#but i think in this fantasy esque story it is a human world that is completely disconnected from like. actual real life

[potatochip-oc-dump]

I'm working on ref sheets for all the characters I don't draw too often :] Here's Rosie!!

[specialagentartemis]

Black Women writing SFF

The post about Octavia Butler also made me think about the injustice we do both Butler, SFF readers, and Black women SFF writers by holding her up as the one Black Woman Writing Sci-Fi. She occupies an important place in the genre, for her creativity, the beauty and impact of her writing, and her prolific work... but she's still just one writer, and no one writer works for everybody.

So whether you liked Octavia Butler's books or didn't, here are some of the (many!!! this list is just the authors I've read and liked, or been recommended and been wanting to read) other Black women writing speculative fiction aimed at adults, who might be writing something within your interest:

N. K. Jemisin - a prolific powerhouse of modern sff. Will probably have something you'll like. Won three Hugo awards in a row for her Broken Earth trilogy. I’ve only read her book of short stories, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? and it is absolutely story after story of bangers. Creative, chilling, beautifully written, make you think. They’re so good and I highly recommend the collection. Several of her novels have spun out of premises she first explored through these short stories, most recently “The City Born Great” giving rise to her novel The City We Became. Leans more fantasy than sci-fi, but has a lot of both, in various permutations. 

Nisi Shawl - EDIT: I have been informed that Nisi Shawl identifies as genderfluid, not as a woman. They primarily write short stories that lean literary. Their one novel that I’ve read, Everfair, is an alternate-history 19th century that asks, what if the Congo had fought off European colonization and became a free and independent African state? Told in vignettes spanning decades of political organization, political movements, war tactics, and social development, among an ensemble of local African people, Black Americans coming to the new country, white and mixed-race Brits, and Chinese immigrants who came as British laborers.

Nnedi Okorafor - American-Nigerian writer of Africanfuturism, sci-fi stories emphasizing life in present, future, and alternate-magical Africa. She has range! From Binti, a trilogy of novellas about a teenage girl in Namibia encountering aliens and balancing her newfound connection to space with expectations of her family; to Akata Witch, a middle-grade series about a Nigerian-American girl moving to Nigeria and learning to use magic powers she didn’t know she had; to Who Fears Death, a brutal depiction of magical-realism in a futuristic, post-war Sudan; to short stories like "Africanfuturism 419", about that poor Nigerian prince who’s desperately sending out those emails looking for help (but with a sci-fi twist), and "Mother of Invention" about a smart house taking care of its human and her baby… she’s done a little bit of everything, but always emphasizes the future, the science, and the magic of (usually western) Africa.

Karen Lord - an Afro-Caribbean author.  I actually didn’t particularly like the one novel by her I’ve read, The Best of All Possible Worlds, but Martha Wells did, so. Lord has more novels set in this world—a Star Trek-esque multicultural, multispecies spacefuture set on a planet that has welcomed immigrants and refugees for a long time, and become a vibrant multicultural planet. I find her stories rooted in near-future Caribbean socio-climatic concerns like "Haven" and "Cities of the Sun" and her folktale-fantasy style Redemption in Indigo more compelling.  And more short stories here.

Bethany C. Morrow - only has one novella (short novel?) for adults, Mem, but it was creative and fascinating and good and I’d be remiss not to shout it out. In an alternate-history 1920s Toronto, scientists have discovered how to extract specific memories from a person—but then those memories are embodied as physical, cloned manifestations of the person at the moment the memory was made. The main character is one such “Mem,” struggling to determine who she is if she was created from and defined by one single traumatic memory that her original-self wanted to remove. It’s mostly quiet, contemplative, and very interesting.  (Morrow has some YA novels too. I read one of them and thought it was okay.)

Rebecca Roanhorse - Afro-Indigenous, Black and "Spanish Indian" and married into Diné (Navajo). I’ve read her ongoing post-apocalyptic fantasy series starting with Trail of Lightning, and am liking it a lot; after a climate catastrophe, the spirits and magic of the Diné awakened to protect Dinetah (the Navajo Nation) from the onslaught; and now magic and monsters are part of life in this fundamentally changed world. Coyote is there and he is only sometimes helpful. She also has a more traditional second-world epic high fantasy, Black Sun, an elaborate fantasy world with quests and prophecies and seafaring adventure that draws inspiration from Indigenous cultures of the US and Mexico rather than Europe. She also has bitingly satirical and very incisive short stories like “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” about virtual reality and cultural tourism, and the fantasy-horror "Harvest."

Micaiah Johnson - her multiverse-hopping novel The Space Between Worlds plays with alternate universes and alternate selves in a continuously creative and interesting way! The setup doesn’t take the easy premise that one universe is our own recognizable one that opens up onto strange alternate universes—even the main character’s home universe is wildly different in speculative ways, with the MC coming from a Mad Max-esque desert community abandoned to the elements, while working for the universe-travel company within the climate-controlled walled city where the rich and well-connected live and work. Also, it’s unabashedly gay. 

And if you like audiobooks and audio fiction (I listened to The Space Between Worlds as an audiobook, it’s good), then Jordan Cobb is someone you should check out. She does sci-fi/horror/thriller audio drama. Her works include Janus Descending, a lyrical and eerie sci-fi horror about a small research expedition to a distant planet and how it went so, so wrong; and Descendants, the sequel about its aftermath. She also has Primordial Deep, about a research expedition to the deep undersea, to investigate the apparent re-emergence of a lot of extinct prehistoric sea creatures. She’s a writer/producer I like, and always follow her new releases. Her detailed prose, minimal casts  (especially in Janus Descending), good audio quality, and full-series supercuts make these welcoming to audiobook fans. 

-

Nalo Hopkinson - a writer who should be considered nearly as foundational as Octavia Butler, honestly. A novelist and short story writer with a wide variety of sci-fi, dystopian futures, fairy-tale horror, gods and epics, and space Carnival, drawing heavily from her Caribbean experiences and aesthetics.

Tananarive Due - fantastical/horror. Immortals, vampires, curses, altered reality, unnerving mystery. Also has written a lot of books.

Andrea Hairston - creative and otherworldly, weird and bisexual, with mindscapes and magic and aliens. 

