Vanilla queen

Vanilla queen

What's a warm up?

"Writing is communication ..."

Ha! Though I would qualify "writing" as "writing for publication." It's accepted that people paint, create new recipes, take photographs without it being for other people. But there's a common assumption that people write to get published. It's okay to write stories and poems just for yourself.

Dragon iconography

Dragon iconography

What's a warm up?

A Charm of Princesses

Pick a handful of princesses and throw them together. Perhaps a detective agency. Crime fighters. Jewel thieves. Dragon slayers. Dog-fighters in the war.

Or pit them against each other: Enchanted Princess Pageant. Chefs on a competition show. All unknowingly married to the same man. Advertising agents.

(A reader asked if TV Tropes had a similar list for Princes. Unfortunately not. But linked from their Prince Charming page are The Wise Prince, The White Prince, The Evil Prince, Prince Charmless and The Warrior Prince. And each of those has descriptions of their qualities. Not nice and neat like the Princess list though.)

Types of Princesses, or characters who are often Princesses
(From TV Tropes)

• Badass Princess
  A princess who can actually fight.
  
• The Chief's Daughter
  The daughter of a native tribe's leader.
  
• Daddy's Little Villain
  A villain has a daughter/niece/granddaughter/etc. who takes after the villain.
  
• Everything's Better with Princesses
  Including a princess just because they are good to include.
  
• Fallen Princess
  A girl in a high position finds herself in a lower one.
  
• Jungle Princess
  Rules over the animals and natives in a jungle environment.
  
• Lady of War
  A high class lady that kicks butt.
  
• Mystical Waif
  A mystical girl that is often a princess.
  
• Ojou
  A girl from a high class family, but not actually royalty.
  
• Princess Classic
  The stereotypical princess character.
  
• Princess In Rags
  A high class lady that is now poor, but in denial.
  
• Rebellious Princess
  A high class lady who won't follow what is expected of her.
  
• Spoiled Brat
  A character given everything and treated almost like royalty.
  
• Spoiled Sweet
  A character is spoiled, but is mostly nice anyway.
  
• Tomboy Princess
  A high class lady who is a Tomboy.
  
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!
  A high class lady who acts snarky toward her friend or love interest.
  
• Winter Royal Lady
  A royal lady who takes on a winter themed title and persona.
  
• World's Most Beautiful Woman
  She's often a princess.
  

Tropes related to Princesses

• Costume Porn
  Beautiful and detailed costuming, as befitting someone of her station.
  
• Distressed Damsel
  Princesses are often these.
  
  • And Now You Must Marry Me
    Especially if it means her captor will become part of the royal family.
    
  • Hypnotize the Princess
    Princesses are sometimes Hypnotized when they are kidnapped.
    
• Ermine Cape Effect
  Royalty and nobility wearing fancy clothes all the time.
  
• Everything's Better With Sparkles
  Sparkles are pretty.
  
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry
  Jewelry is glamorous.
  
• Friend to All Living Things
  Animals flock around a character, who can often speak to them.
  
• Girl in the Tower
  Captured princesses tend to get put in towers.
  
• Magical Girl Queenliness Test
  A Magical Girl princess must prove she can also be a queen.
  
• Pimped Out Dress
  Dress with loads of fancy trimmings.
  
  • Fairytale Wedding Dress
    A princess best get married in one.
    
• Princess Phase
  The time in a young girl's life when she idolizes all things related to princesses.
  
• Princess Curls
  Curled hairs at the front of the head, signifying a lady's high social class.
  
• Princesses Prefer Pink
  Princesses often wear pink in fiction, since Pink Means Feminine.
  
• Princesses Rule
  Princesses often are absolute rulers, rather than heirs, in fiction.
  
• Rags to Royalty
  A peasant ends up royalty, by either birth or granting.
  
• Requisite Royal Regalia
  The crowns, capes, thrones, and other things to signify royalty.
  
• Royal Blood
  Power inherent in royal birth.
  
• Rule of Glamorous
  Anything that makes a princess more beautiful is acceptable.
  
