It’s a unique type of frustration when you agree that a character is deeply flawed but other people keep missing what’s actually wrong with them and assigning them new flaws that they don’t even have it’s like free my man he did none of that. He did a bunch of other shit tho.
Any setting where the elves have weaker booze than the dwarves isn’t committing to the bit
I mean, we’re talking about people whose lifespan is Yes.
“Oh, the weak wine? That is for children. I am two thousand years old, and I daresay one sip from this highball would knock you on your ass for a week.”
Look, there’s this weird thing people do with high fantasy where they want elves to be immortal/extremely long-lived snooty aristocrats and also somehow incapacitated by imagining the taste of salt too hard. “Orcs and dwarves have the hardest booze” no they don’t, they have work in the morning! In any of these settings, elves would pregame harder than hobbits party and everyone else has shit to do tomorrow.
The average high elf builds up the drug tolerance of a mid-70s Hollywood producer and then spends three centuries studying alchemy. While humans seek immortality, the Immortals seek the elusive “philosopher’s cocaine.”
Elf Fentanyl works exactly the way cops think human fentanyl does
reading a book with a medieval setting and i was v excited for it BUT these characters have such modern hangups about touch and personal space that i keep forgetting it’s meant to be the fourteenth century. lads. get in bed together, it’s cold.
like this man is freaking out about sleeping next to someone (for warmth) because he has never shared a bed before
sir??? you are from the fourteenth century??? surely this is not such a novelty to you
also so far christianity does not exist in this book. we have not even so much as mentioned passing a church while travelling.
i repeat: sir, you are from the fourteenth century,
honestly i need somebody to write “there was only one bed with five other people in it” immediately, that sounds like it’s either going to be incredibly full of repressed yearning, incredibly funny, or just an orgy, and i would love to see it go in any and all of those directions
to the left of me: an impoverished noblewoman and her loyal man at arms and their forbidden cross class love doing an Only One Bed. to the right of me: two priests in full vestments and their forbidden gay catholic love doing an Only One Bed me, in the middle: eating turnips as quietly as I can while i take in the drama
Basic rules for analysing fiction, an incomprehensive list jotted down in a hurry:
The protagonist isn’t always right
The protagonist isn’t always good
The protagonist isn’t always written to be relatable or likeable
The narrator isn’t always right
The narrator isn’t always good
The narrator isn’t always telling the truth
The narrator isn’t always the author
The protagonist’s moral compass, the narrator’s moral compass and the author’s moral compass are three entirely different things that only occasionally overlap
Pay attention to what characters do and not just what they say
Pay special attention when what the characters do is at odds with what they say
A lot of the time the curtains are blue for a reason. If they aren’t, you should read better books
One more:
12. The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth
So many times I have seen people apparently just … forget that it’s possible for fictional characters to be (a) mistaken or (b) lying, and say things like “we know this to be true because [character] said so here” (or, worse, “this fact is canon because [character] said it”).
The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the protagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the secondary and minor characters aren’t always telling the truth, the narrator may be telling the truth but if the narrator is also a character in the story then don’t count on it.
I’m all for going about queerness with the goal of not being able to be understood by outsiders but like. you’ve GOT to be normal about aro & ace people if you do. you can’t go on about being confusing to cishets for fun and then complain about ace & aro people who go about sex and romance and attraction in ways that don’t make sense to you.
supporting queerness that confuses others should include queerness that confuses YOU too even if you’re queer yourself.
im an absolute fan of when characters have their own twisted perceptions of love. like holy shit that guy thinks inflicting pain is affection! woah this silly man believes love is a form of ownership! give me more.