Helen Oyeyemi - I haven’t read her work but she comes highly recommended by a friend. A novelist and short story writer, most of her work leans fairytale fantastical-horror. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is a collection of short fiction and recc’ed to me as her best work. White is for Witching is a well-regarded haunted house novel. 

Ashia Monet - indie author, writer of The Black Veins, pitched as “the no-love-interest, found family adventure you’ve been searching for.” Magic road trip! Possibly YA? I’m not positive. 

-

This also doesn’t include Black non-binary sff authors I’ve read and liked like An Owomoyela, C. L. Polk, and Rivers Solomon. And this is specifically about adult sff books, so I didn’t include Black women YA sff authors like Kalynn Bayron, Tomi Adeyemi, Tracy Deonn, Justina Ireland, or Alechia Dow, though they’re writing fantasy and sci-fi in the YA world too.

And a lot of short stories are out there in the online magazine world, where so many up and coming authors get their start, and established ones explore offbeat and new ideas.  Pick up an issue (or a subscription!) of FIYAH magazine for the most current Black speculative writing.

[not-terezi-pyrope]

There's a recurring issue that keeps happening in fantasy discourse that keeps happening to creators where including monsters in your worldbuilding gets distorted into a sort of fascist intent as people get gradually lore desensitised to said monsters and they become more and more a "mundane" or "natural" part of the fictional world in people's minds.

Here's how it works, from my observation.

The monster, as a concept, is an ancient mainstay of all fiction as it is a mainstay of the human psyche, representing primal fears and the abstract (unrealistic!) horror of the other. It has carved out an important role in media as an element that is broadly understood to be a thrilling antagonistic force that is removed from anything in the real world.

An author wants to write a story about heroes who regularly encounter and fight multiple monsters, because this is mechanically important for the type of media or narrative (maybe a video game world needs many creatures to fight, the high fantasy protagonist needs a "monster force" to threaten the world, the ghost hunter type hero needs various ghosts and ghouls to fight off each week.

The story gets released into the world and people become used to the monsters existing, to the extent that they begin to lose the narrative lens of the monster in their minds. They begin to treat the otherworldly monster as an element of the world, and then the idea of the monster as a purely antagonistic or evil force begins to sound absurd, as it is for any type of being in the real world, especially if the monster is intelligent. People get interested in subverting these elements of the monster, and derivative works including the type of monster begin to explore stories in which the monsters are actually neutral/good, but misunderstood, actors, due to their monstrous appearance or similar.

This interpretation of the monster as another kind of person, or benign animal, becomes widespread, with the monster solidified as a concrete part of the world in a way that is divorced from their conception as an unrealistic, otherworldly threat.

People look back at the original source work, and go, "hey! Why was the author so intent on displaying this group of creature as inherently gruesome and evil? This sounds like fascism!" And it makes sense why they think that, except that they have forgotten that said author was writing about a type of monster instead of an analogy for a human group or race. As such, with enough time and reinterpretation, people can find grounds to accuse authors of fascism for the crime of merely writing about monsters, which kind of sucks as a thing to do, in my opinion.

I think the Tolkien/D&D style Orc is the prototypical example of this, although there are many others, really it happens to some extent with any sort of "monster species" where there is more than one horror creature in your world. This is not to say that you can't interrogate issues with how certain monsters are portrayed - why evil orcs are portrayed with darker skin colours sometimes, for example, or... Pretty much everything going on with a lot of goblin-esque creatures, but I think it's important to remember that this is a different sort of criticism from, for instance, "Tolkien and the D&D people believe that certain types of being are inherent evil and need to be wiped out".

Because we can't forget that they were not writing a real type of person or creature, but a type of monster, and monsters are understood to be an unrealistic, otherworldly narrative contrivance. You have problems making them fit into the real world with a just mindset because they do not exist in the real world, they exist as monsters, and were written with this understanding that there is a common understanding of what that means and how it should be understood.

I feel like people need to keep that in mind in their analysis, else pretty much any creative can be smeared retrospectively for writing about monsters whatsoever. I think monsters are pretty cool in fiction and important to the human psyche, and think that they have a crucial place, as long as we remember the lens through which they should be considered in their conception, which is inherently outside of material reality.

That's also not to say we shouldn't subvert and interrogate and adapt monster tropes either, but doing so doesn't mean throwing out the original ideas as having gone rotten.

[alittlebitofwonk]

@bonesandthebees has me thinking about book recs, so I’m posting some of my favorites in case anyone wants something new to read!

FANTASY

Priory of the Orange Tree: This is a BRICK of a book. The hardcover would make a good weapon. But it’s also an incredibly good read. A well built fantasy world, dragons, sapphic romance, and it centers WOC characters. The prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, is also amazing.

Legends and Lattes: This is such a cozy little book! It’s fantasy, sent in a DND inspired world where a retired orc mercenary opens a coffee shop. Also, sapphic romance side plot. It’s very cute.

A Thousand Steps Into Night: A Japanese folklore inspired novel where the protagonist must make bargains with spirits to avoid becoming a demon. I learned a lot about Japanese legends and folklore in this one, and the protagonist, Miuko, is just so earnest and lovable.

SCI-FI

Project Hail Mary: Andy Weir does it again. A fantastic novel featuring a struggle across the galaxy to save earth as we know it, the most endearing alien EVER, really cool futuristic science, and a reminder that humanity also instills in us all a sense of good.

The Kaiju Preservation Society: This book is so much fuuuun. It’s just a blast. Inter dimensional travel, giant monsters, conservation, and a protagonist that had me cackling with laughter the whole time.

MYSTERY/THRILLER

The Final Girl Support Group: When the survivors of several horror-movie esque massacres are all targeted by a new killer, how will they survive? A really awesome story about a bunch of badass middle aged women who kinda hate each other teaming up to identify their would-be killer… before it’s too late.

Gone Girl: Nick Dunne didn’t kill his wife. He has no idea where she is, or what happened, and he swears he didn’t hurt her… but no one really believes him. Meanwhile, the truth is far more interesting, and a testament to the phrase “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” This is THE female rage story.

[entropyvoid]

Honestly with all the overlap between sci-fi and fantasy fans, I’m really surprised that “high fantasy in space” isn’t more of a thing.

