Limyaael's Fantasy Rants

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 Live Journal, 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, and here, or here.

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 in May 2010. They have yet to resume as of May 2012.

Tropes Limyaael has specifically ranted about:

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

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.
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.
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 Bastards: 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.
Hot Skitty On Wailord Action / 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.
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.
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."
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.
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.