Re: Titles and Theories and Things

[maieuticEpimenides]

Inevitability ties in with Time, too, and there it gets interesting. I read something somewhere about this. Basically, both Time and Doom are related to this concept of inevitability, but react to it differently! (Unless this is just the characters. But it's the best example there is.)

See this pesterlog.

The way this person put the two points of view was like this, exemplified by Sollux and Aradia in the above pesterlog:

1. "If we do X, then Y will happen. Y is really bad. Therefore, we must avoid doing X at all costs."
2. "Y will happen no matter what. We cannot avoid it. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether we do X."

(I just found the link to the discussion about this, and more specifically, the bit I was referencing. It's here.)

Also, death is tied in with Time as well. Look at Dave. He's really, really scared about dying. And there's a reason for his collection of weird dead preserved things. Oh, yes. And Aradia kind of starts out dead. And is now floating around in the dreambubbles doing a death fangirl thing.

But Sollux has died an awful lot.

But you could say the same for Aradia!

And so it goes. Around and around.

The structure idea's pretty interesting, though! Sollux's hacking skills are the only thing we have to go off of, though. There aren't enough canon Doom players for me to say much with some level of certainty.

[TheChaotic1]

Yeah, I hate when there are these stellar aspects that are not fully flushed out, I wanna see what mind can really do, but no mind god tiers are around

[maieuticEpimenides]

Your statement is met with a resounding yes from me. Doom (along with a couple others) really does suffer from that! And...

Are you pointing me in the direction of Mind? I'm totally going there. You know that. Lack of alpha timeline god tiered Mind players be damned. Where doing it man. Where MAKING THIS HAPEN. (I had to well not really but I'm sorry) We're doing this. At least, I am. Because now I have ideas.

I may have mentioned this before (because even I don't remember what all those textwalls were going on about), but Mind seems a whole lot about consequences! And decisions. Because we do get to see some non-god-tier powers with Terezi. She looks at a decision, and sees the outcomes. That in and of itself is pretty simple. And we have the whole coin-flipping thing, which is also very supportive of this widespread interpretation. Coin flips make decisions. This is generally understood, I think.

And then we've also got Latula! She's actually said enough to be worth a separate paragraph. Stuff is happening with that girl. Basically, she's got the typical Knight facade. Rather than a coolkid, she's a rad girl, and that's basically all she's got. She's clearly insecure regarding something about herself, like Karkat points out at one point, but I can't really figure out what that is. Is Mind related to opinion and she's worried about what others will think of her? At this point in time, is she just afraid of the consequences if she lets the rad thing go completely? Because she can! She's dropped the entire silly charade a couple times already, if I'm correct.

I'm tempted to say that Mind, like a lot of other aspects, is both the decision/consequence/option stuff as well as the word taken at face value! Thoughts and logic and that kind of thing. After all, Terezi's land was the Land of Thought and Flow. I've been convinced that lands are constructed not only around aspect but also based on class, and Flow corresponds to her status as a Seer. (Flow and Rain are both water/fluid-related words. Coincidence? I think not! But, you know, it could be. I dunno.*) Thought is obviously dealing with Mind. So that interpretation does have some backing behind it!

Mostly, though, choices and consequences are pretty definitely important parts of Mind, and these things are broad enough to be interpreted in pretty cool ways!

I was about to start talking about that, but I thought better of it. That's for another day, I guess.

* But there are more cases like this! For Knights, we have Heat and Haze (Clockwork obviously being Time-related and Pulse screaming Blood), words dealing with the obscuring and that sort of thing. Heirs have Shade and Caves, which both hide, cover, and generally have to do with darkness. I could go on but this isn't really the point.

[TheChaotic1]

I think the consequences angle is more coming from her class not aspect, she is a seer after all, thats part of why I want to see another person with mind powers, so we can discern what parts are class and which are aspect.

I wasn't really pushing for mind talk, its just the example that came first because I fancy myself a mind player. Though I'm still happy to chat on it.

[maieuticEpimenides]

Yeah, I know. I just like to talk about... things!

But judging by Rose, the Seer basically sees or seeks some form of their aspect. She sees the most fortuitous path. She sees the path that is lucky.

She sees the luck!

And it turns out that Light is very connected to luck, and the canon Thief is very concentrated on this as well!

By that reasoning: Terezi sees the outcomes of decisions. This should mean that some part of Mind has something to do with decisions and/or outcomes! But that's just what I think.

Oh, and I'd just like to say that I find it kind of interesting when people talk about what title they believe they would have. Because that kind of thing is hard to say, and it's interesting how aspects and classes are interpreted in contexts more grounded in real life! Why do you associate with Mind, exactly?

(You don't really have to answer that. I'm just thinking and typing all at once here. Very stream-of-consciousness type of thing going on here.)