There are some things generally assumed by most to be sci-fi that I’d personally label space fantasy, like Star Wars, where the high tech is just there as a backdrop to a classic heroic story of good guys vs. bad guys, who are definitely doing magic (by using the force). The point of Star Wars isn’t the tech or anything, it just happens to be a tale told in space. It contrasts pretty starkly with something like Star Trek, where the vast majority of episodes revolve around exploring whatever scientific or philosophical concept the writers thought would be kinda neat that week, using established characters as a vehicle for said exploration.

I think one of my favorite things about Honkai Star Rail is that it freely and unabashedly mixes sci-fi and fantasy. It just goes “You are a walking neutron bomb. Also turns out your bestie is from a self-reincarnating race of dragon people with powerful water and illusion magic. They live on this big, planet-sized ship that’s dedicated to hunting down this one cosmic horror that cursed all the ship’s inhabitants with immortality, under the banner of this other cosmic horror that exists solely to kill the first cosmic horror. Let’s go on vacation to the theme park planet, the actual resort is technically an Alice-in-Wonderland style dream triggered by the same kinda cosmic-horror-gifted bomb as you. Your new friend is a meme. By the way, did we tell you about the one time this super-genius harnessed the power of *imagination* to build a death ray that instantly obliterated a bunch of planets? That was kinda fucked up, huh.” Sometimes Star Rail tries to give explanations for its tech in a way that seems believably sciencey. Sometimes shit’s just straight up called magic or it’s from some deity or another and none of the characters present have a good understanding of why, so you all just go about your bullshit. It makes it work within the context of its established universe.

Cosmic horror in general is often (but not always) found in sci-fi, but where the point of sci-fi is to expand on and detail a concept in a believably scientific way or explore the impacts of a scientific thing, the point of cosmic horror is that there is a Thing that is beyond human understanding or comprehension. Sci-fi is a fun thing to insert it into, because the more scientifically sensible and well-understood elements of the world you have, the more jarring that becomes.

Then you’ve got things like Dungeon Meshi, which exists in an inverse of something like Star Rail: it takes a very Tolkien-inspired Dungeons and Dragons-esque setting, and then details it in a very scientifically sensible way. There is magic, and there are these fantastical monsters, yes, but the monsters are parts of their own delicate and intricate ecosystems, they are edible, and they have very particular nutritional values and ways you can cook them! The protag’s biggest strength lies in him being a nerd about monster biology. Magic, too, by the end of it, ends up with a plausible enough explanation as well. And the explanation is a cosmic horror! In this way, Dungeon Meshi, despite being built entirely off of very easily recognizable and classic fantasy tropes, is probably more accurately classed as sci-fi.

I just love all of it. Can I get like 50 more of these fucked up lil mixtures of science and magic please?

[ideotape]

Consider... what if you just.. tell us about your OCs 👀 (I would like to hear it)

me pretending i haven't been trying to get someone to ask this for my entire life

i know i should talk about one of the ocs i've actually posted art of on here but i recently(as in since 2 days ago) have been thinking nonstop about the very first oc i tried to make an actual story for, eve,

this is the only drawing of her i have access to right now and i'm going to be redesigning her soon but, for now, this is her, my darling baby eve<3

the world she lives in is a pretty standard fantasy/dnd-esque setting, but there's currently a bit of a magic drought. any beings without an internal source of magic either can't access magic at all or if they can it's only small flickers and it's a big strain to reach even that. but eve, despite being a human, who should not have a natural internal magic source, very much has access to magic. it's clumsy and all over the place but it's there. so having lived her childhood with her non-magical adoptive father who tries his best but can't really help her in this any more than he already has, eve sets off to find a magical tutor. and maybe figure out why she was discovered as a baby in the middle of a forest surrounded by, sprites? pixies? something like that. they were little and magical that's all her dad knew. but that's not important, surely.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

hello hello what is your newest zhongchi fic about 👀

assuming you don't mean any of the info here and are alright with spoilers for the first chapter,

basically it's about zhongli dying on the rite of descension and waking up in a modern au alternate reality, except he's not just- appeared there, he's not reincarnated: he has taken over the body of the zhongli from that world. so he has to pretend he knows what's happening (and that he's not op and not human) while also investigating the reason why the original zhongli died in the first place

on the zhongchili side, childe is in liyue for reasons and he's befriended hu tao's gang, so as things get more complicated in the story and since he's a nerd in exorcism and fights, he gets more and more tangled up with the main mystery and zhongli himself

it's also a sort of xianxia au. i think i gave a bit of an explanation of what that is for those unfamiliar in the first chapter, and someone in here also sent me an ask about it, so. but for an ultrashort TL;DR, xianxia is a chinese fantasy martial arts story genre, and is a subgenre of wuxia (which is less fantasy-esque i think). if you're at all familiar with mxtx's works (mdzs, svsss, tgcf), that's what those are. if not, genshin itself uses a lot of xianxia stuff (the adepti, chongyun and shenhe, qiqi, baizhu, zhongli, how visions work, the miasmas xiao has to purify, adeptal arts, etc etc), only it doesn't use the genre-traditional names (likely bc wider audience n stuff); and so that's more or less what i'll be doing, too

[tonberry-yoda]

LAST ONE I SWEAR: Hermes with the Love at first sight thingy? You are the best thank you omg🤍✨️

Love - Hermes (f!reader)

notes - I havent been feeling 10/10 SO HERE I AM WRITING FOR MY COMFORT CHARACTER IN ROR!!! How can I not?!??!?! It got a little self inserty, BUT I DONT CARE I LOVE HIM SM HOW CAN I NOT?!?!??!?! I'm kinda obsessed with his design tee hee. I had a ton of fun writing this, so thank you for the request!! ily and i hope you have an amazing day <333

word count - 717

You were just a human. A human that was bored of life.

You sighed and spent your time studying Greek Mythology. You seemed to be very fixated on it recently. It was so interesting, the way that the gods would live. And who knew, maybe they were wonderful people. You laughed at the thought. How stupid. If a god met you, you would probably be dead.

You were especially fixated on Hermes though. He was a god that never stopped showing up in every myth you read. He was fun to read about. He was always saying something witty or just being the most reasonable god. He was the most... human, you supposed.

