Glossary

This is the Glossary Page. It is not supposed to appear on the Main Blog, but can be linked to to explain terms.
Don’t take this too seriously. It’s part fantasy lorebuilding, part personal philosophy, all madness. Just treat it like the Relma extended mythos.

Muse

An entity that bears Divine Inspiration into our universe in the form of art, science, etc. They do this by carrying glimpses from another universe into ours. Without them, our drawings are mere scribbles and our songs are cacophonies. #TODO write some more?

Genius

This word’s etymology originates from LATIN.¹
A genius is a “tutelary or moral spirit” responsible for guiding how a human works and what they “choose” their overarching goals to be. Its talent is external to the person, not controlled by them, and most importantly, borrowed.

It was NEVER meant to be thought of as an intrinsic quality of a flesh-and-blood person. Anyone who thinks of themselves or others this way is creating a disastrous recipe for the “genius” to go to the Vessel’s head.

Vessel

A Vessel is an author, developer, or other creator who is Inspired by a Muse to create a work that will captivate souls at its directive. They come in three types, with significant overlap between them.

Primary Vessel

A Primary Vessel is one who creates the work directly. They are the one wielding the paintbrush, the game engine, the instrument, or any other tool necessary to create the work itself.
The first primary Vessel holds a privileged position over other vessels, though other primary Vessels, such as actors, may be brought on later in a work’s creation. The primary vessel is usually what one refers to when they speak of a “vessel” or “artist”.
The first individual(s) who become Beholden to a Muse.

Secondary Vessel

A Secondary Vessel is responsible for the distribution of a work and the clearing of obstacles that a Muse or Primary might encounter when creating a work. They are tools Charged to service (not serve!) other tools.
These include funders, marketers, tool creators, and, of great significance to myself, publishers and their scouts (like me!).
Their function is to supply resources, material and otherwise, to the Primary and generally do things expected of a “backstage person”.

Tertiary Vessel

A Tertiary Vessel creates and distributes derivative works and supplementary content of the original Inspired work. These include fan-artists, wiki editors, and streamers. Many of them, especially streamers, also count as Secondaries because their content helps distribute the work via advertisement.

Beholden

A Beholden is a person who:

• is exposed to a Muse either by consuming the work it inspires or by Divine Inspiration itself as Vessel
• becomes captivated by that work and falls in love with it enough to integrate it as a part of themselves
• this captivation can never be undone so long as they live A Muse’s goal is to acquire as many Beholden as possible and thus enter the Cultural Lexicon.

Lost Infinity

The “place” (?) that Muses originate from. It’s not exactly a place. It lies outside all existences. While universes are themselves infinite, the Lost Infinity is even more infinite than that. Think of it as the difference between countably vs. uncountably infinite.

Soul

An illusion that there exists an atomic, indivisible, non-duplicatable, and non-falsifiable unit of “personhood” that is both necessary and sufficient for that personhood to exist. Souls aren’t real. #TODO Publish some philosophy post about internal taste loops and "degrees" of freedom.

Charge

The purpose a Muse Speaks into its Vessel(s). It is a command one can’t refuse. This is distinct from a job, in which a human gives compensation in exchange.
If a job and a Charge intersect, then the employer would be a Secondary Vessel and must properly compensate them as material resource. Anyone who forgets this is a bad Secondary.