Personally, I've always felt rather tied to the Light/Void and Heart/Mind aspect... pairings. I don't think too much about it, though! I guess I can certainly come off as a Light person, seeing as how I'm writing so much and getting all enthusiastic about SYMBOLS and POSSIBLE MEANING and WORDS YES THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL. But it's all fictional, and huh that's kind of a Void-y perspective. See? If I keep analyzing myself (Heart Heart Heart), then I'm never going to get anywhere. (So pessimistic. Rage? Doom?)

[TheChaotic1]

Thats a complex question, I identify with the title "Maid of Mind" the most.

Because:
I'm a creepy genius.

Need/Want more? I know you don't but talking about yourself is human nature and I only get asked about myself every so often, I try not to be self centered because others doing it annoys me.

I am overly generous, I am devastatingly shy, literally can't talk to people unless they initiate or I feel like they are supposed to talk to me. I like to be thought of as quirky/weird, and rightfully so, I am a weirdo, not the bad kind though, and I love to love myself, I like to present myself in the worst way possible, probably to wall myself in or something? I am also, preeeeetty funny, if you are actually talking to me I'll have you in stitches, doesn't work typed out. I am bad with run-on sentences because I feel like I should type how I talk.

I am a creative person, I tend to think most people are exaggerating their skill until I see for myself, I'm creative but not talented, great ideas, bad art, not terrible art, just not great, but thats fine because I only draw to focus my thoughts.

Oh and sometimes I like to dress like a girl.

[maieuticEpimenides]

I really don't mind when people talk about themselves! In person, I'm never much of a talker--I'm more of a writer, so to speak. And I generally enjoy it when people talk about themselves, in a strange way. So it's all fine!

I do see how you might identify with Mind, though! There's something about the thinking, you know? It's hard to articulate. Probably because of the real-world context stuff that I mentioned before. When everything's about this fictional game and a fictional system with fictional characters, there's a more abstract feel. There's something of Latula, even, in all that about presentation. And your observations about yourself wound up being very tied to the external world of other people! Did you know, incidentally, that this is interesting? For example, I don't do that! I'm much more focused on my internal environment. It would wind up being me talking on multiple levels about myself, all at once! In a way, you're really more considerate than I am! Er. Just my thoughts on the matter, since I, well, thought them.

(Hey! You were talking about how you type in a manner similar to how you talk! I just realized that I tend to type the way I think, instead, although I'm sure for some/most these two things are probably quite the same! I suppose one tends towards whatever's most natural, most seemingly expressive to them. I do need to work on my physical speech.)

Give me a second. I have to figure out this internally-focused vs. externally-focused thing. This is cool. There's something here to connect to titles. Let me just place my finger on it...

[maieuticEpimenides]

Okay, I think I've got it. Look at Blood and Heart. They both cover relationships, right? But Blood is about the relationships themselves and the bonds and the connections/unity coming into being as a result. On the other hand, Heart is about the individual and their emotions. So the way the relationship makes them feel, players' feelings towards each other.

So Heart, Light, Breath, Hope, Life, and Rage seem to be focused more around the individual, while Mind, Void, Blood, Doom, Time, and Space are more about what surrounds. Maybe? Kind of?

I still need to think about this more.

[TheChaotic1]

Maybe introversion and extroversion hold some sway over active and passive?

Side note, How do you interpret breath? I see it as freedom.

And one last thing. Doom and Light as opposites.

[maieuticEpimenides]

Maybe it's also about whether or not one believes that the environment affects who they are. Like. Is everyone intrinsically like themselves, or are they shaped by the world? Maybe. But I don't want to get into that. I'm not that big on philosophy.

Breath is most definitely associated with freedom, along with physical air and flight. It's also been interpreted as direction and individuality. But I'm going to break this side note down because I have the time.

The ideas of freedom and independence and flight and movement are rather tied together in the minds of the many. With one can certainly come the others! And we know that Breath is associated with literal depictions of wind and, therefore, flight/movement. John does a lot of moving things around (see GIFTS). Tavros really, really wanted to fly, but was handicapped physically and mentally on account of Vriska, mostly. Among other things. Generally Pages are pretty enamored with their aspect, but are kept from it by some force. Another troll, in this case. This is probably not an unusual case. I think? Anyway, to fly is to be free, and perhaps that's what Tavros had always really wanted: to no longer be held back by his self-confidence, or his friends, or, you know, gravity. To be able to do what he liked! And this is what leads to independence, I think?

The interpretation of independence is really best described through opposites, though. Assume Blood is the opposite of Breath. This is a pretty common assumption. Anyway, Blood is, as seen with Karkat, is related to unity, bonds, connections, and relationships. At least, that's basically how Karkat works. He wants to keep his friends together. He seems to put stock in promises. He's very interested in complex relationships between individuals. And friendship. The guy cares a lot about friendship, as I kind of said before. So, then, what would Breath be? The opposite of unity is separation, division, independence. Breaking away! Breaking FREE. Breath is breaking out of bonds, and all that. Moving and directing and being in control of one's self.

