Limyaael's Fantasy Rants

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Limyaael is an English graduate student studying for her Ph.D. In 2003, she decided to express her views on fantasy literature in a rant entitled Why I get impatient with clichéd fantasy. Since then, she has written more rants on her online journal.

Despite the name, Limyaael’s rants are not just for fantasy writers. She also has covered topics that are not limited to fantasy, like dialogue and romance, as well as more general topics like plotting and characterization. One of the features of the journal format is that Limyaael’s commenters also have much to say, from additional facts to opposing viewpoints.

The Rants used to be posted on LiveJournal, but Limyaael has moved to InsaneJournal. The Rants originally posted on LJ can still be accessed there, though.

Limyaael’s Fantasy Rants are updated here. The archive of Rants can be accessed here, or by tag, and here, or here [1]. (warning: some of tag links in both journals are dead, but posts are there)

Limyaael's rants were scarcely updated for a while starting around April 2008. In this post she explained the reasons, and the Rants were not updated until she had more free time. They started back up for a little while, then stopped again (the last was May 28th, 2010). They have yet to resume (as of February 2017).

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Tropes relevant to Limyaael's Fantasy Rants

Tropes Limyaael has specifically ranted about

• Alien Tropes (Starfish Aliens vs. Rubber Forehead Aliens etc): "On alien species and worlds and keeping them alien" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Anachronic Order: non-linear narrative rant (LJ)
• Animorphism and Shapeshifting: On shapeshifters (LJ)/(IJ), shapeshifter societies (LJ)/(IJ) and "Weird little rant on shapeshifting" (blurring the distinction between the "human" part and the "animal part") (LJ).
• An Adventurer Is You: aversion: Rant on D&D stereotypes (LJ)/(IJ)
• Anti-Villain: Non-villain rant (LJ)/(IJ)
• Arranged Marriage: On escaping the arranged marriage trap (LJ)
• Author Avatar: Putting non-obvious bits of yourself in the story/characters (LJ)
• Avoid Writing a Mary Sue: Many of her rants are devoted to this.
• Bond Creatures: Telcom rant (LJ)
• Con Lang: conlangs
• Creator's Pet: Author's Darlings
• Cryptic Background Reference: Casual worldbuilding (LJ)
• Death Tropes: Death rant (LJ)
• Deus Angst Machina: "Rant on abuse of abused characters" (LJ)/(IJ), "Ten ways of managing angst" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Diabolus Ex Machina: Raining shit on the story and not letting it stink (LJ)/(IJ)
• Dream Tropes: Dream rant (LJ)
• Easy Amnesia Rant on amnesia/amnesiac characters (LJ)
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Rant on elemental magic (LJ)
• Ending Tropes, Feghoot: Smooth endings rant (LJ)/(IJ)
• Evil Overlord (and Mordor): aversion thereof - Rant on creating non-Dark Lord villains (LJ)/(IJ)
• Fantastic Caste System: "Class/caste systems" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: "Throwing out the kitchen sink" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Fate and Prophecy Tropes: Destiny and prophecies rant (LJ)
• Feral Child: Feral child rant (IJ)
• Final Battle: The final battle (LJ)
  • aversion: There are other ways to end a fantasy book than battle (LJ)
• Foreshadowing: Subtle foreshadowing rant (LJ)
• God Mode Sue: Means of prevention. "Ten ways of making all-powerful, unique protagonists tolerable" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Half-Human Hybrid: Half-breed heroes (LJ)/(IJ)
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Rant on whores (LJ)/(IJ)
• Idiot Ball: And are your characters sane today? (LJ)
• Idiot Plot: Idiot plots, and how to avoid them (LJ); also, "Stupid plots rant - Last Herald-Mage spoilers" (LJ); some of "Rant on slippery-slope plotting" (IJ)
• IKEA Erotica: If it’s just Tab A and Slot B, there’s a problem (IJ).
• Ineffectual Loner: aversion: Making convincing loner characters (LJ)
