Scroll to bottom for TL;DR.
SO, there's been a lot of discussion regarding the classes and aspects of the new Beyond Canon kids. I've noticed a lot of, I guess, hiveminding? Possibly due to just plain good evidence but also possibly due to the fact that once an idea becomes the norm, it becomes nigh heretical to deviate from it. Case in point: Ly'lac being a Doom player, CT being a Space player, and AA being a Time player. Pretty much everyone agrees with this? And I haven't seen too much challenging on that front. Well, I'm here to share my opinions, most of which will probably be wrong but hey, isn't that what opinions are all about? I don't have a real "proper" intro so I'll just get into it.
First off, I'll be referring to CT as Tanto and TC as Bowie so we don't get TOO mixed up in the chumhandle/nagtag/hazetag/whatever acronyms. These names are technically not confirmed for the characters yet, but I'll be using them regardless because honestly I've gotten way too used to using these names for them in private that I have to remind myself when I'm interacting on Discord to use CT and TC. Also, c'mon. What else are they gonna be called? Also, I'll be using they/them pronouns for both of them, as they aren't technically confirmed as she/her yet (though if they are eventually, I apologize in advance, as honestly the subtext is already pretty clear!).
Second, in terms of actual classpecting. I'll be operating on two main assumptions: That we will not have repeat classpects (e.g. none of the players will be a Maid of Space, or a Seer of Mind, or a Knight of Time), and that the two missing aspects (which there have to be, as we have 12 aspects and only 10 players) are going to be Light and Heart. The reason behind this itself is twofold: it would be a little boring and disappointing if we had yet ANOTHER session missing its Time and Space player, especially when we know the session isn't void, and also it would fit narratively, as the twin gods of Deltritus literally are Light and Heart gods.
Now to actually begin the classpecting, I'll start with a confirmed one: Del'fi, the Seer of Life.
Some people, perhaps in their collective state of shock, went crazy when Rosebot just came right out and said that Del'fi is a Seer of Life. Never before have we really gotten a classpect reveal via author commentary, but I'm inclined to believe her for a few reasons.
First, what IS the Life aspect, and what IS the Seer class? Well, I've toyed around a lot with the Life aspect as a concept, and I think I've landed squarely in agreement with the people over in the #classpecting channel on the Homestuck Official Discord (HSOD). Life has to do with power, authority, and control. In my personal interpretation, it also often has to do with the rejection of said power and authority. Meenah outright refused the throne, Feferi would've gladly accepted being empress but would've had a vastly different way of running Alternia, and Jane had to reject the Condesce by actively fighting against her in [S] Collide. That said, Del'fi is very much against the predicament he's in, where the Great Combiner is keeping him trapped deep underwater, far below the surface and far away from any form of true civilization on Deltritus. As for being a Seer, well, how does he SEE power and authority, or the rejection thereof? Well, we know how Beyond Canon ends BECAUSE of Del'fi. He manages an in-universe Beyond Canon webcomic, the most recent upd8 of which showed a massive showdown involving pretty much every Beyond Canon character. How would he know about this if he wasn't a Seer? Most notably, it includes a part where John wrangles Dirk, probably foreshadowing exactly what is going to happen in the end, with a possibly Hell Tier John (June?) literally rejecting the power and narrative control that Ultimate Dirk has over the story. So, here, Del'fi is probably having visions of the rejection of power and narrative control, which is perfectly in line with a Seer of Life. Not that I needed to justify much of that, really, as Rosebot herself says this, but okay, whatever, moving on.
The next kid is Bowie, who the community seems to pretty much universally agree is a Void player, and honestly? I can't say I disagree. I feel like Void has always been associated with technology (see: Horuss, Equius, AND Roxy), and Bowie is a double-threat: they both make robots, AND are an excellent hacker. It sure doesn't hurt that they were raised by The Exemplar, who, as of [S] Ly'lac: Enter., has been revealed to be Equius. Which, really shouldn't have been a surprise at all? When Hussie drew the Beforan ancestors, they literally said Equius' ancestor name was Exemplar Danklook. But I guess the whole "princely bearing" bit threw us off. That's not the focus of this post, though.
