Choice Asspects and Class-y Discussion V2.0

[The_Codfish]

That's very creative, Delenance. Why didn't anyone else think of that?

Anyone can kill anything, it all depends on how.

[The Poet]

Could a possible secondary aspect of Breath be communication?

[The_Codfish]

Who knows, but it could likely be an 'ability' for certain Class pairings. Haven't you ever heard of "whispering in the wind"?

[Doc Scratch]

A Prince of Life would have several interesting interpretations.

The obvious one is murder.

Controlling living things to destroy is another.

A Prince of Life might possibly have the ability to start and lead a war (to destroy lives and livelihoods...with lives). Makes sense since an actual Prince tends to have command, so why not an army of people/plants/animals/etc.?

[Panda-s1]

Actually, while we're on the subject of Princes, anyone else make the connection between Prince the title, and The Prince by Machiavelli? Like Princes are destructive in nature, but only because their situation dictates so?

[awfulAlliteration]

I don't know enough about Machiavellian literature to comment.

I think a Prince of Life would probably either
A) Be one of the most powerful and dangerous players ever
B) Be an immortal juggernaut with unlimited lives

Both are very scary thoughts.

[Vanymstorm]

Who knows, but it could likely be an 'ability' for certain Class pairings. Haven't you ever heard of "whispering in the wind"?

And we keep coming back to "Seer of Breath". Good news is, her prospects are significantly rosier than most thought at the start of the thread. She'd just have to be a more short-term planner, mainly concerned with setting/keeping events "in motion" and "running smoothly". Someone who is less a methodical schemer, and more a preemptive troubleshooter.

Which brings me back to that tricky but intriguing Maid/Seer comparison of "one who maintains", because for all Aradia tried to "fix" things, she did it alone. Giving Sollux the Sgrub base code is the closest she comes to "sending dudes on quests" like Rose did, and I don't think she would've found the temple if not for one of her own time-clones. Then again, you could make a similar argument for Maid/Sylph.

It's strange, though. It really seems like Maid ought to be one of the active classes even if we're not pairing it with the distinctly passive Seer, but Aradia was characterized as a reactive force, fixing problems more often than preventing them the way Rose and Terezi do. Chalking that one up to the vague terminology; with the pervasive time shenanigans in play here, it feels like splitting hairs anyway.

A Prince of Life would have several interesting interpretations.

The obvious one is murder.

Controlling living things to destroy is another.

A Prince of Life might possibly have the ability to start and lead a war (to destroy lives and livelihoods...with lives). Makes sense since an actual Prince tends to have command, so why not an army of people/plants/animals/etc.?

Maybe even some sort of parasite- or disease-related theme? That may work better for the Bard, since he could just go around being a vector, or better yet drawing people into situations where they become lax with their own health (which I'm sure I'm not explaining right.)

[Qmark]

I've always thought a Prince of Life might be able to, like, unleash some kind of massive unstoppable attack at the cost of his own lifespan, ie: destroying his own life and using his life to destroy.

Also, what would be the difference between a Seer of Light and a Seer of Hope?

[Greyscale]

I think the Maid Active/Passive discrepancy can be easily solved when we figure that most of Aradia's "active" actions were done at the command of ghosts/Horrorterrors (same thing considering dreambubbles?), which shows:
- That she was following orders (a passive behavior)
- Those orders came from the beings who patronize Derse (who encourage players to act actively/offensively)

So ot's like, Aradia setting up Sgrub LOOKS Active, but at its core it was Passive.

[Legendary]

Except she stopped listening to the voices once she entered the game, and only did what she said to do. Is that passive, or active? Or does it start passive, and become active once she starts giving the orders?

[Delenance]

That's very creative, Delenance. Why didn't anyone else think of that?

Anyone can kill anything, it all depends on how.

I'm just taking it as literally as possible.

[Greyscale]

Except she stopped listening to the voices once she entered the game, and only did what she said to do. Is that passive, or active? Or does it start passive, and become active once she starts giving the orders?

I remember going over this before, wait a second:

FAA: this private b0ard will and has already served as a l0g 0f past events f0r future selves t0 rec0rd and a guide 0f future events f0r past selves t0 f0ll0w

It's more like, a frame of the Alpha timeline. It's not so much a guide written by Aradia as it is a guide written by Time, about Time, for Aradia to abide by. It's Time being strictly defined, and Aradia serving its will to make sure all goes according to what is written in the memo.

