Witcher Classpect Musings

[roughentumble]

Had some ideas of how to classpect a couple Witcher characters over on my Tumblr, figured I'd transpose my thoughts over here! It started with this post:

*sits bolt upright in bed*

yen as witch of time, ciri as witch of space, geralt as knight of blood

tags: [#inspo for witch of time yen: she needs to be a witch and a session needs a time and a space player to be valid #and ciri may be the lady of time and space but i think the space part is a bit more important #and geralt doesnt strike me as a time player sooooo]

Then my friend asked me, and I responded:

[Amber]
I [don't] know what classpecting is but I saw the witch of time Yen knight of blood Geralt post now I'm curious what Jaskier's would be

[Me]
mostly i didnt add him because i was literally falling asleep as i made the post and didnt want to keep myself up, but also because im stuck at a bit of an impasse on what i'd classpect him as.

explanation of geralt yen and ciri classpecting for the next four paragraphs, jaskier explanation at the end, sorry its so long

im fairly sold on knight of blood for geralt, because not only does it just Sound very Him, knights are known to have a facade they show to the rest of the world to hide deeper inner turmoil, and blood is the aspect of connections, and he is literally at the center of a vast web of connections (the hansa, the witchers of kaer morhen, the family he creates with yen and ciri) which he has to work at various times to maintain and keep healthy, despite the way he thinks he's not suited for it, the way he expects to be hated, and in fact the times where he's genuinely in over his head. he's both challenged by, and inherently suited for this post, which is a very Homestuck Classpect thing. not to mention how deeply he feels bonds once they form, and how far he'll go to protect them.

i mostly made yen witch of time because while geralt is the much needed glue to hold their little family together, she is vital for the teaching and mentoring of ciri in a different way, she's a very powerful figure in her own right, and time is one of the two aspects that is absolutely necessary for a viable session. i don't know how much the classpect suits her personally, but it's a very necessary and powerful role, and i could easily see it being one of seclusion, where one thinks they know it all and so they'll make and guide through their plans and their timeloops, and the others ought to simply go where they lead, and yen making plans and not telling others the details seems to be a running theme. in fact that may make her even more suited to be the /mage/ of time, but, like i said, i was falling asleep, and a witch just sounded more right simply because she's a witch/sorceress in canon lol.

ciri as witch of space is most up in the air, i could see her being a lot of other classes, but space is the other aspect that a session literally cannot be viable without. even more important than time, without a space player to breed the genesis frog, your session will never give birth to life, and all of the game is doomed with no win conditions. this makes ciri a player that is incredibly important and sought after, but mostly due to the fact that she'll have a potent role in breeding-- something unfortunately true in canon as well, where she's sought after for the fact she's said to one day give birth to a fatedly important man. on top of that, some classes suffer from an abundance of their aspect, and one of the ways ciri suffers is through space; an abundance of it keeping her from the people she cares about, who care about her, who would want to keep her safe and loved and looked after. one who suffers from space and yet uses space to appear where needed, teleporting and yet never able to be near loved ones and always seeming to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, suffering and yet giving birth to something vital should she fulfill her destiny, or leaving a new world to rot as she shucks what the gods plan in order to live with those who really matter to her. seems very ciri to me, mostly i gave her witch as a way of inheriting the title from yennefer. a class that is somehow a middleground between yen and geralt while still being active, and one that inspires suffering through its aspect, would be more suited for her but again i was falling asleep.

the reason also that they three have these specific classpects is a way of making them viable as a small three-person session. time and space are needed, but if it were only yen and ciri they would be a lord and muse, and i dont want to leave geralt out. if it was literally them and only them in sburb, time and space are non-questionable. and geralt doesnt strike me much as either sort of player. ciri COULD transcend rules and be dual-aspected, i suppose, since canonically she's the lady of time AND space in the witcher universe, but that feels a little too fanon-y to me and im not into it. so in the case of a three person session, yen would have to be time while ciri would be space, and geralt just seems a blood player to me.

now. here we get to jaskier. first of all, introducing more players means that yen's classpect gets called into question. suddenly she doesnt HAVE to be a time player, since others are open for the role, others who personalities might be more suited for it. but also being a time player makes you Very Important, and im hesitant to remove that plot relevance from her character. onto jaskier himself: its actually tempting to make HIM the [class] of time, because time is often associated with music in homestuck. dave has his turntables, aradia her music boxes. time is the rhythm of reality, and when you're tuned into the beat, that's what gives you control of it. so a musician seems very leaning towards that role. you could even make him a bard! bard of time is a valid classpect. but bards in homestuck dont fit the same role as bards the career. and honestly i kind of agree with that one classpecting post i read that said bards are the author's puppets in homestuck. bards as we've seen them in the series kind of just do what's needed for plot contrivance, and i dont think jaskier is THAT useless. a bard of time almost makes sense for him based on other classpecting, where theyre a role of whimsey and joy, and time having musical associations. but i think it makes him too plot-central and leaves him with too little agency, it kind of reduces him in a way i dont think suits him. also, i dont think i want him to wear a codpiece and a cone-shaped hat! sorry, im bringing aesthetics into this

ignoring gendering the classes, i could see him as a rogue, page, or sylph. all classes generally thought of as passive. rogues steal [their aspect] to distribute to the rest of their team, while suffering from an abundance of [aspect], like roxy(rogue of void) suffering from blackouts due to her excessive reliance on alcohol. sylphs are thought of in fanon as a healing class, healing others through [aspect], like the sylph of light healing psychological wounds by helping people "See the light". and pages are thought of as weaklings who suffer from a total lack of [aspect], but who become the most powerful characters once they grow. the trouble is getting them to grow at all. like tavros, who couldve been powerful, but spent a lot of his time stagnant or lead astray, "growing" in ways that were actually regressive for him. (ive seen arguments about how to define a page but shhhhh ive already typed so many words).

