The 12 Aspects all mean significantly more than their literal meanings. Supposedly, collectively, they encompass all of reality.
Here are some keywords that can be used as substitutions for the actual Aspect names. Not only are they useful for understanding the Aspects themselves, but they're also useful for classpecting purposes, for understanding the meaning of a Hero Title.
When paired with my Classes Chart, these Aspect keywords provide broad, basic, simplified information on what a particular role might do.
Existence
Space physicality, creation, (trans)formation, matter, beginnings, (re)birth, concreteness
Time timing, destruction, endings, inevitability, death, abstractness, meta
Knowledge
Light information, importance, relevance, fortune, luck, agency, visibility, clarity
Void nothingness, lack, irrelevance, submission, misfortune, unknown, obfuscation, invisibility, mystery, secrets, shadow
Perception
Hope belief, possibility, options, wish, realness, imagination, ideas, conception, sexuality
Rage fear, anger, lack of options, fakeness
Psyche
Heart soul, inner self, emotion, desire, love, will, motivation, passion
Mind thought, reason, logic, decision, choice, façade, outer self
Drive
Breath wind, (mis/re)direction, freedom, escape, quest, detachment, disconnection, distance, flight
Blood bonds, relationships, pacts, responsibility, duty, loyalty, unity, attachment, connection, groundedness
Energy
Life life force, energy, growth, power, persistence, wealth, boldness, enthusiasm, efficacy
Doom sacrifice, rules, limits, boundaries, decay, restraint, consequences, punishment
Edit 2/21/15: Added keywords to Space, Time, Hope, Breath, and Blood. Changed "self" to "inner self" for Heart (for clarification).
We already know three First Guardians:
Becquerel, pre-scratch Earth
God Cat, post-scratch Earth
Doc Scratch, Alternia
But what about Beforus?
I suspect its First Guardian is, in some way, shape, or form, a rabbit.
So far, all First Guardians have ties to the kids.
It goes without saying how Bec is connected to Jade. Bec was ectobiologized from Halley, Grandpa’s dog. Grandpa is pre-scratch Jake.
Then there’s GCat. GCat was likely ectobiologized from Jaspers (aka Frigglish), who belonged to both Rose and Roxy. Plus, Roxy already has heavy ties to cats.
As for Doc Scratch, one of his components is Lil Cal. Lil Cal belonged to Dave’s Bro and Dirk, and haunted Dave’s dreams (and waking life).
That just leaves John and Jane.
John has strong ties to a rabbit. Specifically, the stuffed bunny from Con Air, whom he received three times for his birthday—the original from Dave, the oily bunny patched up by Rose, and Liv Tyler from Jade (and Jake).
Post-scratch, Jane has ties to the stuffed bunny, too.
Like John, each of Jane’s friends gave her a bunny, as well. Jake gave her his Grandma’s bunny, Roxy gave her Mom’s, and Dirk gave her Lil Sebastian.
Earth’s First Guardians, Bec and GCat, have obvious, simple parallels. Dog, cat. “MEOW” and “BARK” codes. Pets connected with the kids.
But the Con Air bunny and Lil Cal have interesting parallels with each other, as well. They’re both filled with stuffing (as are dead Halley and Jaspers). Both have traveled convoluted, circuitous routes through time and space. Evidence points to them both being Jujus. Both are used as a weapon, via bunnykind and puppetkind strife specibus.
Lil Seb especially parallels Lil Cal. For one, they both have similar names. Both once belonged to Dirk.
Then there’s this:
They both end up in Caliborn’s possession (and at the same time).
That can’t be a coincidence. These instances of Lil Cal and the Con Air bunny also have the most direct paths through space-time.
Doc Scratch is First Guardian of Alternia due to Lord English’s influence. Who’s to say Beforus’ First Guardian wasn’t also his influence?
And if Doc Scratch was made from Lil Cal and a Magic Cue Ball…
...Maybe Beforus’ First Guardian was made from Lil Seb and a Magic 8-Ball.
How perfect would that be? It would complete all the parallels.
Doc Scratch is the Man on the Moon, Alternia's green moon. A bunny First Guardian could be the Moon Rabbit of Beforus' pink moon.