Bowie is highly elusive, and is the only character thus far that the Exile Stations have actively rejected an Exile from commanding. Add that to the fact that they literally have a palace full of robots, are raised by Equius (a Void player himself), and are an excellent hacker, and you have the perfect recipe for a Void player. I should tell the truth right now and say admittedly, most of this post will be about just the aspects, not the classes, simply because we literally do not know enough about some of these characters yet to apply classes to them. Oh and also because I'm not actually good at classpecting. Probably should've mentioned that, too. My bet's on Bowie being, uh, Prospit. Because, uh, I don't know, I feel obligated to include that part. Whatever, let's take a look at Swiss.
Swiss is an interesting one. I'm kinda torn between Blood and Breath for this little idiot. On the one hand, Blood seems like the obvious choice. He is all about being a leader. In his shipping grid, he views himself as the alpha of his friend group. He's also literally cohort captain, which I think is the satyr equivalent of class president. He also is a beekeeper, which involves carefully managing a large amount of "lesser beings." Additionally, he directly states in his introduction that he has aspirations to be a leader in higher positions. In the literal sense of Blood, he walks out his dorm room to an insanely large amount of blood spilling everywhere on campus. I think someone pointed out his denizen is also his blood color? But that doesn't count because all denizens in Beyond Canon so far have matched the blood color of their respective players. In addition, on the "Blood is bonds" front, he talks about bonds between men being so intensely powerful that it can't really break.
Buuuuut all this is kinda broken by his denizen being Hermes. I didn't mention this earlier, but Sobek is Del'fi's denizen. Sobek is the god of the Nile, fertility, and military prowess. Given what I said earlier about Life, this would fit perfectly with his aspect. Additionally, we have precedent that denizens are based on your aspect (except for the rare case where you are so tough you get Yaldabaoth, or so weak you get Abraxas). Both Vriska and Rose got Cetus, and all four Space players are confirmed to have Echidna as their denizen. This doesn't necessarily mean that you HAVE to have the same denizen as someone else of your aspect, just that your denizen WILL be based mainly on your aspect, instead of other things like class, or lunar sway, or even player color (which I'll actually get to in a bit). All that being said, Swiss' denizen is Hermes, the god of travelers, speed, and messages. I'll be damned if this isn't literally the most Breathcoded denizen ever, besides Typheus himself. If we're being honest, in a vacuum, with no context regarding Swiss, and the denizen alone, I'd classpect him as a Breath player. Additionally, Breath is the inverse aspect of Blood, and often players can exhibit traits of the polar aspect. Take Gamzee and his unwavering faith in his religion. If he existed today, people would be classpecting him as Hope left and right. And anyways, the whole "Blood is bonds" thing is kind of old at this point, and I really see Blood as being about order, with Breath being chaos. As much as Swiss may not seem like chaos is his thing, his denizen does match it, and besides, when it comes to keeping the social order the way it is, we can turn to our next kid, the first omega I'll be covering here...
Harry Anderson Egbert is the only one of the four omega kids that wasn't fully on board with leaving Earth C for Deltritus with Vriska. In fact, he seems to have inherited his mother's centrism, in that he doesn't really wanna take a side in the main war on Earth C. In the Epilogues, he literally pulls the "I'm all for minority rights, buuuut..." card, when he says that he's in support of troll rights, but not enough to lose an eye over it. It should also be noted that, in his childhood at least, Jane Crocker was his favorite aunt. The number one influence in his life that was against Jane was his father, John, who stopped being in his life as much as of age 5, and he ended up with the adults he was around being mostly Roxy, Calliope, and probably Sollux and Jane, the former 3 of which are centrists, and the latter being literally the anti-troll propagandist and head of the human side of the war. Beyond dating a troll, he doesn't really have any points going for him in terms of taking a firm stance in the conflict. On top of that, when Tavvy and Yiffy run off to fight for the resistance, he advises Vrissy to stay put, arguing they shouldn't really be getting involved. This has to do with stagnancy and the social order, both being parts of the Blood aspect. Notably just in general Harry does not really want change, which is what the Breath aspect is all about. Unless, of course, he were to warm up to the Breath aspect over time, depending on his class. So you see, between Harry and Swiss I am fairly certain that one of them is Breath and one of them is Blood but I am just simply unsure as to which is which.