But the thing about opposite aspects is that they tend to kind of... blend together in certain areas. Sometimes you can UNITE in order to obtain FREEDOM. Connections are created in or after or around the destruction of others. So Blood/Breath could really be about connections and relationships and, uh, stuff. I was going to say something about motivation, but I can only spend so much time dedicated to a prompt introduced by the phrase "side note."

Basically my response to your side note is yes here are all my agreements all of them, except that there's even more! But I think freedom is at least a pretty big deal within Breath, so yeah.

Now! Doom and Light as opposites!

To talk about this, we have to consider the aspects both are usually paired with: Life and Void, respectively. (Would you pair those two with each other, or with different aspects?) Check out this page. Calliope quite literally says that "a hero of life and a hero of doom have aspects as different as can be." And Light is strongly hinted to be opposed to Void in the same conversation; Calliope is hinting to Roxy that the reason Rose's B2 counterpart had similar blackout powers was because of hugely different aspects! And there's some pretty strong evidence outside of this: Life's associations with growth/gain/prosperity vs. Doom's associations with loss/endings/sacrifice. Light's associations with literal light/knowledge vs. Void's associations with darkness (blackouts)/secrets/obfuscation. But that doesn't mean it's set in stone. I can still pick this apart.

I think a big, obvious reason that Doom-and-Light-as-opposites can be considered is the loss vs. luck thing. Doom has been related to inevitability and losses. Light has been related to beating the odds. But it's hard to say! Doom HAS remained in Voidlike (but unlike Void! Get it?) obscurity, and I certainly don't know all the facts. I guess an argument might be that Light has many other facets besides luck, such as knowledge and symbolism and literal sight/light.

What I did point out, though, does make me think! This idea is totally worth exploring some more. Maybe I'll do just that at a later date.

[TheChaotic1]

Really though, I don't think there are true opposite elements, just ones that are more different. Its just a fun thought to entertain.

What are your thoughts on the god tier shoe swaps?

[maieuticEpimenides]

EVERY THOUGHT IS A JOY TO ENTERTAIN.

And oh, the shoes! I thought it was interesting, but can't the god-tiered players change their outfits based on preferences? Maybe it's just what looks nice. Like, a god-tiered Terezi would have a pretty good chance of getting her hands on some candy red shoes. Maybe she'd even start out with them because it's just her! And I've always thought that that could be it.

It's certainly plausible, though! I just don't have much to say right now about it. Which is a wonder, truly.

I am interested in the dynamic of players of the same class, though! They generally don't seem to get along too well at the start, but sometimes start to... relate to each other over time. Like Karkat and Dave. And let's throw in Latula, too! Karkat has a terrible opinion of this here troll girl, but he's got an interesting insight into her character! You might say that he understands her. Where she's coming from. And Vriska and Meenah go from the Ministrife to braiding each other's hair and being all friendly and everything.

I could go on more and in more depth, but it's DINNERTIME. Oh, well.

[TheChaotic1]

I read up on the shoes, they are a shipping joke by hussie, the pairs of shoes represent shipping compatibility

[maieuticEpimenides]

I went back and looked at the panel with the doomed timeline god tier Feferi.

doomed!Feferi <3 doomed!Nepeta is now my OTP. It's official. EVERYTHING SUDDENLY MAKES SENSE.

(Not really. I don't really ship characters, most of the time. But the declaration has been made. There is no going back. doomed!Feferi and doomed!Nepeta, inspired by the adorableness of Fefetasprite, will form a solid and adorable matespritship that will last for all of eternity. They will be hone their cuteness together in the dreambubbles until they have amassed all the cute -- ALL OF IT -- and none is left for the rest of the poor ghosts. Except no one will care because this is all just one huge weird joke that is going absolutely nowhere.)

EDIT: But wait! I just realized. Maybe this is what it's all about, when you get down to it. This is the headcanon to end all the rest of my headcanons, or something. This is my... ONE TRUE HEADCANON. Yes. My existence has been given purpose. I can die happy now.

[goldenCrown]

Oh my gosh, the shoes. :D fartymuckmuddydoL did a headcanon post about the shoes. I never noticed the matching shoe colors until I read it. I thought it was hilarious! Well, I noticed the matching shoes for Light and Breayh, but I thought that was it. I kind of thought it was something like which aspects worked best together. Or maybe even which aspects worked worst together. I don't know, I'm not good with interpretations.

[maieuticEpimenides]

I generally consider classes more indicative of compatibility than aspects, in all seriousness. Like the Knights and Seers. And the Thieves and Sylphs. Those are the two pairs of classes that I can think of, off the top of my head. Aspects are weird and broad and hard to pin down exactly like that. Classes are way more specific, in a way.

I've just had a terrible idea! What if I... described ALL THE TITLES? ALL OF THEM? (Excluding Muses and Lords because that would be overkill.) I have time to kill. It'll be an amazing exercise in theorizing.