You only wondered if these stories you escaped with were real at all. You wished that you could meet someone like Hermes.

Walks were close enough to your escape though, especially the woods by your house. They were full and green; very fantasy-esque. You loved them. Especially getting overdressed to go on a walk. A long dress and a pair of thin flats. You would read stories to deer and bunnies that weren't too far off from you and you would sometimes just take your shoes off and stick your feet in the mud.

It was freeing. And it was all you needed.

You didn't mind going there by yourself as often as you did. It was nice.

But it was off putting when you heard a voice for the first time.

"Can I ask why we're all the way out here?" A deep, yet smooth voice said.

You quickly hid behind a rock. You weren't used to hearing anyone out here, so you were definitely scared.

"Oh, come now, my boy," a raspier voice chuckled. "I like visiting the world down here every now and again! It's not like anyone's going to be out here!"

And right as the man thought that, your dumbass stepped on a stick that made a loud ass sound. Great.

"What was that?" The raspy voice said.

"I don't know," the smoother voice said, his tone slow and soft. "Let me go check it out. Stay here."

Your heart dropped and you panicked a bit. What were you supposed to do? You spent so much time thinking that you didn't move an inch, so a head peeked out from the rock.

You and him both seemed to be in shock as your eyes went wide as you looked at each other.

You stood up from your spot and muttered something that was supposed to be an apology, but more sounded like a bundle of words. You were blushing, dammit.

The man in front of you was handsome. Super handsome. He had jet black hair and bright red eyes. He was wearing a black tuxedo and you couldn't help but stare at him.

He did the same though, without your knowing. You in your dress, god, you looked like a fairy out here.

You both must've realized that you were staring for far too long and you both blushed, looking at the ground.

"I apologize, miss," the man bowed at you and looked back up at you with a small smile. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"I didn't mean to scare you." You peeked out from behind the rock and saw that an old man was admiring a butterfly.

"You're beautiful... if you don't mind me saying."

You turned back to the man with shock. "W-Well, you're very handsome."

"Well, I don't want to doddle. I apologize for the scare," he pulled up you hand to his lips and pressed a kiss upon your knuckles. "I do hope you have a lovely rest of your day, though."

You were sad to feel his touch leave, sighing. "Wait!" You called off as he went to walk back to the old man.

The man turned to you, his hair blowing in the light breeze that blew over. "Yes?"

"I never caught your name."

He hesitated for a moment, but smiled. "It's Hermes."

You froze and watched him leave. Oh my god, that was like a dream.

"What was that all about?" Zeus asked Hermes.

"Oh nothing. But love is a funny thing, don't you think, Lord Zeus?"

"Aphrodite can be an awful woman."

Hermes chuckled. "I suppose she can be."

~~~~~

ror masterlist | pinned post

2023 @tonberry-yoda – do not repost or claim ANY of my work as your own! likes, reblogs, and comments are not only welcome, but appreciated

~~~~~

[thealmightyemprex]

Fantasy month:Middle Earthathon Part 3 The Return of the King

.......OK....This might be one of the most baffeling movies that exists simply cause it exists .So this has nothing to do with Ralph Bakshis Lord of the Rings Film ,this is done by Rankin/Bass who did the Hobbit .Now a rumor is Rankin/Bass made this to cash in on Bakshis film when it was clear he was not making LOTR Part 2.....Thing is that just plain not true ,animation takes a long time and they started on this before the Hobbit was even finished.Nah the plan was always to follow up the Hobbit a light childrens story.....With the final book in a TRILOGY that is connected to the Hobbit ,while not unkid friendly is a bit more complex.Why did Rankin/Bass think that going about a sequel in this backassward way was a good idea.....They didnt think people would sit through a whole trilogy .....So this is kind of a dumb idea for a film ,and whatever my oppinion on the finished product it is made on shaky ground ....Buthey its done by Rankin/Bass and while not every project they make is gold ,theyve made some pretty good stuff and while their Christmas Specials are what they are known for....Theyve done some damn good fantasy :Ive already discussed my love of their Hobbit,Flight of the Dragons is a total blast and The LAst Unicorn is a personal favorite of mine,so maybe this'll be great too....Well-OK lets get into the review

In this 1980 TV movie Gandalf (John Huston ),Elrond (Paul Frees ) and the hobbits Frodo(Orson Bean ) ,Samwise ( Roddy McDowall ) ,Merry(Casey Kasem ) and Pippin (Sonny Melendrez ) are celebrating the 129th birthday of Fordos uncle Bilbo(Also Orson Bean ),who asks Frodo about what happend to his magic ring ,and thus we get a tale of war ,death,of litterally carrying the world on your shoulders....All set to Glenn Yarburough songs-OK We gotta talk about it

Look....I dont hate this movie ,I actually quite enjoy it .....Despite how technically it is NOT GOOD .Ya know how the biggest criticism of the Jackson Hobbit films is they try to take a childrens story and fit it in the mold of a grand epic.....Its the same problem here but reversed ,they take a grand epic and try to make it a childrens tale.Also I cant imagine how confusing this film mustve been to kids in 1980 who had never experienced any version of LOTR or just knew the Hobbit cause this is clunky as hell ...That said it is such a weird idea I cant help but find it charming in an odd way

Theres a lot of songs and dream sequences (Mostly performed by Glenn Yarburough as the Minstrel of Gondor )they are all pretty decent though my favorites are

Leave Tomorrow Till it Comes which is paired with a nice fantasy sequence of Frodo imagining a more peaceful journey complete with friendly orcs

Towers of the Teeth :A really solid villain song mocking the heroes forces

Frodo of the Nine Fingers which....Full disclosure is kind of a meme in my family ,easy way to make us laugh is to say "Frodo of the NInnnnnnnnne Fingers and the ring of Doooooom "

And of course the orcs song When Theres A WHip Theres A Way which maybe my second favorite thing in the entire movie,it humanizes the orcs and is really catchy

The cast is basically mostly the same people from the Hobbit .John Huston is still commanding and grand as Gandalf ,Brother Theodore is legit menacing and creepy as Gollum .Paul Frees replaces Cyril Richard as Elrond and hes good ,John Stephenson plays the Witch King and I kind of love the weird Skeletor esque voice he gives him and his design is pretty awesome ,and Don Messik is good as both Theoden and the Mouth of Sauron.Of the returning actors the one who really impresses me is Orson Bean ,who made for a great comedic protagonist in Bilbo ,but as Frodo hes pretty good capturing the wearyness and I especially love his evil laugh once he becomes corrupted by the ring

