For real tho, with hair like that, Loki has some Mirkwood Elf in him.
WHAT UP I GOT A BIG ELK omg nicki this time you’ve gone TOO FAR
how to make your alternate medieval fantasy story both original and not shitty
As a fantasy writer, I am RIDIC tired of reading the same goddamn story over and over and over again. It’s all basically Lord of the Rings, but with different names and different territories. (I’m dead serious about that. Whole books have been written about how LOTR changed fantasy as a genre forever, and while I get that, let’s stop rewriting it, ok?)What I’m not talking about here is historical fiction. That’s another thing entirely. Alternate medieval fantasy (also known as high fantasy or epic fantasy) takes place in a recognizable world that is somehow reminiscent of the medieval period in our own history. There are roughly eight billion examples of this, including but not limited to: A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, The Farseer Trilogy, Kristen Cashore’s books, pretty much anything about King Arthur, etc.Most high fantasy has tropes. These tropes are fucking old. We can do better.
- Stop making everyone white. Guys I am so fucking serious, all this does is show that you know fuck-all about history and how many people of color were doing a m a z i n g shit in the medieval period. Also? You are MAKING THIS WORLD UP. It is NOT ACTUALLY BASED ON EUROPEAN HISTORICAL FACT ANYWAY. The hell is everyone white for? (There’s a much larger conversation to be had here about most people who write high fantasy having no idea that the European world they’re loosely envisioning as they write has nothing to do with the historical reality, but that’s another post).
- Don’t make it about white people vs. non-white people. If your white hero is going up against savages from the desert-lands, you’re fucking up.
- Yo, for serious, no one cares about your reluctant noble bastard-born son of the king. Every other alternate medieval fantasy story has a reluctant noble bastard-born son of the king out saving the world. I just yawned writing that sentence. Do something else. There are literally BILLIONS of different characters you can come up with as a writer, come on.
- People didn’t just start becoming queer in the 20th century in this universe. People have been queer basically forever, in a lot of the world. No1curr about your book full of straight people. Totally over it.
- If your protagonist is a lady, her entire story shouldn’t be about saving the kingdom and also suddenly finding LOVE. Love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, but I promise you can write a story where a woman falls in love that isn’t about the woman falling in love (with the only man who never doubted her!)
Avoid these hideous tropes and remember: YOU ARE MAKING UP THIS WORLD. Why should it be bound by the same bigoted bullshit we run into in our world all the damn time?
i feel like you can apply this to writing most fiction. youre making shit up. you can make varied choices. hell, interesting choices.
What would HBO’s gritty, Emmy-nominated fantasy epic Game of Thrones look like if it aired on teen-friendly network The CW? There’d be fewer boobs, for one thing, and less edge — but even more angst. Just for fun, we made a fake promo for Westeros’s hottest soap.
"Between Starfleet losing all its cadets and the likelihood that its San Francisco academy got sucked down into a portal to hell, the upcoming Star Trek sequel should realistically be about Capt. Kirk manning a recruitment station at his old high school for a few hours between bouts of grief-stricken sobbing." - 6 Badass Movie Scenes With Horrifying Unseen Consequences | Cracked.com (via absurdical)
BLESS THIS TEACHER HOLY SHIT
Fox News banned from broadcasting in Canada
Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
Canada’s Radio Act requires that “a licenser may not broadcast … any false or misleading news.”I can’t even hate on Canada right now.