• Info Dump: aversion: "Avoiding infodumps" (LJ)/(IJ)
• La Résistance: secret groups rant (LJ), which is mostly limited to resistance groups.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Rant on handling a large cast of view (LJ)
• Love At First Sight: aversion: Non-bickering, non-love at first sight relationships (LJ)
• Love Triangle: What it takes to make Limyaael love a love triangle (LJ)
• Magic A Is Magic A: Limitations on magic rant (LJ)
• Mentors: Mentor rant (LJ)/(IJ)
• Medieval European Fantasy: Medieval Societies
  • aversions: "On stepping out of medieval fantasy" parts one (LJ) and two (LJ); "On using non-Western influence in fantasy" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Medieval Stasis: Keeping static worlds plausible (LJ)
• Magic and Powers: World-building: magic rants [2] ^{[dead link]}
• Mindlink Mates: One of Limyaael's most hated tropes (LJ)
• Monologuing: Rant on avoiding a villain monologue (IJ).
• Our Monsters Are Different
  • Our Demons Are Different: Demon Rant (LJ)/(IJ)
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Rant on dragons (LJ)
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The Dwarves' Turn (LJ)
  • Our Elves Are Better: Why Are Elves Always This Way? (LJ) (also covers Can't Argue with Elves and Mary Suetopia)
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghost rant (LJ)/(IJ)
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Vampire rant (LJ)/(IJ)
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Rant on non-angsty werewolves (LJ)/(IJ)
• Parody Tropes: Parody fantasy (LJ)
• Physical God: Beings of extreme power rant (LJ)
• Planet of Hats: "Avoiding gimmick-worlds" rant (LJ)/(IJ)
• Professional Killer: On assassin characters (IJ)
• Psychic Power: Psychic powers rant (LJ)
• Point of View: Viewpoint rants
  • Problems and Promises of First-Person Fantasy (LJ)
• Queer As Tropes: Rant on gay and lesbian characters in fantasy (LJ)
• Refusal of the Call: Making good reluctant heroes (LJ)
• The Resistance: Rebel rant - parts first (LJ)/(IJ) and second (LJ)/(IJ).
• Roma: Rant on gypsies and nomadic peoples (LJ)
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Several rants on grammar and words (LJ) (LJ) (LJ) (LJ) (LJ)
• Save Both Worlds: Rant on juxtaposed worlds (LJ)
• Science Fantasy: Science fiction and fantasy hybrids
• Sci Fi Ghetto: Why I get impatient with clichéd fantasy (LJ). <-- Limyaael's original rant.
• (Stock and not-so-stock) Settings: setting rants
  • Grim Up North: Life in a northern town (LJ).
  • Thirsty Desert: Out of the frying pan and into the desert. (LJ)
  • Hungry Jungle: Sounds of the jungle. (LJ)
  • Ocean Punk/Wooden Ships and Iron Men: "Yo ho ho and a bottle of...something. (LJ)" and "Rant on island life" (LJ)/(IJ).
• Sex Tropes: Sex in fantasy novels (LJ)
• Shallow Love Interest: Designated Love Interest rant (LJ)
• Slap Slap Kiss: aversion: Non-bickering, non-love at first sight relationships (LJ)
• Sociopathic Hero: Rant on creating likeable bastard characters (LJ); Rant on sociopathic characters (LJ)
• Standard Fantasy Setting: On escaping Tolkien clichés (LJ)
• Story Within a Story: "To put, or not to put" (LJ)/(IJ)
• Take That: Fantasy of excess: Rant on Jordan and Goodkind (LJ)/(IJ)
• The Amazon: Sounds of the jungle (LJ)
• The Empire: writing empires part one (LJ)/(IJ) and two (LJ) (IJ)
• The Runaway: Fantasy teenage runaways (LJ)
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Writing a psychotic viewpoint character (LJ)
• True Companions: Rant on friendships (LJ)
• True Neutral: Neutral character rant (LJ)
• TV Genius Rant on genius characters (LJ)
• Twin Tropes: Twins rant (LJ)
• Unreliable Narrator: Showing your viewpoint character as not 100% correct (LJ)
• Urban Fantasy: "On urban fantasy." (LJ)/(IJ)
• Wangst: Unsurprisingly, it's one of recurring issues, so there's a special tag for it: "Rants on angst" [3] [4]
• Winged Humanoid: Rant on winged humanoids (IJ)

Tropes that have been mentioned or discussed on the side while ranting about any of the above topics