Im sad to say aside from one,,,,,,I dont have much to say about the new cast members ,as Merry and Pippin dont do much (Though Casey Kasem has a few good dramatic moments which legit impressed me considering I mostly know him as Shaggy from Scooby Doo )Nellie Bellflower get a good scene as Eowen but since theres no build up to her she falls flat and the same goes for William Conrad as Denethor as while Conrad does the madness well....All his scenes are cut so hes just a crazy old guy.Hell Aragorn the title character.....IS BARELY IN THIS AND WE GET NONE OF HIS BACKSTORY ,we dont know hes friends with Frodo,hes just some vague king guy and while Theodore Bikel definately makes him imposing and kingly ,like the others hes flat

However the film SHOULD be watched for one thing :Roddy McDowall as Sam.McDowall is one of my favorite actors but on paper hes a weird choice but thankfully McDowall NAILS it ,putting aside his refined mannerisms to fit Frodos trusted gardner ,and he fills that heroic latter part of the story Sam really well .Honestly due to how good McDowall ,Bean and Brother Theodore are ,there scenes are the best part of the movie .I also wont lie the emotional moments did get me misty eyes

So this film IS an oddity ,but a pretty interesting one and very fun to watch and again Bean and McDowall are fabulous .Its a bit of a mess but its got some good stuff there

@countesspetofi @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @the-blue-fairie

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland @princesssarisa

@amalthea9 @barbossas-wench @filmcityworld1

[wandering-knight-asahina]

some lore things!! ask me in the inbox if you have more questions about this stuff or just in general :) this is a lot of text so it might be a little hard to read. i'll clarify anything you need me to!!

This is set in a high-fantasy world. one that you would get isekai'd to if you got hit by a car If you want to choose a time period thing it's loosely around renaissance period europe. Don't worry too much about historical accuracy because it doesn't matter You can use any fantasy-esque card for these characters!! make your own stories for them!! go wild!! let me know what they are though i wanna see Mostly Mafuyu things: -> Mafuyu is a knight in training for the Yoisaki kingdom. Mafuyu's the head of her regiment. Her mother is pushing her towards becoming the personal knight to the next in line to the throne (Kanade) -> Kanade is the crown prince of the Yoisaki kingdom. T-boy trying his best to rule because his dad is not doing great. Not fully human but mom is dead so. Doesn't know what (taken from Kanade blog) -> Most times, Mafuyu will introduce herself as "Yuki" to strangers. The fae could be anywhere y'know Other: -> The Virtual Singers are gods/deities in this rather than pop-stars. -> Magic does exist. Most mythical creatures you can think of exist really -> From a tech standpoint, it isn't that advanced. They still think that the universe revolves around Earth and stuff -> Religiously, the elves mostly worship the Kagamine twins (idea by @/ithappenedonroute66)

[lumoong]

Fantasy races

Okay so I think this fantasy trope is pretty good, interesting atleast, but at the same time can be kinda annoying, and I think it's because almost every fantasy world nowadays fits in two categories, only humans and tolkien/dnd races. Sure they are exceptions like the Stormlight Archive, but when you hear magic race you think on elves and dwarves. not singers or others.

Another issue is that most of the time in this worlds every race is monocultural, and in those cases humans almost always are the standard medieval europe, and always the most common species/race.

The settings with only humans probably popularized after fantasy got oversaturated with the tolkien-esque races, and I think it's because it's easy, and comfortable (not bad per se). It's familiar and everybody knows what a halfling or an orc is, so that's why they are so popular in the genre. And it's risky to innovate in that sense, to create your own fantasy races or made the classical ones with different tropes than the usual ones. It's like making a sci-fi story without space travel, you can definitely do it, they're not essential to the genre, but it's a trope so iconic that you immediately think about it, even before than thinking if it should be there or not.

So my point is, magical races aren't bad, dungeon meshi have them and it's really good, It's really a thing about the execution rather than the ideas. That said, it's cool to try to go off the tropes and try to innovate, it's a good creative exercise, but at the same time, trying to be diferent just for the sake of it can end up being worse.

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 2/5

Book Blurb:

Captivating and deeply romantic, a new slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, LJ Andrews, Penn Cole, and Stacia Stark.

A dangerous bargain. An obsessed prince. A forbidden love that could split the Fae court... and break the world.

Thanks to the Fae king's heartless tithe, my family is starving. If I don't do something soon, my war-wounded father and two little sisters won't last much longer.

So I make a desperate deal with our village mother--she'll save my family, and in return, I'll attend the royal ball in disguise and perform an unnamed task.

She won't say what it is, but it doesn't really matter. Whatever it turns out to be, it's worth it to protect the people I love. All I have to do is get in, do the mysterious deed, and get out without attracting the notice of the cruel royal family.

But somehow, I manage to catch the attention of not one, but *both* wicked Fae princes.

The Crown Prince acts possessive and won't let me out of his sight. His growly, bad-tempered brother is another matter.

His beautiful exterior is in complete contrast to the darkness inside him, and I have the terrifying feeling he can see right through me.

Which is a very bad thing once I learn the task I'm bound to fulfill--or else face unthinkable consequences.

If I fail, my family will die. If I succeed... I might not be able to live with myself.

A Court Bright and Broken is a gripping romantic fantasy novel set in the beautiful and dangerous world of the High Fae where magic rules, secrets abound, and true love will not be denied. It's an enemies-to-lovers, hidden identity, slow-burn Romantasy with Cinderella vibes and will enchant readers who crave delicious romantic banter, toe-curling tension and sizzling chemistry, immersive world-building, magic, angst, and royal Fae intrigue.

Readers who love character-driven epic fantasy like Spark of the Everflame, A Court This Cruel and Lovely, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass, the Broken Kingdom series, and Gild will devour A Court Bright and Broken.

Your next Romantasy addiction awaits. One-click to start reading today! Welcome to the Age of Fae...

