#horrus

✨️ Dancestor Charms ✨️

I've added the Dancestors to my #Homestuck charms set!

“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave on the ocean.”

Where do I 8egin........

There is certainly a specific talent that every troll I know has. I certainly have my favorites among them, but for a certain few...

generally, the verb assigned to the Knight/Page set is “Exploit,” with the Knight being one who exploits [aspect] and the Page being one who allows for the exploitation of [aspect]. Usually, this is based off Aradia’s explanation of Dave and Rose’s roles here:

However, Calliope uses the language of “exploitation” similarly here when talking about all active classes.

This, combined with the fact that “exploitation” is a pretty vague concept to apply to classpect abilities (ie what does that mean what does that look like), leads me to believe that “exploits” is not, in fact, the operative Knight word in Aradia’s statement. 

I propose instead that the verb that suits the Knight/Page set best is “weaponize.” In a less agonistic context, this might look more like turning [aspect] into a tool. 

I already made a post a lil while ago about how Knights use their aspects specifically to protect themselves and others (which can be found here).

As the active weaponization class, then, Knights turn their aspect into a tool to be used. Dave uses the time loop choreography to take down Jack and to orchestrate all sorts of necessary shit for the Beta kids’ session. Karkat uses both his literal blood and the greater qualities that Blood represents (bonds, kinship, limitation, etc) to connect with Jack early on in their session, allowing them to exile the Black Queen who then goes on to become the Snowman. It’s honestly pretty remarkable how quickly he’s able to turn Blood into a tool for his session’s advantage. I think this, along with the protectionism I mentioned in that other post, is why Knights are so often helpers with frog breeding duties (but I digress).

As the passive weaponization class, Pages allow others to weaponize/make tools of their aspect, often by physically becoming this tool/weapon themselves. This is best exemplified by Aranea’s manipul8tion of Jake: by activating his full Page of Hope powers, he becomes a font of incredibly powerful Hope energy that she’s then able to use to her advantage. Horrus, too, in his post-scratch incarnation as E%ecutor Darkleer, is used by the Marquise as a shield of Void that protects her from Doc Scratch finding out she’s got one of his seeds. Tavros is a bit harder to examine, because he was constantly stymied by Vriska from reaching his full potential as a Page, but one can sort of see how Vriska was able to use his sense of freedom and courage (both of which fall under the purview of Breath) as a weapon to achieve her own murderous sense of self-improvement. This propensity for weaponization is likely why Pages are considered such a slow-burning and powerful class.