See, I generated a randomized list and everything to determine the order I'd do it in! Check it out. Two canons in the first five! Wow.

This will take an extraordinary amount of time. Odds are I'll give up halfway through. Oh my god this will be so fun. I have to do it. Let me hear your support, people! (Yeah, right. I'm going to do this whether you like it or not. I'm going to do this whether I like it or not. Because!)

THE LIST OF BEAUTY AND SLIGHTLY HORRIFYING EXPECTATIONS:

[Guest]

0_0 Well then....Go for it! I'm half looking forward to this and half wondering about how your sanity is going to fare whilst you're doing this but, you definitely have my support for whatever that counts I enjoyed reading the theories you posted here. b(^^)b

[Thales Nestis]

Maid Of Space would be my aspect :D

[maieuticEpimenides]

@kenosIntrovert: Your support is dearly recognized! :)
@Auriel Cordis: Maid of Space? Gah, I'll have to wait till number sixteeeeeeeen to get to that type of lovely lady. (I'm being patient and waiting because I can't have that much going on at once.) And I want to talk about Porrim! Porrim is cool. And the Dolorosa. Poot. I've never done any proper text-wallish Dolorosa theorizing before, you know. That'll be fun.

I think I'm going to describe them in terms of sessions. So I'll group the next four or six or twelve or whatever into a group and examine the chosen titles both individually and within the context of a session, because I think that's really important to consider--how players work with each other. S___b rewards teamwork and cooperation, after all.

First up are the first four on my list (surprising, right?): The Knight of Blood, Witch of Mind, Sylph of Breath, and Maid of Time! Now, two of these hypothetical players (I'll refer to them by number if that helps: 1 and 4) have titles seen in canon, but that doesn't mean they're, you know, the same. They could be, but who knows? It's more fun to come up with alternate interpretations of a title, though.

Anyway, because I decided it'd make it even more interesting, each session will be themed/structured around or challenged by something like a word from this here list. These are presumably quite random:

THE LIST OF WEIRD WORDS:

Number one is cerebrospinal, which means "of or relating to the brain and spine." Cool. It's brain time, guys. I wonder how that'll relate to this. Because I have absolutely no idea! Well, I do, but that's for later. I'm dividing this up into two different parts--one for individual profiling and another for describing the whole team, together, and how they might work with each other.

Now for an official-looking heading:

KNIGHT OF BLOOD/WITCH OF MIND/SYLPH OF BREATH/MAID OF TIME
THE CEREBROSPINAL SESSION
(Yes, I know it makes no sense!)

First in the set is automatically leader of the hypothetical group, so let's welcome the KNIGHT OF BLOOD.

Blood is about unity, bonds, society, relationships, and I'm going to say literal blood, too, because of Karkat. Knights are, according to Aradia (who I'd say is trustworthy because of sprite knowledge?), powerful warriors that exploit their aspect as a weapon. And if the similarities between characters are worth looking at, I'd say that a Knight often fears his/her aspect as well, usually putting up some kind of facade to hide this weakness. Or something. Knights are pretty insecure guys and gals.

Combining this, we basically get a player that uses his/her bonds/relationships/society to fight, but hiding some deep insecurity regarding these topics! This meant several things in the case of Karkat: Firstly, his actual, literal blood. As a mutant, he hid his blood color in order to avoid being culled; he physically hid behind gray text in fear that blood would get him in serious trouble. And here was that feeling that he worried about what his friends would think, too--he cares a lot about his friends and relationships, but locks this away behind his ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ORNERY typing and creative insults (they are VERY creative! Karkat's insults are works of art!), possibly because, again, he worries a lot about what would transpire as a result. He really doesn't want anything to happen to the relationships he puts so much stock into! Karkat puts his friendships above everything else, and that's a defining aspect of his character, I think.

Our Knight of Blood doesn't have to be quite like that, though! If we focus on Blood-as-society as opposed to, for example, Blood-as-bonds, we get someone very different. He/she could be the big-picture-thinker of his/her session, perhaps contemplating and fearing the faults and issues of the society he/she was born into on the inside, but projecting an image of complete support for this imaginary planet/nation/universe/et cetera on the outside. They would work their team using a seemingly effortless, natural ability to grasp the players' strengths and weaknesses as a result of upbringing, and would navigate the complexities of social structures with ease. He/she would bring down enemies through exploiting their (the enemies') connections in society, too, bringing foes down with the weakness of bonds.

(This is when some people might start talking about class pairings and +Knight/Seer- but I maintain that I'm staying on track. Yes, I am. Go me. Go ME. Hey! Oh, right. My username is a joke unto itself. Beyond the abbreviation, too. Do you get it? Do you get it?! It's hard to describe without whipping out the text walls, though. Uh. Now I'm getting way off track. Aargh.)