That is, unless Harry is a Maid of Blood. But I'll get to that later. For now, let's talk about this kid's girlfriend.
Okay, the image I used there isn't random. It's pretty much clear-cut that Vrissy is a Thief of Mind.
The blue caste is no stranger to stealing the wills of the weak-minded. Vriska does this to Tavros numerous times, uses it on Sollux to kill Aradia, and even uses it once on Karkat to demonstrate her power over him by forcing him to slip his finger and open a DM with her when he had no interest in speaking to her. That said, the minute she tried this ability on humans, it didn't work. She can only fully steal the will of a fellow troll, and a low-blooded one at that. She used her powers on John, Dave, and Jade, and yet it only ever managed to force them to fall asleep, or force them to wake up. She could never actually control any of them. And as for Aranea, she controlled practically the entire ghost army before the [S] GAME OVER. incident occurred, and we see her explicitly control Gamzee for her own gain, and of course several Damara ghosts to float the Battleship she needed on over to Derse. Yet she never once controls the several humans that give her trouble, like Brain Ghost Dirk, Grimbark Jade, or Computer Jane. She does put Roxy to sleep, once again demonstrating the limit of a blue blood's powers. However, Vrissy is able to control the human Crockercorp workers with ease, and in the narration it's even stated she's used it to make Tavvy dance, which shouldn't be in the realm of possibility for a typical blue blood. She is literally stealing their will, which would make her a Thief of Mind. Additionally, It would fit perfectly with Vriska. Vriska is a Prospit-dreaming Thief of Light, and her dancestor is a Prospit-dreaming Sylph of Light (same lunar sway and aspect, just different class) so it would make sense her descendant would be the opposite, having the opposite lunar sway (we already know Vrissy's a Derse dreamer), different aspect (Mind), but same class (Thief). So there you have it, Vrissy is a Thief of Mind. Makes enough sense for me.
Tavvy is an interesting one. A lot of people seem to think he's a Page, just because, I don't know... he's a little bit timid? And he's named after Tavros. But that seems a tad too on-the-nose for me. If anything, despite Tavvy literally being named Tavros Crocker, he has a deeper connection to Gamzee than any other troll. Not only is he addicted to Fay-Go, he literally wears purple, has purple as his text color (specifically, the EXACT same purple as Gamzee, down to the hex code), and, well, the most obvious connection is that he was partially raised by Gamzee himself. It's this, and his reaction to seeing Gamzee's body being to scream and kick it, and his first word being "honk," that have led myself, as well as the majority of the fandom, to classpect this kid as a Rage player. Additionally, despite the many scrawlings of the word "page" on the pillars of the hallowed halls of Beyond Canon, it's pretty clear this kid is active. Sure he may have not tried to do anything about his life situation until he was almost-kidnapped by John, but he made the executive decision to help bring Gamzee's body into the school even when his girlfriend, Vrissy, who is normally the one "in charge" of him, told him to stay put in the car. Tavvy also went out of his way to come with Yiffy to fight in the resistance, even saving her on the battlefield from an incoming missile, and seemed to be the most enthusiastic about leaving for Deltritus with the rest of the omegas. It is for this reason I believe I can comfortably classpect Tavvy as a Knight of Rage, from Derse.
Now, why of all active classes do I specifically pick Knight? And why is his lunar sway Derse? Well, as of writing I'm kinda experimenting with the idea of a sort of Omega Classpect Inversion Theory, not to be confused with the traditional Classpect Inversion Theory which I think has something to do with the classic Homestuck characters going against their aspect in Beyond Canon? But this theory I'm talking about has more to do with the omega kids being the opposites of the classpects of their biological progenitors. Vrissy as a Derse-sway Thief of Mind to contrast with Vriska as a Prospit-sway Thief of Light (admittedly that one's weak), Tavvy as a Derse-sway Knight of Rage to be the exact opposite of his father, a Prospit-sway Page of Hope (the opposite of a Page is a Knight, and the opposite of Hope is Rage), and of course Harry being a Maid of Blood to contrast with his father's role as an Heir of Breath. The one issue with this is that I still adhere to bed theory, which essentially posits that if you make your bed, you are a Prospit dreamer, and if your bed is messy, you are a Derse dreamer. So far, Harry's the only omega kid whose bedroom we've seen, and his bed is neat and made, which would imply Prospit, but the whole point is to be the opposite of his father, so I don't know.
