1:14 "the heros will be handling magic...also drink coffee..." And my first addition was "and the elf side character will pull out a Glock to take out the big bad"
The Magic School Bus is Urban Fantasy, Ms. Frizzle is a warlock serving under a fey patron of knowledge, and the Bus is the mystical patron that no one ever acknowledges is sentient. Q.E.D.
This is amazing. Also, kinda reminds me of back in high school when my group of nerd friends and I crafted the theory that Ms. Frizzle is a Time Lord (Lady) and the Bus is her TARDIS.
I have what I call the "Five Minute Rule" for my writing: If I use a subject/topic/theme/creature/ whatever I mus be able to hold a Five Minute conversation about it without looking like a dumbass with someone who actually knows what they're talking about. If I couldn't theoretically manage that, I either don't include it or do more research until I can.
@@TheNumber Thank you! I made it because I know how *I* feel when someone gets something so wrong about physical disabilities and assistive devices that it's clear they have done no research.
I know this is an old comment but I want to answer in case someone else reads this and wants to know. The setting is where and when the story takes place. It tells the reader what to expect, even before the rules of the world are laid down in the book. Different settings tend to have a bias towards certain genres, but it isn’t a guarantee. For example, 1920s New York sounds like it’s probably a mystery, but it could be historical fantasy. The genre tells the reader what is going to happen, a mystery will invoke solving a puzzle/crime, an adventure will have heroes on a journey to defeat the Big Bad, romance will have a whole lot of pining and/or kissing. So the setting and genre tend to pair up a lot, like fantasy and adventure, or urban fantasy and romance, but they are distinct and you can mix and match them as much as you want.
Two people talking about a a father gift to his very young daughter. -YOU CANT GIVE HER THAT! ~Why not? -its a SWORD! ~It's educational. -What if she cuts herself!? ~that will be a very important lesson, won't it? O.o
Magical girl anime can be because magical girl is a type of fantasy just like how urban fantasy is a type of fantasy so yes it can be if set in a urban fantasy setting
Not necessarily. If you define magical girl stories as ones where girls unlock their magical powers through transformation and use those powers to defeat evil, setting isn't that critical. You could very well pull off a magical girl story in a high fantasy setting, or even science fantasy.
Legends of Tomorrow did one of my favorite examples of this. They established that the Greek Gods were actual immortals that drew their power from having human worshipers / followers. Over time as the number of followers diminished they simply died out. Except Dionysus who, when the characters encountered him, ended up as an "Eternal Frat Bro" in an American college. Instead of being worshiped as a God he gains followers by being the most popular guy on campus and throwing the best parties.
Legends of Tomorrow is quirky fun and deserves more love. The Gods losing their power over time makes way more sense than Ares being able singlehandedly wipe out the entire pantheon in Wonder Woman.
It's funny because, in actual Greek mythology, the Gods don't need our worship or offerings; They are immortal and powerful because they eat ambrosia (food so delicious it renews power) and nectar (drink so delicious it renews youth), aka more-or-less what we would call "honey." As a Hellenic polytheist, we give to the Gods because we want to, because we love and revere Them, because They might of aided us when we really needed that job or when we survive from a car crash.
I love Rick Riordan so much. He started writing to show his son a positive portrayal of people with ADHD and dyslexia, and his belief that people deserve to have characters they can relate to (be it their race, sexuality, gender identity, ability, or culture) hasn't changed, it's only expanded
I fucking love him. Litterly just got all the percy jackson books on audible to rexperience while at work or whatnot and they feel just as good and magical as I remember
I'm part of a discord server devoted to front-desk workers, and there's an ongoing joke that we should write a hotelier-oriented TTRPG called "Clerks and Karens"
getting a coffee for the boss involvs travelling through a labyrinthine dungeon and fighting monsters and thwating the schemes of a lower level employee attempting to summon a dangerous elder god to supplant the higher ups of the company in order to get a pay raise
As a Native American person who really wants to become a writer, and also grew up on a midwest reservation...I really want this quarantine to be over so I can go to my local professors and elders to collect my tribe's mythology and folklore. I really feel like my community's stories have been unheard of for so long by the outside world, but they're so commonplace here where I grew up. For example, we have an old story about a woman who came to a tribe and taught them how to use tobacco and smoke it as a ceremony, and she could turn into a white buffalo calf. In the story, it's said that she could hear the weird pervy thoughts some guy was thinking of her, so she struck him with lightning and killed him. And now, there's an entire established shelter program in my state that protects displaced and abused women and children called the White Buffalo Calf Women's Society. But no one outside of the reservation areas really know about it.
That does sound extremly interesting, would love to be actually capable of learning those stories because the culture seems fascinating, but aparently i can't because "i'm not a navajo"
That is so cool! Thank you for sharing. God knows there is too much violence toward native women in the US and Canada. Those types of shelters are really important especially in communities that they feel safe and represented in!
The later points on mythologies and religions reminded me of a conflicting argument I was witness to once. Two people in a server. One was a Norse pagan who didn't have any Norse heritage to my knowledge, the other was someone living in Norway who studied Norse mythology as part of their heritage. I can't remember the specifics as it was years ago, but I think the two came to a disagreement over the characterization of some god that the pagan got very heated over. No hate towards either of them from my part, I just thought it was a very interesting exchange to bear witness to.
I’m actually in the middle of writing my own Urban Fantasy series and incorporate a lot of creatures from around the world, but I started with the idea that no matter the culture human myth is still rooted in Human Bias and Understanding so If these creatures did exist then there was probably a lot more information to them then what Myths and Legends say about them. So I get as much information as I can on a particular creature and carefully go over it, putting the facts into three categories: ones that are True, ones that are Half-Truths, and ones that are False. For example: sunlight is deadly to Vampires, but as they age they gain a resistance to it and can actually walk around for limited periods of time in the daylight, Raw Garlic is toxic to them and once every 30 days they enter a corpse like state of hibernation for a week or so. I have much more but what I’m getting at is to look at these from the standpoint that they’re not going to be entirely the same as what we think they are.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 Unsure, but I know this particular one was absolutely anti fascist. Like violently against that sort of ideology, complete opposite side of the political spectrum.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 nazis appropriated norse pagan symbols, like they did with the swastika. The cultures and religions that those symbols actually belong to aren't nazis, the naxis just stole those symbols. Catch anyone displaying those symbols outside of that context though and you've got a pretty strong bet at them being a fascist (of course people can genuinely hold their religious beliefs and still be nazis, there is a fascist problem in neopaganism with "connecting to your culture" i.e. 'bloodlines', meaning racism and all that other nasty stuff, but it's not indicative of norse pagans or pagans as a whole). Basically, nazis have ruined everything for everyone by taking other cultures symbols and turning them into fascist dogwhistles, while those cultures *still exist* and *still use those symbols legitimately*. Fucked up on all accounts, really. In the end, context is key.
"The love triangle is the absolute, most critical component of any urban fantasy story, and would drive even the world building." "But does a story really need a love triangle? Of course not, when we can have a love dodecahedron". Terrible Writing Advice
I feel like the SCP Foundation fits this EXTREMELY well and in most cathegories. The mix of clean, cold and clinical terms trying to rationalize and explain items and entities of sometimes fantastical nature and eldricht nightmare is really captivating and gives a stark constrast of fantasy anchored in reality surounded by a familliar setting.
Aside from the fact that the familiar setting is rarely _present_ in any meaningful way (unless you dissect aliens in Area 51 for a living, I guess), and often _not_ familiar (see the aforementioned no-canon point). As far as urban-fantasy-ness goes, the SCP universe tends to be closer to slasher movies than the Dresden Files.
Buddy, they are just as urban fantasy as shows like Chainsaw Man or JJK. The key is whether the setting is being focused on. For example, if they only use their powers when fighting bad guys, then it's not really urban fantasy. However, if the nature of magic or they use their powers in ways that influence how they usually do stuff on life(Gakuen Alice for example though I don't know whether or not that's magical girl), then that can count as urban fantasy.
@@mossthemage9948 I thought it was a bit recapy (though I honestly kind of needed it) and I can't wait to see what comes next, (no I am not the op but I felt like replying)
Now that be funny to see. A Urban Fantasy Novel with a blend of comedy form DnD memes and What would really go down lol. "Okay To Fight this....ah..One eye. Wait It's nit even purple or has one Horn. Ha..but really what's it called again? "Oh wait. *Turns Google Lens on* Google Lens will know. " *Google pulls up the document of a Beholder* "HOLY SHIT... This thing has a Ray of DEATH!? *Finds video of a swarm of Beholders useing Ray of DEATH on a red dragon Killing it* "NOPE FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT!"
“Most people probably default to Twilight instead of the endless amount of shapeshifter romance novels” me, someone who knows way more about those books than I ever wanted: _how lucky for them_
Red: starts talking about how a lot of horror is technically Urban fantasy Me, having just finished The Magnus Archives: oh, neat Red not 2 minutes later: "go listen to TMA" I feel vindicated
“...the only guaranteed way to not upset anybody is to never have existed.” That’s going in my quote book. Seriously though as someone with very low self esteem and self worth that’s something I need to remember.
Sarcastically: Non-existent people offend me because why should they not get to suffer the existence of life like everybody else! What, are they too GOOD for us people in the real world?! What a bunch of wankers! Seriously though, it is a great quote, lol.
To be honest, that's a quote I live by, with my problematic interests and all... Really makes you wish we all just get snapped out of existence, then pain wouldn't be a thing. No matter your crimes no matter your deeds. The mercy of death would come for all, then no one has to be hurt by anyone ever again.
I was living with my boyfriend's rich father in a fancy neighborhood at the off skirts of town, where deer and other animals could be seen frequently moving through peoples yards at night. I was working a bartending job late and became increasing paranoid on my drive home. Physically and emotionally drained drained from work, the last thing I wanted to do was hit a fucking deer with my 2010 KIA in this rich person's neighborhood. I drove at 30 m/hr which is slow as fuck outside of a city, almost white knuckled looking out for any deer that could sprint in front of my poor little car. Driving through this neighborhood so focused on looking for deer and exasperated from work I saw something as the light of my headlights poured onto it, thin and tall and furry and wearing denim. I SCREAMED. Literally. I screamed in my car for a full second. And then my mind started to catch up.... wearing denim? It was a guy. It was just a fucking guy walking down the street with his dog late at night. Because my mind was so focused on looking for a deer when I saw a person in my headlights my brain blended the expected with the reality so quickly I almost drove off the road imagining a Wendigo. Anyway, that's why I dont believe urban myths about the mothman or what ever. It's just a fucking owl, dude.
I've been toying with writing in that setting and quickly learned that Morgana and her sisters got royally screwed over. Not to mention that half the knights got replaced by Lancelot; who got folded into canon with Guinevere. It would be like Twilight suddenly being a part Marvel and the Cullens replacing the Avengers. (Not quite the same as comics aren't a religion.)
@@Wanttowrite Well Morgana is different in a lot of a versions of the story (wasn't she not human in a couple?} and Lancelot was a fanfiction character of a French author that got slotted into the series when he wrote about it. Sooooo......
@@Nostripe361 From what I could tell, the earliest of Morgana and Avalon had her and her sisters ruling over a Celtic version of Themyscira with them focusing more on knowledge. Imagine founding out that in a thousand years people only know Wonder Woman as an evil conqueror trying to steal the throne from her half brother Bruce Wayne, it completely changes how you see the character. Sorry, comics are my go to to explain my thoughts on stories.
16:27 what's even weirder about Joanne's specific misuse of the word there, is that her response implies the Navajo created the legend to make wizards in general appear as evil - but the reason the term is used distinctly to refer to an especially evil wizard bc there are good magicians who are greatly valued and praised. like in many cultures, including for example voodoo, the distinction is made based on how magic practitioners use their powers, marking some as evil. Zombies, poppets used to harm, and other things associated with Hollywood hoodoo stem from the practices of evil witches in voodoo.
@@aihsonavais769 Poland: Look Niemcy, I can into space! Germany: Nein Poland, you can't, sorry friend. Poland: I know i can into space! *ignites a rocket* *rocket explodes* Poland: KURWA! (Generic historical archive of Polandball memes; meme #002)
@@caiawlodarski5339 I would like to point out that the bible itself is actually really limited in its descriptions of Hell so most any description you see or hear in regards to the fiery pits is more based on Dante's Inferno. So, yes, the Divine Comedy has more influence in the biblical canon then you'd think.