Not to mention… There would be a white rabbit as a First Guardian. A White Rabbit to go along with the Cheshire Cat, GCat.
ROXY: gcat [...] ROXY: you gonna behave urself ROXY: not do anything too uh ROXY: vexing or cheshire catty ROXY: i hope?
The bunnies, especially Lil Seb, already have Alice in Wonderland connections.
It's the White Rabbit!
Sort of!
If the First Guardian of Beforus is a White Rabbit living on the Pink Moon, perhaps it leads Meenah “down the rabbit hole” with SGRUB.
ARANEA: [Meenah] viewed the empress as a glorified slave. ARANEA: So she a8dicated, and fled to the moon to hide. […] ARANEA: While she was there, she discovered an ancient device. ARANEA: Inside the device was a game. ARANEA: She 8ecame o8sessed with playing it, 8ut needed our friends to agree to play first. […] ARANEA: Needless to say, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
A rabbit hole, as in the first artifact that draws players of an alternate reality game into its world. If SBURB/SGRUB isn’t an alternate reality game, I don’t know what is!
A rabbit First Guardian is PERFECT.
So two-thirds of LOTAK was destroyed when Jack English’s head exploded and formed a black hole.
Dave, Terezi, and a decapitated Dirk all made it off the planet, thanks to Dave’s Time powers. But you know who almost certainly was still on LOTAK at the time?
Gamzee has not had the opportunity to go back in time and give Lil Cal to Jack to create Jack English in the first place. If Gamzee is dead, this is a paradox.
Everyone keeps debating what quadrant Dave and Karkat’s relationship is. Each has valid and supporting arguments, and they all make sense in their own ways.
But why limit it to just one? What if it’s actually ALL the quadrants?
It was said their love went beyond the four quadrants, transcending the grid entirely. Whatever that nonsense actually means.
Perhaps Karkat is following in the footsteps of his ancestor?
My interpretation is that Witches are active and Heirs are passive Magician classes, which involves changing, manipulating, and controlling their aspects.
Likewise, Maids are active and Sylphs passive Healer classes, which involves healing, creating, and (re)generating their aspects.
As far as “giving” goes, that’s something Rogues already do. Thieves technically can give, too, as I see Thieves and Rogues as classes that involve aspect allocation and redistribution, but Thieves are mostly inclined to take, while Rogues are inclined to give or share.
For now, I’ll link some of my related posts:
John the Wizard touches upon the Witch/Heir connection with magic.
Healer Classes: Maids, Sylphs, and Revival describes the Maid/Sylph connection with healing.
Classes Chart is my take on the class meanings, pairings, etc.
Useful Classpect Tools and Resources has links to more information from others (including @dahniwitchoflight).
It’s not much, hopefully it'll provide some insight.
IE: Heirs are diametrically opposed to Thieves: they give their aspect and inspire others to do the same.
John:
All evidence that Breath/Breeze is connected to delivery comes from John, Tavros has flags, but not the mailbox kind.
John uses the Breeze and parcel pyxis to invite giving through breath (note that I’m also assuming that Equius and Mituna had and aspect driven parcel system on their planets).
Upon receiving the ultimate freedom (retcon zaps are said by many to mean breath) and being faced with drowning in oil, John instead zaps the oil away (gives his breath) in order to take on the responsibility of completing his personal quest (in which he also gives the fireflys freedom). It’s noted by Jade that he does this instead of zapping away himself, something which I think is a defining moment for his character.
John fits the messianic archetype, so it would make sense if he would give spirit and freedom in return for responsibility, friendship and warrior spirit (Blood).
Is “giving spirit” something the natural leader does? If so, Roxy and Kanaya talking about John being such a great motivational leader that he makes others better leaders at the same time counts as evidence towards John giving and inviting the giving of Breath.
John takes on warrior spirit when doing the windy thing? This is a bit of a shaky one I admit, but the thing is we often see John sort of “not taking things seriously” and making unnecessary jokes and observations, as if the graveness of his situation hasn’t really set in for him. The only time he comes down off this cloud is when he’s airbending.