She's not listening to herself. Her movement is all defined by the Alpha timeline, which she must read up on by reading her own memo. After finishing with Terezi, Dave used personal instinct to keep things on track, but Aradia leaves absolutely nothing to chance. The Alpha timeline tells her what to do. She will only listen to the Alpha timeline. She will only move according to the Alpha timeline.

Even though she is technically the one writing the memo, the only thing she writes is what she observes what how Time happens. She makes no decisions on her own; the timeline makes them for her. It is something Aradia personally found annoying, because she saw no difference between listening to the voices of the dead, and listening to the directions of the memo.

If anything, she became even more passive, but in a way that's in line with both parts of her title, instead of just the Maid part.

[The_Codfish]

I'm just taking it as literally as possible.

Like I said, anyone can take life. It's 'how' that's important.

[trulyElse]

That's very creative, Delenance. Why didn't anyone else think of that?

Anyone can kill anything, it all depends on how.

By destroying their life.

[The_Codfish]

By destroying their life.

I love you.

[Varkarrus]

or he's the prince of mind

[Druplesnubb]

I remember going over this before, wait a second:



She's not listening to herself. Her movement is all defined by the Alpha timeline, which she must read up on by reading her own memo. After finishing with Terezi, Dave used personal instinct to keep things on track, but Aradia leaves absolutely nothing to chance. The Alpha timeline tells her what to do. She will only listen to the Alpha timeline. She will only move according to the Alpha timeline.

Even though she is technically the one writing the memo, the only thing she writes is what she observes what how Time happens. She makes no decisions on her own; the timeline makes them for her. It is something Aradia personally found annoying, because she saw no difference between listening to the voices of the dead, and listening to the directions of the memo.

If anything, she became even more passive, but in a way that's in line with both parts of her title, instead of just the Maid part.

And then Aradia stopped listening to both the dead and her future selves and make her decisions herself once she gained god tier and became a fully realised Maid.

[Greyscale]

And then Aradia stopped listening to both the dead and her future selves and make her decisions herself once she gained god tier and became a fully realised Maid.

It's not really clear what kind of decisions she's making to be honest

Like she's in the dreambubbles and sort of helping out whoever she bumps into? It seems pretty aimless.

[Druplesnubb]

The few decisions she makes in what little screentime she has includes freezing jack and using him as a portal to the Furthest Ring (which, while the only thing she could have done hat wouldn't have killed her, is still something she came up with herself) and then to stay behind with Sollux while the others went away on the meteor.

[Greyscale]

The few decisions she makes in what little screentime she has includes freezing jack and using him as a portal to the Furthest Ring (which, while the only thing she could have done hat wouldn't have killed her, is still something she came up with herself)

Yeah, there's going to be exceptions like that, especially if it's a life or death situation where you don't have any choice in the matter.

I mean, if passive and active defined literally everything a character did, it'd be pretty hard to pin down characters like John.

and then to stay behind with Sollux while the others went away on the meteor

This one is tricky, because it's like, what is she doing in the dreambubbles at all? If she's there for a reason that could be defined as passive, then her decision to stay behind is the same as someone deciding to stay in servitude, so it's ultimately passive. If she's there because of motivations she created for herself, then it would be active.

[d2r123]

Being told what to do and being acted upon are not the things which define passive and active. Passive/active statuses are not intuitive and have been said to have more to do with how you use your powers then what motivates you. Active classes involve the self more. Passive classes involve others more. A passive class is more likely to help by "being" and an active is more likely to help by "doing". In the case of a seer, they serve as a vast deposit of knowledge which may be used to better direct others actions. In the case of a bard, they serve as a catalyst for destruction and they let that destruction happen, but they don't do it themselves. In the case of a prince, they go out and do the destroying themselves, like when dirk sendificated his own head or the prince of hope had his famous moment with the mother grub egg. Thieves steal. They take something for themselves. That thing then belongs to them and can be used by them.

[Wulf]

Being told what to do and being acted upon are not the things which define passive and active. Passive/active statuses are not intuitive and have been said to have more to do with how you use your powers then what motivates you. Active classes involve the self more. Passive classes involve others more. A passive class is more likely to help by "being" and an active is more likely to help by "doing". In the case of a seer, they serve as a vast deposit of knowledge which may be used to better direct others actions. In the case of a bard, they serve as a catalyst for destruction and they let that destruction happen, but they don't do it themselves. In the case of a prince, they go out and do the destroying themselves, like when dirk sendificated his own head or the prince of hope had his famous moment with the mother grub egg. Thieves steal. They take something for themselves. That thing then belongs to them and can be used by them.

