Lord and Muse class thoughts
Had a thought about the powers of the Lord and Muse classes
that stemmed from the new idea that the functions of the classes themselves are on a spectrum of sorts, and not just their activity or passivity
So every function exists on some sort of Spectrum
Manipulation, Creation, Destruction, Application, Relocation and Information
since it was noted that whatever a Muse’s function is, it’s closer on the spectrum to a Witch’s (Manipulation) than it is to a Sylph’s (Creation)
And that got me thinking about what would the ends of the spectrum even be?
And at first I assumed Creation/Destruction as the most likely candidates
But I had to give a thought to, what if it was the Lord and Muse’s functions? Since the Lord and Muse are also the bookends of the activity spectrum, wouldn’t it make sense as Master classes that they’d be the bookends here as well?
Which got me thinking, what if the Master classes don’t have a shared function after all?
I’d had vague theories throughout that what separated the master classes apart from the rest so far, was that they were both an activity pair (Active Lord/Passive Muse) AND an function pair at the same time through the shared verb of “Definition” since that was something distinct I could separate from the rest of the 6 regular functions
but the I had this thought, what if it was both that the Master classes were partnered and were not partnered sort of at the same time?
Like, for instance, Muse’s function can only be expressed in a Passive way, because once you express is in an Active Way, it’s no longer a Muse’s function, but a Lord’s
And then it hit me: Inspire and Command
To Inspire someone is to passively bring them under your will and get them to do what you want, it’s not an active command, since the person can choose to ignore the inspiration, but it is highly suggestive and greatly powerful, and just like the rest of the passive powers, it requires an understanding and working with what a person would already choose to do in character for them anyway, requires a greater understanding but comes with less overwriting control
but to Actively bring someone under your will is to Command them, it’s no longer just an inspiration, it’s no longer something you can ignore or choose, it’s a Command. And for a command it doesn’t matter what the person is like, what their will is like or whether the person would realistically choose to do on their own because a forcible command overwrites all of that.
and that’s, exactly what Muses and Lords DO. not in Homestuck I mean but like, just the base definitions of the words.
They’re both people who bend other’s to their will, and that’s why Muse and Lord are special but also aren’t paired with another 2 pairs of classes AND that’s how they can be the bookends of both the activity and the functions spectrum
So they DO have the same function in the sense that both of their words are defined as the ability to bend another to their will and being the active and passive counterparts to it, but it also leaves no room for any extra two master classes despite the seperate functions, because of the natural way they themselves get inverted like that
Muse is the Most passive along the spectrum to Lord’s most Active
Muse’s function Inspire is at one end of the function spectrum, versus the Lord’s function Command being at another
So now with that thought, I wonder what the spectrum of functions looks like?
From what I can tell, Inspire and Manipulation so seem very close, and so Command and Information must also be close, and this to me makes sense since Information is often used as bargaining tool that forces people to do things, knowledge is power after all
Creation and Destruction seem the two most likely to be in center, since they feel the most removed from the concepts of Inspire/Command, but Creation still hinges on Inspire’s side, Destruction with Command’s
The finally Application and Relocation, Application is all about using the objects natural function to do what it do normally, so that sounds more Inspiring than Commanding, versus Application being a forcible moving of an object to wherever the user please, so that sounds more Commanding
so if I had to place things in a tentative spectrum:
Inspiration > Manipulation > Application > Creation <> Destruction < Relocation < Information < Command
and then to make everything fit my pedantic abolsutely meaningless pattern, we can change Command to Instruction lol which is nice because then it also starts with I just like Inspiration
Inspiration > Manipulation > Application > Creation <> Destruction < Relocation < Information < Instruction
Which also gives the Lord some leeway to yknow, not be evil, since in Homestuck the idea of bending another’s will to your own without regard for what they want is pretty evil idea, so a command seems inherently a bit too… much?
An Instruction however also contains that same amount of authority without being quite as forceful upfront as a command, but can be if desired
Mostly I just don’t wanna throw all Lords under the bus just because Caliborn exists lol buts it like how Manipulate/Change is the same thing for Homestucks’s purposes, the exact word used doesn’t matter, it’s the intended meaning
in which case the intended meaning for Muse and Lord is:
Muse Class: Invites Inspiration of (Aspect) or one who Invites Inspiration through (Aspect)
Lord Class: Commands (Aspect) and/or Commands with (Aspect)
writing it like this it’s really easy to see how their couldn’t be a passive Lord function or an Active Muse function
the main idea is still, whatever you call them, they are doing the same thing, Bending things to their Will
and the most accurate way to write out their full powers would be as follows:
Muse Class: Invites (Aspect) to Bend to their Will, or one who invites Will Bending through their (Aspect)
Lord Class: Bends (Aspect) to their will, or Will Bends with (Aspect)
I kinda wish their was a concise verb that means “Will Bending” though that’d be perfect
but the closest thing is the definition of the, which again splits the idea into two very Lord or Musey words?:
“Bend Someone to your Will: To use your Power or Influence to make someone do what you want them to do”
Power Command Authority Instruction: these are a Lord’s Powers.
Influence Inspiration Trust Alliance: these are a Muse’s Powers.
(THOUGH. I supposed you can take the same scale and make it so the Lord/Muse are at the center of it in a single function, with Creation and Destruction as the bookends instead, in which case the spectrum would look like:
Creation > Application > Manipulation > Inspire/Define/Command < Information < Relocation < Destruction)
It essentially kind of Doesn’t Matter? But I do firmly believe now that whatever it’s called, the powers of the Lord or Muse are to bend things related to their Aspects to their own wills
Maybe it was Lord English himself who invented the whole idea of the Commands in Homestuck in general? That would be a pretty literal interpretation of his powers, and than once he was done with them he just didn’t bother cleaning it up/let the tech fall into other people’s hands
I mean, they are things that literally exist only to try and bend another person’s will to whatever it is you write in them
and is not the idea of bending a word to you will the act or redefining it? So I guess this doesn’t really change my ideas about Lord and Muse, but it did help me clear them up
Inspiration/Definition/Instruction whatever, what matters is that the thing is doing what you want it to do
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