there’s going to be a difference sometimes between the stories that you find masterfully crafted and the stories that mean a lot to you personally and those two things don’t have to overlap completely or even at all to make that story worthwhile
and that’s a good thing to remember as a reader/viewer/etc but also as a writer because even if whatever you ultimately write is full of mistakes, someone out there is gonna take it so to heart that it fundamentally changes them as a person. and that is. Huge.
Like! I made a list of the top ten stories that have influenced me as a human being and only 2 or maybe 3 of them are things I would hold up as examples of narrative mastery. But I cannot imagine who I would be without the other 7!!
Please write your story and share it with the world! Someday someone will not be able to imagine a world without your story in it and they’ll be so grateful you brought that wonderful, meaningful thing into their life
Also while I’m on a roll, a story doesn’t have to have some deep hidden meaning or philosophical theme for it to be meaningful. Sometimes a story is meaningful to someone because it was fun and made them happy at a time when they really, really needed that. Or because it was an incredibly intriguing world that inspired them to dream. Maybe they’re another writer, and they see in that thing you wrote the exact kind of story they want to tell someday.
I want to read a story about a wizard whose only spell is “fix this”, but the specially-crafted magic takes their intent into account. "Fix this" can mean repairing the wheel on the adventurers’ cart or healing a broken arm or “fixing” a lock so that it’s in what the wizard considers the “correct” (unlocked) position. Imagine the other mages getting increasingly frustrated as the wizard stubbornly refuses to learn any other spells.
Wizard: *points at a canyon* Fix this
Other casters: That’s not really how spells –
Wizard: Oh look, one of our blankets is now a magic carpet. Guess we don’t need a bridge.
Casters: How –
Wizard: *points at logs that won’t catch fire* Fix this
Other casters: There’s been too much rain, it won’t –
Wizard: I fixed it so that it’s in the same state it was yesterday. Someone here knows how to start a fire, right?
Casters: What –
Wizard: *points at charging dragon*: Fix this
Other casters: THAT’S NOT HOW MAGIC WORKS YOU IDIOT WE’RE GOING TO DIE
Dragon: *coughs* Did you just… cure my intestinal problems? I’ve been trying to stop breathing fire for weeks, but it just kept spilling out, and every time I tried to ask for help, I burned everything down. I won’t forget this kindness.
Okay, this is in incredibly petty nitpick, but: if you’re writing a fantasy setting with same-sex marriage, a same-sex noble or royal couple typically would not have titles of the same rank – e.g., a prince and a prince, or two queens.
It depends on which system of ranking you use, of course (there are several), but in most systems there’s actually a rule covering this scenario: in the event that a consort’s courtesy title being of the same rank as their spouse’s would potentially create confusion over who holds the title by right and who by courtesy, the consort instead receives the next-highest title on the ladder.
So the husband of a prince would be a duke; the wife of a queen, a princess; and so forth.
(You actually see this rule in practice in the United Kingdom, albeit not in the context of a same-sex marriage; the Queen’s husband is styled a prince because if he were a king, folks might get confused about which of them was the reigning monarch.)
The only common situation where you’d expect to see, for example, two queens in the same marriage is if the reigning monarchs of two different realms married each other – and even then, you’d more likely end up with a complicated arrangement where each party is technically a princess of the other’s realm in addition to being queen of her own.
You’ve gotta keep it nice and unambiguous who’s actually in charge!
Okay, I’ve received a whole lot of asks about this post, so I’m going to cover all of the responses in one go:
1. The system described above is, admittedly, merely one of the most common. Other historically popular alternatives include:
The consort’s courtesy title is of the same rank as their spouse’s, with “-consort” appended to it: prince and prince-consort, queen and queen-consort, etc. This is how, e.g., present-day Monaco does it.
The consort is simply styled Lord or Lady So-and-so, and receives no specific title. I can’t think of any country that still does it this way, off the top of my head, but historically it was a thing.
(Naturally, your setting needn’t adhere to any of these, but it would be highly irregular for it to lack some mechanism for clarifying the chain of command.)
2. The reason why the consort of a prince is historically a princess even though those titles are the same rank is basically sexism. This can go a couple of ways:
In many realms, there was no such thing as being a princess by right; the daughter of a monarch would be styled Lady So-and-so and receive no specific title, so the only way to be a princess was to marry a prince.
In realms where women could hold titles by right, typically a masculine title was informally presumed to outrank its feminine counterpart. So, e.g., kings outrank queens, princes outrank princesses, etc.
In either case, no ambiguity exists.