When John decides to not go through the gate and is instead pulled back down to earth (in a moment which is cited to show the Breath/Blood dichotomy) thanks to alt Dave’s influence, alt Dave gets wings (as in John gave him freedom/Breath).
Equius:
In this page Calliope mentions that people with opposite classpects can have similar abilities, so Equius might possibly have Thief of Light powers (as in, if this theory is correct Equius should be able to theoretically steal light from everyone by giving them void).
So while Vriska steals the spot-light (ie: relevance, ie: Light) by creating Bec noir, Equius has become part of the most important character in homestuck: Lil'cal, and gives the alpha kids a lack of showdown (bear in mind though that Equius does this to help the humans, whereas Vriska does it to stroke her ego, fitting what we know about passive classes working for the team and active classes working for themselves).
Vriska is also accused of stealing light in the form of agency when she controls trolls, and Equius controls Nepeta’s actions in some respect at the start of Hivebent and also stops her from joining the red team (again because he believes it’s in her best interests). Deceiving his team-mates and becoming the blue team leader counts as giving lies and also another count of stealing relevance.
Equius also gives fakeness in the form of Vriskas arm, Aradia’s body, and Tavros’s legs. Also as Lil'cal he arguably teaches Dirk how to build robots and therefore invites the giving of fakeness?
Equius is probably also the reason the ring of void moved from the human’s alpha session to caliborn’s, ie: he delivered void.
Mituna:
I don’t actually have much to say about Mituna, as we don’t know much about him or his arc. Although…don’t you think it’s funny that the Thief and Heir of both troll sessions had aspect pairs that we pretty much know where opposites?
The Ψiioniic though, fits this theory pretty well. He gives/delivers the ship using his death, and often very gave death to aliens in the form of the Condesce (and invites her to give death).
Medieval connection:
The Heir class represents a medieval aristocrat passively giving away all their inherited fortune. Inheritace itself is them inviting giving.
So JASPROSESPRITE^2. Has a full body. Instead of a ghost butt. And looks like Rose’s dream self. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!
So hey, I made another blog: pixie-styx-mix.
There’s only a few posts on it now, but it will serve as a combination blog for personal stuff and reblogs related to my fandoms and interests. So if you like Homestuck, Steven Universe, Undertale, Paranatural, Disney/Pixar, Nintendo, and/or psychology, or if you want to learn more about me, feel free to follow. (It mostly just has the first three subjects.)
Meanwhile, I will continue using this main blog for original posts involving theories and speculation. ...At least I plan on it. ^_^;
The events of this update are taking place within one of Skaia’s vision clouds:
I bet Alt!Calliope is the one witnessing it!
BladekindEyewear has a theory that there will be a third Scratch, one in Caliborn’s session. While I’m not completely sold on it being necessary (and I disagree on the events that will play out if it happens), thematically, a Third Scratch makes sense, and evidence does support it.
Three scratches across Gamzee’s face:
Dave’s game glitching, making it unplayable and unwinnable:
Time to reset for the third time this hour.
> Dave: Reset.
So, if a third Scratch will indeed occur, what can we extrapolate?
We know a Scratch Construct is different between sessions.
It will always be an edifice of similarly cryptic design, located on the planet that is home to the Hero of Time. Its environment dictates the nature of its construction.
The Trolls’ construct is the Cardinal Movement, which looks similar to Aradia’s time machine music boxes. It also reflects the Land of Quartz and Melody, Aradia’s planet. Damara must have the same (or similar) planet as Aradia.
The Kids’ construct is the Beat Mesa, which matches Dave’s emblem and his time tables. It also fits with the gears and tech theme of his planet.
That just leaves Caliborn, the Time player of the third session. And what’s the theme not of his planet, but his entire session and character? Billiards.
Caliborn’s session includes a planet representing each pool ball. Notoriously missing is a Cue Ball planet.
What if Caliborn’s Scratch Construct is an entire Cue Ball planet, and we haven’t seen it yet? Or seen it in its final form, anyway. Rather than being ON his planet, it IS a planet.
Two likely candidates are Caliborn’s planet (Earth), or the Land of Heat and Clockwork, Dave’s planet.
(Personally, I love the idea of LOHAC, and its transformation resembling a cue ball.)
