#majest

[roposhipin]

you seem to have a thing for Jesters

You’ll never catch me alive

[bobipineman]

@roposhipin ‘s super paper mario OC (or FC will be more appropriate :/ ) :majest

[francepittoresque]

[OUVRAGE] La reine au Moyen Age : Le pouvoir au féminin XIVe-XVe siècle, par Murielle Gaude-Ferragu ► http://bit.ly/Reine-Moyen-Age Bien avant Catherine ou Marie de Médicis, les reines ont joué un rôle essentiel pour la Couronne, non seulement parce qu'elles portaient les destinées de la dynastie, mais encore parce qu'elles incarnaient la majesté royale #ouvrage #livre #reine #Moyen Age #pouvoir #féminin #Couronne #destinées #dynastie #majesté #royale #cour #royaume #éditions #Tallandier

[roposhipin]

majest with 8 and 12, maybe?

Majest is friends with everyone.

hcwhereMimipickedouthisfancy/cuteoutfitsorsomething

[roposhipin]

majest with c1 and d4 uvu

[roposhipin]

More doodles on the bus Wh o o p.

[aelincreativ]

Non-Binary Royalty title

Saw a tiktok that made me thinkity think and I came up with an idea for what to call a non-binary royal instead of Queen/King. (Disclaimer I know nothing of the irl protocol and appropriate phrasing, I'm just pulling what I know from fiction books and some random google deepdives and mostly going at this from a writers perspective)

Also, be fully aware that my phrasing of stuff isnt great. I recognize that the way I approach this topic is more third-gender than gender neutral. The destinction between a gender neutral and third-gender is important to keep in mind for stuff like this. If a term is gender neutral than it is a term that could be used for female, male, or non-binary (or any spectrum identities). But if a term is third-gender, then it would only be applicable to the non-binary or spectrum identities. Royalty often puts alot of emphasis on gender, i.e. the reason why the issue of gendered titles is a thing to begin with, so when trying to make these new titles its important to keep in mind whether you are going for truly neutral or just a third option. A truly neutral option would scrap the exisiting gendered titles and instead title the position itself and then anyone in that position would hold the same title regardless of gender. The third-gender option, which is the one most people attempt to do when making a non-binary royal title, is just that, making a title that is not male or female in our modern context, but just turns a binary(2-base system) into a ternary(3-base system). So in the wide debate of Queer royalty titles it's important to keep those destinctions in mind.

For a majority of this post I followed a third-gender pattern for the titles but I did go into the true neutral options.

On with the show!

So one way of addressing royalty is with "Your Majesty" referring to the fact that the royal bloodline is supposed to be a majestic representation of the people (often chosen by the religion of the country). So a way to refer to a non-binary royal could be "Majest".

In my opinion it works well grammatically and still allows for the use of it in its common form in the phrase "Your Majesty" with the -y meaning to denote a specific Majest in address.

"Her Royal highess, Queen XYZ of ABC land"

"Their Royal Highess, Majest LMNO of PQRS land"

Really the only phrase that gets iffy is the address, "Her Majesty, The Queen" and its literal companion would be "Their Majesty, The Majest" which doesnt flow well. So finding a suitable rework for that phrase would be needed. Which if youre just looking at this for a writers perspective you can easily rework the world of your story to not have this phrase of address (im pretty sure that the royal highess phrase is meant for prince/princess but it is a good substitute for the use of majesty).

I've seen alot of people use "Monarch" as the non-binary for Queen/King and in my opinion it doesnt flow the same or match the other two. The harsher phonetic ending of the "ch" making the "ck" sound doesnt match the softer "n" sound of Queen and king. The "st" ending has a less defined end pronunciation allowing for smoother speech flow. The vowel comparison is also sketchy for me. The double E and short I sound are similar to each other were as the "ar" is very different. The soft e for the "eh" in Majest, fits the set better.

Though, in a counter point, the term Monarch could be used in a true neutral royal system. Naming the station, "Head of the Monarchy" and the sole title could be Monarch. So it would be Her Majesty, Monarch HIJ. But it would also be His Majest, Monarch QRS. Aswell as Their Majesty, Monarch UVW. The title being true neutral would elimate the need for the gendered titles and thus you don't have to worry about matching the existing gendered titles.

You could try to take the same approach with all the other titles as well for a true neutral system. Unfortunately auto correct and grammar assistant softwares will never leave you alone if you try to use female pronouns with the traditional male titles. Saying "She is the Duke" will have so many blue lines in your document it will be crying just as much as you. So to find the true neutral station titles, you would likely have to name it something other than the male base title.

Jumping back, for third-gender approach of Queen/King/Majest, having a term that fits into the existing gendered set is important in my opinion, because it helps it feel more intentional. Since these words sould have developed at the same time and in the same world context, the words should mirror each other. Same for Lord and Lady. The mirrored L and D make the two terms a set. So a neutral for the Lord/Lady set would also need to have this mirror possibility. Whether attempting the full mirror or by connecting the two terms in the middle.