rogue of heart might be a good classpect for him. he steals people's love though his wondrous lute playing, but suffers from a lack of ability to feel that love himself, whether because they dont return his feelings, or because he has difficulty actually feeling that love in return. but heart is also linked to personality, sense of self, etc, and jaskier doesnt strike me as one that deals with confusion about his sense of self.

a sylph of heart would potentially be similar to a rogue of it, healing others through love, but again, im not entirely convinced heart suits him. as a sylph of life he might live life to the fullest, and inspire those around him to do so as well!....sometimes to their own detriment.

i dont know what draws me to page. i certainly dont think he's the most strong or valued player on the field, which is what i like about him, and giving him a class that says "you'd kick everything's ass if only you unlocked your potential" doesnt do it for me, though i guess if we relegate him to being forever stunted, or make him highest "goal"/"best self" one who's incredible talents dont lie at the heart of getting ahead in the game, perhaps it would work better. tavros DID excel when vriska wasnt trying to make him something he wasnt, he just didnt excel at the parts that were, like, winning the game.

there's plenty of aspects, too, that i think could suit him. heart, in his ability to sway the hearts of others. life, for his vivacity, the way he starts with abundance(a viscount, being born into royalty is a very common life player thing), the way he suffers from rules and constraints.

but ultimately, i think breath would be an interesting aspect for him. breath is easygoing, blowing from place to place, with no interest in being tied down. breath is whats in your lungs when you tell a story, its what carries each note from your lute to someone's ears. its associated with protagonists and jokesters, and while he isnt the former he does have the plot armor of one, and he can most certainly be the latter. caught up in whims, letting himself be pulled by the force of the story, his deepest connections forged by the knight of blood who so quickly saw him and grew close to him, without asking him to compromise his flighty ways.

but at the same time, his flightiness sometimes hurts him. he gets into trouble when he blows things off, when he gets too full of hot air, when he cant seem to stop talking. he cant find just one love, darting from one partner to the next, too free to be pinned down like a butterfly on a board. he sometimes suffers from an abundance of freedom, though there's nowhere he'd rather be than the open road, on the next great adventure, sat beside his closest companions. i think he would be a rogue of breath.

Tags: [#open to other classpects ofc! #but this is what i get from him]

Another post expanding on the point:

anyway. like a dandelion gone to seed, he is carried by the breath in someone's lungs, and the only mark he wishes to leave in the world is one that is spoken. one of fame, of words committed to paper to forever mark him as a great bard. i think rogue of breath really suits him. he helps others by redistributing breath, giving them a "second wind" to take into battle, to keep fighting when all seems hopeless, and occasionally stealing it directly from their foes to take the wind from their sails, or even from their lungs. whispering rumors on the winds to be delivered into enemy ears to cause doubt and infighting. but never on the front lines himself.

Tags: [#also sorry but a knight of blood and a rogue of breath is cute. #he is literally like oh your lonely? i am lonely too. i will teach you how to have connections without losing yourself #gently keeping him from having his head too far in the clouds without like #completely grounding him and making him miserable #they suit each other imo.

[Then my friend responded with this image, because she's lovely:

and I continued with:]

as a rogue of breath he would also be able to help a knight of blood lighten up! obsessed with his persona he projects into the world, beholden to the many connections he makes, sworn to his duty and feeling every moment of it, geralt would be prone to melancholy, feelings of being overwhelmed, being perhaps a bit overserious, and would even be more likely to nobly sacrifice himself-- one of the few things that can bring permanent death to a player in sburb.

a rogue of breath would help buoy him, lift the weight of responsibility from his shoulders for a few moments. the first thing to slip through a crack in a facade is wind. inside jokes, flighty behavior... and honestly a bit of selfishness. breath is detached from others at times, detached from responsibility, it is free. jaskier would be able to give him a taste of freedom, would help him pull away from a spiral of self-hate or give him the freedom to choose not to sacrifice himself for others. a rogue of breath could be the very thing to save a knight of blood from falling victim to the connections he seeks to foster

[Next Post]

like. geralt keeps him tethered while jaskier gives him freedom, and while if the relationship became lopsided it would spell doom, when theyre in synchronicity they make the perfect counterbalance to stop either from going off the deep end. jaskier becomes the support geralt needs to be the perfect thing to keep an otherwise powerful and volatile group together. jaskier is the limestone in geralt's roman concrete

Final thoughts were:

thinking more about it and i actually really love mage of time for yen and i think the classpect suits her, beyond simple plot contrivance of "i personally the writer need someone to be time, and i want yen in a witchy role".

i could also see her as a rage player, if we had someone else important to act as the time player.

Anyway. Witcher classpecting thoughts! I probably phrased this post kind of awkwardly because I'm not used to crossposting lol.