#genre: sci-fantasy

[prokopetz]

The real difference between fantasy and science fiction is that if you have too many belts, you're fantasy, and if you have too many zippers, you're science fiction. If you have too many of both, you split the difference and land in a contemporary technothriller where everybody is secretly a vampire.

[jupitermoths]

Read A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers, and what a wonderful read it was. I woke up this morning, reached for it from my bedside table, and didn't get out bed until I finished it.

Mosscap is my absolute favorite aspect of this book, not that I'm surprised. I was immediately endeared by it from the moment it appeared on the page, and my fondness only grew over time.

Its view of the future is hopeful, optimistic. The line "A reliable device, built to last a lifetime, as all computers were" elicited a bitter laugh from me. If only they were; well, maybe someday.

This definitely spoke to the part of me that stresses about "not doing enough" all the time. My reading approach felt appropriate to the themes, letting a few Sunday morning hours melt away under the warmth of this story. Comparing this book to a mug of tea may be a bit on the nose, but it's apt all the same.

[cubbihue]

So, a changeling is sort of like a p-zombie?

(For the unaware, “p-zombie” stands for “philosophical zombie”. It’s a thought experiment in philosophy that describes a being that’s outwardly identical to a human, but does not have a consciousness; that is, a p-zombie does not think whatsoever, although it looks like it thinks to an outsider observer. There’s a whole wikipedia article on it that explains the concept better than I can!)

They don't exactly think, as in "I dont want this" "I like that". But, Changelings do have a form of "Consciousness". It's just that their consciousness is more like a series of commands or tasks than actual formulated thoughts.

Timmy's Changeling has a very advanced "consciousness". It can predict future actions and reroute its tasks to pick only the best options for its situation.

We fill their heads with static to ensure that the Changeling does not form thoughts about anything. Thoughts leads to opinions, and opinions leads to incorrect actions. A proper Changeling should have more static in their mind than a TV screen on a defunct channel!

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[gnarlymiasma]

The Time Crystals of Mars

[un-pearable]

new thing i have to do when watching any kind of big budget, highly marketable take on a well established genre is ask whether or not the characters actually do the thing the genre was invented for. do the superheroes actually help anyone? mcu spider-man’s narrative treats helping his neighborhood like a burden that makes him less legitimate than the other heroes. iron man would never rescue a cat from a tree. snyderverse superman is actively taught to ignore the public. up until The Batman (2022) we had gone decades since having a batman on the big screen that actually protected people or helped regular civilians. what good is a power fantasy that aspires only to being the biggest gun. do the spies actually collect any information? do any stealth? have to communicate covert knowledge to prevent greater harm? the answer is increasingly no across the board and i fear for the growing popularity of detective lit again knowing few will stick the landing as well as Knives Out

[thepromptfoundry]

The Prompt Foundry will be kicking off the new year with Genreuary: A Genre Exploration Extravaganza!

We all have our favorite genres and it's always fun to explore new ones! That's what Genreuary is all about—make something to celebrate your favorite examples of some classic genres, try your hand at creating original work of your own in genres you've never played in before, or run with the excuse to stick your blorbos in some genre-swap AUs!

If you use this list, please tag me here @thepromptfoundry, I’d love to see your writing and art!

Feel free to combine different days' prompts with each other, or combine them with other events! Use your favorite characters from media, make some OCs, give us some academic analysis, make art that's all vibes, whatever tickles your fancy.

Respond to as many prompts as you want or as interest you, don’t worry about missing or skipping any. Remember, this is supposed to be fun!

If you have any questions or musings, check our FAQ, and if you don't find your answer, shoot me an ask.

Plain text list below the cut:

1 Suburban Sitcom 2 Urban Fantasy 3 Steampunk 4 Regency Romance 5 Magical Girl 6 Political Drama 7 Slasher Horror 8 Detective Noir 9 Gothic Romance 10 Time Travel Adventure 11 Post-Apocalyptic Survival 12 Dysfunctional Family Drama 13 Sword and Sorcery High Fantasy 14 Isekai 15 Contemporary Slice of Life 16 Historical War Drama 17 Cyberpunk 18 Spy Thriller 19 Investigation Procedural 20 Courtroom Drama 21 Paranormal Romance 22 Courtly Drama 23 Gothic Horror 24 Western 25 Courtly Intrigue 26 Workplace Comedy 27 Starship Adventure 28 Boarding School Drama 29 Alien Invasion Sci Fi 30 Disaster Thriller 31 Communal Living Sitcom

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

And remember kids, the next time someone tells you, "George R. R. Martin wouldn't make Jon Snow the typical fantasy hero because that's cliche".....

Oh yes he would!

One viewer wants to know what character would you play (on the show)? GRRM: If I could magically clap my hands and become a different person, it would be cool to play Jon Snow who's much more of the classic hero. Everybody wants to be the classic hero! ABC Interview, 2014

GRRM: And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Meduza Interview, 2017

In fact he already has ☺️

[yuripira4e]

“Actually they won’t grow old together cause one character has a longer life sp-“ SHUT UPPPPPKP

[bxriles]

A lot of creators in bookish spaces (ones who I really respect and share similar tastes with) keep talking about how amazing The Locked Tomb series is and I want to try it, but then I hear it’s sci-fi and I’m just immediately put off.

I don’t really fuck with the genre too much, but I want to give this series a chance, especially after seeing what people have to say about it. But then I’m afraid it’s going to be SUPER HEAVY sci-fi, and that would nottttt be a good time for me.

So my question for the masses is this: is it worth trying out The Locked Tomb series if you’re not a huge sci-fi fan? And be honest lmao. If you think it’s super heavy on the sci-fi elements and that it might be off-putting to someone like me, let me know! But if you think it’s worth pushing through, I want to know that too!

PS - I know the books are confusing as hell and difficult to follow at times, but I’ve already read Malazan Book of the Fallen, so that doesn’t scare me. If anything, that’s a point in TLT’s favor.

[mysharona1987]

[copper-ice-cube]

Main D20 Seasons Ultimate Ranking: part 3

Bonus: did I get any genres wrong?

(Part I, Part II, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI)

[prokopetz]

By your recent definition, kingdom hearts is sci fi

(With reference to this post here.)

Kingdom Hearts has both too many belts and too many zippers, which means Kingdom Hearts is a contemporary technothriller where everybody is secretly a vampire.

[lunchbagart]

Recently I've been hearing about the "death of literary fiction."

This is a category of fiction where characters have real-world problems, such as cancer, dealing with middle age and arguing with relatives.

Why would anyone mourn this? First of all, genre fiction, that is, something like romantasy, is from a much older literary tradition. Monsters, ghosts, people getting horribly killed, obnoxious gods running around...this is the good shit and has been since Gilgamesh.

"Readers lack taste these days," is one of the rallying cries of literary fiction.

Screw that noise, noob. Talk to me when your main character solves a cozy mystery with the aid of her cat, or your cancer-ridden MC gets around it by uploading his consciousness into a gunslinger robot with antimatter slugs. Cool stories sell.

This attitude keeps kids from reading. Boring isn't good. Boring isn't good!

[literatureaesthetic]

sorry, but the literary fiction girlies who act like fantasy/sci-fi are their kryptonite are so weird?? just say you're boring and move on.

[black-and-yellow]

They are all just the same guy in a slightly different font.

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)