• Automaton Horses: "Amazing Mechanical Horses" are regularly mentioned, including Animal rant (LJ)/(IJ) and "Rant on fantasy travel" (LJ)/(IJ) starts with "Animals are not machine".
• Changed My Mind, Kid: In the Rant on slippery-slope plotting. ("We’ve changed our minds! Because it was time for a plot turn!") (IJ)
• Chekhov's Gun: Though she didn't use the term, her rant on subtle foreshadowing favors elements that aren't supposed to be noticed the first time around.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: In the Rant on slippery-slope plotting. (IJ)
• Convection, Schmonvection: Limyaael's rant on dragons notes that if your dragon can breathe fire hot enough to melt solid rock, it's probably going to do more than just "make a hero's jacket smolder" in the process.
• Counterproductive Propaganda: In the "Propaganda rant" (IJ)
• Cult of Personality: By necessity, the issue pops up now and then, such as in "Rant on creating good rulers" (IJ) and "Rebel rant" (parts first (IJ) and second (IJ)).
• Easy Evangelism: In "Rant on loyalty" (IJ) and "Avoiding gimmick-worlds" (LJ)/(IJ)
  • Also with Evil Minions/Gullible Lemmings: in "Propaganda rant" (IJ)
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: "(Poor sharks. The authors have them show up, but how often do they feed them? Not often)." (LJ)
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Limyaael's rant on D&D gameplay mechanics notes that while many of those rules made perfect sense in a gaming environment, they don't translate well into a narrative environment, if at all. (Seriously, why do those wizards need to keep memorizing the same spells over and over?)
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Almost any rant about elves, demi-humans, non-humans, etc. will invoke a comparison of the non-human species being in complete and utter harmony with their environment while the humans are hellbent on destroying it.
• Improbable Species Compatibility / Shapeshifting Squick: During her rant about half-human heroes, she says that as much as an author wants to just say "don't think about it" when asked how the "mechanics" of it work, the author is the one person who should be putting more thought into it than anyone else.
• Instant Messenger Pigeon: In "Rant on technology in fantasy" (IJ)
• Masquerade: In urban fantasy rant: (LJ)/(IJ)
• Misapplied Phlebotinum: Here and there, including Propaganda rant (IJ)
• No Periods, Period: When discussing full-moon-bound werewolves, Limyaael notes that even a woman's monthly period gets better care than full moon werewolf angst. Assuming the author even bothered to think about that, of course.
• Realism: Pick a rant, any rant, and odds are it's about adding more realism.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Rebel rant, part second (LJ)/(IJ).
• Rightful King Returns: Some of "Rant on slippery-slope plotting" (IJ) and "Stupid plots rant - Last Herald-Mage spoilers" (LJ)
• Show, Don't Tell/Informed Attribute: All the time, e.g. the "Rant on creating good rulers (IJ)" starts with this.
• Tail Slap: When discussing dragons, Limyaael notes that the whip of a crocodile's tail packs enough brute force to kill an average human being. So what would a dragon's tail do? "Probably not cause light wounds."
• Terminally Dependent Society: "Avoiding gimmick-worlds" rant (LJ)/(IJ)
• Unnecessarily Large Interior: Both rants on sea: "Yo ho ho and a bottle of...something" (LJ) and "Rant on island life" (LJ)/(IJ).

Take the amount of knowledge most fantasy authors have about horses, as discussed in the last rant. Now take half that knowledge. Now halve the half. This seems to be about the amount the average fantasy author knows about ocean-going, pre-twentieth century ships without doing research. I mean, at least most fantasists know the approximate size of a horse. They know that writing a horse as squeezing into a gopher hole is insane. Yet they write about roomy ships that apparently have dozens of cabins for rich passengers, and all the room for horses that those passengers’ hearts could desire, while the crew turns invisible when not needed and violates the law of conservation of mass when present.

• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: During her rant about "telcoms", Limyaael wonders how a character can just waltz into a town with a telepathic wolf/dragon/whatever by their side and nobody even bats an eye at it, much less try to chase it out of town or kill it. Especially when the creature being a telepathic companion is kept secret, and "the hunters have no reason not to shoot a dangerous beast who shows little fear of humans and is lurking around the village."

Tropes that manifest in the rants themselves

• Berserk Button: Nothing will get Limyaael into rant mode faster than lazy and unoriginal writing.
• Deconstruction: Limyaael goes into a lot of detail about the reasons why she despises certain tropes, such as what kind of logical consequences and implications a trope should have on its setting (but doesn't).
• Dissimile/NOT!: Usually in the form of: "That's totally original. Only not."
• Double Entendre: This was to be expected in her rant about sex scenes; Limyaael even Hangs a Lampshade on it throughout the post.
• Genre Savvy: Very.
• Pet Peeve Trope: stupid cliché rants
• Portmanteau: "Telcoms", for "telepathic companion".
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: She's on the cynical end.
• Take That: see above.
• Third Person Person
• Tropes Are Not Bad: Limyaael occasionally admits that some concepts are actually quite intriguing and can provide a lot of possibilities for good fiction ... it's just the poor execution of them by authors everywhere that makes them so cliché.