@@MahouShoujo-Studios just wait til you see a light switch that connects to anything other than a light, I walked into a friend's house flipped a switch and instead of a light, it turned on all the outlets in the room like a circuit breaker, turns out his light just didn't work and he had a lamp, but to turn it on I had to flip a different switch that turned on another set of outlets. 10 years later and I still don't understand how that house was wired up
@@HovektheArtist Holy crap. I think I'm grateful that I at least know that my light switch doesn't control the shower lol. I convinced that a wizard cursed your friend's house or some shit.
Oddly enough, the version of Arachne's tale that I read in High School was quite different. Athena in that version revived Arachne (who hung herself to die on her terms), basically seeing her death as a waste of talent, and *then* turned her into a spider. Basically in that iteration Athena was a MUCH better sport.
There's quite a few takes on the nature of the contest, who was better, whether or not suicide is featured, why if it is featured, and what Athena's reasoning was for turning Arachne into a spider. Most myths tend to have multiple iterations, which makes sense since for most of history they would have spread primarily by word of mouth. Arachne being well known enough that it generally crops up in at least two or three places in the public education system probably adds to the variety, as it's often cleaned up for younger readers.
@@willieoelkers5568 i have since made similar comments to exactly this in later (and sometimes earlier) videos in the 7 months after posting the original comment, dude.
My favorite version of the tale is that when the competition starts, Zeus says whoever loses can never weave again, and so after Arachne looses, Athena turns her into a spider so she can still weave, instead of loosing her ability.
I'm familiar with three versions of the story: -Athena wins, depressed Arachne kills herself, Athena feels bad and revives her as a spider -Arachne wins, Athena gets pissed and turns her into a spider -Arachne wins, Athena gets pissed and kills her, Athena then feels bad about it, so she revives Arachne as a spider There's also an interesting difference in the meaning of the transformation in those stories. Number 2 sees it as a straightforward punishment, while numbers 1 and 3 see it more as something, in a way, benevolent - Arachne can now weave to her heart's content without endangering herself by offending anyone
The great and underrated comedian John Finnemore wrote a piece where he explains why his sketches draw from Christian mythology but never Islamic our Jewish. He basically says that because he grew up in a Christian country, learning the Christian stories, he has a connection to and understanding of these stories that he doesn't have to others, even as an atheist. He highlights this by saying that he knows how church services work and what happens but he "wouldn't know what a funny rabbi would sound like" because he never regularly went to a synagogue in his youth.
But there is something charming about a person writing from mythological stuff of a thing they don't know shitte that leads to an increasing level of meta comedy, like when the japanese take all the christian symbolism and just put it there "cuz iz cul".
It's like in one comment I read of a person who was frustrated that American made shows only dealt with the political landscape in America and the person was tired of it, not realizing that it's less probable than the creators are less likely to know the details of political landscapes in other countries as well as the American one
I love John Finnemore so damn much! Cabin Pressure was amazing, but everything he does is done with gentle strokes, never heavy handed! The man is a genius
I don’t know, that still kind of strikes me as stepping out of your lane. Plenty of Jewish people here in the States and even Muslims. As someone “raised in x” it’s not the same thing as an ethnicity since he can, and has, chosen to leave it. Therefore anything he says is from the perspective of a well informed outsider.
@agnat86 That will always depend on who you ask the question to. I have no doubt there are people who already find "Good Omens" unacceptable as it is and think it's very existence an unforgivable offense. I'm of the opinion that any religion, cult or belief can be taken and used for literature in any shape and form the author wants. Offending people is no crime and people being offended means nothing to the quality of the writing (unless readers are outright offended by the terrible quality of the writing itself).
@@Mt.Berry-o7 I agree but add the caveat that in some countries and with some religions you can be killed legally for writing such fiction. The USA has its problems, and its religious fanatics, but you usually don't have to worry about being murdered by a mob or the state for something you write anymore. Although it has still happened, such cases are exceptions rather than norms.
About the good omens thing, I think the problem most people had is that personified embodiments of good and evil were turned into this weird buddy cop dynamic, where in the Devine Comedy and Paradise Lost, the bad guys stayed bad and the good guys, even as antagonists in Milton's works, stayed good.
It transitioned from one to another. It starts off with gothic era vampires which fits, and the Aztec god Kars and ancient artifact stand arrows fit with the Indiana Jones/Mummy era of Historical Fantasy. But once we get to the 80's and beyond they are just kind of there established and have to be dealt with.
My favorite urban fantasy trope is when they’re all panicking like “We better _not_ get f*cking seen, _Bethany_ “ but they almost never do get caught, just because the panic is my jam.
Ah yes, nothing beats the low level anxiety of a deliberately enforced Masquerade, that only works because its constituents must work extremely hard to maintain it.
I'm a big fan of the exact opposite: The masquerade is very important to a lot of people, but *BOY* is the protagonist not one of them, so much so that they keep getting angry messages from the poor guy who has to erase everyone's memories after that high speed chase in broad daylight. (Geoffrey Scrutinous in Skulduggery Pleasant)
PSA for people wanting to write about an African culture: Africa is a continent of many cultures. These cultures are very different and you can’t just put them all in a blender. Stop painting Africa as this perfect paradise that was ruined by colonization. Believe it or not, we are people, and people fight with each other. That being said, colonization definitely created a lot of difficulty for the continent. It’s worth looking into the different attitudes of colony- owning countries and how that affected the existing African countries today e.g. the British mostly cared about getting resources, while the French wanted to complete cultural assimilation of the native people. Today’s land borders are somewhat arbitrary in terms of cultural groups. That being said, countries do have their own culture. We don’t all sound the same and we can definitely tell who’s a foreigner. Even within the same country, a single language can be spoken with different accents and dialects.
I don’t disagree with anything you say. But to play devil’s advocate, let’s just consider medieval European fantasy for a comparison. How often are those style of stories really culturally accurate to the diverse regions, peoples, languages and time periods of the European Medieval times vs. just throwing in a hodgepodge of easily recognizable exaggerated stock elements into a blender to churn out a setting? Castles, knights, dragons, princesses, popes, Vikings, Holy Wars, bloop, we’re done. I’d say at BEST it’s half and half between those and carefully researched remotely accurately depicted historical fiction. And the thing is, you’re just as likely to see the Middle Ages setting as a pristine saintly Arcadia as you are a festering, backwards plague ridden mud heap. Neither of which is accurate or tells the whole story. What’s my point? Only this: Yeah, a lot of people write African historical fiction “correctly”, but that’s hardly JUST limited to Africa. What we’re seeing is a piece of a much larger, much more fundamental aspect of storytelling as a whole. Name for me one region or time period with any degree of popularity in fiction that HASN’T been distorted over the years. Stories do a lot of things, they can be made for a myriad of purposes. And sometimes (oftentimes) they distort things. That doesn’t always to be a bad thing. It’s the basis of all fiction.
Made me happy too. Too bad she didn't mention Neverwhere, though. I love Neverwhere. But Good Omens is my favorite, and I'm reading American Gods currently, so I'm happy.
@@merrittanimation7721 it really does! It's a gorgeous story with an amazing message. Not to mention the best fantastical depiction of depression I've ever read! It's a beautiful piece of work.
lovetolovefairytales Presumably, she didn’t bring up Neverwhere because the fantastic parts aren’t, um, as fantastic-AL as with American Gods or Good Omens (or, hell, Sandman or even Coraline) It definitely has Urban Fantasy trappings, but the biggest problems don’t feel grounded in the fantastic elements (Richard’s focus on things like food or getting from one place to another, for example). It feels almost like the aesthetic, rather than the setting.
8:48 _The Incredibles_ does that great, with director Brad Bird specifically mentioning "The mundane and the fantastic" for things like the family ysing superpowers during a dinnertime squabble. Dash running around the table at hyperspeed, and Violet stopping him in his tracks with a force field. Superstrong dad lifting the couch up for vaccuming Elastic mom to reach all the way under.
I love urban fantasy settings like Kiki's Delivery Service or Good Omens where the fantasy element isn't public knowledge, but the "normal" people have almost no reaction to any of the magical elements they're presented with. There's always just something inherently funny and weirdly... homey (?) about a place seemingly just like ours but so open and flexible with its world view
and always remember: "the magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution noncommercial sharealike 4.0 international license "
The magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharealike 4.0 international license...
The magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharealike 4.0 international license...
The mangus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under creative commons attribution noncommercial sharealike 4.0 international license....
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus there are certainly grounds for comparison, but I think there's definitely room for both. Personally I prefer the unified story and setting of Magnus, but I've also had some great times scrolling through SCP's and ultimately I'm glad to have both of them.
Fate writer: See this cool mythological figure? Fan: yeah? Fate writer: well now she is a hot anime girl. Fan: wait, I'm pretty sure they are always depicted male? Fate writer: oh that's not a problem, we can just have her grow a dick. Fan: wh-what??? Fate writer: oh and her son is also a hot anime girl too.
@@Maid_of_Spiders lmao thats so true. at least for Saber they give a explanation for why shes gender swapped. BUT NERO HOWEVER WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY tbh the fate/nasuverse is somehow both horrible and amazing world building and both horrible and amazing interpretations of characters
+Tin Watchman But they also take ideas from Native American (Geronimo having magic shaman powers) and Jewish (Avicebron being a golem master) history and folklore, so it clearly has nothing to do with “punching down”.
In a very very extrapolated way you could consider eagles and birds of prey dragons. Hence they are dinosaurs or related somehow to dinosaurs. If you squint you can kind of see the draconic features in a bird of prey
I had this idea for a setting where there's a magical world that only children can see and interact with. So while all the kids go on magical adventures the adults just think it's a case of "overactive imagination"
Coming from a religious person, I actually tend to enjoy magical fantasy depictions of christianity, for the most part. As long as it's not mean spirited or deliberately offensive, I have a good time flipping my brain off and just enjoying the wacky things people yanked outta my religion. I love the netflix show Lucifer, and it's fun and interesting to see something I'm very familiar with reimagined and made fun and cool.
Seconded. The only issue I have is when people take those depictions and treat them as if they're an accurate portrayal of Christianity. For example, I'd find it rather annoying if someone thought Good Omens was an accurate depiction of Christianity, and thus told me I shouldn't respect angels when they're just as bad as demons. Luckily, I think most people understand that those depictions aren't accurate.
I kinda miss the days when Hulu had facebook integrated as their comment system. Reading some of the comments for Lucifer was almost as much fun as watching the show. Some folks just couldn't understand that the show was based on a comic book that was, in turn, based based on one of those biblical fan-fic stories. Hilarious.
I've been working on idea of a fantasy where different regions if the world are their mythology. For evangelical regions like Christianity I was thinking of going off the more wild interpretations like the gospel of Nicodemus. That way it fits better with other mythologies. Would that work?
That's kind of the thing - Christianity is a big, thriving religion that isn't really under any kind of threat, isn't marginalized and so on. When poking at it, you aren't "punching down", but drawing from one of the biggest religions out there. Which is very different from a situation where a white guy decides to write a fantasy depiction of, say, Maasai religion/folklore.
Same here with Good Omens. I watched it with my parents, who are way more strict about religion than me, and they also liked it. Not because it was an accurate representation of Christianity, but because it was a well made and enjoyable fictional piece of entertainment. I think this is the difference between someone who believes in a particular religion and a religious nutjob.
Second Read through of comment "Oh they mean looking at their computer!" First read through of comment "But how did they know which direction to turn to break the fourth wall?"
She has convinced me that I should never ever listen to The Magnus Archives, but I did pass the video along to a cosmic-horror fan friend of mine, because it's kind of the perfect sales pitch for someone who wants that kind of story
Dimension 20s Fantasy High is actually a great twist on this trope. Instead of it being a normal world that contains fantastical elements, it is a fantasy world where one country is significantly more technologically advanced and so the familiar is what invades the world.
