The "What's a good name for this?" thread

"Nevermores"

As they will never be who they once where anymore.

Reposting since the last one got lost:

I have an idea for a Harem Genre / Royal Harem / Fantasy story, and the royal family my protagonist is from has Dishing Out Dirt powers, and is from an Arab Fantasy Counterpart Culture. What would be a good family name?

Edited by Arcane101 on Feb 24th 2021 at 3:44:31 PM

Hmm... Well, how about Al-Ard(written الأرض in Arabic), that means "earth, land"?

This might be a good resource.

I'm trying to choose between two titles bestowed upon a feared person whose abilities let him control the minds of others. After much thought I'm stuck between "The Oppressor" and "The Tyrant". Does anyone have thoughts about which one is better? Or maybe a new one altogether?

Tyrant. Oppressor doesn't sound as scary.

@ Parable: Thanks! I admit that I favor “The Tyrant” as well but Oppressor seemed pretty neat too, if generic.

Seconding "Tyrant": not only does it sound more menacing, but it feels more fitting, too. Being controlled may or may not be oppressive, and oppression may be controlling, but there isn't as direct a connection there, I feel.

How about "Deus Vult"?

With that level of power and the right amount of ego, I can see a person call themselves that out of hubris and it catching on due to fear from those on the receiving end of it.

Ars Thaumaturgis: Yes, you are right about the menacing aspect (as well as the other parts, but the menacing part is definitely what I'm trying to convey). The character's power is explicitly one of the few "evil" powers in the setting, since it cannot really be used for anything but involuntary control over others, and has the potential to end the world, in a sense at least. It's a pretty glaring example of Bad Powers, Good People, though it eventually shifts into Bad Powers, Bad People as time goes on and traumas pile up.

@ Titan Jump: If I recall correctly, Deus Vult means something along the lines of "as God wills it/According to God's will"? That would be an...interesting thing title to give to this guy, I'll say that. Calling him The Deus Vult would be incredibly intimidating, especially in the latter parts of the story. It fits too since his power stems directly from a god-like entity, though it's more him giving it orders than the other way around, so irony abounds.

The funny thing is that the person with these powers never gives himself any of these potential titles. They're just bestowed upon him as a not-so-flattering mantle by an organization that is hunting him to end his life so that these powers are removed from the world forever. Thus I was trying to find the most fear-inducing/impressive yet negative name around.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Mar 1st 2021 at 8:07:15 AM

Could be the organization calls him Tyrant, but as he starts Slowly Slipping Into Evil, he calls himself the Deus Vult to intimidate others.

What would be a good naming scheme for a series of playthroughs of Yoshi's Island and Super Mario All-Stars + Super in under 100 lines? The name has to include [Name of the Game], [Name of the Sub-Game],[World], [Level] and [World Number-Level Number].

Edited by GAP on Mar 2nd 2021 at 10:28:12 AM

Hehe.

So I need a name for a chapter, where the main character becomes the new boss of a Chinese mafia family after he drives out the original boss with his band of vigilantes...despite being only 14 and not even starting his high school yet.

The whole story is more comedic in nature, so I want some silly name. The ones I have so far are:

"Freshman Mafia Boss"

"Extracurricular Gangster"

But none of them are quite catchy or giggle-inducing enough for me.

"Tryout Triad"?

(It is a Chinese mafia after all...)

....Okay, you have no idea just how much that name put a grin on my face. VERY strong contender.

I need a name for the Leaning on the Fourth Wall kind of Functional Genre Savvy in my stories. Here are some examples of the patterns this savviness takes. A savvy mouse will notice when It's Quiet… Too Quiet, a savvier mouse will additionally predict down to the second the cat's impending ambush. A mouse council wondering Who Will Bell the Cat? is given the choice between a rookie mouse prophesied to die by poison and a veteran mouse who does not have any death prophecy and therefore could die at any time under any circumstance. A non-savvy council will not consider the prophecy and will give the mission to the more capable veteran mouse. But a savvy council will pick the rookie, since because it is not the rookie's time, the temporal magic of the prophecy will bend probability over backwards to invoke Could Have Been Messy throughout the cat mission. This next example overlaps with game theory — a bully mouse says to a bunch of smaller mice "I'm gonna kick the tar out of the first one of you that makes a move against me", so the savviest mouse will take the hit just so he can start the Wounded Gazelle Warcry for the rest of the small mice to gang up and defeat the bully mouse.