There's a quora post that pops up when you google "gender nuetral term for lord or lady" that has an answer talking about the specific word history and how we got to Lord and lady from the Old english words. It has to do with bread apparently. Since in old royalty, the peasants worked for their lords and would get their pay, or bread, directly from the lords. With Lord deriving from Bread-Keeper, and Lady from Bread-Kneader. The original terms for Lord and Lady weren't inherently gendered, but the medieval english society made them gendered based on the occuring social norms. Since the males were the ones who directly handled the bread/pay the peasants received, they were the keepers of the bread/wealth of the land. While their wives were the supporting roles of the lords household, the makers of the bread/the backing to their husbands households. (Thank you wikipedia for my random deep dive into the history of bread and royalty)

So, when it comes to making new terms for the royal system, you can either attempt to follow a similar derivative pattern or just play letter smasher until it makes sense. Following derivative patterns makes sense logically but that can be really difficult and take alot of effort to do "accurately". Majest obviously doesnt fit the derivative pattern that Queen/King follow, (especially since the word queen derives from the word literally only meaning "kings wife"), but it follows a sound pattern that helps it be part of the set compared to other options like "Monarch". The phonetic matching is something I value but you don't have to do that if you dont want to.

Finding the gender neutral for every possible royal title is tricky because of the reasons I've already gone over. To find a true nuetral term you would need to name the station specifically, but for a third-gender term you would want the term to match the set but you also want it to make sense with the etymological history.

For example, in the british/europe monarchies, we have the sets where the female titles are obviously based on the male titles. (I also listed the land responsibility each station has. I included the closest American equivalent of the area each role was in charge of and the approximate goverment power they'd have for a quick comparrision. The majority of the Prince/Princesses also hold land titles.)

Prince/Princess -Immediate Royal Family

Duke/Duchesss - Duchies (States/Govenors)

Marquess/Marchioness - Marquessates (Specifically border states for trade and defense)

(Earl)Count/Countess - Counties (Big cities/large rural areas/Mayors)

Viscount/Viscountess - Assistants to the Counts (small towns/farming communities/Town Councils)

Baron/Baroness - Fiefs (big corporate farms/Land Lords)

(The next paragraph is just quick info dump from a wiki dive)

Each station is specific in what role and level that person is in the monarchy. Modern royalty doesn't act in the same roles they once did. Most modern royals are just fancy titles, but a limited amount from any rank can be part of the modern british government. Britain has the House of Commons and the House of Lords. (Commons=House of Reps, Lords=Senate/Supreme Court until 2009) I'm gonna be honest that i read the wiki page for the house of lords and it just confused me further so we're moving on! This isnt a british royal history lesson this is a how to make it queer tutorial!

Since each female title derives from the male term with the -ess suffix, you either need to create a secondary suffix to denote the specific non-binary role(-ess and -et), or you could create two new suffixes so that each gender role would have a subsidized title. Turning the male title instead into the name of station, like how the Queen/King/Majest set is for the station of Monarch, the princess/princer/princet set would be for the station of Prince.

The ess/er/et suffix model for female/male/neutral is just what i decided to go with for this example and you could change it how you wanted for your story. Royalty systems are messy regardless of what you want to do. And like i mentioned earlier its deciding whether to make it third gender or true nuetral. You could make the station Prince and have the ternary suffix set, or you could name the station and use only one new suffix for the spot. I.e. the -et suffix. Princet, Duket, Countet, Baronet (technically i think Baronet is its own thing but again royalty is messy). And use the -et suffix as a true neutral meaning something like "-et: holder of X station" or however suffix grammar is supposed to work. Idk man I've been writing this on my phone for 3 hours now. Jumping around and rewriting portions.

Okay focus, back to the main point.

An additional thing to consider is that the title of Prince/Princess is given to multiple members of the immediate royal family. Any child of a Monarch gets and keeps that title their whole lives as well as their spouse. But, the position of Heir in royalty is a neutral title. Heiress is a term that exists but is actually incorrect in the royal context. Because Heir is a position in the Monarchy. Just as the Monarch is the head of the Monarchy, the Heir is just to inherit. It'd be the same as trying to say Monarchess. Its an attempt to make a position title gendered.

It's my opinion that the term "heiress" only exists as a sexists term. To insinuate that having a female heir is abnormal, the literal google definition of an heiress references that the women will inherit large amounts of money. Women's monetary indepence is abnormal even in modern times so the concept of a financially successful women usually carries negative societal context. Try and name one instance where an "heiress" wasn't either portrayed as a spoiled rich girl (Paris Hilton and the London Tipton portrayal) or the company/fortune was stolen by her husband. (Genuinely if you know of a story that uses Heiress in a positive context let me know)

So it's not surprising that, unlike other (supposedly) gendered titles, you can say "she is the heir" and "he is the heir" and "they are the heir" and in modern language that's completely correct. So if you want a true neutral replacement for Princess/Prince it would be with Heir. Likely with making adjustments so that the title of Heir only applies to the current monarchs children. With the Monarchs siblings dropping their Heir title and going by their Land Titles.

Queen does derive from King originally, but since it doesn't follow the suffix pattern of the rest of the titles you probably don't need to change it. The Queen/King/Majest set being so different from the other titles also works well for dramatic story structure since you want things of important to stand apart from everything else.

If using this process for writing, it will obviously complicate the world building and could generate struggles with readers who are picky about royal accuracy but it a queer world out there and the patriarchal mess of royalty should get shaken up anyway! (Obviously using the traditional male titles as the station names still holds to the patriarchal history but since the english language has this as the norm its easier to follow the root/derivative pattern than make up something completely new)

I no longer know how long this thing has gotten. Congrats if you've made it all the way to the end you are allowed to claim one (1) free "I Survived an Aelin Rant" sticker or commemorative t-shirt.