okay but hear me out: even with the Class pair chart Hussie made with their own perspective, i firmly believe we can not only still make the pairings sensible, but also inversions.
last i checked, Hussie said inversions weren’t really a canon-intended part of Classpects, so they almost certainly made this chart without inverted pairs in mind. i still firmly believe inversions are a thing, though. Rose acting as a Witch of Void is one of the most obvious, off the top of my head, but Jade tried to play the role of a Seer of Time for a bit (and not very well) and i’m sure we can find other examples of characters at least teasing the edges of their inversion flips, if not committing.
so, according to the chart, Mages and Seers are paired, which has been the broad consensus in Classpect analysis spaces for a while. a lot of folks would claim that the Mage/Seer pair inverts to the Witch-Heir pair. but wait! The Chart™️ says that Witches are paired with Sylphs, and Heirs with Maids! am i suggesting that Mages and Sylphs are an inverted pair?
yes. yes, i am.
in the comic, it’s easy to see that Mages are experts in matters of their Aspect, gaining much of their knowledge firsthand, and their decision to share that knowledge with others (or not) is very dependent on the whims of the Mage, who can just as easily decide that it’s not worth involving others, for a variety of reasons. contrast this with Seers, who have a primal urge to share what they know with others.
when we compare Seers to Witches, Rose illustrates the inversion perfectly: an inverted Seer is someone who’s fed up with their advisory role, especially if they feel they aren’t being listened to, or just aren’t having the effect on the world that they’ve deemed necessary. Witches can be powerhouses, driven by an intuitive understanding of their Aspect that trades surgical precision for raw power. it’s understandable how a Seer at the end of their rope could lean into that archetype, though they’ll likely find themself overwhelmed by the sheer power of their opposite Aspect. if they don’t have a healthy relationship with that opposite, then…well, we all saw what happened when Rose went Grimdark.
but what about the pairing of Witches and Sylphs? what’s the connection there? upon reflection, it’s become quite clear to me: Sylphs share that same kind of intuitive understanding of their Aspect, but they primarily put it to use by meddling in the affairs of others. that’s not to say Witches can’t meddle, but a confident Witch will tend towards just doing the damn thing, rather than pushing others toward that goal. Kanaya mentions that a Sylph is like a Witch, but more “magical.” honestly, i want to think on that idea more before i add my two cents to that, but it’s something to consider. i believe this Class pairing was heavily implied by this statement.
i’m honestly not sure if we’ve ever seen a Mage invert to a Sylph, or vice versa, in the comic itself. either way, i would assume that a Mage who inverts would decide that they want to put all that Aspect knowledge to good use and get their hands dirty, though they may become easily discouraged by the pushback they receive. a true Sylph will often take resistance as a sign to push harder, or at least continue their efforts in some other way. now, a Sylph who inverts might be the type who says “you know what? fuck it. fuck these people, fuck their choices, fuck the way they keep going down the harder path instead of just listening to me. i’m taking all this Aspect knowledge and going into the woods to live as a hermit.”
i have more thoughts on this, but this post is long enough already. please let me know your thoughts!
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So from my understanding, there's three main popular theories on how one goes about being Grimdark.
-Influenced by the Horrorterrors
-Being consumed by their classpect
- Rejecting their classpect
I wanted to just write about how I think a Mage of Mind would go about the last two points, since I just think it would be interesting and we already know how one gets influenced by the horrorterrors. You don't have to read if you don't like class inversion since I'm pretty sure they go together with grimdark(i don't care if class inversion is 'wrong', I think its cool anyways). These are just my thoughts but feel free to correct or add anything since this is pretty far from anything canon.
-Being consumed by their classpect
I don't think we've seen in canon anyone getting consumed or overwhelmed with their classpect, so this isn't really based on anything. Maybe a Mage of Mind being consumed by their classpect ending up grimdark would do whatever it takes to get their desired result, obsessive even, if it means being violent/and or controlling, then so be it. There's too many actions to take and the amount of knowledge hurts the Mage, knowing how one little action can completely doom a session. Maybe they don't trust their teammates to not fuck everything up and accidentally doom the session, since there's so many wrong actions they could take. Or maybe they were hurt from an action someone else took, lack of knowledge ending up hurting the Mage in the end. Either way, i think they try to take things into their own hands as a safety measure or just being selfish, forcefully making or threatening others to take certain actions, just so they could see the outcomes or get the desired results. And from what we know, going grimdark is going off the deep end in every which way possible and I would think this counts.
- Rejecting their classpect
I want to use Eridan, where it's theorized that before he started on a murder spree, that he went grimdark by destroying or rejecting Hope, in turn becoming a Rage player. I'm not sure if that's just because of his class, being the Prince of Hope, so he was able to destroy it. But with using this logic, if a Mage of Mind is one that knows what actions to take and should act on it, then the opposite of Mind is Heart and more specifically Heir of Heart is the inverse of a Mage of Mind. So maybe a Grimdark Mage of Mind would let go of taking action and reject logic, instead letting their feelings and emotions influence their actions. Instead letting others make their own actions and letting things just happen without doing anything at all to act on it. Maybe someone's making a terrible, fucked up session dooming action and the Mage of Mind just doesn't care and lets it happen, OR cares too much but still lets it happen, their emotions taking over and stunning them, unable to act logically. Summing up what I think classpect rejection would look like. Of course not every action that the Mage lets go of has to be dooming a session, but you could imagine how quickly that could mess a session up. This feels more class inversion than someone going grimdark, but I still wanted to add it.
Given inverse and opposites, classpects seem to fall into neat groups of 8.
These groups are made up of a class opposite pair, their inverse/opposite pair, and the opposite aspect versions of them. Take the Sylph of Life, for example. The opposite of a Sylph of Life is a Maid of Doom. The Inverse of a Sylph of Life is a Prince of Doom. The opposite of a Prince of Doom is a Bard of Life, which in turn is the inverse of a Maid of Doom.Â
That gives you: Sylph of Life, Maid of Doom, Prince of Doom, Bard of Life
Swap the aspects around and you also get: Sylph of Doom, Maid of Life, Prince of Life, Bard of Doom
In total this gives you an 8 classpect set. I have come up with defined names for each of these groups (with extra thrown in for Muse & Lord). Combine the Class and Aspect group names for the full name of your 8 classpect set.
In this case, the above set would be: those that Alter Energy to Influence. The aspect descriptions used come from bladekindeyewear.
Classes
Muse & Lord: Master
Sylph, Bard, Maid, Prince: Alter
Page, Rogue, Knight, Thief: Use
Seer, Heir, Mage, Witch: Explore
Aspects (x)
Space/Time: Physical Existence
Void/Light: Knowing & Perceiving
Breath/Blood: Paths, Drive, Passion
Life/Doom: Energy to Influence
Mind/Heart: The Individual’s Impact
Rage/Hope: Faith in Possibility
grrr something something alternate calliope is a classpect inversion of calliope and her creation of the blackhole exemplifies this
blackholes are tied to the aspect of time both to their existence as destructive forces and their prominence in dead sessions.
the blackhole made by alternate calliope indescriminently destroys all inhabitants of the dream bubbles in order to kill lord english. which is the same thing le was doing. destroying everything in his path to find calliope
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