I like one love interest stories a lot too. The concept of soulmates could be utilized in such cool and interesting ways, which is a shame since itās usually just done as the āone true mateā thing like youāre saying.
Me too! Iād also like to see more non-European folklore in general as long as itās done respectfully and well. Though it would be difficult when we barely have any fantasy clothes, let alone more specific subsections of fantasy or cultural/regional attire.
Oof. Yeah, abusive or uncomfortably violent/aggressive LIs is a huge stain on the Episode genre in my opinion. Male LIs like that unsettle and worry me - mostly in the context of what they mean for cultural influence.
Definition: In the cinema of the United States, the Magical Negro is a supporting stock character who comes to the aid of white protagonists in a film. Magical Negro characters, who often possess special insight or mystical powers, have long been a tradition in American fiction. Wikipedia
A really clear example of this trope can be seen in the second Maleficent movie. Likeā¦that was his only purpose and I was sitting there asking āDid they seriously just throw this trope in our face???ā
Iāve definitely seen these on Episode before. No one source can be taken as the bible for avoiding racial stereotypes or toxic tropes, but for anybody new to what these tropes mean - thereās a lot more to the tropes than just being black/asian/etc. with magical powers - Writing with Color tends to offer examples and more extensive description.
I have a soft spot for werewolf/spirit animal/shapeshifter stories, when done well. Its hard to find a story thatās not 'the only white wolf/vampire/ghost hybrid left on earth falls in love with the powerful alpha werewolf and they have a kid"
I am really considering African Mythology for the contest. Iām obsessed with research so I donāt know if Iāll make the deadline but Iāve been wanting to see Orishas. I incorporated some in my story Incandescent but itās on hold.
Good luck! I hope youāre able to make the deadline. @kheyrwrites herself is planning on entering with an afrofuturism entry that incorporates elements of African mythology.
Best of luck! I would love to see what you come up with.
I have a character based off of Yemoja, the Yoruba water deity and she is one of my favourites to write. These characters really give you the chance to write personalities with such rich history and culture. I totally recommend going down that route yourself.
He was such a perfect example of the trope and thatās kind of why I had such a āseriously wtf?ā attitude about it. I was holding the movie to high standards and then they did that and it was just such an amateur move to the point I was dumbstruck!
I love a lot of magical tropes but I truly prefer a unique twist on either very well-known tropes or a story that centers more around the adventure and journey of the main character.
Good luck to everyone entering the contest! I am slowly getting there but I canāt believe time has gone by so fast already T^T
There arenāt many tropes I hate outright and refuse to read, since if they can be brought out in an unexpected way with well-developed characters, I will often enjoy tropes I wouldnāt naturally gravitate towards. I agree with the sentiments around vampires and donāt understand why theyāre always weirdly horny. But Iām open to stories with vampires if the world building is sound and the vampires are just part of the larger mythology. The only thing I really hate is when stories are listed as fantasy but are actually just romance stories where sometimes the characters do magic. I mean, romance is fine I reckon but it doesnāt replace genuine and complex characters and dynamics.
I do generally like stories where the MC is transported to another world and is like wtf guess this is my life now. Especially if they end up being part of a team where all the characters are integral to moving the plot forward / saving the world, rather than an MC who ends up being the The Chosen One and all the other characters hang about idolising them. I love complex world building around magic where itās weaved into all the aspects of the story. I am really into the concept of each character possessing a unique magical ability and needing to work with other characters in order to reach their individual and shared goals in the story.
This can be done in any story, but I feel like fantasy stories offer such a rich medium to explore themes of morality and the grey areas. I mean that mostly in the sense of loyalty / duty vs doing the right thing to restore justice to the most disenfranchised people. Iām a bit over the āMC becomes the benevolent ruler at the endā trope and would love to see more MCs outright reject unjust systems of rule. Death to the monarchy and all that. I love epic battles though and dislike anticlimactic endings. Not everything needs to end in an epic fantasy battle or anything, but if you spend 20 chapters building up a big fight just to have a tiny confrontation where the MC outsmarts the Big Bad in the last second, that usually falls flat to me.
