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silvermoon424 · 18 days

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For the purposes of this poll please just stick to birth names! I'd like to do another poll for names people chose themselves later in life.

#names #my polls #polls #poll #tumblr polls #naming #I'm named after my great grandmother btw #my middle name is another great grandma #1k #5k #10k

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writingwithcolor · 5 months

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Naming International POC Characters: Do Your Research.

This post is part of a double feature for the same ask. First check out Mod Colette's answer to OP's original question at: A Careful Balance: Portraying a Black Character's Relationship with their Hair. Below are notes on character naming from Mod Rina.

~ ~ ~

@writingraccoon said:

My character is black in a dungeons and dragons-like fantasy world. His name is Kazuki Haile (pronounced hay-lee), and his mother is this world's equivalent of Japanese, which is where his first name is from, while his father is this world's equivalent of Ethiopian, which is where his last name is from. He looks much more like his father, and has hair type 4a. [...]

Hold on a sec.

Haile (pronounced hay-lee), [...] [H]is father is this world’s equivalent of Ethiopian, which is where his last name is from.

OP, where did you get this name? Behindthename.com, perhaps?

Note how it says, “Submitted names are contributed by users of this website. Check marks indicate the level to which a name has been verified.” Do you see any check marks, OP?

What language is this, by the way? If we only count official languages, Ethiopia has 5: Afar, Amharic, Oromo, Somali, & Tigrinya. If we count everything native to that region? Over 90 languages. And I haven't even mentioned the dormant/extinct ones. Do you know which language this name comes from? Have you determined Kazuki’s father’s ethnic group, religion, and language(s)? Do you know just how ethnically diverse Ethiopia is?

~ ~ ~

To All Looking for Character Names on the Internet:

Skip the name aggregators and baby name lists. They often do not cite their sources, even if they’re pulling from credible ones, and often copy each other.

If you still wish to use a name website, find a second source that isn’t a name website.

Find at least one real life individual, living or dead, who has this given name or surname. Try Wikipedia’s lists of notable individuals under "List of [ethnicity] people." You can even try searching Facebook! Pay attention to when these people were born for chronological accuracy/believability.

Make sure you know the language the name comes from, and the ethnicity/culture/religion it’s associated with.

Make sure you understand the naming practices of that culture—how many names, where they come from, name order, and other conventions.

Make sure you have the correct pronunciation of the name. Don’t always trust Wikipedia or American pronunciation guides on Youtube. Try to find a native speaker or language lesson source, or review the phonology & orthography and parse out the string one phoneme at a time.

Suggestions for web sources:

Wikipedia! Look for: “List of [language] [masculine/feminine] given names,” “List of most common [language] family names,” “List of most common surnames in [continent],” and "List of [ethnicity] people."

Census data! Harder to find due to language barriers & what governments make public, but these can really nail period accuracy. This may sound obvious, but look at the year of the character's birth, not the year your story takes place.

Forums and Reddit. No really. Multicultural couples and expats will often ask around for what to name their children. There’s also r/namenerds, where so many folks have shared names in their language that they now have “International Name Threads.” These are all great first-hand sources for name connotations—what’s trendy vs. old-fashioned, preppy vs. nerdy, or classic vs. overused vs. obscure.

~ ~ ~

Luckily for OP, I got very curious and did some research. More on Ethiopian & Eritrean naming, plus mixed/intercultural naming and my recommendations for this character, under the cut. It's really interesting, I promise!

Ethiopian and Eritrean Naming Practices

Haile (IPA: /həjlə/ roughly “hy-luh.” Both a & e are /ə/, a central “uh” sound) is a phrase meaning “power of” in Ge’ez, sometimes known as Classical Ethiopic, which is an extinct/dormant Semitic language that is now used as a liturgical language in Ethiopian churches (think of how Latin & Sanskrit are used today). So it's a religious name, and was likely popularized by the regnal name of the last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (“Power of the Trinity”). Ironically, for these reasons it is about as nationalistically “Ethiopian” as a name can get.

Haile is one of the most common “surnames” ever in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Why was that in quotes? Because Ethiopians and Eritreans don’t have surnames. Historically, when they needed to distinguish themselves from others with the same given name, they affixed their father’s given name, and then sometimes their grandfather’s. In modern Ethiopia and Eritrea, their given name is followed by a parent’s (usually father’s) name. First-generation diaspora abroad may solidify this name into a legal “surname” which is then consistently passed down to subsequent generations.

