attitudes towards things, such as Roxy’s insistence on Dirk being gay despite gayness no longer being a relevant concept, or Equius’ insistence on the hemospectrum still being relevant. It’s my suspicion that all aspects are synthesized out of other aspects in this way, though the complimentary pairs of an aspect are the most prominent characteristics in a character. Whether or not an aspect is aligned with time or space (is it on the left or right side of the wheel) determines how an individual perceives reality (is reality fresh or new, or is it the same as it’s always been).   Lunar sway seemingly aligns with this view as Prospit dreamers (spatially oriented) are associated with the present and conformity to current norms, whereas Derse dreamers (musically/time oriented) are associated with the future and past. Difference/perception of reality as fluid may fuel their rebellion, even if their will is fixed. it’s ideas all the way down.

Breath and Blood

Breath and blood are equidistant from Time and Space because their power is as related to creation, and posibilities as to destruction, action and completion.

This is a curious thing to take into account: All aspects have a passive or active nature except for these two.

Breath represents liberation, renovation, inspiration, individuation and especially change. The relationship between the wind and the soul is incredibly strong. In fact, two greek words for wind are amenos and pneuma, which both are refered to soul. From this two words we get pneumatic, animated and other words that imply movement.

Breath is the aspect between Hope and Life

-Hope means change through creation of ideas. Hope comes with the posibility to change. Here we can se how hope is both linked to space and breath.

-Life means change through action. Acting according to one's ideas, bringing them to completion. It is the union of breath and time.

So we can agree that breath doesn't only mean change, it also has to do with ideas. These ideas are pure and simple, as Tavros's and John's minds, but they are also independent, as these two kids end up being. The problem of being too independent is that you can get isolated from the rest of the world.

(When I talk about ideas, I'm referring to the usual term, but also to the "Ideas" in Plato's Theory of Forms. We'll get to that later.)

Blood is what we all have in common, it appears when we are wounded, when we make mistakes and suffer. Blood is present at birth, all along our lives and until we ultimately die. We cannot avoid blood, although we'd love to. Blood is common to all human beings, and so it represents restriction and society, pain and absence of change. Another curious thing to say about blood is how it means heritage. We do not choose our bodies, our families or our crushes.

If breath represents autonomy, blood represents dependence. We need many things to survive, but specially others. The bonds we make with the people around us, the ability to connect with them and to see that we are all the same, that's what makes us human beings.

Blood is between Doom and Rage

-Doom represents the general restrictions that rule the world, the inmutable laws that are necessary for a thing to exist. This aspect is very tricky and will require further explanation. It has to do with the restriction (blood) of posibilities (space).

-Rage is the power to act (time) in response to our restrictions (blood)

At this point we have to understand the so disputed duality of nature and spirit, body and soul. Are we authors of our life or are we determined by our genetic and society? Is society even something natural? Could we live by our own? Are we different to the rest of animals because of our conscience?

Lots of questions can be derived from our dual nature, but let's leave it here for now.

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

Hey. You've mentioned in occations Hope's connection with sexuality, and I am, sort of very puzzled about it. Can you explain why?

Sex Appeal, Charm, Attraction, idolization, they all seem to be part of Hope. For Jake, it was a constant sexualization by those around him, while Eridan and Cronus' pursuit or concupiscent relationships tend to paint them in a bad light. There's more to it and it's not the only Aspect that could be considered to have ties, but there's like, Some Stuff.

Hiveswap seems to double down on this. Diemen is constantly referencing phallic imagery, Kuprum and Lanque are both... Pretty intense and blatant about it. Elwurd uses her charms on Joey and brings the reader for a fake date to make her ex jealous and ends up hooking with another Troll in one of her routes. Chahut, Daraya and Cirava don't seem to have that much, but Cirava does have the idolization and attracting large groups of people that led to people turning on them due to their fame, and Daraya goes against the Status Quo, which in her particular case is not wanting to be sent to a cloister- Her archetype is that of a rebellious teen, punky, rebelling against society, and the very kinda religious 'christian school' vibe the Jades have, so that kinda tracks.

Chahut doesn't seem have much in regards to that explicitly though she flirts HARD with Daraya. However, her very name is also a reference- The Maenad were women followers of Dionysus, defined by frenzied and orgiastic rites.

So yeah there seems to be... Some Connection.

this suicide squad shirt they're selling at hot topic is absolutely killing me