Review:

A fae romantasy retelling of Cinderella featuring a golden retriever-esque fae prince who falls for a poor human girl who makes a bargain with a witch that will change both their lives. The story follows Raewyn, a human girl who's family is poor and she needs to find a way to feed her sisters and find medicine for her father, and Stellan, a fae prince who dreams about marrying for love. When they meet and Raewyn saves Stellan, he gives her an invitation to the ball his father is hosting. The very night Raewyn goes to the local witch to try and sell her something in order to make ends meet but the witch gives her a new bargain: if Raewyn attends the ball (which she never intended to in the first place) and do a service for the witch (which she will tell her at a later time) then said witch will plant a garden to feed her sisters and cure her father. The bargain is too good to turn down and Raewyn immediately agrees.... yet when she arrives at the ball she realizes too late that she has been enchanted and that she is enchanting both the prince and the entire royal court. Raewyn must keep up the act but finds herself thrown in a love triangle between the two princess. Unfortunately I did not care for this story at all. I love a fun retelling of a classic fairytale but I just found myself so bored by this take. I didn't care all that much for the characters and wasn't all that invested in the slow burn romance. I didn't feel any chemistry and the story just felt kind of dragged on. I wish i could like the story more but I won't be continuing the series as it isn't for me but I do think maybe other fantasy slow burn romance readers might have a fun time with this.

Release Date: February 14, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Oxford South Press and The Nerd Fam for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[specialagentartemis]

As someone who doesn't really like grimdark -- my biggest annoyance in 'historical style' fantasy writing (y'know, the standard medieval fantasy, or other eras) is that everything is trying so hard to be Game of Thrones, and it's just like 'please stop'. Not everything has to be about the conception of society being a terrible place full of violence and violence being the only answer and everything is dirty and everyone is mean, and so on so forth that GRRM and his fans like to posit as 'historically accurate'.

People have always been people, whatever era they lived in. They liked colourful things, they wrote shopping lists and asked their parents to remember them to their siblings and friends, they cared about keeping up appearances, they found joy in the lives they lived and the things around them, they cursed poor candelight and cats smudging their ink, they left behind marks that mean we know even now that they existed, and they sang and told stories as they worked.

Yeah, sure, wars happened, plagues happened, they didn't have the modcons and knowledge we do now, but that doesn't change that they were people doing what people do.

... I think this is why I like Pratchett, honestly. He acknowledges the way that people will be people, even down to the faults that come of it, but he also acknowledges the funnier side of things, and even the brighter, more hopeful, more optimistic side of things.

But yeah, this is why I can't be having with grimdark.

Undeniably! I don't disagree with you that there's a lot more to life and history than suffering. That's important.

I admit I don't read a whole lot of medieval-esque fantasy. I actually really loved A Song of Ice and Fire for some of the most compelling character writing and political intrigue I've read in fantasy, but it's not my go-to genre. What books are doing it in a grimdark way? I guess I would hardly be surprised if there's that kind of trend-chasing in medievalesque historicalesque second-world fantasy, but I've often found descriptions of being "grimdark" to boil down to "I didn't like it" more than naming a consistent set of traits tbh.

I'm an archaeologist, haha; I definitely know the feeling of connecting with humanity across the centuries and millennia, looking and something and thinking, oh, wow! I do that, or I've seen that, or that's just like us... I study 700 year old pottery, and there's something special about holding a pot that was clearly made by a child, because it looks basically the same as the pinch-pots I made in elementary school art class. It's something that I definitely think people writing in very different times and cultures could stand to remember more, that people inhabited these lives. Making characters feel like real people who really live in this world is a perennial pitfall of second-world sff. That's for sure.

But people being people doesn't just mean being nice and funny and quirky. Like, very often it does mean being selfish or prejudiced or suspicious of people unlike them. Generosity is ubiquitous in humans vultures, and so is violence.

I love Terry Pratchett! I love Discworld! He definitely has one of the sharpest, most sympathetic satirical eyes for modern life, and I love Discworld for that. But the Discworld books are also comedies, and not the be-all end-all of fantasy. I dunno. I kind of get tired, sometimes, of the "people are inherently good actually" discourse of tumblr. I don't believe that. I don't believe people are inherently bad either; I don't believe people are inherently anything other than prone to ingroup/outgroup thinking tbh.

I'm definitely not saying you have to like grimdark fantasy. I don't think anyone has to like any genre. I try not to moralize liking genres. I get a lot of value out of books that feel to me like they're acknowledging that sometimes things really are that bad and sometimes people are mean and you gotta deal with it. I'm not always in the mood for that. Certainly I have plenty of faves that aren't depressing as well (I do love Discworld! I blog about The Murderbot Diaries a Lot!) I'm interested in books that make an attempt to portray the best, most utopian society the author can imagine. I just... also, for example, read Ninefox Gambit at the height of the pandemic when no one knew what was going on and no one knew when there would be a vaccine and there were protests every day being met with police brutality and I was throwing up nearly everything I ate out of anxiety, and the violence and the war and the heavy imperial dystopianness of it calmed my brain down a lot during that time. Because "react badly to plagues" and "violence" are also what people do, and at that time, it resonated to see someone agreeing.

[wardenwyrd]

Writeblr Introduction

Dotted in secret stars and whispered moons lies The Warden O' Wyrd; too bright smiles and sharp eyes linger on her skin, miasma orbiting their visage. When dusk's hands sweep fluttering eyes closed her shackles, in turn, loosen.

Greetings and welcome all, I am Wardenwyrd - connoisseur of messy queers, the freaky & occult, and all things speculative fiction! I am freshly new to Writeblr and am keen to dig my claws so fellow denizens of Writeblr interact if you enjoy my vibes < 3

Open to ask and tag games !

◈What I write ◈

Anything and absolutely everything speculative, weird horror, all shapes and forms of queerness, and a metric ton of worldbuilding.

Genres: Fantasy (Low, high, dark, fairy tale-esque, etc), Sci-Fi, Paranormal, Romance, Horror, Mystery

Fantastical, often ethereal and treacherous worlds flavoured with flowery prose

Queer, neurodivergent, and disabled characters and themes. All kinds of diversity really. Always looking to broaden and grow my noggin' with wisdom

Gender queer characters. An UNBELIEVABLE amount of dyed hair and pronounces.