Intercultural Marriages and Naming

This means that Kazuki’s parents will have to figure out if there will be a “surname” going forward, and who it applies to. Your easiest and most likely option is that Kazuki’s dad would have chosen to make his second name (Kazuki’s grandpa’s name) the legal “surname.” The mom would have taken this name upon marriage, and Kazuki would inherit it also. Either moving abroad or the circumstances of the intercultural marriage would have motivated this. Thus “Haile” would be grandpa’s name, and Kazuki wouldn’t be taking his “surname” from his dad. This prevents the mom & Kazuki from having different “surnames.” But you will have to understand and explain where the names came from and the decisions dad made to get there. Otherwise, this will ring culturally hollow and indicate a lack of research.

Typically intercultural parents try to

come up with a first name that is pronounceable in both languages,

go with a name that is the dominant language of where they live, or

compromise and pick one parent’s language, depending on the circumstances.

Option 1 and possibly 3 requires figuring out which language is the father’s first language. Unfortunately, because of the aforementioned national ubiquity of Haile, you will have to start from scratch here and figure out his ethnic group, religion (most are Ethiopian Orthodox and some Sunni Muslim), and language(s).

But then again, writing these characters knowledgeably and respectfully also requires figuring out that information anyway.

~ ~ ~

Names and naming practices are so, so diverse. Do research into the culture and language before picking a name, and never go with only one source.

~ Mod Rina

#asks #language #languages #linguistics #east africa #african #immigration #ethiopian #names #naming #research #resources #writeblr #character names #character name ideas #rina says read under the cut. read it

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headspace-hotel · 11 months

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the thing is, AI is a great tool for writers as long as you don't try using it to actually write and you don't use an AI model like chatgpt that tries to be "smart" and figure out what you're using it to do.

Inferkit was/is far more fun and useful than chatGPT because you can turn the temperature slider up, input whatever, and watch it spit out a captivating mashed-up chum of word and letter combinations that have the cadence and mouthfeel of something a human would actually write but are idiosyncratic to the point of being meaningless.

I'm going over my computer and I have a bunch of documents full of random drivel InferKit churned out that Compelled Me.

Most of it is lists of names. I had an experiment for a while where I was inputting lists of character names (either lists I'd made up or from fantasynamegenerators.com or just other InferKit inputs) and picking out and saving outputs that I liked. The results were amazing because the AI is really good at honing in on things that have such a compelling mouthfeel and musicality to the syllables that they irreparably affix themselves to the inside of your brain while somehow also being completely insane and mostly useless.

#names #ai generated #naming #writing

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one-time-i-dreamt · 8 months

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Marine biologists named a trout "Osborne" and it became a meme with everyone saying, "TROUT, AM I?"

#dream #perks of being a marine biologist #marine biology #meme #trout #naming #marine biologist

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the-reverii · 6 months

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▸ DARK ACADEMIA CHARACTER NAMES.

━━ ✰ masculine.

⭑ atlas

⭑ charles

⭑ dominique

⭑ edward

⭑ francis

⭑ dorian

⭑ henry

⭑ lucien

⭑ remus

⭑ reyes

⭑ rowan

⭑ vincent

━━ ✰ feminine.

⭑ adrienne

⭑ anastasia

⭑ adaline

⭑ anya

⭑ aurora

⭑ blair

⭑ carmine

⭑ charlotte

⭑ clementine

⭑ daphne

⭑ estelle

⭑ evangeline

⭑ evelyn

⭑ felicity

⭑ fleur

⭑ florence

⭑ josephine

⭑ lenora

⭑ lynette

⭑ lyra

⭑ madeleine

⭑ octavia

⭑ ophelia

⭑ pandora

⭑ penelope

⭑ selene

⭑ zephyra

some of the names may be used for either masculine, feminine, or androgynous characters, i just compiled them in the two categories. if you have any ideas to add, feel free to comment them and i'll do my best as to add them!

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bodhrancomedy · 6 months

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Me, by the way.

Other options were Frederick, Kes/Kestrel, Odhrán, Zeke, and Seán.

#funny #actor #trans #trans masc #trans man #naming #renaming

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creation-help · 12 days

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Finnish last names

[If you're interested in DIYing them, note that the vast majority of them end in Nen, or La/Lä. Not all, but most! Nen is like the staple last name additive. Like in many other languages, they're based around nature, place names and various (old) occupations.]