“Where the hell are the dragons?” ... you get me, spiritually, I have yelled that from the rooftops all on my own and now I SHALL HAVE VINDICATION... or at least some company
What I was expecting: a new trope talk What I got in addition to a new trope talk: a dozen really good recommendations that sound like they'd really appeal to me and that I can't wait to read/listen to
I don't think I would describe Odin as a "cool dude" 😅 the guy was paranoid and scared. Threw a lot of people under the bus to gain knowledge that only made what he was scared of happen faster
Sometimes I forget that he made crossovers between Percy Jackson and The Kane Chronicles. Though, I wonder how exactly it works in terms of how Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian mythology all coexist in the same universe.
In the very first Kane Chronicle, Amos states that they stay on their side of the river because the other has "other gods." Remember that the other side of the river holds the Empire State Building. It really is a case of the different regions having their own afterlifes for their believers and anything on Earth should be kept separated unless it is required not to be. For example, when Greek and Egyptian magic is explicitly uniting together. And Roman explicitly remodeled the Greek gods, so the Greek gods just swap between their personalities. Which is why it is so devastating to gods like Athena, who was basically destroyed by Roman transitioning. As for the Jesus comment, yeah, Christianity is in there too, but with it surviving outside its secret world, it's unlikely the Father has to do much besides help priests with real exorcisms when it comes to his side of bad guys.
I think that earth is the common ground due to worshippers, and the gods are relegated to separate sections or dimensions of reality. So to a normal person, you tunnel a hole beneath Rome, and you'll find rock and magma. To a Greco-Roman or to one perceptible to the Mist, you'll might be unfortunate enough to be dragged down to Tartarus. And to an Egyptian Magician, you'll just end up in the Duat again.
"It contains everything but the kitchen sink" - a world where everything seems normal, and also there are fairytails... But no one ever invented the kitchen sink
I think one of the worst examples of not doing their research in an Urban Fantasy setting is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Just as an example in Season 3 the villians are a Group of Pagan Witch that are Creatures from Greek Mythology that worship a Figure from English Folklore and pray in Gaelic
You'd get a kick out of what Friendly Space Ninja thinks of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and how it's all the fault of He Who Shall Not Be Named.. and the CW.
Well it’s actually not TOO far off from history(ish). Yes, if they were going for ancient Greek paganism, they’d be really off. But if what they’re going for was a like an old school wicca/“witch cult theory”/ 1600s interpretation of paganism type of witch, it’s not too far off. I mean Wicca, a real world pagan group, also appropriates from Celtic and Greek mythology.
@@mypantsarefilledwithbeans6508 if they were just an amalgamation of different Pagan beliefs I'd be a little more ok with that but they're literally creatures from Greek Mythology, Pan, Circe, A Gorgon and also a Hobgoblin(I know not Greek but he slipped my mind)
There's Artemis Fowl, but I don't know of anything else. It does seem like a natural setting, with tons of folklore and a landscape that already looks high fantasy.
Funny enough, I’m working on a fanfiction that starts in Ireland. It’s a ‘The Hobbit’ fanfiction were the main character is a Faerie from Middle Earth, But since Ireland has a plethora of portals into the Island of Faeries in Middle Earth, she was raised in our Earth for her protection until she’s old enough to return.
@@zoro115-s6b I never read Artemis Fowl as a kid, and now I'm 22 sort of wishing that I had. Do you think I'm too old to still enjoy it, or is the writing complex enough to still be liked by adults?
I remember when the videogame Smite had a Hindu goddess as a character. Some people complained about the design of the character being too sexualised because they wore some sexy armour. Though, when you look up historical artwork of the goddess, they were always topless or naked.
Yeah, Indian people get angry about literally everything. You should have seen the ridiculous backlash to the Bollywood movie Bajirao Mastaani because it showed this one historical character singing and dancing. Like, it's a Bollywood movie, what were you guys expecting? And don't get me started on the movie Padmavat. They had to change the name from Padmavati, because people got mad about them making a movie about her.
portrayals of deities with still practiced religions is always a bit iffy, especially when diehard people get a whiff of a "wrong" interpretation, but in some cases like this i could see the other side, there's a thin line between having a goddess be fully sensual in representation and having sensual elements that are just a part of her "character", for fertility related goddesses its not uncommon to see them naked and topless given that breasts in many cultures represent fertility, but say the Egyptian goddess Taurt (of pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing) while portrayed naked all the time is not treated in anyway sensually given what we know, and due to the very specific natures of many Hindu deities i wouldn't be surprised if cases like this happen/ed as well
Honestly, as a Hindu I think its kinda disgusting to see gods/goddesses used in media like that at all. The amount of times the myths that my family has passed down and revered have been turned into gimmicks to be used in video games is sad. Yes, this goddess is freaking awesome, but you could've also just come up with your own badass female warrior-character instead of ripping off of my culture. At the end of the day, I don't even worship those gods/goddesses (they're all facets of the universal energy I believe in- Santana Dharma is weird like that), but it still makes me uncomfortable to come across it randomly in some Final Fantasy game.
Red: You probably wanna check if it's part of a still-living religion. Me: She's going to talk about Kali (because of that Smite playable character outrage) Red: For instance... Kali! Me: Quite the time for me to realise I have a superpower.
I was thinking Kali too because she's such a stereotype at this point. "Ooh scary exotic lady villain ooo". The actual Kali has a lot of depth to her and she still has plenty of ardent worshippers, but her pop culture portrayal (like in Indiana Jones) just makes South Asian look like savages.
They also at least remodeled Agni as well, right? I know they changed his appearance near the same time as Kali's remodel and rework, was that the same issue or just similarly timed if you know?
Ah yes like the japanese DxD, where every religion is real, and they kill the judeo-islamic-christian God, make the indian gods kinda bad guys or at the very least very antagonistic, and the MC and the party are literal demons from hell but they are chill, they now accept money instead of souls.
I love urban fantasy where the magic is just there. You just see a gorgon texting her girlfriend on the phone, and their girlfriend just casually has dragon wings, horns and a tail. Stuff like that, where a wizard needs to fetch a pen so instead of standing up to get it they flick their hand and it flies to them. Where it's utterly 100% normal, and having them separated would be a weird concept to them
I'm actually planning a story that kinda turns into this later on lol: at first both the future scifi world (which I want to make feel very modern and familiar first and foremost, despite the hundred-plus-year gap and the crazy tech) and the fantasy world are entirely different, with the fantasy world being a vr-based mmorpg sandbox type thing focused on realism and player choice, and the big central event of the first arc is that they made it so damn real it starts overlapping reality, by the second arc the problems that caused have been mostly patched up and this world born from what was basically dungeons and dragons has been fully integrated into a world that, for the most part, looks identical to our own, and once everything's over people more or less accept it as is and move on.
Honestly, I feel that writing a fantasy world that's supposed to be "secret" from our world almost comes across as lazy to me. I know the worlds are sometimes really well built in their own right and that might not seem fair, but to me, it comes across like the writer wanted to have a magical fantasy world and wanted to have a character from the real world, but didn't want to hammer out the worldbuilding for melding the two together and would rather just paste a "shh... don't tell anyone" sticker on the fantasy stuff. I absolutely love the kind of story you're talking about though.
@@yahboisquishy5561 well you can do a lot of intresting worldbuilding around this separation. how is it enforced, and by whom? And why? Who benefits from the separation,a nd who would benefit from its overthrow?
If you’re looking for what humanoid/ other creatures would integrate in modern society, I recommend taking a look at Zootopia. They make a great deal of changes in order to help the size/ food needs difference between species. Things like smoothie stands with elevators for giraffes and lil towns for mice and water dry off stations for hippos make for a great inspo if you wanna make a species smaller than everyone else or taller than everyone else or amphibious.
What you're describing is more "Social media and sorcery " than Urban Fantasy(so as Red said Harry Dresden and Percy Jackson). And I'd love to hear of a good book series in the former category - I hope Minimum Wage Magic is actually good
Did she say that Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz was “not all that stressed” about trying to get back home? Isn’t that basically the MAIN thing she was always trying to do?
In the first book. In a later book Uncle Henry and Aunt Em went to live in Oz* and she was no longer stressed. *Which made them effectively immortal unless they go strolling in the Deadly Desert or something. Unfortunately for the Wicked Witch of the West, that immortality thing didn't start till book two.
I would love to see Red do a trope talk on the "magic school." A school that usually takes place in urban fantasy stories where characters who are unfamiliar to the magical world learn about the world and how to use magic alongside the reader.
- Screaming culture geek: ''YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE RANDOM CULTURAL FIGURES AND MAKE THEM INTO FIGHTING MONSTERS!'' - Anime Industry: ''... lol monster goes dubaduba...'''
Or we can have the male Hindu God "Shiva" as into a magic ice princess in a bikini instead. I'm sure none of the 1.1 billion Hindus in the world will mind at all!
Or you know how most Japanese anime will use Christian mythology or symbolism because Christianity is such a small part of Japanese life that they use it to look cool and add some spice. Basically Japan pretty much ignores almost ALL of these rules.
That never existed thing reminds me of ol' "the universe began. This has made a lot of people unhappy and is widely considered to have been a bad move."
@@raspberrycrowns9494 it's a horror podcast about an institute that collects records of supernatural experiences. The guy with long fingers is important but I can't tell you anything because spoilers
As a person of Native American decent, I believe everyone has full permission to call a monster creature a wendigo as long as it used to be a human who became that way because it ate other humans
His Majesty’s Dragon! I loved those books growing up! They bring up a lot of questions about honor as it pertains to politics and warfare, and the bonds forged in service.
I would love a mythology-based urban fantasy series where any given creature/deity actually has multiple versions of themselves walking around because of the ways they've been re-interpreted over the centuries. Like Mycanean Dionysus and Classic Dionysus hanging out together and people getting them confused for each other.
I had this concept in my head that the gods of different cultures will sometime seek to somehow magically fuse together when the cultures make contact in order to share their power and thus become more powerful together. The idea I had was that the god known as Hermes in Greece and Mercury in Rome had sought out such a deal with both Thoth in the south and with Odin in the north. By successfully syncretising with Thoth, Hermes had become Hermes Trismegistus and taught medieval occultists ancient secrets of both Greece and Egypt. However, in the north, he had been driven to conflict with Odin, mainly due to Odin growing tired of Mediterranean scholars treating northern Europeans as barbarians for regarding "Mercury" as the father of "Jupiter" and not vice versa, so by the Renaissance, he gave Olaus Magnus a clear message to bring to Rome - that Odin is not Mercury, never has been, and never will be.
The web serial Pact by Wildbow pretty much has this. Belief has power, so a lot of the rules of the magical setting are just the most common myths and superstitions, because everybody believing them gives them power. So there are several versions of different incarnations of beings.
Robert Fisher swords are freaking awesome! Plus magic gun sounds dumb, magic swords are the best!!! That’s not to say magic guns don’t exist, “infinite ammo gun until the plot requires them to run out” is a tv/movie staple.
So as a Goosebumps nerd, this is best seen in the revival series: Goosebumps Horrorland. Horrorland, think scary Disneyland, is actually a refuge and job opportunity for monsters. The series compounds this by bringing together old and new protagonists to create a larger world. (I just want a tv series based on this book series, please)
Also, there is a dragon just flying over a city in one shot and it is never even acknowledged...? Like, sure, we have giant, highly mobile, possible fire breathing reptiles, but we can't have one line of dialogue about how we maybe tried to eradicate them, or how the fire fighters have to constantly deal with them...?
@@midnight8341 Fire Chief: okay so how did this fire start? Police Chief: well we found a guy who confessed and said he was taking his baby dragon out for walk. got startled by a dog, BBQ'ed the dog and the dog ran back into the house Fire Chief: Fucking dragons...
I will say one thing for Bright: It made me realize just how much the world needs an urban fantasy buddy cop movie where the buddy cops are basically Legolas and Gimli.
As half Native-American (mother is Cherokee) and half-white, I try to have a more nuanced view of what some call 'cultural appropriation'. Don't get me wrong, I definitely understand where people come from about having something borrowed...but I've also seen people who actually grew more interested in learning about the parent culture after being exposed to stories of the Wendigo. In those cases, it has led to them actually appreciating/respecting the source more than they might have. In some ways, I was like that with say voodoo. You get the exposure to the whole doll and zombie thing, but it led me to actually learning about the religious beliefs, etc. like the loas because I wanted to learn about it.
i mean. this cultural appropriation thing is not just the way cultures are supposed to work? at the end of the day, what are cultures but agglomerations of previous cultures? if cultures are naturally merging, why is there a need to stop them from merging?
