The Fantasy Taxonomy
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How it works
READ FIRST OR JUST BEGINEveryone has a private library. Some people shelve one story and reread it for decades; some run a lending system with new arrivals every week; some never shelve anything at all and just let the weather happen. The Fantasy Taxonomy is not interested in what your stories contain — it is interested in how they are built. Structure, it turns out, says more about you than content ever will, and it is far stranger than you think and far tamer than you fear.
Eighteen questions look at the architecture of the fantasies you return to: whether they repeat or mutate, whether they have plots or just moments, where you stand in the frame, and what has to be true for a story to earn a permanent place in your head. Your answers place you in one of six fantasy families — from the Improviser, whose stories arrive uninvited and never repeat, to the Ritualist, who has polished one scene for years the way other people perfect a recipe.
A note on privacy, because the subject deserves it: your answers are scored on your device and never sent anywhere. What you read at the end is derived from patterns, not stored confessions. This is for fun and self-discovery — not a diagnosis, and not a verdict on what you should want.
Questions, answered
FAQWhat does this fantasy quiz actually measure?
It measures the structure of your fantasy life, not its content. The questions look at repetition, plotting, point of view, and detail — whether you return to the same polished scene or improvise something new each time — and place you in one of six fantasy families along a spectrum from fully spontaneous to fully ritualized.
Is my result a psychological assessment?
No. This is a self-reflection tool built for fun and self-discovery, not a diagnosis. It makes no clinical or medical claims, and no fantasy family is healthier, rarer, or more advanced than another. Treat your result as a well-lit mirror, not a verdict.
Are my answers private?
Yes, and structurally so: your raw answers are scored in your browser and never leave your device. Only the derived result — your fantasy family and axis scores — is stored locally so your Desire Profile can use it, and only if you choose to keep it.
Does having vivid or repetitive fantasies mean something is wrong with me?
No. Recurring, detailed, or unusual fantasies are among the most consistently reported features of ordinary imaginations — that is the quiet joke in our tagline. A fantasy is a story you tell yourself, and enjoying one implies nothing about what you would do, or want to do, outside your own head.
The questions
EVERY PROMPT · NOTHING HIDDENBrowse all 18 questions
- The same way it always begins. The opening is part of it.
- With a scene I set deliberately — place, light, cast.
- Mid-action. It skips the setup entirely.
- I honestly couldn't tell you. It's already happening by the time I notice.
- Constantly. I have a canon.
- A few reliable ones, plus rotating guests.
- Rarely — repeats feel stale fast.
- Never on purpose. New every time.
- Center. It's about me being seen.
- In it, but the attention is on someone else.
- At the edge — watching, unseen.
- Behind it. I'm directing, not appearing.
- Full production — the room, the hour, what everyone is wearing.
- A strong sense of place, loosely sketched.
- Barely any. Faces and hands, the rest is fog.
- Set dressing? There's barely a set.
- A full arc — setup, tension, payoff. I'd be annoyed to skip a beat.
- A loose throughline. It knows where it's going.
- Vignettes. Strong moments, no connective tissue.
- Plot is what I'm escaping from.
- Revise it carefully and keep the rest intact.
- Patch around it in the moment.
- Let the whole thing mutate into something new.
- Retire it without ceremony. There will be others.
- Always — the knowing is the whole charge.
- Sometimes they find out mid-scene. That turn is the good part.
- No — the unseen vantage point is the point.
- Nobody's watching anybody in mine.
- Scripted. Certain lines must be said, in order.
- Important but improvised — the tone matters more than the words.
- Sparse. A sentence, maybe two, deployed precisely.
- Nonexistent. Mine are silent films.
- The build-up, overwhelmingly. The peak is a formality.
- The slow middle — tension held as long as possible.
- The peak. Everything else is loading screen.
- The surprise — whatever I didn't see coming.
- In one specific place I've built over years. I could draw the floor plan.
- Somewhere plausible — a real city, a real kind of room.
- Somewhere impossible — other rules, other worlds.
- Wherever. Location has never once mattered.
- Rewind. That's not how it goes.
- Follow it — the swerve usually knows something I don't.
- Let it run, then decide later whether it enters the canon.
- There is no plan to swerve from.
- Rarely, and only after careful auditioning against the classics.
- It borrows the structure of an old one and redecorates.
- Constantly — something I read or overheard is enough.
- There is no rotation. It's all new arrivals, all the time.
- Me, exactly — same voice, same body, same nerve.
- Me, upgraded — bolder, better lit.
- A character I play — someone with a different name and permission slip.
- Barely present. I'm the eye, not the body.
- Yes — aftermath, breakfast, consequences. I stay for the epilogue.
- A lingering shot or two, then credits.
- Hard cut to black.
- It doesn't end so much as evaporate.
- Direct it. I have notes prepared already.
- Watch from the dark and never say a word.
- Be in it. Watching my own material feels like a demotion.
- Decline. It lives better in my head.
- Like a ceremony. I'd choose the moment carefully and tell it properly.
- Thrilling — being that seen is half the appeal.
- Fine in fragments. The full text is mine.
- Hard to do — it changes every time, so there's no full text to tell.
- Centrally. Certain details are load-bearing.
- As recurring motifs I notice but didn't plan.
- As props, swapped freely between stories.
- Not at all. Mine run on momentum, not inventory.
- The rules. Every story I keep obeys the same quiet laws.
- The audience. Someone is always watching, or being watched.
- The surprise. If I saw it coming, it isn't mine yet.
- The character. Whoever I become in there is the constant.
From the glossary
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