Moving back to the delta kids, who better to classpect next than the leader of the session herself, Ly'lac, of the Final Applause. She's the only one who's actually entered the game thus far, and therefore the only one who actually has a Land we can classpect off of. This Land is the Land of Beginning and End, which leaves us with pretty much only two possibilities: Time, and Doom. Time obviously has to do with the concept of mortality and Dead Shit, while Doom has to do with bad outcomes and endings. Let's take a look at the evidence for Timelac.
1. She's a Derse dreamer. Time players are always Derse dreamers.
2. She is entering the game as a dead body. Only Aradia (Time) and Sollux (Doom) have done that before.
3. She has an empty kernelsprite ready, implying she will probably self-prototype. This has only ever been done before by Time players.
4. She has a robot body ready as well that her sprite self could possess, mirroring Aradia.
5. Though her primary color is purple, her player color is red. All Time players have a red player color.
Okay, I mentioned player color earlier so I guess the jig is up and I kinda have to talk about it now.
When I say player color, I mean the color Sburb deems you to fit. The color of your cruxite and kernelsprite will always match, and this is what I refer to as your "player color." Oddly enough, they do not match the color of your gates, though the gates are customized to your primary color instead. Now, [S] Ly'lac: Enter. was quite a ride, so I wouldn't blame you if this detail wasn't at the forefront of your mind, but Ly'lac's player color was a dark, maroonish red. Same with the energy radiating from the wand she's wielding in the GIF above. But, this same maroon actually fits with AA's player color. Take a look at this diagram.
This shows the three nymphs with their corresponding text colors. Nothing too special. They all notably seem to wear outfits that reflect their text colors, right? Okay well I guess I'm really just talking about Ly'lac here because AA is shown in her Prospit garb, but we don't have her outfit yet, okay? Gimme a break. That said, these are their "primary" colors. But they are not their player colors. If we look at [S] Ly'lac: Enter., we see her player color is the same maroon that AA's text color is. Additionally, though Del'fi is clearly mainly green, we can observe that he wears quite a bit of purple, like Ly'lac. This is clearly intentional. There is some kind of player color blunt rotation going on, and it's hinting at something. If Ly'lac's secondary color is AA's primary color, and then Del'fi's secondary color is Ly'lac's primary color, then it would naturally follow that AA's secondary color is Del'fi's primary, no? So then, if we're talking about Shurb's official player colors for these three children, then it would look more like this.
...Okay what is this all supposed to mean?
Well basically, SHURB officially views Ly'lac as red, Del'fi as purple, and AA as green. And despite all this, I still do not view Ly'lac as the actual Time player (though I did admittedly for a while). I've chosen to concede to the common fandom consensus that she is Doombound. Besides, the name of her planet literally ends with "End," which, though Time is also about death, Doom is about the more general concept of endings, and is thus infinitely more fitting for our dear, poor, sweet, sweet, poor, dear Ly'lac, who is already dead before even entering the session.
So, who do I think is the Time player? Well, you probably know from being in the fandom who the fandom consensus is on that, and you probably know from the title of this post that I don't agree with it, like, at all.
I think the Time player is Yiffy.
This is a rather unpopular opinion. Most people classpect her as Blood, or sometimes even Rage if they feel ballsy enough to deny Tavvy that one. But not really Time. Well, let's take a look at her character. First of all, she's not really into Dead Shit. That's kind a requirement. Damara was all about serving the Angel of Double-Death, Aradia is super obsessed with dead things like bones and corpses, Dave WAS obsessed with dead things when we first meet him, but he naturally stopped caring about them over time (as Knights are wont to do with their aspect), and of course, Caliborn is obsessed with murdering people. We don't really know enough about Yiffy, but if she displays even the slightest interest in an errant urn, I am popping perfectly non-alcoholic bottles and toasting to my crackpot theory being confirmed. That said, there is precedent for this.
