What is it with Women and Bows?

Well since I'm working on a special project, I decided I still ought to post something, so here it is!

I love Katniss Everdeen. She's probably the first actual action gal in YA who can't be duplicated properly and starred in a battle royale just for the sake of her family. Heck, it's thanks to her that I can go wander over to the store and buy female Nerf products. For those for you who live under a rock, or just another country, Nerf is the name of a kids toy gun brand. Colorful purple, blue, and orange guns that shoot foamy stuff is a staple part of my childhood. However they were always geared for guys so I had to usually skip out on the idea of pink. Yet in the last few years Nerf came out with a pink bow set...And quickly moved onto small guns.

Now I don't have any issues with this, I actually do archery with a recurve bow. I'm no expert and I suck at it, but I do support the modern archery industry. But why is it that young girls are expected to use bows instead of guns/swords in fantasy? I know that the bow is pretty easy to use and it's a common thing for the poor people in fantasy to use, but that's still no excuse! I personally feel as if using a bow just keeps you out of the general danger while still keeping the character useful.

 Oh, what's that? The Dark Lord decided he wants to murder a poor bunny village? Well come magical heroes! Let's go fight his evil chili pepper orcs! And you, Ms. Bow, can go sit on the mountaintop far away from the action and just shoot them down.

Maybe I'm just thinking too deeply into this...I mean elves commonly use bows, and I rarely read about female elves prancing around with the group of heroes. However it's just shown time and again how girls/women are the bowmen. Look at Chronicles of Narnia, Susan got a bow as her gift! A bow that didn't even force her to sit down and aim! And I don't even want to get into other characters from fantasy who are just given bows. I guess it was just a way to throw the females out of the way so the men can do the proper fighting, yet still claim that the women wouldn't be following in Princess Peach's footsteps...

But have you played her in Super Smash Bros? She's killer.

I Like Vampires...Now Make Them Creative

And I probably lost your attention with that simple statement, but I'll continue talking anyway. I happen to like vampires and it has nothing to do with paranormal romance. To me the term 'vampire' can range from a creature who sucks blood to a creature that has to survive off of someone else's heart beat. If you could make a creative vampire then I'm all for reading about them. And, to be honest at the risk of my credibility, I think that's what Stephanie Myers was trying to do.

Okay, I know that sounded a lot like wishful thinking, but it's true. Mrs. Myers wanted to make vampires that sparkled thinking that would be different. She also thought that having them drink animal blood would make them unique and more desirable to young girls, because let's face it that was the target audience. However this all backfired due to a lack of good characterization and a decent plot...

 See people, I still have a brain!

I think perhaps the most interesting vampires that I've ever seen is in the sci-fi. Most times these 'vampires' crave energy and will suck it out of others until they have no more and shrivel up like yesterday's fried corpse. This has been used several times such as the wraiths in the Stargate series. In fantasy it has been done as well, but I've never read any in order to give you a proper example, mostly because I like blood sucking vampires.

Speaking of which...

Where is it written that a vampire HAS to suck blood for food? Can't vampires just like the taste? Maybe they only drink the blood because it's healthier than the rest of the human body? Perhaps they drink just blood so they aren't complete monsters and have to eat human bodies as well? Maybe blood doesn't give them heart burn? There's a hundred and one ways to sit there and recreate that one fact and not enough people take it by the horns and make it there own! For example I happen to think it would be interesting if vampires had to drink blood in order to keep up their appearances as gods, not because they needed the blood for nutrition or cravings. Think of the entire demeanor of the race along with the struggles they would have!

Speaking of demeanor, where is it written that vampires have to be dark and brooding? I understand that we've come to expect this, but perhaps they can be various forms of creepy and scary. Have you ever watched the anime Future Diary? No? Well go look up the character Yuno Gasai and come back and talk to me. She's a pink haired girl that seems sweet and cute...Until she puts an ax through your skull. Can't we have a few vampires like that running around? I think it would fit thanks to all the grimdark fantasy that's been popping up lately.

With that said I hope this helps you when you write your vampire characters!

Now I'm gonna go play  Castlevania Judgement....

An Idiot's View on Race in Fantasy

So, as you know by now, I'm a teenager. As such I haven't lived on this earth very long and am going to be an idiot for at least five more years before reality, and common sense, smack me hard enough to make me wiser. However there's just one thing that I just can't understand....

Why is there a lack of colored Protagonists in fantasy?

Why is there a lack of non-stereotypical Native Americans in Fantasy?

