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This is only inspirationally relevant, but a few weeks ago, I saw a crow (or a raven, never quite sure) holding a stick, floating without moving, on top of Twin

This is only inspirationally relevant, but a few weeks ago, I saw a crow (or a raven, never quite sure) holding a stick, floating without moving, on top of Twin Peaks in SF, like it was waiting to give a wand to a wizard. When I got home, I wrote this weird little story about it: https://f52.charlieharrington.com/stories/a-great-unkindness/ https://f52.charlieharrington.com/stories/a-great-unkindness...

dontbeevil1992 5y ago
very cool! some similar themes to LotR. Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique
- whatrocks 5y ago
  > Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique Not consciously! But they sounded crow-like to me. Like they could be onomatopeias for words that crows could theoretically speak/croak to each other.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Hey that was fun! I was pleasantly surprised to see the audio option as I’m too sleepy to read right now. Reminds me of a short story I wrote which is a transcription of a vivid dream I had: http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/ http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/
- whatrocks 5y ago
  Great story! I love the image of the huge airships looming over the city. A lot of my stories in my "Fahrenheit 52" project have been extended versions of dreams. Whenever I have a particularly weird one, I try to tap it out quickly on my phone, even if it's the middle of the night.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Thanks! Yeah it is very rare for me to have such vivid dreams but that one really stuck!
zehauser 5y ago
Very weird! I love it. Although I worry I won't be able to look at Karl the Fog without a little bit of suspicion, now. :)
ffreire 5y ago
> I saw a crow (or a raven, never quite sure) Assuming you mean it's difficult to tell the difference, as opposed to just in this case: Telling them apart is fairly straightforward! Crows are smaller, have a flatter tail, and typically flap quite a bit during flight. Ravens, by comparison, are much larger in size, have a diamond-shaped tail that moves quite a bit during flight, and typically glide during flight. Love the whole family of corvids :D as well as your story!
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  > Telling them apart is fairly straightforward! I would like to point out that your description of how straightforward it is to tell them apart very humorously belies how it is not at all straightforward because all of your proposed evaluations are implicitly relative to something not seen. > Crows are smaller, have a flatter tail, and typically... Ravens, by comparison... If you see one bird, is that bird smaller or larger? Is its tail more flat or less? Smaller than what? Flatter than what? Flappier than what? Without seeing both, a lay individual can't easily evaluate "by comparison".
  - hetspookjee 5y ago
    If you think woah that is one huge crow, than it’s probably a raven I find the easiest tell. Also the sound is a bit off and on the higher end I believe. And also their beak is more curved but that’s often hard to spot and not too reliable
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      You're doing it too. "bigger", "more curved", "higher sound". All of those are comparative. None of them help you know a raven or a crow except in relation to some idealized specimen of the other, which one likely doesn't have in front of them.
      - aprinsen 5y ago
        I'll take the bait. Ravens' beaks are hooked s.t. the top curves slightly around the bottom, an over beak if you will. The crow's beak is roughly conical and does not hook in this manner. Additionally the raven's beak is is longer than it's head is wide (in profile). A crow's beak from the same view is approximately the same length as it's head.
DiggyJohnson 5y ago
Thanks for sharing. I love that you chose to publish this, for little external reason, I imagine. And just one week later, here we are: good stuff.
- whatrocks 5y ago
  Thank you! I’m doing it as a little writing project for the year, one short story every week, just to get better at writing, and also to expunge all these probably dumb story ideas from my head (with the hope that there’s now room for better ones).
jbattle 5y ago
In the 'Once and Future King', the boy who will be King Arthur looses an arrow into the air, just for the joy of it. A crow comes out of nowhere and grabs the arrow. Art's foster brother believes the crow was actually a witch (Morgan le Fay?). I'm just saying - keep an eye out for witches ;) "Just as [the arrow] had spent its force, just as its ambition had been dimmed by destiny and it was preparing to faint, to turn over, to pour back into the bosom of its mother earth, a portent happened. A gore-crow came flapping wearily before the approaching night. It came, it did not waver, it took the arrow. It flew away, heavy and hoisting, with the arrow in its beak."
- whatrocks 5y ago
  I love this book so much, thanks for reminding me of this part! One of my favorite quotes ever comes from Merlin in this book: > The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
- biztos 5y ago
  I had to look it up — a gore crow or gorcrow is a carrion crow and it’s called that because if its diet. However, the first result on Google, excerpted for my benefit, was this: > Gore crows are a form of Dead Hand, involving any number of normal crows killed by a Necromancer, then imbued with a spirit from Death. This may be one spirit shared among the entire flock, or simply a single crow with a single spirit. The more crows share a spirit, the more quickly the corpses erode.[0] And we wonder why people believe crazy shit! [0]: https://oldkingdomwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Gore_Crows https://oldkingdomwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Gore_Crows
  - colechristensen 5y ago