Body horror: elegant body horror; gross, grimy body horror; wonderfully queer body horror 'til I burst at the seams; all sorts. Twisting of the body into something other than human as a form of beauty my beloved < 3 < 3

Characters who desperately need therapy (That would be my fault)

Rich settings and worlds. Give me intricate magic systems !!! give me ecology that could be shown in a nature documentary !!!

🌔About Me 🌒

Goblin in my (late) teens. I've been writing for a whiiiile but started really getting into it about half a decade ago. I will ravenously consume all forms of creative media.

⭐Likes ⭐

Favourite colour: Purple my beloved Favourite band: Mili (I'm so normal about them) Favourite genre/s: Gothic lit, Fantasy, Horror romance, whimsical fairies Fav insect: Moths/Butterflies

Stats:

Creative writing college student

Panromantic Ace | Queering my gender to the max

English (Regrettably)

Autism kreachure

Revolving door of hyperfixations on science-y stuff

Purple hair (Not beating the stereotype allegations)

WIPs

[Note: I am very bad at deciding on WIP names]

Prisma

My surreal fantasy WIP comprised of a collection of different stories linked by a unifying setting.

Colour-Coded to the max. Each central story focuses on a character assigned a colour, differing in tone, POV, and focus. Main three are purple, blue, and red.

Literal becomes figurative, and figurative literal

Charms and incantations of old swirl in from afar, weaving our hands together with something much deeper than flesh – a curious sentiment oozing from the recesses of Damsel’s cloak as the feeling of moss and stone wove through my veins; cold and refreshing.

◉

‘What absurdity’, The Arbiter would think to himself. After all, those carmine red eyes of his delve into the primaeval madness: in their muddy depths lies the shivering madness - Fear. From fear is the knowledge wrenched from uncertainty and bloodshot eyes. Dread is the light; tugging on world-weary watchers. 

Sort of portal fantasy, sort of not. The stories in this WIP span across many eras and places, yet often find themselves connecting and mingling. Incredibly queer.

Main characters:

MC of Red, Jack Pronouns: He/Him Bnuuy ass trans Victorian boy. Pasty and WILL combust in the sun. Autism creature. He gets a himbo bf and sick asf t-surgery scars as a treat &lt; 3 Character Playlist

MC of Blue, Hel Pronouns: Any/All seemingly innocent girl but remove the innocent and girl part. Kind of an eldritch horror after a character arc but like, that's the good ending. So old surnames weren't a thing in the era they're from. Character Playlist

MC of Purple, Dorothea Pronouns: She/They Gatekeep, Gaslight, Girlboss. Autistic adhd precocious mess who WILL make it your problem. Genuinely manipulative but has great hair so it's fine. Character Playlist

Other notable mentions

[Note: I will elaborate on all of these later]

Witch WIP

My beloved blorbos < 3 Once I figure out how to frame and present it in a more refined way I like I shall be posting about this.

Personal & Cultural struggle within a fantasy context | Disability & Identity as a main theme | Aroace protagonist and Queerplatonic relationship | Magic inspired by folklore and myth | Found family

Low Fantasy setting in a somewhat alternate earth

Sprawling magic system

Conventional fantasy groups but with a spin: revamping those vibes

Witches aren't just funny flying women but genuinely inhuman creatures with spicy shit going on

Demons and angels but: demon is the colloquial term for a class of magical beasts characterised by dense essence, not like hell demons. Angels are living algorithms born from patterns and don't have an actual association to any gods.

MC Playlists:

Branwen | Ingram

Five Steps From Hell

Biblically Accurate Angelic-Flavoured paranormal apocalypse

Autistic MC

More horror oriented than action

Lots of vibes.

MC becoming something not very human, but they're more worried that they aren't worried too much about it

I've got some dastardly plans for this one. Vibes and atmosphere whilst the world falls apart and neurodivergence is a great combo.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

Your post about how Lucie and Jesse aren't mature enough for their relationship reminded me of another weird thing with them, which is that Lucie met Jesse for the first time as a small child and has been holding onto this idealized vision of him as a faerie prince for years.

Now I can appreciate a ship where one person thinks the other is perfect but has to learn that they're human and ends up loving them all the more, but I don't think that Lucie ever really has that. I got the feeling that she loves Jesse because she loves the inherent romance and adventure of falling for a ghost and bringing him back to life through determination and love, that he's more of a character than a person to her. This might be because he isn't the best written character and the narrative never really acknowledges his flaws (like how he treated Grace), but it seems to me that Lucie was basically thrust into the middle of an epic romantic adventure that fit perfectly into her comfortable world of fantasy novels, and it just stayed that way. She is able to bring Jesse back with no real consequences (yeah Belial uses his body to kill Elias, but it all gets resolved without permanently hurting anyone the audience really cares about), and it's safer and better than when Jace is resurrected by the literal angel Raziel.

If ChoT leaned more into Lucie and Grace's friendship, I think we could have got a really interesting dynamic with Lucie building more empathy for Grace's trauma and learning about the problems with how Jesse treated her. Maybe Grace would inspire Lucie to confront Jesse, and it could help them both grow as people. I also like your idea about focusing on how the Lucie and Jesse situation impacted Malcolm and his quest to bring back Annabel. Actively addressing how much easier it was for her would do a lot to make me happier about the inconsistency, showing that the characters see how unfair it is and get angry about it. I'm fine with the fact that things aren't equally difficult for every character, I just wish there was more insight into how they react to the imbalance.

This ended up being more of a rant than a question, but Lucie frustrates me as a character because she could have been so interesting and she's just not.

So, preface. I'm very overall satisfied with ChoT and I give no fucks at all about Lucie, Jesse, or their relationship. I would not change anything if it would alter the endings of other characters (besides Grace in the ways I'll get to). But I don't think that my hopes would have impacted anyone outside of that trio, so, we good.

I think you hit the nail on the head with

I got the feeling that she loves Jesse because she loves the inherent romance and adventure of falling for a ghost and bringing him back to life through determination and love, that he's more of a character than a person to her.

and

Lucie was basically thrust into the middle of an epic romantic adventure that fit perfectly into her comfortable world of fantasy novels, and it just stayed that way.