Korhonen

Kouvola (place name)

Laatikainen

Sorsala (has the word Duck)

Törmä (Nature word)

Keränen

Moilanen

Rantasalo (two nature words, one of which references the forest and the other the beach)

Palosuo ("Burnswamp")

Palosaari ("Burnisland")

Palojärvi ("Burnlake")

Vuorela (has the word mountain)

Lehtonen (Nature word)

Saarenpää ("Head of/end of the island")

Rautavaara (has the word iron)

Rautavuori ("Ironmountain")

Rautavirta ("Ironstream")

Kivalo

Ruusuvaara (has the word rose)

Viljasuo ("Wheatswamp")

Mustakallio ("blackcliff")

Rantala (has the word beach)

#Names #Last names #Character building #name list #finnish names #worldbuilding #character names #Naming #Name #I KNOW I made this when the poll is still ongoing. The reason is bc I wanted to

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wings-of-fire-confessions · 3 months

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I've seen a few people complain about the dragons in WoF not having cool fantasy names. Like... I don't know, Smargelcompf or whatever. I like WoF's naming system, though? Because fantasy names can be a pain to pronounce. And some dragons actually have pretty clever names! Or names that at least speak to an aspect of their character. Pyrite (I think meaning behind this one is obvious), Chameleon (this should also be obvious), Clay (clay can be morphed, just like Clay can morph his "destiny"), Morrowseer (his name is ironic and shows how the NightWings are frauds)... You get the point.

I don't think this is really that controversial, but yeah. Oh, and I don't have a problem with people who do like more unconventional names!! That'd be a silly thing to get heated about pffbt. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

One of the most popular WoF OCs on Wattpad for a whole 1-2 years was named Artemis, after a deity that dragons know nothing about

Qibli's name actually comes from something that doesn't exist in Phyrriah as well - a warm Meditteranean wind. The Meditteranean doesn't exist. If a canon character does it, I see no reason why people should be so upset over fanon.

#wings of fire confessions #wof confessions #wof #wings of fire #naming

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mapsontheweb · 2 years

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Traditional naming customs around the world

#maps #names #naming

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sadhappylady · 2 months

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SWEDEN AND THE USE OF SURNAMES

I just have to get this off my chest.

I read a lot of YR fic, and every time I come upon anyone, and I mean literally ANYONE, calling Simon Mr. Eriksson, it throws me out of the situation. Or any character calling anyone by their surname, actually.

NO ONE has ever called me only by my surname. No doctor, nor my pupils, nor my children's friends. They all call me by my first name.

I'm Norwegian, but I have been told it is the same in Sweden. We don't use SURNAMES! No one is called Mr. This or Mrs. That (and please stop with the Sir and Ma'am as well). Just to stress this point: I don't even know the surnames of my children's teachers.

I would certainly never dream of calling a teenager by their surname. Not even the queen or representatives of the court would do that (unless it is to intentionally intimidate him). Simon is a kid!

The only exception I accept to this rule, are the teachers at Hillerska, because the school is an elitist, old fashioned, tradition loving institution where teachers apparently still go by their last name 🙄

(If any Swedes would like to correct or confirm, feel free!)

#naming #use of surnames #please let me not see this anymore 😭#young royals fanfiction #young royals

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writingwithcolor · 6 months

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Conlanging Issues: A Compendium

NOTE: This question was submitted before the Nov 1, 2023 reopening and may not adhere to all rules and guidelines. The ask has been abridged for clarity.

Most of my questions are about linguistics. […] One of the major locations in my story is a massive empire with cultural inspirations ranging from North Africa in the far south to Mongolia/Russia in the far north […] The middle region is where the capital is and is the main root of culture, from which Ive been taking inspiration from Southwest Asia […], but most notably southern regions of India. I've tried to stick to the way cities are named in Sanskrit-based languages but added the names of stars to the front (because the prevalent religion of this region worships the stars [...]). So Ive ended up with names like Pavoprayag, Alyanaga, Alkaiduru, Alcorpura, Cygnapete, etc. Is this a consistent naming system or should I alter it in some way? The empire itself is named the Arcana Empire since [...] each act of my story is named after a tarot card [...]. Another region in my story is based more on parts of South China and North Vietnam, so I've tried to stick to names with a Chinese origin for that. I understand the significance of family names in southwest [sic] Asia, so I wanted to double check [...]. They have only two short given names. Based on the birth order of the child, the first half of the name comes from the fathers family and the second half from the mothers family. It is seen as disrespectful not to use both names because using only one is seen as denouncing that side of your family. Thus I have names like Su Yin, Dai Jun, and Yi Wen for some of the characters from this region, and the city itself that they are from is named Bei Fen. On the other hand, Im having further trouble naming characters. […] Ive been trying to give my human characters names from real human cultures to distinguish them from the website-generated names of say, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, but I think I should change many of the names Ive used to be more original and avoid fracturing real world cultures for the sake of my worldbuilding. […] Im still very weak in the linguistics area (even after four years of French, sigh) and am having trouble finding where to read about naming patterns so I can make new ones up. I read your naming guides but am still having trouble on where to start for specific languages. […] Im trying to look into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian specifically.