Aitor Rosell Torralba it comes down to how and why those cultures are merging. If I kill your people, take your land and spend hundreds of years trying to suppress your culture, it might make you more defensive about me then misrepresenting your myths and beliefs for my shitty YA love triangle
@@taliladd224 Honestly, I've given up on trying to treat any ideas as sacred. I do my best to not step on toes, but if I like an idea (not just the name or aesthetic. I'm not one for "borrowing" things solely for window dressing, because what makes things interesting is the details. I get that in-name-only representation of myths and cultures suck, from a narrative and cultural perspective), then I'm not going to be hung up on using it. I just dislike when people try to act as cultural curators in a subtractive way- by all means, say what's wrong with an interpretation of the underlying myth. But just saying "you did it wrong and shouldn't have even said anything" is kind of an obnoxious take that does little to directly educate people about the thing in question.
Ur right, it's a useless exercise, I feel like a lot of people (especially white Americans) are hypersensitive to it. Being Irish, I know a lot of traditional myths and folk tails of my country. I see Americans who r either an eighth Irish or not Irish at all completely misrepresent tons of Irish mythology, so what? If they ask me for any kind of question on it I'll explain, but come on? I'm patriotic and all but there's better ways to spend your time than getting offended over that shit. A lot of people might get into it off of small tales, why would u start going off and segregating cultures and getting real offended by people using your stuff.
I mean its almost like fiction brings people together and learning from it even its not accurate makes people want to learn about it. The idea of not expanding or even telling ot for fear of offending prevents people from finding love or intrest in the culture
I loved how ones story I read did feature a wendigo among much less spicy things like vampires and werewolves. They treated as it was a thing, but you did not engage with it. Your mentor went to talk to it, you were told to hang back and be good. Short of just name dropping it, I thought that was clever.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Now here's the real question we should be asking:
Is "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" urban fantasy?
...this is a genuinely good question
Absolutely, I don't see how that could even be a question.
It is, talking rabbits are definitely fantastical in nature
I think the real question is: If he had such a wife, why is there not an ever-multiplying legion of rabbit furries wracking slapstick in the world?
@@mochibunnyan6556 Or diabolical, depending of whether you see them in a cartoon or you back yard :i
“The real world is actually really cool”
I Finally had a reason to not go outside... and you ruined everything...
We just need another Journey to the West vid to keep ourselves indoors!
@@Zenocius we got that on April fools, I mean all the comments said it was cannon soo...
(But actually I agree )
Y'all realize that the inside of your dwelling is also part of "the real world," right?
Alycia Shedd Tell that to the inter dimensional portal in my shower
diceluckyblue if it’s there, it’s real.
Red: “Where the hell are the Dragons?” The Dragons: *self quarantining*
From the simean parasitic pandemia ;)
SonsOfLorgar lmao that was good
In a box
Rick K 😔
@Rick K F
1:14 "the heros will be handling magic...also drink coffee..." And my first addition was "and the elf side character will pull out a Glock to take out the big bad"
Funnily enough I myself have an elf character who uses guns!
persona 5 ending in a nutshell
Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards
Master has given Dobby a glock
@@CallmeCael neat! Well don't leave us hanging! Tell us!
The Magic School Bus is Urban Fantasy, Ms. Frizzle is a warlock serving under a fey patron of knowledge, and the Bus is the mystical patron that no one ever acknowledges is sentient. Q.E.D.
thanks for my next d&d character lmao
@@halcyonherascarter7018 ms frizzle is an alien witch
You can't make that sh*t up
This is amazing.
Also, kinda reminds me of back in high school when my group of nerd friends and I crafted the theory that Ms. Frizzle is a Time Lord (Lady) and the Bus is her TARDIS.
@Brandon Quist OMG YOU'RE RIGHT!!
I have what I call the "Five Minute Rule" for my writing: If I use a subject/topic/theme/creature/ whatever I mus be able to hold a Five Minute conversation about it without looking like a dumbass with someone who actually knows what they're talking about. If I couldn't theoretically manage that, I either don't include it or do more research until I can.
@Gustavo Tellez Thank you. Means a lot of research but I do enjoy it anyways.
The question is, how do you know you’re “looking like a dumbass” or not?
@@ThePa1riot how do you not?
That is a genuinely awesome idea. Good rule to be both polite and creative.
@@TheNumber Thank you! I made it because I know how *I* feel when someone gets something so wrong about physical disabilities and assistive devices that it's clear they have done no research.
Beginning Red: Urban fantasy is not a genre, it's a setting
Ending Red: Its my favorite genre
We saw that red!
Isn't setting and genre somewhat the same?
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus good grief, *_NO!_*
I know this is an old comment but I want to answer in case someone else reads this and wants to know. The setting is where and when the story takes place. It tells the reader what to expect, even before the rules of the world are laid down in the book. Different settings tend to have a bias towards certain genres, but it isn’t a guarantee. For example, 1920s New York sounds like it’s probably a mystery, but it could be historical fantasy.
The genre tells the reader what is going to happen, a mystery will invoke solving a puzzle/crime, an adventure will have heroes on a journey to defeat the Big Bad, romance will have a whole lot of pining and/or kissing.
So the setting and genre tend to pair up a lot, like fantasy and adventure, or urban fantasy and romance, but they are distinct and you can mix and match them as much as you want.
Red: "Your art will hurt people"
Me, making weapons: "Yes."
Lol you're still insufferable
"If I'm lucky."
Me: Trying to figure out the best way to design a weapon that's effective but also legal.
Two people talking about a a father gift to his very young daughter.
-YOU CANT GIVE HER THAT!
~Why not?
-its a SWORD!
~It's educational.
-What if she cuts herself!?
~that will be a very important lesson, won't it?
O.o
Me, making interracial ntr: I am become death.
“Where the hell are the dragons?!”
Red once again sums up my entire existence in one sentence
@ULGROTHA I feel personally offended by this slander 0_0
Machicolations?
@ULGROTHA Even so where are the dragons
@ULGROTHA who hurt you
@ULGROTHA You're only talking about western dragons. What about Eastern dragons?
HOT TAKE: Magical Girl anime is Urban Fantasy
Magical girl anime can be because magical girl is a type of fantasy just like how urban fantasy is a type of fantasy so yes it can be if set in a urban fantasy setting
that's not a hot take, that's just TRUTH
Also sometimes a space opera
Not necessarily. If you define magical girl stories as ones where girls unlock their magical powers through transformation and use those powers to defeat evil, setting isn't that critical. You could very well pull off a magical girl story in a high fantasy setting, or even science fantasy.
That is NOT a hot take.
Legends of Tomorrow did one of my favorite examples of this. They established that the Greek Gods were actual immortals that drew their power from having human worshipers / followers. Over time as the number of followers diminished they simply died out.
Except Dionysus who, when the characters encountered him, ended up as an "Eternal Frat Bro" in an American college. Instead of being worshiped as a God he gains followers by being the most popular guy on campus and throwing the best parties.
Dionysus will always have a cult (heh) following, because (to quote Red) Wine and Parties and Sticking it to the Man, yo, will never die
Legends of Tomorrow is quirky fun and deserves more love. The Gods losing their power over time makes way more sense than Ares being able singlehandedly wipe out the entire pantheon in Wonder Woman.
If Riordan wasn't writing for middle and high schoolers, he would have written Mr. D. like this.
I love the idea of frat bro Dionysus
It's funny because, in actual Greek mythology, the Gods don't need our worship or offerings; They are immortal and powerful because they eat ambrosia (food so delicious it renews power) and nectar (drink so delicious it renews youth), aka more-or-less what we would call "honey."
As a Hellenic polytheist, we give to the Gods because we want to, because we love and revere Them, because They might of aided us when we really needed that job or when we survive from a car crash.
I love Rick Riordan so much. He started writing to show his son a positive portrayal of people with ADHD and dyslexia, and his belief that people deserve to have characters they can relate to (be it their race, sexuality, gender identity, ability, or culture) hasn't changed, it's only expanded
I Wholeheartedly agree. Rick Riordan is my favorite author.
He holds true to that idea even to this day. He is fully in support of Aryan Simhadri and Leah Sava Jeffries as Grover and Annabeth respectively.
Here’s to Nico Di Angelo, my goth gay son
I fucking love him. Litterly just got all the percy jackson books on audible to rexperience while at work or whatnot and they feel just as good and magical as I remember
@@cybersearcher1041 I can't wait for the solangelo book to come out
"Baristas and Bosses"
Someone make this into a tabletop RPG
An elf, a halfling, a human and a half-orc gather one night in a dimmed-lit inn, to play a game of "Offices and Bosses".
I'm part of a discord server devoted to front-desk workers, and there's an ongoing joke that we should write a hotelier-oriented TTRPG called "Clerks and Karens"
B&B
getting a coffee for the boss involvs travelling through a labyrinthine dungeon and fighting monsters and thwating the schemes of a lower level employee attempting to summon a dangerous elder god to supplant the higher ups of the company in order to get a pay raise
If you can still find it, go look up th3 biter barista, have fun.
“Google says try seducing it?”
Was that Google entry written by a lonely werewolf?
Or by a bard. Maybe both.
@@olafgurke4699 or a furry
yes
A bard
Actually werewolves are so rare that most of them are lonely...
As a Native American person who really wants to become a writer, and also grew up on a midwest reservation...I really want this quarantine to be over so I can go to my local professors and elders to collect my tribe's mythology and folklore.
I really feel like my community's stories have been unheard of for so long by the outside world, but they're so commonplace here where I grew up.
For example, we have an old story about a woman who came to a tribe and taught them how to use tobacco and smoke it as a ceremony, and she could turn into a white buffalo calf. In the story, it's said that she could hear the weird pervy thoughts some guy was thinking of her, so she struck him with lightning and killed him. And now, there's an entire established shelter program in my state that protects displaced and abused women and children called the White Buffalo Calf Women's Society. But no one outside of the reservation areas really know about it.
That does sound extremly interesting, would love to be actually capable of learning those stories because the culture seems fascinating, but aparently i can't because "i'm not a navajo"
someone should do this with Silesian mythology.
Oh wow cool
That is so cool! Thank you for sharing. God knows there is too much violence toward native women in the US and Canada. Those types of shelters are really important especially in communities that they feel safe and represented in!
i want that lady to be a heroine in a novel! i'm excited for when you write it!
The later points on mythologies and religions reminded me of a conflicting argument I was witness to once. Two people in a server. One was a Norse pagan who didn't have any Norse heritage to my knowledge, the other was someone living in Norway who studied Norse mythology as part of their heritage. I can't remember the specifics as it was years ago, but I think the two came to a disagreement over the characterization of some god that the pagan got very heated over. No hate towards either of them from my part, I just thought it was a very interesting exchange to bear witness to.
I’m actually in the middle of writing my own Urban Fantasy series and incorporate a lot of creatures from around the world, but I started with the idea that no matter the culture human myth is still rooted in Human Bias and Understanding so If these creatures did exist then there was probably a lot more information to them then what Myths and Legends say about them. So I get as much information as I can on a particular creature and carefully go over it, putting the facts into three categories: ones that are True, ones that are Half-Truths, and ones that are False. For example: sunlight is deadly to Vampires, but as they age they gain a resistance to it and can actually walk around for limited periods of time in the daylight, Raw Garlic is toxic to them and once every 30 days they enter a corpse like state of hibernation for a week or so. I have much more but what I’m getting at is to look at these from the standpoint that they’re not going to be entirely the same as what we think they are.
Wait aren't norse pagans usually nazis?
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 Unsure, but I know this particular one was absolutely anti fascist. Like violently against that sort of ideology, complete opposite side of the political spectrum.
@@thepinkestpigglet7529 nazis appropriated norse pagan symbols, like they did with the swastika. The cultures and religions that those symbols actually belong to aren't nazis, the naxis just stole those symbols. Catch anyone displaying those symbols outside of that context though and you've got a pretty strong bet at them being a fascist (of course people can genuinely hold their religious beliefs and still be nazis, there is a fascist problem in neopaganism with "connecting to your culture" i.e. 'bloodlines', meaning racism and all that other nasty stuff, but it's not indicative of norse pagans or pagans as a whole). Basically, nazis have ruined everything for everyone by taking other cultures symbols and turning them into fascist dogwhistles, while those cultures *still exist* and *still use those symbols legitimately*. Fucked up on all accounts, really. In the end, context is key.