I like Lucie fine, but I feel like she ended the narrative exactly as she began it. All of the other characters grew a lot, and Lucie's immaturity is so stark by the end. The only exception to this rule besides Lucie is Jesse, who like you acknowledged has no canon personality besides in the moment where he's utterly awful to Grace.

I periodically think about this, and I have wondered before if Cassie purposely made Jesse a cardboard cutout. Lucie/Jesse is clearly a fairy-tale-esque story, and perhaps she wanted people to be able to project whatever they wanted onto the "Jesse" void so they would feel as though he could be their dream fairytale prince. I don't think so, though, I think this is giving way too much credit to the narrative.

I think it's really interesting how (in my experience) being super underwhelmed with Lucie/Jesse is the TLH fan standard. I know two people who like them, which is great! I'm really close with one! I adore her! But like, "Lucie/Jesse is underwhelming" seems to be a take that 99.9% of TLH fans share, and it's so odd that they overwhelmingly missed the mark.

Re: Lucie and Grace, yeah. Agree.

Here's what I would have done with Ghostwriter (if I couldn't just background them and make them Malcolm's backstory):

Lucie and Grace work hard to ressurect Jesse. Ultimately, though, they fail and Jesse fades. This is the end of ChoI - he is just dead now instead of having come back to life. Lucie can no longer see him, and ChoT is not just her grief cycle but also her "holy shit I have to stop living in fantasy lala land" growth moment. It would have been such a moment of growth for Lucie and could have been poignant as fuck - and, since Jesse is just a cutout, would have only really been sad on a "poor Lucie" level. Grace and Lucie bond in their grief and become really close friends, which is their ending. Much more satisfying for Grace since she would have a friend after Kit died; much more satisfying for Lucie as an arc of growth.

I'm also saying this as a noted hater of tragedy, so I'm very secure in my knowledge that it's a hell of a good plotline. Also, Malcolm watching this failure could have been SO cool. Especially if Lucie, not doing well, had a confrontation with him for failing to resurrect Jesse. And then she refuses to call Annabel - not because she can't. Like, Malcolm's story would have developed even more layers.

If Cassie had been willing to call Jesse the plot device that he was instead of hurriedly trying and failing to give him a semblance of personality in ChoT, we could have had so much more with them.

[barbatos-sama]

there's a lot of arguing in general about how modern nattlan is amongst the fans, and i feel like some ppl are being overly forgiving of it and trying to put a woke hat on it since some people on the "its too modern" side are admittedly being racist, but most of us simply are not imo.

fonntaine has been repeatedly stated to be the most technologically advanced region, and every new invention we see in the game seems to come from there. however when saying this, we can't Ignore the fact that fonntaine's advancements are based on ancient sumerian and kanarian technology. fonntaine's advancements are aided by their proximity to the summeru desert and kannaria, they find old buried technology from long ago and reverse engineer / take inspiration from it. and even before summeru and kanaria, there was the original society of dragons that ruled this world before the humans colonized it, and that dragon society was supposed to be incredibly technologically advanced. so it's true that modern-esque technology isn't Unheard of in this world; one of the first enemies you fight in this game is a ruin guard, which is an ancient steampunk looking robot. that's the thing though: it Looks ancient and steampunk. it Looks like something out of a ruin. so it fits the aesthetic and doesn't look out of place!! that's almost the entire basis for our argument, They Aren't Bothering Aesthetically to make these things fit in anymore. we weren't complaining about naavia or chevruse's guns because they don't feel modern, or at least they have fantasy elements that make them fit in (naviia's gun being an umbrella cannon for example, its a very cool weapon but doesn't Look futuristic even though it technically is).

some people on the its too modern side Are being racist, i've seen ignorant people acting like nattlan can't have technology because "they still have tribes" as if tribes are some sort of primitive precursor to "advanced" (western) society and not just cultural. but people are taking these bigots and acting like they make up the entire argument and aren't just a minority. it's perfectly okay for nattlan to have technology, they aren't fucking cave people, but the laziness when designing said technology is getting ridiculous.

chassca's gun and the motorcycle aren't the only examples (although they're the most egregious) there's also xiilonen's turn tables.

they look too modern!! okay!! i just really don't think there's any way to make one of these fit in with the aesthetic of the game. and look at her sword, it's literally got LEDs!! like those light bars Move!

(i had a gif but tumblr was like "oh no oopsie that's too big to post buddie ))):" fuck offfff lmao)

also this is a bit of an aside but xiilonen in general is kind of all over the place because they gave her roller skates and made her a DJ in her gameplay but her actual role in the story is that she's a blacksmith. there's absolutely nothing in her design or gameplay that invokes Blacksmith, and she isn't just any old blacksmith either, she's like a Magic Blacksmith. an important one. its like they needed someone to fill that role and stuck her in there despite her theming having nothing to do with it, it bothers me.

i can excuse kinnich's video game aesthetic a bit more, and i know it sounds like i may just be playing favorites since i do like him most, but from a lore standpoint it makes sense because ajjaw is one of those ancient dragons from the advanced society i mentioned previously. ajjaw's projection comes from a bracelet kinnich wears which is ancient tech that he found in some ruins, so it makes sense lore wise. also, kinnich doesnt like Play Video Games, like video games aren't An Invention in this world, he just has an aesthetic that looks pixely and video gamey, it isnt like the turntables if you get what i mean? also thematically as well him being dendro also follows a pattern, in this game nature and tech have a really cool relationship that i've never seen elsewhere. you get kind of like, natural tech if that makes sense? you can see it in nahhida and kaaveh's gameplay. nahhida's attacks look like she's stepping on a keyboard and her skill looks like she's taking a picture, meanwhile kaaveh has a little robot suitcase that fights for him, but his suitcase is Appropriately Themed so it doesn't look out of place. again lore wise it makes sense because kaaveh Also got his suitcase from an acient ruin, it isn't a modern invention its left over tech from a bygone era.

idk its just weird to me to see some ppl sucking their dicks so severely over this, its just entirely a matter of them being uncreative and not trying to appropriately theme their stuff anymore so it fits in. it would have been so easy to give the goddess a motorcycle that fits in, botw had a freaking motorcycle that looked old and ruin-y.

they seriously just got lazy and gave her a modern one, like it just comes down to laziness 😭😭