The Knight's land would be something involving an obscuring effect and a representation of the aspect (Blood), like Pulse and Haze or Mist and Vessels or Fog and Chains or Smoke and Plasma. Those probably aren't the best examples, but there you have it. The aspect-related bit may tend to be leaning towards literal interpretations of Blood, but one canon example of a Blood player's land makes it difficult to assume! So stuff like Chains are presumably okay. Also, a side note: "Cells" as one of the two main land components works well, relating to jails and confinement and bonds of a sort (think the Sufferer and chains?), and also being sort of connected to bodily fluids.

But it's been a long day and I have to take a break. Tune in next time when I explain cerebrospinal and the rest of the classes in the group. And maybe talk a little bit more about the Knight of Blood. It depends.

[TheChaotic1]

This seems pretty ambitious, I look forward to reading them, might not reply each time though

[maieuticEpimenides]

Okay, I'm back. And yes, this is really ambitious and very daunting when I think too hard about it! But hopefully it keeps me on a schedule and gives me something fun and interesting to do. Hopefully.

The second title in the group is the WITCH OF MIND, and let's all agree that that's simultaneously a pretty cool and a pretty scary title! Thankfully, this girl's going to be a cheerful one, friendly and enthusiastic like the rest of 'em.

(She doesn't necessarily stay that way!)

As the Witch of Mind, she's going to grow up with lots of her aspect around to influence her, so to speak. She'll have some big Mind-y figure as a guardian or lusus or something, probably an individual who can affect decisions and outcomes on a huge scale without much effort--an individual who she'll have to learn to understand and control, to some extent, if she doesn't want unnecessary damage to be done. As a result, our Witch will consider these decisions and consequences pretty important, and she might take an interest in these, too, with a comprehensive knowledge of law or a believer in karma. What you get is what you deserve.

In the game, her powers will most likely prove to be important. Witches seem to be comparatively weaker than other classes pre-god-tiering, but afterwards, this girl will be a force to reckon with. With a wave of her hand she can literally change someone's mind, playing games with choices and results without much effort. This power could go to her head, though, and her friends might be wind up having to take her down. I'm sure her guardian had always had some control and influence over her choices; being the manipulator rather than the manipulated could make her rather reckless!

Her land, since lands are fun to think of, will contain a) a Mind-related thing and b) a delicate material such as frost or glass, which may be hindering in some way. Since our sample size is pretty small, I'd think that this structure doesn't necessarily have to be followed--but there's a sort of feeling to it you'd want to keep. Like the Land of Choice and Silver, maybe. Not the best example there, but it's okay.

Player 3: The SYLPH OF BREATH

Sylphs are the magic fairies of S___b and the self-proclaimed healers (although the context of these statements are ever so fishy). Breath is about freedom, movement, direction, and wind.

The Sylph's natural disposition, of course, will be pleasant. Not one to get into fights. The spirit of Breath might render her a little silly, but for the most part this girl won't be a troublemaker. She's all about helping! Chances are most of her actions are of good intent, and she'll genuinely want to dish out the aid. She'd also be bound to express some amount of interest in her aspect--flight is going to thrill her, and she might also take an interest in objects of fantasy. And mail. She's the type to send lots of mail! She's most likely going to be the introverted type, though, and will prefer working independently over moving as a group.

In the game, the Sylph isn't going to display lots of power right off the bat, quite unlike classes such as the Heir and Knight. Her title would show through in subtler ways, perhaps in encountering WV's revolution - something she's sure to support (FREEDOM.) - or moving and directing her friends towards additional possibilities and such.

Her land would feature some representation of Breath, usually as a form of wind, as well as possibly some form of light or illumination. Land of Gales and Lamps. Gosh, that sounds silly! Lanterns might work better, or candles.

Player 4: The MAID OF TIME

Oh, Aradia. I like Aradia. Have you seen my avatar, perchance? She's cool.

But anyway, this girl (so many of them! This could be an all-female session) isn't necessarily going to be Aradia Megido. But there are going to be similarities.

Maids always start out passionate. They're always totally in love with some kind of hobby or activity that may or may not be related to their aspect. With Aradia, it was archaeology. Jane likes sleuthing. Porrim is a huge feminist. So the Maid of Time will definitely be interested in something history-related, or perhaps even begin as enamored with death as the resurrected Aradia is. Maybe her custodian has a morbid job, or something, and she got it from there. In any case, this passion isn't just a passion for the Maids. They are really freaking active. They don't just sit around and go, "Wow, archaeology is great." They get out there and dig. Which is awesome.

Unfortunately for the Maid, she won't be far into her journey before she hits an obstacle. A pretty big obstacle, usually, a job or duty that she'd rather avoid. With Time, this issue could be something like death, but could probably be less drastic. In any case, it's pretty certain that Time is going to start weighing on her in some way, in the form of voices or some kind of precognition--most Time players have some knack for this stuff. Even SBaHJ is considered prophetic by some. How she handles it will vary, but it's certain that some would break down eventually.