That's pretty funny actually.
"The love triangle is the absolute, most critical component of any urban fantasy story, and would drive even the world building."
"But does a story really need a love triangle? Of course not, when we can have a love dodecahedron".
Terrible Writing Advice
I see you are a person of culture as well.
A terrible writing advice x overly sarcastic production crossover would be cool
@@carso1500 it's about time that this happens
Bleh, the triangle is bad enough
Yes
When Red said "Assasin's Creed" I was half expecting Blue to pop out
Popping his head through a hole in the ceiling: "Did someone say Assassin's Creed?"
Pop out and yell about historical inaccuracy, would be my guess.
Blue: my history sense is tingling
I didn't expect the assasin's...
I feel like the SCP Foundation fits this EXTREMELY well and in most cathegories.
The mix of clean, cold and clinical terms trying to rationalize and explain items and entities of sometimes fantastical nature and eldricht nightmare is really captivating and gives a stark constrast of fantasy anchored in reality surounded by a familliar setting.
Yes, SCP is brilliant.
yes, also it's written by a whole bunch of different people and there is canonically no canon
Aside from the fact that the familiar setting is rarely _present_ in any meaningful way (unless you dissect aliens in Area 51 for a living, I guess), and often _not_ familiar (see the aforementioned no-canon point). As far as urban-fantasy-ness goes, the SCP universe tends to be closer to slasher movies than the Dresden Files.
@Hanachii
I think that’s part of what makes it great. You can literally ignore anything you don’t like.
@@Hanachiiiii That's a self contradictory statement
So this confirms that Sailor Moon (and most magical girl shows) are urban fantasy
Buddy, they are just as urban fantasy as shows like Chainsaw Man or JJK.
The key is whether the setting is being focused on.
For example, if they only use their powers when fighting bad guys, then it's not really urban fantasy.
However, if the nature of magic or they use their powers in ways that influence how they usually do stuff on life(Gakuen Alice for example though I don't know whether or not that's magical girl), then that can count as urban fantasy.
me: huh i wonder if Magnus Archives qualifies as urban fantasy"
Red: Also Magnus Archives is really good horror urban fantasy
me: YYEEEEAHHHHHH
Op how did you like the new episode :)
Omg I was literally gonna make this comment. I was on tje edge of my sit wanting for her to mention the magnus archives
My exact reaction when she talked about Over the Garden Wall
@@mossthemage9948 I thought it was a bit recapy (though I honestly kind of needed it) and I can't wait to see what comes next, (no I am not the op but I felt like replying)
@@noabsolutelynot4587 Honestly same. Nothing really happened but I still wanted to cry.
"Google says try seducing it?"
OH come on, bard...
Now that be funny to see. A Urban Fantasy Novel with a blend of comedy form DnD memes and What would really go down lol.
"Okay To Fight this....ah..One eye. Wait It's nit even purple or has one Horn. Ha..but really what's it called again?
"Oh wait. *Turns Google Lens on* Google Lens will know. " *Google pulls up the document of a Beholder* "HOLY SHIT... This thing has a Ray of DEATH!? *Finds video of a swarm of Beholders useing Ray of DEATH on a red dragon Killing it* "NOPE FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT!"
Welp *unzips* it’s showtime
@@guywhochangeshisprofilealo7163 pls stop.
*Flashbacks in Dungeon Master*
@@JohnDoe-ns5su no
“Most people probably default to Twilight instead of the endless amount of shapeshifter romance novels”
me, someone who knows way more about those books than I ever wanted: _how lucky for them_
Red: starts talking about how a lot of horror is technically Urban fantasy
Me, having just finished The Magnus Archives: oh, neat
Red not 2 minutes later: "go listen to TMA"
I feel vindicated
Oh yeah this video was what made me go and listen to TMA back during lockdown numero uno.
I’m getting into TMA pretty late in the game lol, but I’ll say I’m on episode 53 and I don’t plan on quitting for a WHILE
“...the only guaranteed way to not upset anybody is to never have existed.” That’s going in my quote book.
Seriously though as someone with very low self esteem and self worth that’s something I need to remember.
Bonus points if your parents would've been upset by not being able to have that kid, making you not existing directly upset somebody.
Sarcastically: Non-existent people offend me because why should they not get to suffer the existence of life like everybody else! What, are they too GOOD for us people in the real world?! What a bunch of wankers!
Seriously though, it is a great quote, lol.
To be honest, that's a quote I live by, with my problematic interests and all...
Really makes you wish we all just get snapped out of existence, then pain wouldn't be a thing. No matter your crimes no matter your deeds.
The mercy of death would come for all, then no one has to be hurt by anyone ever again.
Dude, don’t worry, you’re gonna be ok. The people that doubt you are just communist nerds. Be an epic gamer and ignore them 👍
Don't let the threat of existence keep you from remembering how sexy Danny Davido is.
I was living with my boyfriend's rich father in a fancy neighborhood at the off skirts of town, where deer and other animals could be seen frequently moving through peoples yards at night. I was working a bartending job late and became increasing paranoid on my drive home. Physically and emotionally drained drained from work, the last thing I wanted to do was hit a fucking deer with my 2010 KIA in this rich person's neighborhood. I drove at 30 m/hr which is slow as fuck outside of a city, almost white knuckled looking out for any deer that could sprint in front of my poor little car.
Driving through this neighborhood so focused on looking for deer and exasperated from work I saw something as the light of my headlights poured onto it, thin and tall and furry and wearing denim.
I SCREAMED. Literally. I screamed in my car for a full second.
And then my mind started to catch up.... wearing denim?
It was a guy. It was just a fucking guy walking down the street with his dog late at night. Because my mind was so focused on looking for a deer when I saw a person in my headlights my brain blended the expected with the reality so quickly I almost drove off the road imagining a Wendigo.
Anyway, that's why I dont believe urban myths about the mothman or what ever. It's just a fucking owl, dude.
Yup, pretty much this. The human mind can REALLY play tricks on us. :P
... WOW
This story took a turn I wasn't expecting
@@AegixDrakan my bad i completely misunderstood the comment
Or a basking shark.
"Messing with people’s religious beliefs might piss them off"
ARTHUR, KING OF THE BRITONS!
I've been toying with writing in that setting and quickly learned that Morgana and her sisters got royally screwed over. Not to mention that half the knights got replaced by Lancelot; who got folded into canon with Guinevere.
It would be like Twilight suddenly being a part Marvel and the Cullens replacing the Avengers. (Not quite the same as comics aren't a religion.)
Historical Folk lore = Religion?
@@Wanttowrite Well Morgana is different in a lot of a versions of the story (wasn't she not human in a couple?} and Lancelot was a fanfiction character of a French author that got slotted into the series when he wrote about it. Sooooo......
@@Nostripe361 From what I could tell, the earliest of Morgana and Avalon had her and her sisters ruling over a Celtic version of Themyscira with them focusing more on knowledge. Imagine founding out that in a thousand years people only know Wonder Woman as an evil conqueror trying to steal the throne from her half brother Bruce Wayne, it completely changes how you see the character.
Sorry, comics are my go to to explain my thoughts on stories.
@@Wanttowrite Where did you read that? It sounds interesting.
16:27 what's even weirder about Joanne's specific misuse of the word there, is that her response implies the Navajo created the legend to make wizards in general appear as evil - but the reason the term is used distinctly to refer to an especially evil wizard bc there are good magicians who are greatly valued and praised. like in many cultures, including for example voodoo, the distinction is made based on how magic practitioners use their powers, marking some as evil. Zombies, poppets used to harm, and other things associated with Hollywood hoodoo stem from the practices of evil witches in voodoo.
Last time I was this early, Carthage was still the powerhouse of Mediterranean trade and naval might.
Germany can into Empire can poland in space ¿
@@aihsonavais769 Poland: Look Niemcy, I can into space!
Germany: Nein Poland, you can't, sorry friend.
Poland: I know i can into space! *ignites a rocket*
*rocket explodes*
Poland: KURWA!
(Generic historical archive of Polandball memes; meme #002)
I can tell country balls have the best inside jokes, but I can't laugh since I don't understand them.
This is the second time I've seen this comment...
Also, Carthage must be destroyed
When your religious fanfic is so good, people believe it's canon
_looking at you dante_
I don't know any christian denomination that belives the Divine Comedy is canon but ok
@@caiawlodarski5339 Denominations are not people
@@caiawlodarski5339 I would like to point out that the bible itself is actually really limited in its descriptions of Hell so most any description you see or hear in regards to the fiery pits is more based on Dante's Inferno. So, yes, the Divine Comedy has more influence in the biblical canon then you'd think.
This also applies to Paradise Lost. Satan/Lucifer barely appears in the Bible, so most of our understanding of the character(s) comes from that book.
"fundamentally we know how the basics of this world works" Speak for yourself, I'm utterly lost and confused by our world
Same dude. Like, I just now found out that a light switch can go either up or down to be turned on. I thought it was always up.
Yay! I'm not alone!
@@MahouShoujo-Studios just wait til you see a light switch that connects to anything other than a light, I walked into a friend's house flipped a switch and instead of a light, it turned on all the outlets in the room like a circuit breaker, turns out his light just didn't work and he had a lamp, but to turn it on I had to flip a different switch that turned on another set of outlets. 10 years later and I still don't understand how that house was wired up
@@HovektheArtist Holy crap. I think I'm grateful that I at least know that my light switch doesn't control the shower lol. I convinced that a wizard cursed your friend's house or some shit.
@@MahouShoujo-Studios lol I wouldnt doubt it was some mountain wizard that he got on the wrong side of, it was in West Virginia after all
The magic treehouse being shown to me categorically fitting in a setting I've loved hit me like a fucking truck
Oddly enough, the version of Arachne's tale that I read in High School was quite different.
Athena in that version revived Arachne (who hung herself to die on her terms), basically seeing her death as a waste of talent, and *then* turned her into a spider.
Basically in that iteration Athena was a MUCH better sport.
There's quite a few takes on the nature of the contest, who was better, whether or not suicide is featured, why if it is featured, and what Athena's reasoning was for turning Arachne into a spider. Most myths tend to have multiple iterations, which makes sense since for most of history they would have spread primarily by word of mouth. Arachne being well known enough that it generally crops up in at least two or three places in the public education system probably adds to the variety, as it's often cleaned up for younger readers.
@@willieoelkers5568 i have since made similar comments to exactly this in later (and sometimes earlier) videos in the 7 months after posting the original comment, dude.
My favorite version of the tale is that when the competition starts, Zeus says whoever loses can never weave again, and so after Arachne looses, Athena turns her into a spider so she can still weave, instead of loosing her ability.
@@Athena963 Hadn't heard that one. Interesting take on it. Interesting angle.
I'm familiar with three versions of the story:
-Athena wins, depressed Arachne kills herself, Athena feels bad and revives her as a spider
-Arachne wins, Athena gets pissed and turns her into a spider
-Arachne wins, Athena gets pissed and kills her, Athena then feels bad about it, so she revives Arachne as a spider
There's also an interesting difference in the meaning of the transformation in those stories. Number 2 sees it as a straightforward punishment, while numbers 1 and 3 see it more as something, in a way, benevolent - Arachne can now weave to her heart's content without endangering herself by offending anyone
The great and underrated comedian John Finnemore wrote a piece where he explains why his sketches draw from Christian mythology but never Islamic our Jewish. He basically says that because he grew up in a Christian country, learning the Christian stories, he has a connection to and understanding of these stories that he doesn't have to others, even as an atheist. He highlights this by saying that he knows how church services work and what happens but he "wouldn't know what a funny rabbi would sound like" because he never regularly went to a synagogue in his youth.
Dara Ó Briain has a similar explanation for he doesn't do Islamic jokes.
But there is something charming about a person writing from mythological stuff of a thing they don't know shitte that leads to an increasing level of meta comedy, like when the japanese take all the christian symbolism and just put it there "cuz iz cul".