So far I've only thought up "narrative rhythm" and "narrative pulse" as in "You can see the narrative rhythm", but I'm not satisfied with it because I'm reluctant to use words like "narrative" or "story".

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Mar 7th 2021 at 4:16:11 AM

You could just call it "rhythm" or "pulse", and let the reader fill in the gaps.

I don't want to be that vague. If I do, it will get muddled up with the adjectives used when the Howling Void Eldritch Abomination in hyperspace is making rhythmic pulsing noises like this or this or this.

Perhaps if I were to think about the problem from a different angle, like taking the phrase "You've got common sense" and replacing "common" with another word...?

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Mar 7th 2021 at 11:23:38 AM

Hmm... This seems related to the Theory of Narrative Causality, specifically the sort used in Discworld or The Order of the Stick, to my mind. An awareness of and reliance on it for decision-making.

So, perhaps something along similar lines: "Narrative Flow", or stepping away from story-related terms, something like "Fate's Flow".

"Fate's Flow" sounds like something from a hundred million other stories. What about something like "bardic sense"?

In some cases, the savviness advises working against the flow of typical stories, like when tropes like Holding Out for a Hero and It's Not You, It's My Enemies aren't working.

How about "Author Authority"?

Or the "Compulsive Cassandra Syndrome"? (Hinting of it being considered an mental illness by the setting and usually disregarded by "normal" people. Much to the afflicted one's dismay.)

Edited by TitanJump on Mar 8th 2021 at 5:07:11 PM

Riffing on your idea, maybe "Bardic Insight"? That might convey that it involves seeing something deeper, and something related to the work of a bard—i.e. storytelling.

What's a good fantasy-esque name for someone in a sci-fi setting who controls and directs robots, like a person would control and direct zombies, or familars, or golems in a fantasy story?

Edited by Parable on Mar 8th 2021 at 7:57:01 AM

"CPU" = "Cranial Processing Unit"

"Insight" is a pretty good refinement, and you were thinking what I was thinking with "bardic". This is the best I've gotten so far.

That breaks the fourth wall instead of leaning on it.

Ooh, this is interesting and it got me thinking. Now that you mention it, given the type of conflicts I've set up in my stories, it would make a lot of sense for there to be a negative term for the savviness right alongside whatever term of empowerment the savvy characters pick for themselves, whether it be "bardic insight" or something else. Now, as for mental illness, I as the author intended it to be a skill that can be learned through teaching or observation with spontaneous epiphanies, and that's certainly how the savvy characters see it. It would be easy to throw in the idea that the non-savvy characters regard it as a potentially contagious mental illness, since so many are already too stubborn to try learning the skill and I'm not sure if I came up with any motives to drive that stubbornness.

Having said all that, I don't think "Compulsive Cassandra Syndrome" is quite accurate enough to avoid getting muddled up with all the other cassandra situations. In my worldbuilding, when anyone is thrust into a situation where nobody is believing what they have to say, more often than not The Cassandra doesn't have bardic insight, or they'd have put more thought into how to not sound unbelievable. It would take bardic insight to immediately (as opposed to in hindsight after a failed announcement) think of measures like getting proof, or picking their audience, or giving white lies about the protective measures they're taking, e.g. "Oh, these flowers are also called wolfsbane? I knew them under the name monkshood, and I thought some potted monkshood would make a pretty 'hello neighbor' gift for the entire neighborhood, never mind about the werewolf rumors."

Are you looking for an individual's name or a "Red Baron" moniker or a general label?

Did you know that Cranial Processing Unit is the name of the trope for robots having their brains in their heads (usually for anthropomorphic reasons) instead of in their torsos where there's more room for more memory sticks, more protective shielding, and more powerful processors?

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Mar 8th 2021 at 10:34:14 AM