In the game, she'll have certain abilities prior to god-tiering, such as time travel. But the real reward will only come after her obstacle is face and her duty of sorts is understood--Maids are always full of purpose. God-tiering should hypothetically provide this purpose, but as something the Maid desires rather than rejects. She has to embrace her role and see it for its good points. I won't go into detail on the powers themselves because of Aradia. There aren't too many ways to interpret Time powers.

IN TERMS OF A SESSION

In terms of a session, the Knight of Blood, Witch of Mind, Sylph of Breath, and Maid of Time will certainly start out close. I mean, these titles are pretty good as far as teamwork goes. No Thieves or Bards or anything; those classes are consistently somewhat problematic.

But they've got no Space player. And though this will be the case for many of our hypothetical sessions, it seems, the circumstances will vary. Perhaps there's glitch. Maybe a forge exists, on an unused, abandoned fifth player land, inaccessible and protected by a hazy cushion of stuff that oozes and all. Let's go with that. They are doomed. This session part is just an extra experiment, anyway. Looking at plotlines and relationships and how things fall apart.

The Maid would have known it all from the start. She would have predicted it, seen it, heard it, feared it. But the others wouldn't, and you can imagine the Knight's anger when he/she realizes there's no point. (Let's call the Knight a her. We've got females up the wazoo, anyway. What's one more?) Their entire existence is a mistake, probably. Something went wrong. The Maid could have at least told her. Doesn't friendship mean anything, anymore?

She'll make the effort to tell everyone, but perhaps isn't listened to. She might try to distract herself with the things she falls back on--be they romcoms or another genre depicting relationships or society. But this society no longer exists! There's no point.

She's done everything for nothing. Yet chances are she's going to pick up the pieces she can and pretend not to care that her world has vanished without reason, because. Just because.

Meanwhile, the Sylph isn't going to be paying much attention! She'll be off on sidequests, distracted and offering vague encouragements. It's more likely than not that she'll also neglect to keep an eye on the Witch of Mind, who in this situation would be spinning further and further out of control. The consequences are certain, so who cares how they get there? Witches are an emotional bunch, usually, so she might lash out. Her guardian would inevitably perish in one way or another, and she knows she will, too. Go out with a bang, she thinks, and the mind games start.

The Witch will start to craft situations and outcomes for the hell of it, lying and manipulating just to see what happens. The Knight will try to reason with her out of desperation, but all the connections and bonds and relationships that make up her understanding of the universe are gone. All she can do is look out for herself, and it'll be this forsaking of the team identity and their unity that'll push the situation over the edge.

The Sylph would die first, anticlimactically and uselessly. By that point she would have understood the end was near, but she was scared and utterly spineless; a Sylph of Breath with more control of herself might have knocked her friends out of their fear and pushed them in a more optimistic direction, but the end is coming too quickly for these kids to think rationally. But the fact that they all know what's coming takes some of the pressure off the Maid, who tries to reason with the Witch. Multiple times. But it's fear driving the players now, and so the Maid falls just as the Sylph did--a byproduct of everything.

The Knight thinks the Witch is insane, now. It's just them and the universe and three dead planets, and she's becoming more and more scared. They meet twice, but the Knight is resignedly defending herself and frightening the Witch away whenever they cross paths.

The Witch feels terrible about everything, but she's angry. Everything reminds her of how she's screwed up and so has the universe. Don't blame her. Blame the universe. If you die it's just because you had it coming. The Maid and the Sylph had killed themselves by being stupid, she thinks. Yeah.

Meanwhile, the haze over the mysterious forge planet is expanding, suffocating, and the Witch realizes that there's a problem with the problem. Wasn't it supposed to be guarding the forge, waiting for a player that would never appear? But now it's flushing itself out, and maybe there is hope. She contacts the Knight, but it's too late. The Knight is gone.

The Witch wonders what happened. What she had done. It probably was her, wasn't it? Even if not directly.

It was all her. She had made her decisions, and it was time to face the consequences.

She would die alone, and it was all her fault.

---

Four down, over a hundred more to go!

That ending was too dramatic. But it was kind of fun. Maybe if I have time I'll take one of my session progression overview nonsense thingies and actually write a story to put somewhere. It's been a long time since I tried writing real fanfiction and all.

[maieuticEpimenides]

Time for my next batch! Who've we got?

1. Witch of Light
   
2. Rogue of Heart
   
3. Thief of Mind
   
4. Mage of Doom
   

Okay. And the word of the session is nonsolvability. Just like the Witch of Mind was in the forefront (sort of) of the last (sort of) hypothetical session ramble, I'm thinking the Mage will be in the forefront here.

Also, two canons again. I swear I made that list random. Especially since I don't seem to have looked at it properly yet. I'm just looking... and hey! Nepeta and Sollux. Okay.

I keep thinking I'm going to make a 6/8/12 player group or something, but I looked ahead and I don't wanna. Overlapping classes and aspects is only useful when it makes things interesting. And I'm not getting that.

So.