dontbeevil1992 5y ago

very cool! some similar themes to LotR. Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique

whatrocks 5y ago
> Did you intentionally make the crows names use mainly phonemes from the word "crow"? That's a cool technique Not consciously! But they sounded crow-like to me. Like they could be onomatopeias for words that crows could theoretically speak/croak to each other.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Hey that was fun! I was pleasantly surprised to see the audio option as I’m too sleepy to read right now. Reminds me of a short story I wrote which is a transcription of a vivid dream I had: http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/ http://www.tlalexander.com/spooks/

whatrocks 5y ago
Great story! I love the image of the huge airships looming over the city. A lot of my stories in my "Fahrenheit 52" project have been extended versions of dreams. Whenever I have a particularly weird one, I try to tap it out quickly on my phone, even if it's the middle of the night.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Thanks! Yeah it is very rare for me to have such vivid dreams but that one really stuck!

zehauser 5y ago

Very weird! I love it. Although I worry I won't be able to look at Karl the Fog without a little bit of suspicion, now. :)

ffreire 5y ago

> I saw a crow (or a raven, never quite sure) Assuming you mean it's difficult to tell the difference, as opposed to just in this case: Telling them apart is fairly straightforward! Crows are smaller, have a flatter tail, and typically flap quite a bit during flight. Ravens, by comparison, are much larger in size, have a diamond-shaped tail that moves quite a bit during flight, and typically glide during flight. Love the whole family of corvids :D as well as your story!

BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
> Telling them apart is fairly straightforward! I would like to point out that your description of how straightforward it is to tell them apart very humorously belies how it is not at all straightforward because all of your proposed evaluations are implicitly relative to something not seen. > Crows are smaller, have a flatter tail, and typically... Ravens, by comparison... If you see one bird, is that bird smaller or larger? Is its tail more flat or less? Smaller than what? Flatter than what? Flappier than what? Without seeing both, a lay individual can't easily evaluate "by comparison".
- hetspookjee 5y ago
  If you think woah that is one huge crow, than it’s probably a raven I find the easiest tell. Also the sound is a bit off and on the higher end I believe. And also their beak is more curved but that’s often hard to spot and not too reliable
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    You're doing it too. "bigger", "more curved", "higher sound". All of those are comparative. None of them help you know a raven or a crow except in relation to some idealized specimen of the other, which one likely doesn't have in front of them.
    - aprinsen 5y ago
      I'll take the bait. Ravens' beaks are hooked s.t. the top curves slightly around the bottom, an over beak if you will. The crow's beak is roughly conical and does not hook in this manner. Additionally the raven's beak is is longer than it's head is wide (in profile). A crow's beak from the same view is approximately the same length as it's head.

DiggyJohnson 5y ago

Thanks for sharing. I love that you chose to publish this, for little external reason, I imagine. And just one week later, here we are: good stuff.

whatrocks 5y ago
Thank you! I’m doing it as a little writing project for the year, one short story every week, just to get better at writing, and also to expunge all these probably dumb story ideas from my head (with the hope that there’s now room for better ones).

jbattle 5y ago

In the 'Once and Future King', the boy who will be King Arthur looses an arrow into the air, just for the joy of it. A crow comes out of nowhere and grabs the arrow. Art's foster brother believes the crow was actually a witch (Morgan le Fay?). I'm just saying - keep an eye out for witches ;) "Just as [the arrow] had spent its force, just as its ambition had been dimmed by destiny and it was preparing to faint, to turn over, to pour back into the bosom of its mother earth, a portent happened. A gore-crow came flapping wearily before the approaching night. It came, it did not waver, it took the arrow. It flew away, heavy and hoisting, with the arrow in its beak."

whatrocks 5y ago
I love this book so much, thanks for reminding me of this part! One of my favorite quotes ever comes from Merlin in this book: > The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.
biztos 5y ago
I had to look it up — a gore crow or gorcrow is a carrion crow and it’s called that because if its diet. However, the first result on Google, excerpted for my benefit, was this: > Gore crows are a form of Dead Hand, involving any number of normal crows killed by a Necromancer, then imbued with a spirit from Death. This may be one spirit shared among the entire flock, or simply a single crow with a single spirit. The more crows share a spirit, the more quickly the corpses erode.[0] And we wonder why people believe crazy shit! [0]: https://oldkingdomwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Gore_Crows https://oldkingdomwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Gore_Crows
- colechristensen 5y ago