I don't feel like going to dig up the whole quote, but Calliope also said "Blah blah, distinction isn't that clear cut, blah blah." In addition, in one of this Tumblr posts (the one that marks Witch and Seer as canonically active and passive respectively), Hussie somewhat implies that the normal definition of active and passive is also something of a factor.

Even so, let's compare how Aradia used her Time powers to how Dave did. Dave's concern with preventing doomed timelines was on preventing the existence of more dead Daves. True, he used that as a gauge to see if he or the others fucked up somewhere, but that was the concern he brought up the most- Not "Making sure everyone gets out of here OK", but "I don't want to see me, personally die again." Using his time powers to protect himself (and by extension, the alpha timeline). Or the alpha timeline, and by extension himself. Whichever way you want to look at it. In contrast, Aradia seems to do everything she does for the good of everyone. She allows alpha timelines to crop up and fixes them later, to make sure that her entire team is capable of surviving their bout with the Black King. She uses her powers as a Maid to help her team succeed, even if it means she has to die a thousand times.

[d2r123]

@the “factor” part
Are you agreeing or disagreeing? It looks like agreeing. I can’t tell.
@the “dave” part
Dave particularly confuses me, mostly because of how he personally felt about his actions. He always said he felt like he was being rescued and baling himself out. He lamented about never actually being the hero himself. So, he only really serves to blur the lines to me, which is good I guess. However, if you add the other knight, it becomes fairly clear where they sit on the scale.
Karkat never had a good idea one when he wasn’t talking to himself on trollian. He always gained an insight at the exact moment where it would no longer cross the blurry line between bad idea generation paradox and good idea generation paradox and then he went on to become his future self. At that moment, he passively used his power on a past copy of himself. When interacting with other members, he was never able to force anyone to act for his good, but if he commanded someone to help the team, they were on it in an instant. Knights are passive, but they are able to pass the threshold between passive and active with the displacement of “self”. Meaning, they can use their powers on copies of themself which they see as separate.
@ the “maid of time” part
Yeah, totaly

I've desided you were agreeing

[Qiam]

The way Dave and Aradia used their aspects were totally different. My theory is because their roles were chosen for them by Skaia or Sburb or what have you in order for them to reach their goals. Their classes and aspects are perfectly suited for them not only because of their personalities and character developments, but because of their unique conditions.

Dave's goal isn't to prevent his own death specifically. He tries to prevent his own death because he knows that if he dies, their session is FUBAR.

TG: the thing with time travel is
TG: you cant overthink it
TG: just roll with it and see what happens
TG: and above all try not to do anything retarded

Dave actively attempts to prevent those timelines through trial and error, basically. If you "do something retarded" that could create a branching timeline and lead to someone's death, including his. He's protecting the alpha timeline as the Knight of Time.

Aradia allows others to make the errors and then simply corrects them by sacrificing the other timelines in order to make the alpha timeline the one that succeeds. She's cleaning up the "extra" timelines as the Maid of Time. She sacrifices a ton of time clones in their fight with the Black King and he wipes a lot of them out. She can experience her own death without severe psychological trauma because she's already dead and mostly emotionless. 0_0

The way they use their time clones is pretty different, too. Aradia's time clones are made to gather as much information until they are destroyed and Dave's time clones abuse stable time loops.

[Qmark]

Okay, I'm about to post a bargain crack theory here in this thread and when I'm done you can all dissect it and tell me how dumb it is, but here goes.

An idea I had a while ago is that Mages and Maids are an active/passive duo, as well as the polar opposites of the Prince/Bard pairing, in which Mages "create X" and Maids "allow X to be created".

Sollux (the Mage of Doom) created the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus that Karkat would later unwittingly open, cursing himself and everyone else in the session.

Aradia (the Maid of Time)'s actions during Hivebent allowed the Alpha timeline to progress, and she and her time clones have done things to buy time for others on multiple occasions (suppressing the Vast Glub during the fight with the Black King, fighting Jack when he first appeared in the Troll session, offering to slow him down for the group on the meteor, etc.)

Jane (the Maid of Life) is speculated to play a role in restoring life to LOCAH. On a more symbolic level, her session is believed to be the one in which the kids will finally succeed in breeding a Genesis Frog and creating a universe.

So, does this contain any sort of plausibility whatsoever?