Why do all the Asian characters in fantasy have to come from Wuxia or Asian themed fantasy?

What happened to the Latinos in fantasy?

Is anyone starting to get what I'm saying? You see I come a background that is a bundle of races. I have an African-American mother and a Caucasian father, and some Native American on my Mom's side, so I see the world as a huge melting pit. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like my father's side of the family, I love Europe they've got some awesome history, but I just want to see other parts of me represented. It get's tiresome after awhile seeing the same old pale skinned girl on the cover of the book and being told 'This is who you're supposed to aspire to be like.'

Now saying that does this mean if a girl has a strong character, such as Katniss Everdeen from Hunger Games, that I shouldn't try to be like her? Of course not! But at times how can you really relate to someone who has more of a race boundary than I do? I hate to be the one to say this, and burst your shiny little bubble, but no one is as free thinking as we would want to be. Some people just WON'T get into fantasy, urban or otherwise, because there's no Colored, Latino, Asian, Native American characters. At the same time others have just become sick to death of a lack of representation and need a change,

Don't believe me? Then why is everyone and their mother getting so hyped up about a fantasy story called The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms? Something tells me that it has more to do with the fact that the main character is colored, and on top of that female, than anything else. Not that N.K Jemisin isn't a good writer, I'm saving up for her new series, but the idea that a character can be black and female in a fantasy story happens to be novel is more of a seller than anything.

People it shouldn't be this way! It should be that when I want to go to the fantasy section to read about a shoddy love triangle between a human and two mermaids I should be able to find the same stupid plot done again and again, but with more than just white characters.

With that being said I firmly believe that if you're an African-American, Latino, Asian, and Native American writer instead of whining about how you can't get your people to be represented in books just go ahead and publish one with your race as the protagonist. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, "But I won't be able to sell it to a publisher!"

Then skip over the publisher. If you're writing an amazing story that is unique, deep, original, and the reason they won't but it is because your character isn't fitting the 'selling mold', then go ahead and self-publish. I'm willing to bet that people who have money will buy your books just so that they can relate a little more to the characters.

How to Make an Unique Magic System

I think that hundreds of people try to make good and expansive magic systems now a days. I mean if you look at some older fantasy books, you'll notice that magic is just a thing that can do stuff with no real explanation at all. However that's just not the case anymore, magic is something that has to be boiled down to nearly a science. So, seeing as how I actually like making magic systems more than worlds, I'm going to help other amateur writers make fun magic systems.

So the first thing you want to ask yourself is: Where does your magic come from? Now that sounds like a stupid question, magic comes from magic...Right? Well that's not entirely true, if you want your magic to do something it has to come from somewhere. As such you may want to question where your magic came from. A good example is if you have a people that can use their blood as a magic source, but they must understand the rune system and write it down. If you run out of blood then it is impossible for people to use magic. See?

Of course if the magic comes from a source that isn't so easy to exhaust, like the atmosphere or something like that, then you may want the people who use it have consequences. Having consequences when a person uses their magic always puts a person at stake, making those scenes with spells far more interesting. Often times I see the cop out: you'll run out of energy if you use spells. That's great and wonderful, but that's not really saying something when you want to show just how hard or realistic it is to be a mage/wizard/witch/magical snowball. In the end you're making them no different than warriors, the end of their sword wielding time comes when they're tired. Not very exciting huh? But if we go back to our blood mages, what if their big issue is that the wounds they inflict on themselves don't heal easily? On top of that we already have the issue in that they are using their blood as magic. Double whammy!

Now that we know what our magic is made of and what the consequences are the question is...Who can use it? Well, this really depends on the plot of your story. If your story is about evil knights trying to take over the world and your good guy is just a poor farmer boy, as cliche as that sounds, then can only the wealthy use magic? If so does that mean your farmer boy must steal the ability to use magic since he isn't rich? Maybe only those who join a religion can use magic? So then the boy must convert to that religion in order to use magic to defeat the evil knights. For the sake of our blood mages, and the example, let's just say that only people who are born under the 'blood moon' can use magic.

Now that you've decided where magic comes from, what the consequences are, and who can use it...Time for the fun part, what can your magic do?! This really depends on the three factors above, because if the magic is nature magic I highly doubt you can turn a flame into a stool. So figure out exactly what you can do with your magic and what you can't do. For the sake of example, and our mages, I'll make a quick break down of what the blood magic can do.