It's like in one comment I read of a person who was frustrated that American made shows only dealt with the political landscape in America and the person was tired of it, not realizing that it's less probable than the creators are less likely to know the details of political landscapes in other countries as well as the American one
I love John Finnemore so damn much! Cabin Pressure was amazing, but everything he does is done with gentle strokes, never heavy handed! The man is a genius
I don’t know, that still kind of strikes me as stepping out of your lane. Plenty of Jewish people here in the States and even Muslims. As someone “raised in x” it’s not the same thing as an ethnicity since he can, and has, chosen to leave it. Therefore anything he says is from the perspective of a well informed outsider.
Good Omens is such a good example to the whole religio-
"The divine comedy...good omes...etc"
Ah...yeah, Red knows lol
Soo, the Discworld saga would be an urban fantasy?
@agnat86 I feel that all conflict is due to the lack of humor in ppl or lack of understanding each other
@agnat86 That will always depend on who you ask the question to. I have no doubt there are people who already find "Good Omens" unacceptable as it is and think it's very existence an unforgivable offense. I'm of the opinion that any religion, cult or belief can be taken and used for literature in any shape and form the author wants. Offending people is no crime and people being offended means nothing to the quality of the writing (unless readers are outright offended by the terrible quality of the writing itself).
@@Mt.Berry-o7
I agree but add the caveat that in some countries and with some religions you can be killed legally for writing such fiction. The USA has its problems, and its religious fanatics, but you usually don't have to worry about being murdered by a mob or the state for something you write anymore. Although it has still happened, such cases are exceptions rather than norms.
About the good omens thing, I think the problem most people had is that personified embodiments of good and evil were turned into this weird buddy cop dynamic, where in the Devine Comedy and Paradise Lost, the bad guys stayed bad and the good guys, even as antagonists in Milton's works, stayed good.
That’s why I like Rick Riordan a lot. He apologizes and then adapts his writing to not make the same mistake again.
*glares over at Rowling*
@@harmonetheanimationaddict4419 She heard “adapts their writing” and didn’t understand it was supposed to be the _new_ writing
Please, Riordan’s writing is a knockoff of Rowling and yall eat it up, don’t say shit on her
@@whrcwh yeah but Rick riordan isn’t extremely transphobic sooo :)
@@whrcwhdifference is that riordan's work is good and the writer himself isn't genuinely evil
I just realised that some parts of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure may qualify as Historical Fantasy. Some is definitely urban fantasy.
...Fuck...
It transitioned from one to another. It starts off with gothic era vampires which fits, and the Aztec god Kars and ancient artifact stand arrows fit with the Indiana Jones/Mummy era of Historical Fantasy. But once we get to the 80's and beyond they are just kind of there established and have to be dealt with.
@@coolgreenbug7551 but then you get to part 7 and shit gets wild
@@fangsabre Balls... Balls everywhere...
@@thesymbiotenation.4552 I know this horse race is important, but jesus told me we need to kill the president
My favorite urban fantasy trope is when they’re all panicking like “We better _not_ get f*cking seen, _Bethany_ “ but they almost never do get caught, just because the panic is my jam.
Ah yes, nothing beats the low level anxiety of a deliberately enforced Masquerade, that only works because its constituents must work extremely hard to maintain it.
I'm a big fan of the exact opposite: The masquerade is very important to a lot of people, but *BOY* is the protagonist not one of them, so much so that they keep getting angry messages from the poor guy who has to erase everyone's memories after that high speed chase in broad daylight. (Geoffrey Scrutinous in Skulduggery Pleasant)
52nerfguy Yeah, that’s also pretty good reading, especially with Skullduggery Pleasant. I read a few books of the series, and they did it well
Bluecho4 I feel like there’s some personal salt in there.
@@wooyeah1738 Naw, I was being entirely genuine. I LIVE for that shit.
Red: Urban Fantasy is more of a setting than a genre to be honest
Red at the end: Urban fantasy is still my favorite GENRE
Ah so we meet again
@@billcipher826 from one legend to another, it's nice to see you here
What happend here
@@xs303is7 old gods meeting
"The animation GENRE. GENRE.. ANIMATION ISN'T A GENRE YOU STUPID BITCH"
-some guy
Gravity Falls is just straight up urban fantasy aesthetic. Like the vibes of the visuals automatically feels urban fantasy~
Gravity Falls and Supernatural = best urban fantasy.
PSA for people wanting to write about an African culture:
Africa is a continent of many cultures.
These cultures are very different and you can’t just put them all in a blender.
Stop painting Africa as this perfect paradise that was ruined by colonization. Believe it or not, we are people, and people fight with each other. That being said, colonization definitely created a lot of difficulty for the continent. It’s worth looking into the different attitudes of colony- owning countries and how that affected the existing African countries today e.g. the British mostly cared about getting resources, while the French wanted to complete cultural assimilation of the native people.
Today’s land borders are somewhat arbitrary in terms of cultural groups. That being said, countries do have their own culture. We don’t all sound the same and we can definitely tell who’s a foreigner. Even within the same country, a single language can be spoken with different accents and dialects.
"Stop painting Africa as this perfect paradise that was ruined by colonization" You mean Black Panther lied to us?
No one did thay
Watch any film by Djibril Diop Mambety and you'll realize what Africa's really all about
I don’t disagree with anything you say. But to play devil’s advocate, let’s just consider medieval European fantasy for a comparison. How often are those style of stories really culturally accurate to the diverse regions, peoples, languages and time periods of the European Medieval times vs. just throwing in a hodgepodge of easily recognizable exaggerated stock elements into a blender to churn out a setting? Castles, knights, dragons, princesses, popes, Vikings, Holy Wars, bloop, we’re done. I’d say at BEST it’s half and half between those and carefully researched remotely accurately depicted historical fiction. And the thing is, you’re just as likely to see the Middle Ages setting as a pristine saintly Arcadia as you are a festering, backwards plague ridden mud heap. Neither of which is accurate or tells the whole story.
What’s my point? Only this: Yeah, a lot of people write African historical fiction “correctly”, but that’s hardly JUST limited to Africa. What we’re seeing is a piece of a much larger, much more fundamental aspect of storytelling as a whole. Name for me one region or time period with any degree of popularity in fiction that HASN’T been distorted over the years. Stories do a lot of things, they can be made for a myriad of purposes. And sometimes (oftentimes) they distort things. That doesn’t always to be a bad thing. It’s the basis of all fiction.
The above also applies to the various Native American cultures.
this video was an excuse for Red to talk about every Neil Gaiman story she could squeeze into one video and i am INTO IT
Made me happy too. Too bad she didn't mention Neverwhere, though. I love Neverwhere. But Good Omens is my favorite, and I'm reading American Gods currently, so I'm happy.
@@lovetolovefairytales Neverwhere needs more appreciation.
@@merrittanimation7721 it really does! It's a gorgeous story with an amazing message. Not to mention the best fantastical depiction of depression I've ever read! It's a beautiful piece of work.
lovetolovefairytales Presumably, she didn’t bring up Neverwhere because the fantastic parts aren’t, um, as fantastic-AL as with American Gods or Good Omens (or, hell, Sandman or even Coraline) It definitely has Urban Fantasy trappings, but the biggest problems don’t feel grounded in the fantastic elements (Richard’s focus on things like food or getting from one place to another, for example). It feels almost like the aesthetic, rather than the setting.
@@lovetolovefairytales Good omens is SO GOOD
Percy Jackson is one of my old comfort reads. It got me through some rough times.
Didn't seem that good
@@seankrkovich2869 hissssss
;-;
How do you if that books is good for you!?
That’s my OoOoPpPpIiInNnIiIiIiOooOooNnNNnnNn
@@seankrkovich2869 I was a young adhd kid with low self esteem
I'll never get over how much I love the concept of bribing pixies with pizza, in the Dresden Files: "In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!"
Hell yeah! Just finished Summer Knight.
if i ever had supernatural bodyguards id want the Za Lords Guard
Harry provides....
Bribing Toot might be the only decision Harry has made that hasn’t made his life worse
8:48 _The Incredibles_ does that great, with director Brad Bird specifically mentioning "The mundane and the fantastic" for things like the family ysing superpowers during a dinnertime squabble. Dash running around the table at hyperspeed, and Violet stopping him in his tracks with a force field. Superstrong dad lifting the couch up for vaccuming Elastic mom to reach all the way under.
In case you didn’t know/ remember dad’s first name is Bob and mom’s first name is Helen
So technically American Dragon: Jake Long is an Urban Fantasy with a kitchen sink approach? Neat!
So is the Adventures of Juniper Lee.
And Grimm.
Omggg yess it is
So like Danny phantom aswell ?
@@sarahthomas8670 Danny Phantom I think it does fit, at least in part, with urban fantasy
Does Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy count? There's plenty of overlap for the urban and the fantastical but it's often for the sake of comedy.
"It's not a genre"
*20 minutes later*
"It's my favourite genre"
I love urban fantasy settings like Kiki's Delivery Service or Good Omens where the fantasy element isn't public knowledge, but the "normal" people have almost no reaction to any of the magical elements they're presented with. There's always just something inherently funny and weirdly... homey (?) about a place seemingly just like ours but so open and flexible with its world view
"Spirited Away" seems somewhere in-between.
and always remember: "the magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution noncommercial sharealike 4.0 international license "
The magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharealike 4.0 international license...
The magnus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharealike 4.0 international license...
The mangus archives is a podcast distributed by rusty quill and licensed under creative commons attribution noncommercial sharealike 4.0 international license....
It sounds similar to SCP concept-wise. SCP is better though.
@@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus there are certainly grounds for comparison, but I think there's definitely room for both. Personally I prefer the unified story and setting of Magnus, but I've also had some great times scrolling through SCP's and ultimately I'm glad to have both of them.
As a fate fan hearing the “messing with others cultures” bit made me laugh because how much that series messes with EVERYTHING
Fate writer: See this cool mythological figure?
Fan: yeah?
Fate writer: well now she is a hot anime girl.
Fan: wait, I'm pretty sure they are always depicted male?
Fate writer: oh that's not a problem, we can just have her grow a dick.
Fan: wh-what???
Fate writer: oh and her son is also a hot anime girl too.
@@Maid_of_Spiders lmao thats so true. at least for Saber they give a explanation for why shes gender swapped. BUT NERO HOWEVER WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
tbh the fate/nasuverse is somehow both horrible and amazing world building and both horrible and amazing interpretations of characters
@Tin Watchman yeah maybe
Correction its just called marketing by making viewers confused and insane
+Tin Watchman But they also take ideas from Native American (Geronimo having magic shaman powers) and Jewish (Avicebron being a golem master) history and folklore, so it clearly has nothing to do with “punching down”.
Red: "Where are the dragons?"
Shadiversity: *approves this message*
Jake Long, dragon maid, if you count my hero it has the dragoon hero Ryukyu, modern mo gals a web comic has dragon people... Just saying
(angry Kaiba noises)
WHAT ABOUT DRAGONS????
I see you too are a man of culture.
In a very very extrapolated way you could consider eagles and birds of prey dragons. Hence they are dinosaurs or related somehow to dinosaurs. If you squint you can kind of see the draconic features in a bird of prey
I had this idea for a setting where there's a magical world that only children can see and interact with. So while all the kids go on magical adventures the adults just think it's a case of "overactive imagination"
That better be a new development or that's gonna fall apart when the protagonists grow up and have kids
Daring* today, aren't we?
So kinda like Rise of the Guardians?
KnD?
Coming from a religious person, I actually tend to enjoy magical fantasy depictions of christianity, for the most part. As long as it's not mean spirited or deliberately offensive, I have a good time flipping my brain off and just enjoying the wacky things people yanked outta my religion.
I love the netflix show Lucifer, and it's fun and interesting to see something I'm very familiar with reimagined and made fun and cool.
Seconded. The only issue I have is when people take those depictions and treat them as if they're an accurate portrayal of Christianity.
For example, I'd find it rather annoying if someone thought Good Omens was an accurate depiction of Christianity, and thus told me I shouldn't respect angels when they're just as bad as demons. Luckily, I think most people understand that those depictions aren't accurate.
I kinda miss the days when Hulu had facebook integrated as their comment system. Reading some of the comments for Lucifer was almost as much fun as watching the show. Some folks just couldn't understand that the show was based on a comic book that was, in turn, based based on one of those biblical fan-fic stories. Hilarious.