(Interestingly, this suggests that in a more egalitarian setting where masculine titles are not presumed to outrank their feminine counterparts, or vice versa, you’d need to explicitly disambiguate rankings even outside the context of same-sex marriages. Food for thought!)
3. It would also be possible to have two kings or two queens in the same marriage without multiple realms being involved in the case of a true co-monarchy. However, true co-monarchies are highly irregular and, from a political standpoint, immensely complicated affairs. If you’re planning on writing one of those, be prepared to do your research!
4. The next rank down from “countess” is either “viscountess” or “baroness”, depending on which peerage system you’re using.
(Yes, that last one actually came up multiple times. Apparently there are a lot of stories about gay countesses out there!)
i want! to sit! in a lap! and i want! to hold! a hand!!!!!
do they have to be attached
I love your need to make everything cute sounds creepy I love that
Well… It’s funny how you can make everything sound creepy/wrong but the things that you like
Make this creepy:
Skittles are very good
it depends where you put them
you challenged a god
Make this creepy:
Despacito Despacyeeto
An instrumental cover of a well-known song plays from another room. It starts slow, rhythm inconsistent, like a child struggling with a hand-played music box. It is the unmistakable tune of Despacito, played on an old circus organ. You open your eyes slowly and squint up at a single, flickering bulb. Your head aches. How did you get here?
The music throbs against the bathroom’s crumbling tile walls. You are standing in front of a ceramic sink, the bowl chipped and yellowed with age. You have no memory of this place. The music speeds up. Your hands are stained with something dark and rotting. A strange taste lingers in your mouth. How did you get here?
You lean towards the mirror. Your face is haggard, your eyes bloodshot.
Your reflection leans forward and whispers, “Despacito”
me writing dialogue: “what is man but a vessel through which a higher entity may see? what is his purpose? must he find a purpose? we are but stardust; the universe comprehending itself.”
me writing action: they ran real fast from the bad men aand legs hurty
me writing action: Her legs pounded against the earth, the familiar jolt grounding her like nothing else could. Magic, gods, royalty—she didn’t know anything about that. But running? That’s something she’d been doing since day one.
me writing dialogue: “I dunno man whatchu wanna do” “I dunno. What do you think?” “Hey man I don’t know”
me writing action: room go boom
me writing dialogue: noppity nope, that ain’t dope
our ability to belt out one entire three to five minute long song if we’re familiar with it like. suvi starts singing “hallelujah” to fill the quiet and is answered by liam all across the room in a p decent harmony. cora walks past and starts humming it enthusiastically even tho she can’t stay very long. gil joins in for the third refrain. ryder finishes it off with a passionate solo.
when they look around every alien is staring at them. vetra blinks and knocks her hands together. “that’s what you’re supposed to do when humans make those sounds right?” she asks kallo beside her, who mirrors her. everyone is a little stunned at the coordination and emotion in the performance and they all look equally moved. jaal might be crying. none of them know what a ‘hallelujah’ is, but they feel like they’ve come to understand it through this melody
they’re all extremely confused when all of the humans still continue on on their tasks without pause
edit; other songs include but are not limited to: bohemian rhapsody, mr. brightside, single ladies, no scrubs, and i will always love you
a good predictor of whether a species will end up being compatible with humans on long journeys is whether they are capable of understanding that ‘singing along’ is optional and humans do it because it’s fun. species that insist on assigning some biological or ceremonial importance to it will inevitably clash with their human crews sooner or later.
whereas species like the mertrans, who have their own infectious expressive behaviors, can integrate with humans indefinitely. on long-haul ships, a sort of hybrid culture evolves, where mertrans will thrum their throat sacs to provide percussion for human singalongs, and humans develop dance steps for mertran scratch/thumping episodes.
smart pirates avoid attacking ships where this has happened. despite being clownish, these species are also some of the most warlike, and offering violence to a closeknit mertran/human group provokes a reaction that is not only well-coordinated and heroic but prone to very bloody pranks.
there still are parts of the outer reaches where a mertran hand-signing “yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” can clear a bar in seconds.
Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf – it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” – meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.
Another good post to read for those writing small human characters.
My son was about three when he came to me in the middle of the day and said, “Mommy, there’s a knight behind the bush.” I thought he meant a toy knight or something. So I follow him outside and he goes, “Listen. Do you hear it? It’s night behind the bush.” It was a cricket. A cricket was standing in the little patch of shade under the bush, chirping. So, my son saw this dark area with accompanying nighttime sounds and decided, okay, well, that is a night right there. Their brains are incredible.