1. Can bring people back to life with the use of heart's blood. Is very lethal and can kill a person if the incision is not made properly and not quickly stitched and bathed. A person must have the complete corpse of the person or it will not work. Expect the person to be zombie like and constantly feeding them your heart's blood.

2. Blood magic can take on the traits of the elements given the correct runes.

3. Blood can not be used to make large explosions no matter what Michael Bay tells us.

4. This is just an example, please use your imagination for the next rule.

Okay, so you have your rules of magic, but how can you gain more power? Is it a leveling up system like in Final Fantasy or are you just stuck at that power level such as in a wide variety of fantasy books? Once again this depends on your plot. For the sake of our blood mages, let's just say that in order to move on one must go on a trip of 'enlightenment' and bathe in the blood of an ever weeping statue called Yamaris that has magical properties.

And there you go you have a magic system! Now don't be discouraged if you think your stuff isn't 'new', it's hard to make anything new since fantasy has been around since time began, but you can always tweak things to make it more interesting. So I hope this helped you all and if you have any questions or anything to add let me know.

Now I'm gonna go play  Final Fantasy 12...

Another Idiot's Thoughts on Urban Fantasy

So by now everyone and their dog, mom, dad, and old man across the road has read an urban fantasy. And for the minuscule handful that hasn't let me explain it to you, Urban Fantasy is fantasy set in a city at any point during the Industrial Age. I know many people say that it can be during any time period, but once upon a time there were HUGE medieval cities. So I say any time during or after the Industrial age so that you have some modern...ish...kinda tech to throw at the fantasy creatures. Isn't that such an interesting idea?Now I'm sure plenty of you newbies have seen this before in the mega hit Harry Potter and that questionable series Twilight, so let me get this clear now, Harry Potter is urban fantasy, Twilight is Paranormal Romance. The difference is mostly that one is romance between a human and a fantasy creature as the focus while Urban Fantasy expands on it. Now can urban fantasy have paranormal romance?

Of course!

So with that said let's move onto the actual idea of the blog post, my thoughts on urban fantasy. Personally I see urban fantasy as the awesome uncle that takes out its nephew, futuristic fantasy. It can be the breeding ground of so many interesting ideas such as, elves with shotguns, dwarves working for NASA, and orcs being part of the navy. However, like most genres, we really can't get beyond what other successful writers have done. This has resulted in Harry Potter: Attack of the clones. Like I said, this can be a good or bad thing, it depends on how good the writer can pull it off, but I feel like a lot of the potential has been untapped. However, I won't complain about that sort of thing and instead talk about the good things such as...

Females as the main characters. Granted most of the time they're depicted with strange tattoos, their midriff showing, and holding a gun in an unrealistic sexy manner, but we're at least shifting to the point where we have females as the main kick-butt crew. Princess Peach, high priestess of getting kidnapped, you have finally been dethroned!  Maybe one day we can get some realistic women who actually have feelings and aren't overly sexualized. But until then I'll be happy that the females can actually be useful towards the plot in a way that isn't getting kidnapped or being a healing mage. Huh, that reminds me of a certain post I need to put up....

Seeing how our typically boring world would be with magic. The entire point of the urban fantasy genre! I don't know about you, but sometimes I just want to escape into the books that I read. However, in the urban fantasy genre, that's never even an issue! In a world where you can watch some HD TV while practicing your fire magic must be a blast. Of course you also have the fun of trying to decipher magic from science, keeping magic secret from normal people, and a hundred and two other possibilities.

Being able to relate more to the main character.  Question, how many of you have had your parents slain by stereotypical orcs before your very eyes while a dragon burns down the village and the cows begin mooing in harmony? None? Okay, so then maybe this has happened to you? Your parents got a divorce, on your birthday, and you managed to get fired from your job on the exact same day? On top of all this your powers suddenly decide to manifest and your entire apartment floods with icky green water. Okay, maybe not the last one, but I'm sure a few of the other scenarios have happened to you. Unlike high fantasy which can go to any extreme that it wants, urban fantasy has plenty of limitations depending on the rules of the world. You're high more likely to connect to characters that have to deal with a few of the same things as you. Now I;m not saying high fantasy is inferior, I actually prefer it, but let's be honest. I don't think you could identify the issues with being a half orc with a wing coming out of your left eyeball now can you?

And those are my thoughts on urban fantasy! I guess they're no more eye opening than the post you read before, but I hope you enjoyed it none the less! Now I'm off to go read King of Thorns...