You're Going Too Broad

In my opinion, you’re casting too wide a net. You mentioned looking into Sanskrit, Turkish, and Persian to develop fantasy names. These languages are very different from one another, so unless you’re using them separately for very different parts of your world, it will be hard to draw inspiration from them in a way that makes sense. You’re taking on a huge amount of research in order to worldbuild cultures that span a massive geographical area (basically all of North Africa and Asia?) and have very little in common. Are you sure you want to take on that task?

I could see it being more manageable if most of your story is set in a small region of this world, which you will then research in depth to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.

Taking Persian as an example, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use Old Persian, Middle Persian, or Modern Persian. Each of these comes with a different alphabet and historical influences. They’re also associated with different periods of time and corresponding cultural and social markers. Once you’ve decided exactly when and where you want to start from, you can then expand the borders of your area of focus. For example, if you’ve decided to draw inspiration from Achaemenid Persia, you can then look at the languages that were spoken in the Achaemenid Empire. A quick Google search tells me that while Old Persian was the empire’s official language, they also used Aramaic, Akkadian, Median, Greek, and Elamite (among, I’m sure, many many others and many more regional variations). Further research into each of these will give you ethnic groups and bordering nations that you can draw more inspiration from to expand out your worldbuilding.

Don’t forget to make sure you’re staying within the same time period in order to keep things consistent. It’s a lot of work, and this is only for a small portion of the continent-spanning worldbuilding you’re trying to do.

You can get away with painting the rest of the continent in broad strokes without too much depth if the story doesn’t go there and you don’t have any main characters from those parts of the world. Otherwise, you’ll need to put this same level of detail into your worldbuilding for the area with Turkish-inspired names, and again for the area with Sanskrit-inspired names, and so on.

I know this isn’t what you were asking, but I honestly have a hard time helping you figure out where to start because your ask is so broad I don’t quite know where I would start myself. So, this is my advice: focus down on one region and time period and go from there. Feel free to write back once you’ve picked a narrower focus that we could help you with.

- Niki

So there’s logistical issues in regards to your naming system for southern China-coded regions. One issue is history: mainly on how there is not simply one language in China but multiple due to having a lot of ethnic groups and the size of China. South China in particular has different dialects and languages than the North as seen in this map of Chinese languages and dialects. There’s also how historically Mandarin was not the official language until 1913 in China and historical China saw vast changes in territory dependent on the dynasty. Before then, Mandarin was primarily a northern Chinese language based in Beijing while southern China had its own languages, dialects, and dynamics. Not to mention, historical China saw an evolution of language just like English has Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. For instance, Vietnam was once part of China during the Tang Dynasty and at another point, it was not part of China.

-Mod Sci

If You’re Borrowing Whole Words or Elements, Research More

The other issue is inconsistency with the cultures you’re deriving this conlang from. In regards to “two given names,” the Chinese name I was given was one syllable and then I would have a last name that was also one syllable. There’s also how not every family is perfect. Not every marriage is sanctioned and some children may come from single parents. Some families may not cooperate with marriage and sometimes children may be abandoned with unknown parents. There does not seem to be contingencies for these names under this conlang system.

The main problem with conlangs is that one needs to truly understand the languages one is drawing from. Tolkein managed to create conlangs due to training in linguistics. Mandarin is already a difficult language with multiple tones, and trying to use it for conlangs without knowledge of how Mandarin works or a good foundation in linguistics is just a Sisyphean endeavor.

-Mod Sci

Four years of French wouldn’t have taught you about linguistics as a science or anything about the language families you’ve listed - Indo-Iranian, Sino-Tibetan, and Turkic, nor any Asian naming conventions. I agree with Niki that you need to narrow down your research.

Pur/pura means city in Sanskrit (ex: Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur). Prayag is a place where pilgrimages are done. Naga isn’t a place name in Sanskrit (google says it means snake), nagar is and it means town. X Nagar is a very common name for places (Ex: Rajinder Nagar). Many cities in Karnataka have names ending in uru (Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Tumakuru, etc) but the language of Karnataka is Kannada - a Dravidian language and completely different family from Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan). I’m not sure where “pete” came from. “Bad” and “vaal” are common suffixes for places too (Ex: Faisalabad, Allahabad). A disclaimer that I do not speak Sanskrit, I speak Punjabi, which is a descendant of Sanskrit and in the same linguistic family (Indo-Aryan languages).

- SK

Also, This Is Not…Really Conlanging.