WITCH OF LIGHT/ROGUE OF HEART/THIEF OF MIND/MAGE OF DOOM
THE NONSOLVABILITY SESSION
This one will be fun, too.
And hopefully won't be about a bunch of hypothetical people dying.
That's not usually how I roll.


So the Witch of Light is running the show here. Terrific.


PLAYER 1: WITCH OF LIGHT

I've described the Witch before and I've talked a whole lot about Light, but who cares I'll go over it again.

Basic characteristics of a Witch: Cheerfulness, optimism, spirited, guardian is usually pretty representative of aspect, has aspect-related interests, probably.
Basic interpretations of Light: Literal light, sight, fortune, knowledge, luck, symbolism, relevance.

Combining these, we get a player most likely raised to value knowledge and the meanings of things, possibly even fortune, too; I'm going to stay a little further away from fortune because we see a lot of that in canon and all. She'll love learning, as a studious sort of person, and will most certainly be rather lucky! Her guardian/lusus would be pretty powerful, affecting meanings without even trying, and possibly stifling the Witch's ability to learn. This is something the Witch should have learned to deal with, though; it probably wouldn't turn out well should a Witch's so-called familiar be completely in control.

Witches seem to be able to manipulate their aspect upon reaching the god tiers, and this one isn't going to be any exception. The more literal manifestations of a Witch of Light's powers might be little stuff like changing the amount of light in a room, or affecting an enemy's eyesight so that he/she/it would have trouble during battle. In addition, she'd be able to fool around with fortune, increasing or decreasing the luck possessed by others. Et cetera. It's really very self-explanatory.

When the Witch of Light arrives in her land, it's certainly going to be a well-illuminated place, complete with something like frost or glass. Example here is going to be Land of Stars and Pewter. It certainly sounds nice!

PLAYER 2: ROGUE OF HEART

People are always either giving Nepeta too much credit or giving her too little, it seems. But this, ironically, might fit in with her title, the Rogue of Heart.

Calliope has defined the Rogue in-canon as the passive form of the Thief: "one who steals." That's pretty self explanatory. You could fit this into her given Prince/Bard description, but I wouldn't know how accurate that would be; perhaps there's a reason she puts it the way she does! Anyway, by this reasoning, the Rogue of Heart would be one who passively steals Heart--an aspect tied to emotions, souls, the self, and (pawsibly?) shipping.

Nepeta provides an excellent example of how this title would manifest in a non-game context: She roleplays. Roleplaying is all about being someone other than yourself. She is stealing selves! This is especially evident when she and Equius purrtend (these cat puns are just flowing out) to be each other, redistributing the identities of those in the room. The Robin Hood of selves, truly.

This applies when it comes to her shipping wall. By shipping her friends with each other, she is to some extent taking their emotions and redistributing them. Not with any results, but it's the thought that counts.

A Rogue of Heart doesn't necessarily need to do this, of course. And a better Rogue of Heart might do more than ship--she'd make it happen! Even if unintentionally, that would be more productive and more understandably representative of the title than making a shipping wall.

A god-tiered Rogue of Heart would go beyond these things, though. Post-ascension powers might include such things as actually being able to move the essence of people around, or directly pull emotions out of others. Something like that. Basically taking everything he/she did before and making it more literal.

Land-wise, the canon Rogue of Heart has the Land of Little Cubes and Tea. This is a joke. (LOLCAT!) But, if you like, it can be broken down. It seems that the Rogue class generally means that simple figures and objects will be present--such as cubes and pyramids. Not quite Perfectly Generic Objects, but pretty damn close! Heart seems to be associated with the surreal and mind-addling; I've heard people suggest that coffee and minor drugs are the theme here. My above interpretation is just expanding on that--S___b is bound to run out of these after a while. The broader the better.

(A note, because I just remembered: Rogues' sessions have the tendency to possess a surplus of the Rogue in question's aspect. Too much, actually. So in this case, the Rogue of Heart is redistributing Heart within a session full of Heart to take it from--this is actually quite true in the case of the Alternian trolls! And it can also be argued that the Beforean trolls were allowed too much freedom, or something.)

PLAYER 3: THIEF OF MIND

Whoever this guy is, he/she has a lot of a potential. To fuck shit up, that is.

The Thief is basically a more selfish version of the Rogue as described before, taking their aspect away from others with gleeful abandon. Mind is about choices.

The Thief of Mind takes away your choices, and that's kind of a big deal!

(Note: You could put a humorous spin on this in an MSPA-style fan adventure or roleplay, I realize, by having the Thief ignore all commands. That would be fun. Hmm. Maybe, if I get around to it, I'll make a Thief of Mind character. Because these guys are actually pretty interesting. And just now I also realized that I like characters that screw things up. Because they're so fascinating, things that screw up. Does that say anything about me as a person? I mean. Um. Yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this.)