During a typical Scratch, once the construct’s surface is scratched, it will head toward Skaia.
Except Caliborn’s session no longer has a Skaia. However, recall Skaia transformed into a black hole. The black hole Caliborn uses to sink the pool ball planets!
I predict Caliborn’s Scratch will involve scratching the surface of a Cue Ball planet and then sinking it into the black hole that was formerly Skaia. In billiards, pocketing the cue ball is called a scratch. How perfect is that?
TT: This terminology can be very literal sometimes.
What do else do we know about Scratches?
Its power is dangerous, and is meant to be utilized only in emergencies such as yours. TT: You mean, in sessions where victory is no longer possible? Yes. […] TT: Then, it's like a panic button for the players to push once they realize the cause is lost.
Only in this case, replace “session” with “reality.” It sounds like this could describe the situation the heroes are in, with Lord English wreaking havoc throughout Paradox Space. An even greater emergency would be after Vriska begins the process of the Green Sun’s destruction, which has the potential to lead to the Big Crunch of Paradox Space.
Within the context of Rose and Doc Scratch’s exchange, “victory” means ability to successfully create a new universe, which is the goal of a typical session. However, Caliborn’s session is unique and extreme—a dead session. Its goal isn’t to create a new universe. In all likelihood, it has some connection with all of Space-Time, all of reality itself. A Scratch for a dead session would be employed for a different, more extreme reason.
TT: What exactly does the Scratch do, then? It resets the game. […] The release of temporal energy will be quite massive. This is a hard reset. It will reboot the conditions in your universe well before you began playing the game. You will have lived different lives after the reset. The different initial conditions will ideally lead to a more favorable scenario in the new session. Unfortunately, you will have no memory of anything that has happened in the session you are in now. TT: What will happen to us? Everyone in this session now? You will all cease to exist completely if you remain here during the Scratch.
Now, all this is true of typical null sessions. If scratching a null session resets the universe, perhaps scratching a dead session—Caliborn’s session—resets REALITY.
Instead of resetting the cherubs’ universe and which cherub plays, I think the third scratch will reset all of Paradox Space, all of reality, producing an alternate reality. A new reality perhaps ruled by a Pink Sun instead of the Green Sun.
Just as the kids escaped their Scratch and entered the new, reset instance of Earth’s universe—the Alpha kids’ session—through the window, the heroes will have to find a way to escape the third Scratch (and the Big Crunch) and enter a new, reset instance of Paradox Space.
While simultaneously destroying reality, the massive black hole created from the Green Sun’s destruction could very well be their escape route, like the hole in the window.
UU: and while the emerald eye of this storm is fixed in the abyss forever UU: today yoU are poised to escape its scowl once and for all. UU: by skaias gUiding light, yoU may leave behind its tUrning arms of bright coloUrs and mayhem, and secUre peace for yoUr cosmic progeny for all dUration.
A third Scratch, the destruction of reality, a black hole escape route, and the creation of a Pink Sun would make absolutely lovely parallels to the events of [S]: Cascade. It works.
Here's a chart of all the classes, both Standard and Master.
My goal was to define, describe, and categorize them as efficiently and accurately as possible, based on my understanding of the classes. I based as much as I could on canon information, while inferring the rest.
(For clarity, "–" denotes Active, and "+" denotes Passive.)
(Note: If chart looks distorted/shrunken, right-click and View Image.)
Special thanks to bladekindeyewear, dahniwitchoflight, infinitywhale and probably others for their insight and information, helping me understand the classes and aspects. I couldn't have made this chart without them.
Some clarification: I am aware Hussie essentially said any gender can have any class (i.e. female Princes). I don’t like the idea of gendered classes, anyway, and I think it’s needlessly restrictive, not to mention sexist and stereotyping.
However, my chart reflects what’s been depicted in comic, based on what Calliope states, looking at the characters’ classes and gender distribution, and then making some inferences based on Hussie’s penchant for balance and based on class names and god tier outfit designs.
As far as I can tell, it just indicates the first player of the session.
In each session, the mini-square is within the squares belonging to John, Karkat, and Jane. Each of them entered first. (And are also the session leaders.)
If thats the case…… whats the mini square for?