Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="J Lloyd" data-source="post: 383051" data-attributes="member: 5113">Mature and Vile as long as it's done MaturelyI'm hesitant to say either way, because I'm not sure what either mean in particular. I think my own definition of dark fantasy is horror mixed with fantasy (and fantasy meaning the inclusion of magic). As for the type of horror, I think all types are equally viable as long as the material is handled maturely.I really don't want to talk about specific issues, and I'm unwilling to have the thread become something it shouldn't be. Nevertheless, don't shy away from horrible things. As long as these things aren't glorified, and they're told to convey the sort of depravity needed, there isn't much need to dwell on them. The best short example I can give is the fact that Moorcock in his Elric books talk about the Melniboneans taking drugs for sheer pleasure, and even Elric needs them to sustain him, but he never really dwells on writing 10 pages on specific scenes of drugs use (though a page or so wouldn't have been bad). In Games Workshop's Mordheim, there are rules for using specific drugs and the effects on characters. I think this is entirely appropriate for dark fantasy.Note that much of the discussion of dark fantasy also misses the psychological horror aspect that one can find, in say, the Cthulhu Mythos.Dark also seems to me to be a world without clear archetypal GOOD and EVIL. Both sides can exhibit both qualities.  The heroes may have qualities that are questionable and villains may have some redeeming qualities.Dark for me also encompasses the overall "direction" of the world. Dark worlds tend to have a feeling about them that world is doomed, and even if the heroes do anything good for the world, the world is still doomed. So, after all that discombobulation, I'd say go ahead and submit what you feel is comfortable to you and we won't judge you for it. We'll simply say, we would like to see something else, etc. And if this is wishy-washy, then I apologize for not having the guts to be any clearer. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification