#and going to fantasy world

[m4kkie]

The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix

(Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen)

White (good) necromancy as a concept is incredibly difficult to do well and these books imo pull it off. It's also dark fantasy which was perfect for teen me.

There are two more books in the series, Clariel and Goldenhand, but the former is shit highschool drama for most of it (though it does serve as a good prequel to events in Lirael in the end) and it was so disappointing it put me off reading the latter. Series was originally a trilogy anyway.

It also held up when I reread it as an adult.

not allowed to say Harry Potter, but what was your book series obsession as a teen

mine was definitely Eragon

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

Young Hero Sent On A Quest meets other young heroes also sent on various quests—only to discover they're all being used as free child labor by the same flaky wizard as a scam to collect magical artifacts.

the Young Heroes' collective new "Quest" is now to Unionize.....

[lucabyte]

so given the 'habitual rituals before remembering why' situation wrt siffrin

do you think that like. wish craft could. have an effect on 'good luck' rituals. and furthermore. do you think this cash-strapped rogue gambled . perhaps

[ibahibut]

🦅🐦‍⬛✨

[emiko-matsui]

ragh barkrock as a concept in the real world is so funny to me. it's essentially michael jordan is gay, used to be in the manson cult, and his first kiss was dave grohl

[sparrowlucero]

Reading comprehension site. As far as I understand it, your point is moreso that often stories set in a world without homophobia, transportation, etc. Are treated as morally better. Meanwhile stories which are parallel to real world queerness, identity, and oppression are often viewed negatively. Mostly because there's a standing idea of "you could have made it better by simply not including the homophobia and transphobia".

In my mind, both are morally equivalent, and both are examining themes which may be interesting in the context of queer experiences and liberation.

yeah that's exactly what I'm talking about... I'm basically just arguing against that more extreme mindset you sometimes see around queernorm stuff and pointing out that maybe it's not great to implicitly lump stuff like, say, steven universe, queer as folk, and i saw the tv glow together as the 'lesser' or "more harmful" type of work we should seek to avoid because they focus on queer struggles, or otherwise downplaying the value of themes that aren't like, escapist enough in some way.

Honestly I think at some point the discussion around depictions of homophobia- specifically, criticism aimed at the thought that (often quite fetishistic) homophobia (or sexism, racism, etc) needed to exist in fantasy for the sake of "historical realism", and of bury your gays-type stuff - sort of got telephone game'd into "it's weird to depict bigotry or gay characters suffering/dying when you could just not do that; no one wants to see that" and then in turn "the best, most valuable and desired way to depict queerness (race, disability, gender, etc) is to make it normal and as downplayed as possible" and i think it's worth pointing out that that's often not great advice/a good metric for judging queer fiction overall.

[horsegirlwarcrimes]

for your drabble prompts... can we get one of shen qingqiu explaining modern appliances to binghe?

"Shizun," Luo Binghe whined, shaking his arm. "What do you mean you've never cooked rice before?"

Shen Qingqiu flushed, leaning away from Luo Binghe and hiding his face behind his fan. "Is it really so shocking to Binghe?"

"I didn't even think that was possible," Luo Binghe said. He stared at Shen Qingqiu like he was some sort of alien anomaly. Which, in his defense...

"Where this master grew up, there was a... spiritual device that allowed you to cook rice very quickly," Shen Qingqiu muttered, bringing his fan up higher. "This master never learned any other way to make it."

Luo Binghe's eyes brightened, curiosity breaking through his shocked dismay. "Oh? What kind of spiritual device."

"Well..." Shen Qingqiu stuck his fan under his arm to make a gesture with bith hands, circling them in the air. "It was like a pot, about this big, that was enchanted to produce heat at just the right temperature and time to cook the rice. It was also enchanted to be, ah, that is to say, so that nothing would stick to the pot's surface easily. So then you would just rinse the rice, put it in with enough water, and after half an hour or so it was done. Oh, and it played a little song when it was finished..."

He got lost in his recollection of his beloved rice cooker and missed the expression of intense interest in his husband's bright eyes.

A few weeks later, when Luo Binghe excitedly presented him with an enchanted stone pot that sang like a flute while it cooked rice, Shen Qingqiu could only applaud his husband very earnestly.

"Binghe," he said, tugging on Luo Binghe's sleeve, "This master needs to tell you about another enchanted artefact from his home town. It's called a dishwasher—"

[mythalism]

call me crazy but there is a difference between treating your adult players like they are new to the world and treating your adult players like they have the memory of a goldfish and the vocabulary of a 9 year old

[sergle]

I love the little AU that skinny people live in where they have the same problems as fat people and can relate to the Experience. artists references are only for fat bodies, artists that do draw thin bodies are getting DMs from people going like "omg I'm so happy I discovered your art, it's so rare to find an artist who draws small bodies!!!!! for the first time I see people who look like me 😭😭" skinny people going "omggg I finally found a clothing brand that sells nice dresses in XS, I wish they weren't so so overpriced though" skinny people getting home from the doctor's office and collapsing on the couch to tell their roommate that their doc spent the whole appointment quizzing them about their diet and they were told they need to gain 40 pounds. but the doctor didn't want to check out the weird scraping sound they make when they breathe in, just that they should probably gain weight first. skinny celebrities and influencers spending thousands of dollars getting plastic surgery to transfer fat to their stomachs and jawlines. all the main characters in tv shows are fat. when you watch cartoons as a kid, there's one skinny character, and they're really dumb and annoying and get laughed at by the other characters. they're a loser and never get a boyfriend/girlfriend. the same clothes that are stylish when worn by fat people just get you made fun of. desirable romantic leads and manic pixie dream girls twirl their hair and say "yeeah I've just been fat my whole life, I just never lose weight no matter what I eat hehe" and this is an extremely endearing and attractive trait.

[corseque]

Did you know the fantasy MMORPG Final Fantasy Fourteen only uses the word "okay" 9 times in dialogue throughout the entire hundreds of hours long story? And each use of "okay" that got through seems like an actual mistake that simply didn't get edited out?

There is no use of "okay" in A Song of Ice and Fire. There is no use of "okay" in the entire The Witcher series. It's something that's like... just really largely accepted for fantasy. I would argue that vocabulary choice and word choice does a huge amount of heavy lifting to make something "feel" like a fantasy!!!!! It's a part of the genre expectation that I think is largely agreed on.

If you're writing a medievalish fantasy in a fantasy land, and you chose to establish a unique vocabulary and to minimize modern anachronisms to facilitate the feeling of being in a different fantasy world than our own modern mundane world, in a way that is commonly accepted for fantasy, and you've done it in all 3 previous of your games except for deliberate exceptions for artistic reasons, then you expect that to continue into the next part of the story so you feel like there's continuity.

the FFXIV English localization team made a point never to use "okay" commonly because it DOES make it feel too modern. It's actually a really easy thing to keep an eye on, editing wise.

and FFXIV is a game that has ACTUAL MODERN CARS and PARKING LOTS!!! and the English writing team STILL cared about eliminating "okay". Because they cared in a basic way about how word choice affects fantasy experience. Anyway, so that's how it feels when fantasy writing cares about the little details :)

Anyway, I'll continue to look at it as the most easy softball lob toward the writers' and editors' bats that they just fucking whiffed for no reason. Or whiffed on purpose, which is even fucking worse.

And after this week's revelations that BioWare always HATED and devalued the medieval fantasy Dragon Age and LOVED and valued the futuristic sci-fi Mass Effect, this style change is even more important to me. When a company looks down on fantasy PERIOD and suddenly in the latest game even the very language is changed to not feel as much as a fantasy game.... HMMM Hmmmm hmmmm I'm sure it's nothing!!!!!! but yeah it's childish to have basic expectations for a fantasy setting

[the-moogs]

marlene loves when her gay aunts babysit her 🎀

[averysmolkirbo]

i keep seeing people talk about AZ in the new trailer and be like "imagine being immortal and going from basically a king and a warlord to running a holiday inn like wow downgrade much"

and i keep wanting to say stuff like, 'well have you considered maybe thats what he WANTS to do. did you ever consider that?' Did you consider that this is like the first time he's looked happy in like forever?

maybe he doesnt WANT ultimate power and he just wants to run a small business with his floette. that sounds pretty good to me. i dont know what you people are talking about.

[jq37]

OK Brennan, if you aren't gonna let me have Aelwyn posted up in the manor at all times, having her use her dramatic villain skills to protect Adaine before going off to teach middle schoolers is the next best thing I could have hoped for. What a mental image--Ms. "I Came Here To Fuck" teaching cantrips to eleven-year-olds. Wild.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

prayer of the day:

[sparrowlucero]

I know you had to delete them because people were mad at you, but your posts about r/worldbuilding inspired me and my brother to regularly browse the sub and send eachother the most insane things we see. Thank you for showing us this portal to the most absurd way to create fantasy.

I didn't delete it! that post is here . i still read it frequently.