Prior to playing S___b, the Thief is bound to believe that he/she is lacking in his/her aspect. Certainly, this Thief of Mind will feel that, most of the time, he/she has little control, unable to make his/her own decisions. He/she might also have a tendency to call him/herself stupid. But the thing is, Thieves' perceived problems are mostly in their heads! Most of the time, a different perspective would've been all it took to get the Thieves to see how their aspects were present in at least normal supply the entire time.

This ties into how the Thieves use their powers. Once into the game, the Thief of Mind is going to ecstatic about his/her powers and the flexibility and control that comes with all the decisions and outcomes he/she's stolen from everyone. Upon maturing, though, he/she should realize that there's more to it than that. Instead of grabbing randomly at everything, he/she should take choices depending on the circumstances, when making the decision him/herself would benefit the team. Not just because he/she wants to be in control, making ALL THE DECISIONS (all of them). And hopefully by the end, he/she should realize that the power to choose and determine a conclusion was present all along or some sappy silly stuff like that. I'm not saying he/she should give up his/her powers, though, and he/she wouldn't; I'm just saying that eventually the Thief should be able to recognize that they're okay without having to take from those who don't deserve it.

The Thief of Mind's land is going to be an interesting place. Mind will provide the land with Mind-related scenery (neuron-esque patterns, anyone?), as well as something to do with choices or thoughts or that kind of thing. His/her class provides the presence of the desirable (to the Thief), such as treasure in the case of Vriska. Or maybe it's just riches in general. It's hard to tell, even if the Beforean trolls' lands are given. Because Meenah loves money. Maybe that's a Thief thing, too, not wanting to be poor or (perhaps) at any disadvantage. So in this case one might encounter a Land of Sparks and Gold, which is another pretty image.

I'm going to take a little break from blabbering about this now, but I'll be back with the Mage of Doom and some session impressions and all. Soon. I can't keep away.

[TheChaotic1]

Hey, I don't wanna derail you, but did you notice both of the canon pages have imaginary friends?

[maieuticEpimenides]

That's interesting! I hadn't considered that! Oh, Pages. I adore their character arcs.

(Wait, Horuss doesn't quite work! Maybe? But then again, it's Horuss, and it's also Void, so he's kind of a weird case, you know? Oh, whatever. He doesn't count.)

Anyway, I'm behind, so it's time for...

PLAYER 4: MAGE OF DOO-

Aw wait no not yet I'm not done dammit. I've been working on the classpect archive project as pioneered and kind of overseen by sentientSound, but the stupid list isn't done yet. It's most unfortunate! Because I think it has plenty of potential to be useful, once I'm done with the main stuff. You know, the canon classes/aspects. Fan stuff will be tacked on as I go. BUT HERE IT IS!

Just putting that here. That's right. I'm a shameless self-advocate advertising person thing. Seriously, though, I fully intend for the finished product to be really helpful, one way or another. Especially since people usually have questions regarding these titles.

[maieuticEpimenides]

PLAYER 4: MAGE OF DOOM

So there's this guy Sollux, you know? He's pretty cool. He's also the Mage of Doom, and an all-around mysterious figure. What's a Mage? What's Doom? What's up with the psionics? The doubles?

Which part is the title and which is just Sollux?

Okay, that might be me asking myself a trick question. It's complicated. A character shouldn't be defined by their title, and their title isn't defined by them. 

But we can try to guess what we can!

Mages tend to recognize an abundance of their aspect from the start, and the corresponding potential. This understanding is typically used, I think, to provide and guide, especially if you're on board with -Mage/Seer+! Which I'm not. Not really. I'm withholding judgment when it comes to Mages. I like to have more evidence.

In any case, we can probably assume a little more about Doom, especially since I've got a lot of theories on its supposed opposite (Life) to go off of. Doom is about sacrifice, loss, structure, and process. Among other things, of course, but that should be most of it.

So whoever this guy is, he/she's not going to feel too optimistic about life in general. Rather, he/she'll most likely be seeing a lot of bad things to come, be it a result of psychic troll powers or just a hunch. I mean, to him/her, cheerfulness is just stupid. Because that would be ignorance.

Anyway, the Mage is going to have a couple interests related to Doom, such as programming. You know, like Sollux. And he/she's going to be good at it, too, unlike the wistful enthusiasm of the Page. The Mage of Doom doesn't just sit around and talk about his/her interests! This character goes out and gets things done.

This proneness to activity will have him/her probably going around trying to warn others about impending doom, too. Mages aren't the type to avoid spreading the news around.

In the game, the Mage isn't going to display much of any game-related power prior to god tiering. But post-ascension powers, due to how little we've seen, could include anything from enhanced visions and intuition to magicky blasty spell things, depending on how you see class pairings and all that.

And, lastly, the land. I don't know much about this, either, except for the fact that the canon Mage of Doom has the fascinating Land of Brains and Fire, meaning a combination of an elemental thing and a strange, biological one. It'll be more abstract than most, certainly. But I still feel like I hardly know a thing about the Mage of Doom, and that's really frustrating!

That's all I have now I have to go it's work time.

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