Hi OP. Linguistics refers to the science of studying how languages work, not the discipline of learning languages. And nothing shows that gap more than how you have thus far approached constructing fictional languages and toponyms.

The reason why Sci and SK have a lot to say about your place names is because they don't resonate—you have borrowed whole words into your toponyms (place names) from a variety of languages—without an accurate understanding of what these words mean, how they’re pronounced, where they’re derived from—and expected them to work together. I suggest you read the links below on why conlanging is not as simple as choosing some languages and mashing their IRL words together:

Why Using Random Languages Wholesale in your Fantasy is a Bad Idea

Pitfalls of Mashing Countries and Languages in Coding

In your city names, for example, you’re using star names from multiple languages that use different sets of sounds represented by different sets of historical spelling rules. “Cygn-” and “Arcana” stick out like a sore thumb—the fact that one “c” is /s/ and one is /k/ is an obvious flag that they are Latin-derived English borrowings. This is because spelling rules were created in Middle English to make sense of the mix of “c” pronunciations across words of Indo-European origin due to a historical split called the Centum-Satem division. This is a phenomenon that is very specific to our world history, and to the history of English at that. Ironically, in your attempt to avoid stock fantasy names (which also often fall into the Latin-derived English pit), you are taking the exact same approach to naming.

Like Niki said, your selections are far too broad to code under a single umbrella. Do you expect that whatever language that city name came from runs the full gamut of sound inventory & spelling variety that spans multiple continents and hundreds of languages? Because that’s not how languages work. (And yes, I mean hundreds. Indigenous languages and linguistic diversity are a thing. See Niki’s note about just the languages in Persia. And nation-states bulldozing over those languages and pretending it’s just one language is a thing. See Sci’s note about China.) I haven't even talked about the variation in morphology (how words are formed) or syntax (sentence structure).

Please just read or re-read my guide on “naming conlangs” in this post and start from there.

~ Rina

PSA ON CONLANGING AND FANTASY NAMES:

For fantasy language asks submitted after Nov 1, 2023, the asker must indicate that they have read Mod Rina’s conlanging posts linked in FAQ 2 (Guides and Posts by Topic) of the Masterpost under the question “How do I make a fictional language for my story?” While this is an older ask, we are posting it as an example to our followers.

Per our new rules, any questions that can be directly answered in or extrapolated from the FAQs, or questions that indicate that the relevant resources haven’t been read, will be deleted with a note in the Deletion Log explaining why.

As always, if this post was helpful or educational to you, please consider tipping the relevant mods: SK, Niki, Sci, and Rina.

Edited for terminology errors

#asks #naming #languages #linguistics #Persian #Chinese #South Asian #worldbuilding #coding

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lyralit · 2 years

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naming your characters - writing tips

name them after someone important

give them a name from their time

choose a name with a meaning that matches their personality

a name that foreshadows their future

name a character after someone you love

give them an unremarkable first name and call them by their last name

don't name two characters the same name, even with most reason—it gets confusing

avoid names that are too similar—"Anne" and "Anna", for example

choose names the audience will remember

research the meaning beforehand

choose a plant name

choose a colour name

invent a name by putting vowels and letters together

pick either a very unconventional name or very plain name

generally don't make too many characters or it could be confusing for the reader

choose a name associated with the character's personality

name them after a celebrity (with meaning)

name them after yourself!

pick a name you would want yourself to be named

go nameless until you find the right one—or keep switching when you feel you do

^^ try out many names

think of names from that genre

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jellyfshing · 5 months

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C3彡 final girl id pack !!

☆~{ for anon }~☆

C3彡 names :

fleur , slasher , amnesty , dove , colt , lamb , eros , nyx , lillith , seraph , bow , julie , scythe , beal , serene , athena , wendy , abyss , adelaide , allure , alluria , elisabeta , kateline , mors , crypt , cross , verity , cybre , pyper , evelien , talia , cynthia

C3彡 pronouns :

final finals , survive survives , slash slashers , horror horrors , dark darks , live lives , scythe scythes , weapon weapons , knife knifes , mallet mallets , med medicals , lash lashes , kill kills , murder murders , night nights , bone bones , corpse corpse , chain chains , blood bloods , bullet bullets , wound wounds , weep weeps , cry cries , gauze gauzes , gun guns , blade blades , steel steels

C3彡 titles :

[prn] who survived , the surviver , the final girl , the living girl , the one who lived , [prn] who ( hid / ran / fought back ) , [prn] whos grave lays empty , the weapon wielder , the resourceful

C3彡 genders :

finalgirldecorated , finalthing , finalrotgirl