Ghosts 'n' shit

Time to start this blog off with a theory I already went over in brief on my main blog; the three potentials of a player.

Classpects are defining features of a SBURB player. They define a person’s life, from their personality to their living conditions (something I’m probably going to go over in another post), and thus they are the key aspect to any session - and to the success of said session. No classpect is strictly portrayed in the same way; no two Knights will hide in exact pre-set parameters, no two Breath players will utilise their abilities in the same way - and likewise, no two players sharing a singular classpect (e.g. Bard of Breath) will act out their role under a strict set of code. We thus have to assume that classpects are variable; that there’s wiggle room within the parameters of a classpect’s rules to allow for a player to be a pretty bad Seer of Space, or an exceptionally adept Witch of Rage - and perhaps that this is another predetermined fact of SBURB to either create challenge within the session, or to create more barren/failed sessions overall.

Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that within each classpect, there are three categories a player could fall into; a True player, a Failed player, and a Realised player, with each category acting to either lead to a successful session or a failed one.  

A True player could be either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. While this would seem to imply a revelation of some sort within the classpect, it’s actually much more simple (and perhaps negative) than that. True players embody their classpect to the basest degree; they are the literal form of their role’s description, and do not utilise their classpect in a way that presents any form of purposeful control or recognition to their actions. A good example of a True player would be Bro. Bro, as a pre-scratch incarnation of Dirk, is a Prince of Heart - a classpect described as having the ability “to destroy Heart”. This is exactly what Bro does; he destroys any and all relationships (consider; his relationship with Dave due to the abuse, and his lack of any sort of bonds at all), and can be questionably seen as having destroyed Dave’s soul (since Heart is heavily intertwined with the idea of Heart and Soul, and abuse is certainly a soul-crushing experience that leaves Dave stunted as a person within his relationships). There is no reason behind this destruction; he destroys simply because it is a passive effect of his existence, and one he has embraced fully. Another example, rather amusingly, is Dualscar; who destroys Hope so thoroughly that he destroys Eridan’s hope as well (being a Bard of Hope, the destruction is significantly more passive, but there all the same; upon being ridiculed out of enjoying wizards and wizardry, Eridan throws himself entirely into history and historical figures, heavily focusing around Dualscar, and forms a persona based on what he reads. Through this, he loses his moirail, his friends to a deeper extent, and any potential hope of sustaining long term relationships. Consider this effect like a curse). The destruction has no benefit, and in fact simply leads Eridan down a path that leads nowhere; thus, Dualscar is a True Bard of Hope, destroying simply for the sake of destroying. You can consider this a lack of direction within the player’s classpect that leads to them becoming the most primal form of their classpect possible.

A Realised player is a significantly more useful player to have, and one who is likely more healthy overall. To be Realised, a player must recognise (or at least, subconsciously act upon) their classpect’s role in a way which benefits them, their session, and those around them. A good example of a Realised player would be Dirk. Think Dirk, destroying literal souls, yet managing to fix not only the brotherly bond between himself and Dave (which helps Dave to start healing, and thus destroys Bro’s previous work in an ironic twist of destruction vs destruction), but also the relationship between himself and Jake. He destroys his aspect without letting the destruction end up being all encompassing. He’s not anywhere near as emotionally closed off as Bro, either, and actively makes attempts to improve his emotional and mental state once he realises the toxicity of his actions. A Realised player, in essence, is in control of their classpect and ensures that it does not become something debilitating as a True player might, instead utilising their classpect to become something beneficial to the team. Dave would also count as a Realised Knight of Time; though he actively manipulates Time, he does so in a stable way that, much later in the comic, does not become detrimental to himself, and starts to shed the self-sacrificing attitude once he begins to accept himself during the meteor ride post-retcon. He continues to be an effective Time player, but it does not become something that overtly causes him issue as the game progresses - or, at the very least, becomes something that he actively recognises (think; the revelations he has over his triggers due to Bro’s abuse). Though for Dave the effect is more emotional than physical as it is with Dirk, it is still something that changes who he is as a person as he progresses through the game. This route within the classpect is, essentially, the growth of the player that SBURB facilitates.  

A Failed player is perhaps glaringly obvious; a player who presents no growth, nor who gains control over their classpect. To be Failed, the player has to remain stunted to the position they were in upon entering the game, lacking both the potential to understand their role and how they may effectively use it, and the potential to wield it as basely as possible. The alpha trolls are all effective examples of Failed players, as is Eridan - so I will use Latula and Eridan as examples. Latula, as a Knight of Mind, hides herself so fully within her facade that she never reaches her full potential as either a Knight or a player of Mind; from what we know of her, there is much about herself, her circumstances, and others that she avoids, focusing more intently on a free, gamer-girl attitude that requires little to focus on. Being radical is easier than facing her self doubts; she never lets those walls down enough to become Realised. She never reaches her potential of controlling her manipulation of Mind, being nowhere near as calculating as Terezi despite these sorts of thought out decisions being something Mind players are associated with (very likely she hides her own competence behind her facade so deeply that even the passive effects don’t seep through). Eridan, in turn, never becomes Realised nor True as a Prince of Hope; though he destroys Hope, such as with his killing of Sollux, Feferi and Kanaya, he does so out of self defence, with each attacking him first. He also leaves Karkat alive, despite him being defenceless within the room. Karkat can be seen throughout the comic as a connection to the little hope Eridan has left; through conversations, their friendship seems fairly solid, with them discussing romance and the romantic lives of the other trolls, as well as with Karkat giving Eridan regular moirail-like advice. A True Prince of Hope would have killed Karkat as well, yet Eridan ultimately fails to do so, thus keeping one strand of hope alive. Similarly, he destroys his own Hope through the personas he puts on as a aristocratic highblood (take him building machines to kill the lowbloods that he will never actually use, something that Feferi confirms), and the Hope of the entire troll race as a whole through his destruction of the Matriorb. These are not the actions of a Realised Prince of Hope, who would have instead turned these actions against the enemy, destroying, for instance, Bec Noir’s hope of ending their session and extracting a bloody rampage. A Failed player is one who exists in many sessions in many forms, and can simply be attributed to the lack of growth or control within the player’s abilities.