• Save the Princess
  A character kidnapped in a video game, likely a princess.
  
• Standard Hero Reward
  Marriage to a princess is part of this.
  
• Suddenly Suitable Suitor
  A character can now marry someone thought to be below that character's station before.
  

Troublesome ivories

Troublesome ivories

What's a warm up?

"Thus, in a real sense ..."

The dungeons are calling

The dungeons are calling

What's a warm up?

Good reasons for generous tipping

Yes, that is Hugh Laurie (House) as Wooster

Dulocracy: a government dominated by privileged slaves or servants.

So what would it be like for those with the money power to be under the legal power of those they employ or own? How would that come about? Did it start out as something very different that evolved into this? Was it a way to keep the rulers from letting power go to their heads? Why didn't the employers just fire the servants? (But of course, the servants would be in charge of the laws that determined when they could be fired!)

(I have no idea if one ever existed. It was coined around 1650, probably by disgruntled aristocrats whose servants were trying to keep them in line. Much like Jeeves. ;-)

Deviant CLIFFS

Deviantly describe the scene without using the names of the objects. Don't use rocks, grass or bushes. Dig into what objects look and feel like rather than telling what they are.

Capture the senses' experience. What does it feel like to your whole body? Does it get inside your clothes? Does it get inside you? What does it smell like? Taste like? Sound like?

Go further and find a mood or personality of the place and let those inspire the descriptive words you choose.

Try unexpected adjectives and vivid verbs. For example, svelt, sleek, oozing, crouching aren't words normally associated with places, but can create fresh images.

"One must be drenched ..."

In the bleak midwinter

In the bleak midwinter

What's a warm up?

Songmash

Doberman by Michel Keck

Use all the words from the lyrics of your favorite song in a story or poem.

Or try some Christmas carols. The national anthem. Other countries' national anthems. Happy Birthday. Monster Mash. Weird Al Lyrics.

Some suggestions from my daughter for science fiction and fantasy subjects. (The Vikings and Trolls are kinda loud so you may want to ease your speakers into them ;-)

• A steampunk band: Abney Park! :)
• Blind Guardian has a lot of sci-fi and fantasy lyrics so does Sonata Arctica.
• There's a band called Rhapsody of Fire who also love to deal with dragons!
• And Amon Amarth are Vikings…
• Finntroll like their trolls!
• Almost as much as Keep of Kalessin likes their dragons!)
• Sabaton is completely about War and nothing but.

---

If you'd like a list, paste the lyrics from the internet into a word processor. (Some sites are getting cagey about copying so it might take a few tries.) Replace all the spaces with carriage returns. Strip out the punctuation. Then paste the lyrics into Alphabetizer. It will remove the duplicates and sort them or randomize them for you.

Snowballed

Snowballed

What's a warm up?

"I write plays ..."

Don't eat the yellow snow

Don't eat the yellow snow

What's a warm up?

Frozen Dead Guy Festival

There are legends and then there's the truth.

For 50 years the town of Gnaw Bone has been irreverently celebrating the anniversary of the frozen dead guy who floated into town on a freakish midwinter melt encased in a chunk of ice. During the festival, along with coffin races, ice sculptures and funeral-paced parades, tours of his chilly resting place where he remains frozen are available.

No one knows who he was but of course stories have grown into bigger-than life legends.

And then, with advances in cryogenics, a group offers to revive him. The town is divided. The Frozen Dead Guy is their one yearly opportunity to be more than a backwater town. He's also a human being with the opportunity to carry on with his life. Or did he give that up once he became frozen?

Take this in whatever direction you wish. You can create the legends. You can debate multiple sides of the issue. You can explore what happens if he is revived.

---

Inspired by Frozen Dead Guy Days celebrated in Nederland, CO.

Deviantly TATTOOed

TATTOO

.~          How does one Deviantly Describe?          ~.

Short version ...

From the given mundane, snoozer of a word, generate as many different-from-each-other descriptions as you can. (Set a timer for 10-15 minutes if you wish.)

Longer version ...

Is preserved at the HOME of the first Deviant Description.

"I think in terms ..."