My little bean knows she’s two, constantly saying proudly ‘I’m two!’ And the other day she saw this very frail old lady who looked one foot in the grave, pulled a face and said ‘oh shiiiit. She’s three.’ I almost screamed.
I live in Korea and have a lot of international friends, and the same is true with language barriers in adults.
*Looking at a bowl of pears* “Can you please pass me the… apple’s friend?”
I want to see a fanfic where Harry hatches a basilisk.
I want to see a fanfic where he looks up “magical snakes” as soon as he gets to Hogwarts because that thing at the zoo always bugged him, and so the Trio works out that it’s a basilisk immediately after the first petrification in Second Year. But they don’t know how it’s getting around or where it is or anything, so Harry is just like WELP SET A BASILISK TO FIND A BASILISK while Hermione and Ron are like HARRY NO.
I want to see a fanfic where Harry sticks a chicken egg under a toad and makes all these plans about how he’ll talk to his huge deadly snake and get it eye-blinkers and shit so it doesn’t kill people and make sure it’s not too aggressive, and somehow it never occurs to his twelve-year old brain that the chicken egg has a total volume of about four tablespoons and he is not going to get the giant King of Serpents he is expecting.
I want to see a fanfic where it finally breaks out of the shell and Harry finds himself with a bb!basilisk too smol to even have the murder-eyes yet, who can only petrify someone for about half an hour before the effect wears off. She eats spiders and gets tired very easily and demands that he wear a hood she can curl up in and sleep.
(She is also the same vivid green as his eyes and already hideously venomous, but doesn’t like using her fangs because she says they get cold and give her brain freeze when she unsheathes them.)
I just… I really want Harry with a haughty, demanding, arrogant danger noodle who has an overinflated sense of her own importance, views Hedwig as a TERRIFYING MENACE because she isn’t big enough to eat owls yet and keeps up a steady stream of insults hissed in Harry’s ear whenever she’s near someone who has a Dark Mark (which she can sense at close range). And who is basically useless as a familiar because she refuses to slither across anything other than sun-warmed stones or Harry, hasn’t got a very powerful gaze yet and doesn’t like biting people.
(Except snake-arm-people. She finds snake-arm-people confusing and annoying, and would probably make an exception on the no-biting thing where they’re concerned.)
I mean there are obviously a lot of factors influencing snake growth rate but if we assume basilisks just get stupidhuge because they grow their whole lives and are immortal, this snake is probably going to be at least 8 feet long by Deathly Hallows, which is a significant and intimidating chunk of scaly muscle that is intelligent enough to do what it is told. Like, you know, hey, bite this necklace.
So I mean by like his fourth year it’s going to be pretty hard to hide this snake that is nearly as long as he is tall and it’s not going to do much for his reputation that the Boy Who Lived has a pet fucking basilisk but holy damn does it make book seven a whole hell of a lot shorter.
I feel like I should write this
can you just imagine him ron and hermione coming up with increasingly ridiculous excuses trying to hide their pet baby basilisk in the dorms (hagrid would be so proud). how long do you think it’d take before harry’s pet basilisk is just a really badly hidden secret between all of gryffindor? and the ensuring antics of the entire house as they try to keep mcgonagall from finding out? (she knows something is up, but even just thinking of what could be big enough the entire house is trying to keep it from her makes her want to break out the firewhiskey)
ron gets the idea to try and practices parseltongue with baby basilisk since he hears harry talking in his sleep with it all the time anyway (and ngl, baby basilisk is kind of adorable and eats all the spiders in the dorm so he doesn’t have to deal with them, he’s pretty smitten once she hatches), and as soon as hermione overhears him trying it, she’s dragging him and harry to the library because, well, parseltongue is a language, why can’t they learn it? so it’s the two of them alternating between hissing at harry and hissing at the basilisk and harry is trying so hard not to laugh because 90% of what they’re saying is utter nonsense and the basilisk doesn’t even bother, because she likes these two humans but wow are they dumb, that’s not how words work.
Dragons are extraordinarily good mimics, escaping human predation by disguising themselves as common airliners, some even going so far as to sport crude copies of carrier logos. This makes them difficult to track, though most sources agree that the dragon population is critically endangered.
While there has been some success with halting large-scale dragon hunting, conservationists are still concerned about a recent spate of crashes in otherwise healthy adults.
Given that dragons communicate via radio signals and that most crashes occur near military radar stations, it is theorized that the radar may be disorienting the dragons. Investigations are still ongoing.
wupacing 