Recall the inversion theory from earlier. I didn't actually forget about Yiffy for it, just wanted to save it for when it would be more appropriate in the post. Her mother is a Witch of Space and a Prospit dreamer, so it would actually make perfect sense if she was a Sylph of Time and a Derse dreamer. But I do have evidence beyond that, that pertains to Yiffy in particular.
Everyone should know by now about Yiffy's parallels to her dearly departed stepfather who probably never knew she existed, Dave Strider. She has red motifs all over her, wearing a red tie and having red earrings on her doggy ears (which we will actually get back to in a moment. The ears, not the earrings), but of course, most importantly, her text color. Now I was a bit wrong on this one; I thought, like Tavvy with Gamzee, she shared a text color directly. But after checking, it turns out Yiffy's red is a bit darker, sitting at a cool d00009, in contrast with Dave's bright e00707. But the fact that I had to check is proof enough that the parallel was intentional. And speaking of cool, she even speaks and at times acts like Dave. But, in a way, she's almost like the version of Dave that Jade wanted to exist.
It's no secret that Dave, despite being a certified coolkid, kinda just used the coolkid persona to mask his true personhood. He even feigned interest or knowledge in things that typical coolkids would actually be interested in, most notably: sports. But if we look at Yiffy, from the way her inner monologue speaks upon observing Tavvy, it seems like not only is she an ACTUAL legit coolkid, being friends with the popular kids at school and such, but she actually is into sports, like, for real.
On the famous "Yiffy exists because I needed her to" page, we see Yiffy actually playing soccer. It's noteworthy that this is the only flashback we ever get for Yiffy. It's clear that sports are actually something that she enjoys doing, as this is also the only time we see a pretty genuine smile out of her. This isn't just a one-off thing, either. Her username is literally taciturnTablesetter, with "tablesetter" being a baseball term. Yiffy's parallels to Dave are most certainly intentional, and that is undeniable. And speaking of her username, the middle part literally spells out "turnTable," connecting her further not only to Dave, but specifically to the devices he used to time travel.
The final piece of evidence I have to nail down Yiffy's connection to the aspect of time is, in a way, just a callback to the inversion theory, but more specific. Yiffy is already supposed to be a direct opposite to Jade, design-wise. Jade, in her default outfit, wears mostly white, with hints of black. Her hair is black and her doggy ears are white. Yiffy, in her default outfit, wears mostly black, with hints of white. Her hair is white and her doggy ears are black. Jade's aspect is Space, and thus it would naturally make perfect sense if her polar opposite daughter was a Time player, I think.
Now for the final two. These guys are typically the ones people actually regard as the Time and Space players of the session, but I beg to differ. Kinda.
Tanto is often touted as the Space player of the session, for numerous reasons.
1. Their proximity to the Frog Temple.
2. Their green color.
3. Transness. (Think of one cisgender Space player in canon. I'll wait.)
4. Their creativity (possibly? I haven't seen people use this one but I assume this is evidence people like to use)
That said, I think there's also a case to be made for them being a Hope player, and of course, as the title of the post suggests, I lean more towards AA being the Space player.
If you look at [S] Ly'lac: Descend., you'll see Tanto's ancestor, who has been dubbed by the community as The Albatross, for their albatross-like wings. These kinds of wings are typical for the type of satyr that both The Albatross and Tanto are, a pegatulp. However, it has been noted that Tanto could be considered disabled, which would honestly bring the first (good) major disabled representation to Homestuck. The reason people say this is that The Albatross' wings were analyzed, and it was made clear that their wings matched proportionally with their body mass pretty well, while when we see Tanto from behind in [S] Ly'lac: Enter., they have noticeably small wings. This would fit well for Tanto, as among other things, they Hope for better wings, and to be differently abled than they currently are. Tanto Hopes that Dagger Tartarus is real, and Tanto Hopes to be Swiss' beta. Lots of Hope going on with Tanto. Admittedly this is my weakest classpecting this whole post, but this is literally the only aspect left besides Space, and there's actually a pretty big reason why Tanto can't be Space. It's that Tanto is a confirmed Derse dreamer, and every Space player has always been a Prospit dreamer, and one who wakes up early on the moon at that. Moving on, though, the highlight of this post, and the one theory I've been championing for like crazy since I first laid my eyes on it:
SpaceAA
First, let's go over why AA is commonly believed to be a Time player.