I've been working on idea of a fantasy where different regions if the world are their mythology. For evangelical regions like Christianity I was thinking of going off the more wild interpretations like the gospel of Nicodemus. That way it fits better with other mythologies. Would that work?
That's kind of the thing - Christianity is a big, thriving religion that isn't really under any kind of threat, isn't marginalized and so on. When poking at it, you aren't "punching down", but drawing from one of the biggest religions out there.
Which is very different from a situation where a white guy decides to write a fantasy depiction of, say, Maasai religion/folklore.
Same here with Good Omens. I watched it with my parents, who are way more strict about religion than me, and they also liked it. Not because it was an accurate representation of Christianity, but because it was a well made and enjoyable fictional piece of entertainment. I think this is the difference between someone who believes in a particular religion and a religious nutjob.
I love that the Medusa in Unsecret World was wearing sunglasses. Good attention to detail
Red: mentions the Magnus Archives
me: turning around to look at the screen so fast I almost snapped my neck
Second Read through of comment "Oh they mean looking at their computer!"
First read through of comment "But how did they know which direction to turn to break the fourth wall?"
Me
She has convinced me that I should never ever listen to The Magnus Archives, but I did pass the video along to a cosmic-horror fan friend of mine, because it's kind of the perfect sales pitch for someone who wants that kind of story
Dimension 20s Fantasy High is actually a great twist on this trope. Instead of it being a normal world that contains fantastical elements, it is a fantasy world where one country is significantly more technologically advanced and so the familiar is what invades the world.
“My only question is, WHERE THE HELL ARE THE DRAGONS?!!!”
My girl Red asking the real questions
Here be the dragons
@@joejoeington6899 i felt that one.
Invisible and very quiet
"There were dragons, when I was a boy..."
@@SomeRandomDude821 The feels man, the feels
Me: Please don't tear this trope apart! I love this trope.
Also me: Tear everything apart. I need to make sure that people will love my books.
PLEASE DO A TROPE TALK ON GODS AND DIETIES
OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE SUCH A GOOD TOPIC!!!
I've been waiting FOREVER for one of those!!!!
That last one could be Deities or Diets, and I would accept a Trope Talk on either
Amen
The Xenoblade Chronicles fan in me just screamed
Start: What is Urban Fantasy?
End: It’s impossible to exist without hurting someone.... :(
So either exist and hurt people or die. YOU CHOOSE, SPIDERMAN!
“Where the hell are the dragons?”
... you get me, spiritually, I have yelled that from the rooftops all on my own and now I SHALL HAVE VINDICATION... or at least some company
Unless the company eats you ;)
Scp 1762
I will join you on the rooftops.
SonsOfLorgar I would make a delightful meal,
@@pabloa8102 oh
What I was expecting: a new trope talk
What I got in addition to a new trope talk: a dozen really good recommendations that sound like they'd really appeal to me and that I can't wait to read/listen to
I feel like I need to go back through this video and write them all down...
@@twistedtachyon5877 do it, especially Dimension 20! Unsleeping City is very good
Beginning of the video: “A setting not a genre!”
End of the video: “My favorite genre!”
I don't think I would describe Odin as a "cool dude" 😅 the guy was paranoid and scared. Threw a lot of people under the bus to gain knowledge that only made what he was scared of happen faster
This is why so many modern stories portray him as a villain.
@@ElvenRaptor except Marvel
To an extent
You couldvargue it was even a fullfilling prophecy, it probably wpuldn't had happened if Odin didn't go to extreme lengths to make it not happen
Rick riordan’s greater univers is really one of the “everything is real” because EVERY pantheon exists in harmony somehow
Sometimes I forget that he made crossovers between Percy Jackson and The Kane Chronicles. Though, I wonder how exactly it works in terms of how Norse, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian mythology all coexist in the same universe.
Can’t forget Christianity, Thor canonically challenged Jesus to what I think was a drinking contest.
I think it's mostly because all the pantheons kind of agreed to just mind their own buisness
In the very first Kane Chronicle, Amos states that they stay on their side of the river because the other has "other gods." Remember that the other side of the river holds the Empire State Building.
It really is a case of the different regions having their own afterlifes for their believers and anything on Earth should be kept separated unless it is required not to be. For example, when Greek and Egyptian magic is explicitly uniting together. And Roman explicitly remodeled the Greek gods, so the Greek gods just swap between their personalities. Which is why it is so devastating to gods like Athena, who was basically destroyed by Roman transitioning.
As for the Jesus comment, yeah, Christianity is in there too, but with it surviving outside its secret world, it's unlikely the Father has to do much besides help priests with real exorcisms when it comes to his side of bad guys.
I think that earth is the common ground due to worshippers, and the gods are relegated to separate sections or dimensions of reality.
So to a normal person, you tunnel a hole beneath Rome, and you'll find rock and magma.
To a Greco-Roman or to one perceptible to the Mist, you'll might be unfortunate enough to be dragged down to Tartarus.
And to an Egyptian Magician, you'll just end up in the Duat again.
"It contains everything but the kitchen sink" - a world where everything seems normal, and also there are fairytails... But no one ever invented the kitchen sink
specifically the kitchen one. there can be sinks in all other rooms, but no one thought to put one in the kitchen.
Alucard: I'm sure if you look into your heart, which is currently all over that tree, you'll find a way to forgive me.
Alucard: "Huh? Sudden it reeks of hypocrisy...-OH, if it isn't the Catholic Church,
And what's this? No little Timmy glued to your crotch?
Progress!"
@@colt9836 Anderson: "Ah, and look at what we have here! A filthy heathen!
@@arutka2000 "Excuse me, but I'm a fuckmothering vampire, I killed A LOT of people to earn this tile! I deserve to be called such!"
@@colt9836 Anderson: "Well then, mind if I ask you yer name?"
@@arutka2000 "You first, PAPIST."
I think one of the worst examples of not doing their research in an Urban Fantasy setting is Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Just as an example in Season 3 the villians are a Group of Pagan Witch that are Creatures from Greek Mythology that worship a Figure from English Folklore and pray in Gaelic
You'd get a kick out of what Friendly Space Ninja thinks of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and how it's all the fault of He Who Shall Not Be Named..
and the CW.
@@jaivu.r ohhhh I have seen it and I love it
And used a copyrighted statue of Baphomet as their dark lord, and they did get sued, and it was VERY funny z
Well it’s actually not TOO far off from history(ish). Yes, if they were going for ancient Greek paganism, they’d be really off. But if what they’re going for was a like an old school wicca/“witch cult theory”/ 1600s interpretation of paganism type of witch, it’s not too far off. I mean Wicca, a real world pagan group, also appropriates from Celtic and Greek mythology.
@@mypantsarefilledwithbeans6508 if they were just an amalgamation of different Pagan beliefs I'd be a little more ok with that but they're literally creatures from Greek Mythology, Pan, Circe, A Gorgon and also a Hobgoblin(I know not Greek but he slipped my mind)
I’m genuinely surprised more urban fantasy isn’t set in Ireland
right?
There's Artemis Fowl, but I don't know of anything else. It does seem like a natural setting, with tons of folklore and a landscape that already looks high fantasy.
Funny enough, I’m working on a fanfiction that starts in Ireland.
It’s a ‘The Hobbit’ fanfiction were the main character is a Faerie from Middle Earth,
But since Ireland has a plethora of portals into the Island of Faeries in Middle Earth, she was raised in our Earth for her protection until she’s old enough to return.
Artemis Fowl and Skulldugery Pleasant are both UF set in Ireland
@@zoro115-s6b I never read Artemis Fowl as a kid, and now I'm 22 sort of wishing that I had. Do you think I'm too old to still enjoy it, or is the writing complex enough to still be liked by adults?
Me after seeing Urban Horror: *sweating viciously in Magnus Archives*
Red said TMA rights
S a m e
"But sometimes the heroes *are* monsters"
*shows scenes from Hellsing Ultimate*
Me: happiness noises
Cloaked Kobold crimson fukcer
Imo, those scenes are from original Hellsing
Yes!
@@moonwing1715 YES THE ABRIDGED
@@PhileasLiebmann Ultimate is the anime adaptation that's more accurate to the manga.
I remember when the videogame Smite had a Hindu goddess as a character. Some people complained about the design of the character being too sexualised because they wore some sexy armour. Though, when you look up historical artwork of the goddess, they were always topless or naked.
Yeah, Indian people get angry about literally everything. You should have seen the ridiculous backlash to the Bollywood movie Bajirao Mastaani because it showed this one historical character singing and dancing. Like, it's a Bollywood movie, what were you guys expecting? And don't get me started on the movie Padmavat. They had to change the name from Padmavati, because people got mad about them making a movie about her.
@The Phantom the midriff thing just makes me think of the Victorians and the ankle thing
portrayals of deities with still practiced religions is always a bit iffy, especially when diehard people get a whiff of a "wrong" interpretation, but in some cases like this i could see the other side, there's a thin line between having a goddess be fully sensual in representation and having sensual elements that are just a part of her "character", for fertility related goddesses its not uncommon to see them naked and topless given that breasts in many cultures represent fertility, but say the Egyptian goddess Taurt (of pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing) while portrayed naked all the time is not treated in anyway sensually given what we know, and due to the very specific natures of many Hindu deities i wouldn't be surprised if cases like this happen/ed as well
Honestly, as a Hindu I think its kinda disgusting to see gods/goddesses used in media like that at all. The amount of times the myths that my family has passed down and revered have been turned into gimmicks to be used in video games is sad. Yes, this goddess is freaking awesome, but you could've also just come up with your own badass female warrior-character instead of ripping off of my culture. At the end of the day, I don't even worship those gods/goddesses (they're all facets of the universal energy I believe in- Santana Dharma is weird like that), but it still makes me uncomfortable to come across it randomly in some Final Fantasy game.
@@everythingoes4956 Because it's window-dressing and is not meaningfully engaged with by the story/mechanic-makers
Percy Jackson was my childhood and nothing can change that
Percy Jackson deserves a cinematic reboot
How do you feel about the movies?
We don't talk about the movies
@@Mr.Starpop Not a fan
Movies don’t exist
The dragons are in my basment and you will never get them.
You monster
Call the naruto runners, we're doing another raid!
Give em to me
@@Joshisepic2222 NEVER! WAHHAHAHA
Not cool dude, not cool.
Red: You probably wanna check if it's part of a still-living religion.
Me: She's going to talk about Kali (because of that Smite playable character outrage)
Red: For instance... Kali!
Me: Quite the time for me to realise I have a superpower.
Had the same thought, I was gonna say I'm a bit surprised she didn't mention Smite. It's not urban fantasy but it certainly was relevant to the point
I was thinking Kali too because she's such a stereotype at this point. "Ooh scary exotic lady villain ooo". The actual Kali has a lot of depth to her and she still has plenty of ardent worshippers, but her pop culture portrayal (like in Indiana Jones) just makes South Asian look like savages.
Or that infamous Indiana Jones movie.
They also at least remodeled Agni as well, right? I know they changed his appearance near the same time as Kali's remodel and rework, was that the same issue or just similarly timed if you know?
Ah yes like the japanese DxD, where every religion is real, and they kill the judeo-islamic-christian God, make the indian gods kinda bad guys or at the very least very antagonistic, and the MC and the party are literal demons from hell but they are chill, they now accept money instead of souls.
Just wanted to mention "My babysitter's a vampire"
Leans towards "all monsters are real" archetype.
me: *about to wash my hair so that people don't discover I'm a gorgan *
red: *uploads 5 minutes ago*
me: .... It can wait..
I am watching this from my bathroom. But I am sitting on the toilet so you are not alone.
There are only 3 gorgons; Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa
So which one are you
@@mochibunnyan6556 that's what they want you to think
Red: "where are the dragons?"
In the comments. Here be dr agons.
@@blegh2780 oh shit....
