“In The End, We’ll All Become Stories.”

Never change Uncle Rick

On Twins

I’m a twin, and I’ve been angry about twin stereotypes for years now.

The most prominent ones being: the exactly alike twins, the exactly opposite twins, the creepy twins, or some combination thereof. Like, I nearly vomit whenever I read the line, ‘X and Y were twins, but they couldn’t be more different,’ because that is just lazy writing. It is. How much more lazy can you get than to create a character and then just make another one the exact opposite?

Answer: You can make them exactly alike. This one I hate more, because seriously, in real life, how likely is it that twins will be completely identical, not just in appearance, but in personalities and attitudes and intelligence? I will cut slack for twins raised apart, because that can happen and that’s been proven, but seriously? If you have two characters be exactly the same, you might as well have one character, and try to flesh them out a little more.

Let me explain something about twins: if we’re really close, we tend to adapt to fill in each other’s weaknesses. For instance, my sister and I had an interesting pattern for making friends; my sister, an incredibly outgoing social butterfly, would meet people and make them part of our group. Then, it was my job to keep us staying friends with them, by doing things like making sleepovers, remembering people had feelings, and remembering birthdays. However, while this obviously distinguishes between twins and makes it clear they’re unlikely to be exactly alike, it also doesn’t mean they’re exact opposites. For instance, my twin and I are both not good at communicating over the phone; we both tend to be bad at planning our time effectively. The important thing with writing twins is to remember that there is an intricate pattern of alike and not alike, determined both by upbringing and personality. It’s complex, like any relationship, and it should be treated with the same care as any relationship in a story. On the topic of creepy twins, just know that me and most twins like me will gladly leave a scathing review on any story with poorly explained twin incest. Just, ew, man. Ew.

Duane Michals - The Bogeyman, 1973 | More posts

What Never Made it to Print (Part Two)

The word taboo was created for a reason. In the mortal world there are certain things that can never mix. Things like oil and water, greenery and fire, and magic and science just to name a few. So men created rules. They created boundaries. They created taboos, so that nothing that should not be could ever come into existence. However, one of the most predictable aspects of a mortal man’s nature is that he will break his own rules, forget his own precautions, and dismiss his own consciousness in order to gain something he desires. And, of course, sooner or later, something he desires is bound to come along. 

Sometimes this forgoing of common, cautious sense can be noble. If enough of a spin is put to it, it can almost seem legendary or heroic. Most of the time, however, such an event is just tragic. Because when humanity is forsaken for humanity’s sake, well, humanity loses that which made it human in the first place. That was why the rules were put into place to begin with. They were meant to prevent the loss of all order and the introduction of new chaos. But by the time everybody stops for a moment to remember this one simple fact, it is already too late. 

““There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.””

—  Maya Angelou (via the-inking-pendragon)

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne (via pennamebree-z)