But fantasy can be a hard genre to write and I reckon you learn as you go. As long as a story is just a bit bland rather than glamourising really problematic tropes and dynamics, then I donāt have to worry or keep reading lol. My main issues are usually ones that transcend the fantasy genre. But Iāve seen a lot of Magicka entries that look incredible so Iām excited about the contest.
Yeah, Iām open to vampires too! I even have some collab plans with another person for a vampire story. I think what bothers us (or at least me) is when itās so clear that fantasy is just a set piece for lustful romance because it really does show in the quality of the work. And then thereās the whole thing with these vampire LIs being overly sexually aggressive or even cold-blooded killers.
When someoneās fleshed out the characters and story, elements of sexuality alone donāt necessarily annoy me, although they can.
This one is such a pain. Itās so, so clear when somebodyās trying to wrap things up in a neat little package and the climax + epilogue combined barely lasts an episode.
I need to see more humans messing up supernatural creatures with the powers of science and technology.
Iāve got some of that in an upcoming story called Bloodlines where my vampire hunter Lottie guns down rogue vampires with modified hollow-point rounds dipped in holy water. Since hollow-points donāt exit the target the way a full metal jacketed round does, the holy water remains in their system and kills them in one shot. Much less risky than staking or burning.
Oh I totally agree. Tbh I donāt want to read a lustful romance in any genre, so I want to be safe from this in the fantasy genre. The obsession with ~darkness~ (as in predatory aggression) makes me uncomfortable and there are some other strange aspects to a lot of vampire āloreā on this app. Feels a bit like people are trying to write about attraction to the āāāāExotic Otherāāāā in a way they think is socially sanctioned. Iāve seen a lot of vampires in this story be both sexually aggressive and flamboyant in mannerisms, which is uncomfortably close to queercoding would-be villains to me. Especially since there are waaaaay too many weird vampire orgy implications.
There is a lot of interesting mythology around vampires and itās lost for the sake ofā¦horniness, I reckon. Feels a bit like authors were tired of their bad boy / mafia narratives being criticised for romanticising abusive behaviour and thought āwell if I do the same thing but the LI is a vampire itās not a bad thing bc thatās just how vampires are.ā Nooo thanks.
Just give me a commune of nerdy, ace vampires who, because they have adaptations to survive the impending Apocalypse, are fighting to save the world from social and environmental catastrophe caused by the human elitesā obsession with capitalism and white supremacy.
Totally with you. Similar deal with werewolves, though I think the latter are more likely to be coded as hyper-aggressive men of color and it becomes this weird fetishization thing. Vampires are kept pale, werewolves are kept tan or darker, and vampires are about sophisticated predatory behavior vs the āuntamedā predatory behavior of werewolves. Both can be love interests in these stories, but they will not be presented the same way.
And thatās not even taking the massive fantasy age difference trope into account.
Ugh I forgot about werewolves. Youāre totally right. Werewolves also come with the unfortunate alpha / beta / omega dynamics that further perpetuates that āwild beastā narrative that is definitely a function of racism and race fetishism. I feel like I see the justification for vampires being always pale as āwell they donāt circulate bloodā or whatever, but like if thatās true how come they can still get a boner ???
I think the more I post in this thread, the more I realise I actually dislike a looooot of stuff, but I do think most of that is the how rather than the what. I also would just like to see more of these characters asā¦not love interests lol. They could be interesting characters that drive the plot without being weird, predatory LIs. I agree werewolves and vampires as LIs get presented differently but somehow they both tend to have an ~inexplicable~ supernatural power that draws others (usually humans) to themā¦sexually so they can act out their respective predatory fantasies. Thatās a whole extra level of yick.
Some of these things could be explored in a way where the MC really challenges whatās happening and points out how gross it is, but noooo they fall prey (or fall āin loveā) with a 500 year old magical creature with dubious powers of sexual persuasion. No thx.
I hope youāre able to make the deadline. 
I would love to see what you come up with.