I love urban fantasy where the magic is just there. You just see a gorgon texting her girlfriend on the phone, and their girlfriend just casually has dragon wings, horns and a tail. Stuff like that, where a wizard needs to fetch a pen so instead of standing up to get it they flick their hand and it flies to them. Where it's utterly 100% normal, and having them separated would be a weird concept to them
I'm actually planning a story that kinda turns into this later on lol: at first both the future scifi world (which I want to make feel very modern and familiar first and foremost, despite the hundred-plus-year gap and the crazy tech) and the fantasy world are entirely different, with the fantasy world being a vr-based mmorpg sandbox type thing focused on realism and player choice, and the big central event of the first arc is that they made it so damn real it starts overlapping reality, by the second arc the problems that caused have been mostly patched up and this world born from what was basically dungeons and dragons has been fully integrated into a world that, for the most part, looks identical to our own, and once everything's over people more or less accept it as is and move on.
Honestly, I feel that writing a fantasy world that's supposed to be "secret" from our world almost comes across as lazy to me. I know the worlds are sometimes really well built in their own right and that might not seem fair, but to me, it comes across like the writer wanted to have a magical fantasy world and wanted to have a character from the real world, but didn't want to hammer out the worldbuilding for melding the two together and would rather just paste a "shh... don't tell anyone" sticker on the fantasy stuff. I absolutely love the kind of story you're talking about though.
@@yahboisquishy5561 well you can do a lot of intresting worldbuilding around this separation. how is it enforced, and by whom? And why?
Who benefits from the separation,a nd who would benefit from its overthrow?
If you’re looking for what humanoid/ other creatures would integrate in modern society, I recommend taking a look at Zootopia. They make a great deal of changes in order to help the size/ food needs difference between species. Things like smoothie stands with elevators for giraffes and lil towns for mice and water dry off stations for hippos make for a great inspo if you wanna make a species smaller than everyone else or taller than everyone else or amphibious.
What you're describing is more "Social media and sorcery " than Urban Fantasy(so as Red said Harry Dresden and Percy Jackson). And I'd love to hear of a good book series in the former category - I hope Minimum Wage Magic is actually good
"The real world is the only place you can get a decent meal" -James Haliday
+
I believe he was quoting Groucho Marx.
Did she say that Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz was “not all that stressed” about trying to get back home? Isn’t that basically the MAIN thing she was always trying to do?
In the first book. In a later book Uncle Henry and Aunt Em went to live in Oz* and she was no longer stressed.
*Which made them effectively immortal unless they go strolling in the Deadly Desert or something. Unfortunately for the Wicked Witch of the West, that immortality thing didn't start till book two.
Red: Where the hell are the dragons?!
Ancient Magus's Bride: Allow us to introduce ourselves.
I knew it, Iceland is hiding them all from us!
So, it is urban fantasy, not just fantasy.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS
_Nettles in the shadow… Ring of holly... Thoroughly entangle the branches as a spider's web..._
Some... might be growing in your yard.
"The real world is actually cool"
Except during a pandemic. Stay safe, peeps.
I mean, depending on your outlook, that might make things cooler...
You too
Remember to wash your hands.
@@eddiespeight8103 If I don't want to, are you going to report me to local authorities?
@@dirtypure2023 yesh
Red: I recommend the podcast “The Magnus Archives”
Me: ANYTHING FOR YOU, BEYONCÉ!!!
_Rushes In with a beet on a plate..._
This was literally my reaction
I would love to see Red do a trope talk on the "magic school." A school that usually takes place in urban fantasy stories where characters who are unfamiliar to the magical world learn about the world and how to use magic alongside the reader.
"Don't put it in without its context"
Japanese rpg: ice element monsters are all wendigo lol
Water monsters are undine
- Screaming culture geek:
''YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE RANDOM CULTURAL FIGURES AND MAKE THEM INTO FIGHTING MONSTERS!''
- Anime Industry:
''... lol monster goes dubaduba...'''
Or we can have the male Hindu God "Shiva" as into a magic ice princess in a bikini instead. I'm sure none of the 1.1 billion Hindus in the world will mind at all!
TheOmegajuice “Wait is that how “Sephiroth” is actually spelled?”
Also apparently calling her Shiva was kinda a mistranslation of the word “Shiver”
Or you know how most Japanese anime will use Christian mythology or symbolism because Christianity is such a small part of Japanese life that they use it to look cool and add some spice. Basically Japan pretty much ignores almost ALL of these rules.
That never existed thing reminds me of ol' "the universe began. This has made a lot of people unhappy and is widely considered to have been a bad move."
Ah that line seems so familiar but I can't seem to place it. Where is it from?
@@thedumbd5693 Pretty sure that's a quote from "Good Omens"
@@thedumbd5693 It's from Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy book series :)
@@iconberg4709 Just did a quick search, you were right and I was wrong : )
@@thedumbd5693 Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
It's really funny to think of SCP being technically urban fantasy
Please stop.
@@quincie- ?
I mean-
Dr.Bright would like to know your location.
I guess it's more urban-science-fantasy?? Since it has science fiction elements too
You really could just say, "Niel Gaiman does 'this' very well."
This, being just about anything, even just apparently being an awesome human being.
I came here to see if you would mention the Magnus Archives, I watched, you did, I’m happy. Everyone needs to go listen to it please
same
Yes!!!
What's it about?? I rly want to listen to it!!
What's it about? I remember seeing a guy that looked like Robert Plant with really long pointy fingers
@@raspberrycrowns9494 it's a horror podcast about an institute that collects records of supernatural experiences. The guy with long fingers is important but I can't tell you anything because spoilers
As a person of Native American decent, I believe everyone has full permission to call a monster creature a wendigo as long as it used to be a human who became that way because it ate other humans
you ever play Until Dawn?
TYLER ourada Yes, and I’m perfectly fine with how they display the wendigos
@@arteriop8910 good game too
@@arteriop8910 I agree, as long as they keep the original intent of the wendigo or whatever else they're portraying, I don't see any problem with it.
So that one Supernatural episode was.. okay?
And the No Evil cartoon seems good too
Trope talk is the only thing getting me through this quarantine
For anyone looking for historical fantasy, I recommend the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik!
They're basically
"The Napoleonic Wars but with dragons"
His Majesty’s Dragon! I loved those books growing up! They bring up a lot of questions about honor as it pertains to politics and warfare, and the bonds forged in service.
@@coltonwilliams4153 Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is partly the Napoleonic Wars but with wizards.
But how often do these stories involve...
*A PROPHECY* (guitar riff), often involving *A COLOR UNLIKE ANY SEEN ON EARTH!*
Lovecraft: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--
I would love a mythology-based urban fantasy series where any given creature/deity actually has multiple versions of themselves walking around because of the ways they've been re-interpreted over the centuries. Like Mycanean Dionysus and Classic Dionysus hanging out together and people getting them confused for each other.
American gods has dozens of different Jesus. like mexican Jesus and so on.
I had this concept in my head that the gods of different cultures will sometime seek to somehow magically fuse together when the cultures make contact in order to share their power and thus become more powerful together. The idea I had was that the god known as Hermes in Greece and Mercury in Rome had sought out such a deal with both Thoth in the south and with Odin in the north. By successfully syncretising with Thoth, Hermes had become Hermes Trismegistus and taught medieval occultists ancient secrets of both Greece and Egypt. However, in the north, he had been driven to conflict with Odin, mainly due to Odin growing tired of Mediterranean scholars treating northern Europeans as barbarians for regarding "Mercury" as the father of "Jupiter" and not vice versa, so by the Renaissance, he gave Olaus Magnus a clear message to bring to Rome - that Odin is not Mercury, never has been, and never will be.
@@Punaparta Okay, that's actually really cool.
The web serial Pact by Wildbow pretty much has this. Belief has power, so a lot of the rules of the magical setting are just the most common myths and superstitions, because everybody believing them gives them power. So there are several versions of different incarnations of beings.
Red: "Where the Hell are the dragons?!"
Me: Have you looked at Shadiversity?
But what about Dragons?
Shadiversity Urban Fantasy. Where the skyscrapers have MACHICOLATIONS!
And where, despite the abundance of firearms, people still fight with SWORDS!!! Because SWORDS ARE AWESOME!
Robert Fisher swords are freaking awesome! Plus magic gun sounds dumb, magic swords are the best!!!
That’s not to say magic guns don’t exist, “infinite ammo gun until the plot requires them to run out” is a tv/movie staple.
@@beccag2758 sees most Hollywood westerns. :P
Isn't Goosebumps technically a "Magic yes, Pathos no" universe? There isn't any real world building in it, the monsters just show up.
So as a Goosebumps nerd, this is best seen in the revival series: Goosebumps Horrorland. Horrorland, think scary Disneyland, is actually a refuge and job opportunity for monsters. The series compounds this by bringing together old and new protagonists to create a larger world. (I just want a tv series based on this book series, please)
@@christiangarza8122 I have also read parts of that series
4:25 Ah yes, Bright, the movie where there’s regular racism, fantasy racism, and we REALLY remember the Alamo for some reason
As another RUclipsr put it rather succinctly, "The Apotheosis of Lazy Worldbuilding".
Also, there is a dragon just flying over a city in one shot and it is never even acknowledged...? Like, sure, we have giant, highly mobile, possible fire breathing reptiles, but we can't have one line of dialogue about how we maybe tried to eradicate them, or how the fire fighters have to constantly deal with them...?
@@midnight8341 Fire Chief: okay so how did this fire start?
Police Chief: well we found a guy who confessed and said he was taking his baby dragon out for walk. got startled by a dog, BBQ'ed the dog and the dog ran back into the house
Fire Chief: Fucking dragons...
I will say one thing for Bright: It made me realize just how much the world needs an urban fantasy buddy cop movie where the buddy cops are basically Legolas and Gimli.
@@MrMidjji
By the names i took them as eastern european, Slavs. They run with that "ghetto getup" just like the latins and asians.
Red: *Mentions the Magnus Archives*
Me: It's happening... they're seeping into other content creators lists... the Web will be pleased....
this is so on point, very ominous, 12/10 will feed Fears
Had a Spiral moment of questioning if I just heard that
As half Native-American (mother is Cherokee) and half-white, I try to have a more nuanced view of what some call 'cultural appropriation'. Don't get me wrong, I definitely understand where people come from about having something borrowed...but I've also seen people who actually grew more interested in learning about the parent culture after being exposed to stories of the Wendigo. In those cases, it has led to them actually appreciating/respecting the source more than they might have.
In some ways, I was like that with say voodoo. You get the exposure to the whole doll and zombie thing, but it led me to actually learning about the religious beliefs, etc. like the loas because I wanted to learn about it.
i mean. this cultural appropriation thing is not just the way cultures are supposed to work? at the end of the day, what are cultures but agglomerations of previous cultures? if cultures are naturally merging, why is there a need to stop them from merging?
Aitor Rosell Torralba it comes down to how and why those cultures are merging. If I kill your people, take your land and spend hundreds of years trying to suppress your culture, it might make you more defensive about me then misrepresenting your myths and beliefs for my shitty YA love triangle
@@taliladd224 Honestly, I've given up on trying to treat any ideas as sacred. I do my best to not step on toes, but if I like an idea (not just the name or aesthetic. I'm not one for "borrowing" things solely for window dressing, because what makes things interesting is the details. I get that in-name-only representation of myths and cultures suck, from a narrative and cultural perspective), then I'm not going to be hung up on using it. I just dislike when people try to act as cultural curators in a subtractive way- by all means, say what's wrong with an interpretation of the underlying myth. But just saying "you did it wrong and shouldn't have even said anything" is kind of an obnoxious take that does little to directly educate people about the thing in question.
Ur right, it's a useless exercise, I feel like a lot of people (especially white Americans) are hypersensitive to it. Being Irish, I know a lot of traditional myths and folk tails of my country. I see Americans who r either an eighth Irish or not Irish at all completely misrepresent tons of Irish mythology, so what? If they ask me for any kind of question on it I'll explain, but come on? I'm patriotic and all but there's better ways to spend your time than getting offended over that shit. A lot of people might get into it off of small tales, why would u start going off and segregating cultures and getting real offended by people using your stuff.
I mean its almost like fiction brings people together and learning from it even its not accurate makes people want to learn about it. The idea of not expanding or even telling ot for fear of offending prevents people from finding love or intrest in the culture
I loved how ones story I read did feature a wendigo among much less spicy things like vampires and werewolves. They treated as it was a thing, but you did not engage with it. Your mentor went to talk to it, you were told to hang back and be good. Short of just name dropping it, I thought that was clever.