1. She is red.
2. AA is the initials for Aradia, who was a Time player.
Genuinely, beyond that I have no clue what the evidence is. I think it's just genuinely her connection Aradia. That said, the reason she can't be a Time player is the reverse of the reason Tanto can't be a Space player: AA is a Prospit dreamer, and all Time players are Derse dreamers. This is a pretty hard-established rule in OG Homestuck, that all Space players are Prospit dreamers and all Time players are Derse dreamers. That said, what is the evidence she actually is a Space player?
1. Her ACTUAL Shurb color scheme
2. She woke up on Prospit very early, long before the game started
#2 is characteristic of all Space players. Porrim, Kanaya, Jade, and Calliope all woke up on Prospit long before the game began, as a sort of preparation. So did AA. This is a neat parallel, and it fits. Then as for #1, I didn't just do that whole player color rotation diagram thing just for fun. Time players are red, while Space players are green. We see this with Porrim and Kanaya having their jadeblood colors, and Jade having her typical green, and of course we see it with Damara and Aradia having their rust-colored reds and Dave with his characteristic red. With Caliborn and Calliope, it's a bit trickier, because they steal each other's blood for their typing quirk. Normally they type gray, but god-tier Calliope types in red, and god-tier Caliborn types in green. However, this is them stealing from each other, and their actual cheeks say their true colors, which is that Calliope, as a Space player, is green, and Caliborn, as a Time player, is red. This fits with AA, as she is clearly a red character, implying time, but her actual player color according to Shurb, as we proved earlier, is green. I think this in particular is very compelling evidence for her being a Space player, as it shows that text color isn't necessarily everything when classpecting, but deeper motifs can be observed. What am I even typing about I need sleep. Help.
Admittedly I recognize it's not much to go off of, but it's a really unique perspective I haven't really seen people consider. If I can even convert ONE person to SpaceAA, this post will have succeeded. I'm really excited to see what people think of in the replies of this post. Hell, if I even get more TimeAA evidence than the one I had I'd be happy, lol. That said, here's a roundup of everything I've yapped at you today.
The Definitive List:
1. Harry Anderson Egbert - Maid of Blood - Prospit
2. Vrissy Maryam-Lalonde - Thief of Mind - Derse
3. Tavvy Crocker - Knight of Rage - Derse
4. Yiffy Lalonde-Harley - Sylph of Time - Derse
5. Ly'lac, of the Final Applause - Doom - Derse
6. Swiss Elysi - Breath - Prospit
7. Del'fi, Who Aches to Be - Seer of Life - Derse
8. Bowie - Void - Prospit
9. AA - Space - Prospit
10. Tanto - Hope - Derse
(As stated above, I am fully aware that's 6 Derse dreamers and 4 Prospit dreamers. I'm not sure which Derse dreamer to switch over... it's really just between Tavvy and Yiffy, and they both give off Derse vibes. I know one of them has to switch, and honestly I think it's Tavvy. I don't know, we'll see!)
Thank you kindly for reading this, I know it's a very long read. Forgive me for any typos, or any moment where I misgender a character, I'm very tired. Feel free to go wild in the replies below this post, I may respond, I may not. All I know is it's 5:32 AM, and I have to sleep. Have fun guys.
P. S. Forgot to mention another thing for Sylph of Time Yiffy. Just in general there's been a pattern with Time and Space mirroring classes. There's a Maid of Space (Porrim), and also a Maid of Time (Aradia). A Witch of Space (Jade), and also a Witch of Time (Damara). There's a Sylph of Space (Kanaya), so it naturally makes sense we'd see a Sylph of Time as well. I actually thought of this in terms of Yiffy BEFORE even thinking about her being the opposite of Jade, or before any of the classpect inversion nonsense that I babbled on about. It just fits very conveniently. Only one that would be missing according to this is Knight of Space but hey, maybe that'll be AA, and Tavvy won't be a Knight? Maybe he'll be a Prince, further mirroring Gamzee. Who knows. God I should go to sleep.
