Lobo-chan

thinking again about TvTropes and how it’s genuinely such an amazing resource for learning the…

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:03:45 -0400

thesaltofcarthage:
headspace-hotel:
headspace-hotel:
thinking again about TvTropes and how it’s genuinely such an amazing resource for learning the mechanics of storytelling, honestly more so than a lot of formally taught literature classes
reasons for this:
basically TvTropes breaks down stories mechanically, using a perspective that’s not…ABOUT mechanics. Another way I like to put it, is that it’s an inductive, instead of deductive, approach to analyzing storytelling.
like in a literature or writing class you’re learning the elements that are part of the basic functioning of a story, so, character, plot, setting, et cetera. You’re learning the things that make a story a story, and why. Like, you learn what setting is, what defines it, and work from there to what makes it effective, and the range of ways it can be effective.
here’s the thing, though: everyone has some intuitive understanding of how stories work. if we didn’t, we couldn’t…understand stories.
TvTropes’s approach is bottom-up instead of top-down: instead of trying to exhaustively explore the broad, general elements of story, it identifies very small, specific elements, and explores the absolute shit out of how they fit, what they do, where they go, how they work.
Every TvTropes article is basically, “Here is a piece of a story that is part of many different stories. You have probably seen it before, but if not, here is a list of stories that use it, where it is, and what it’s doing in those stories. Here are some things it does. Here is why it is functionally different than other, similar story pieces. Here is some background on its origins and how audiences respond to it.”
all of this is BRILLIANT for a lot of reasons. one of the major ones is that the site has long lists of media that utilizes any given trope, ranging from classic literature to cartoons to video games to advertisements. the Iliad and Adventure Time ARE different things, but they are MADE OF the same stuff. And being able to study dozens of examples of a trope in action teaches you to see the common thread in what the trope does and why its specific characteristics let it do that
I love TvTropes because a great, renowned work of literature and a shitty, derivative YA novel will appear on the same list, because they’re Made Of The Same Stuff. And breaking down that mental barrier between them is good on its own for developing a mechanical understanding of storytelling.
But also? I think one of the biggest blessings of TvTropes’s commitment to cataloguing examples of tropes regardless of their “merit” or literary value or whatever…is that we get to see the full range of effectiveness or ineffectiveness of storytelling tools. Like, this is how you see what makes one book good and another book crappy. Tropes are Tools, and when you observe how a master craftsman uses a tool vs. a novice, you can break down not only what the tool is most effective for but how it is best used.
In fact? There are trope pages devoted to what happens when storytelling tools just unilaterally fail. e.g. Narm is when creators intend something to be frightening, but audiences find it hilarious instead.
On that note, TvTropes is also great in that its analysis of stories is very grounded in authors, audiences, and culture; it’s not solely focused on in-story elements. A lot of the trope pages are categories for audience responses to tropes, or for real-world occurrences that affected the storytelling, or just the human failings that creep into storytelling and affect it, like Early Installment Weirdness. There are categories for censorship-driven storytelling decisions. There are “lineages” of tropes that show how storytelling has changed over time, and how audience responses change as culture changes. Tropes like Draco in Leather Pants or Narm are catalogued because the audience reaction to a story is as much a part of that story—the story of that story?—as the “canon.”
like, storytelling is inextricable from context. it’s inextricable from how big the writers’ budget was, and how accepting of homophobia the audience was, and what was acceptable to be shown on film at the time. Tropes beget other tropes, one trope is exchanged for another, they are all linked. A Dead Horse Trope becomes an Undead Horse Trope, and sometimes it was a Dead Unicorn Trope all along. What was this work responding to? And all works are responding to something, whether they know it or not
An incomplete list of really useful or interesting reads from TvTropes.
please note that yes many of these are concepts that exist elsewhere and a few are even taught in fiction writing classes but TvTropes just does an amazing job at displaying the range of things that can be done with them
legitimately so much of the terminology I use to talk about storytelling, and even think about it in my own head, i learned about from TvTropes
Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Watsonian vs. Doylist
Trope Tropes, for all the ways tropes are used, deconstructed, subverted, and played with.
The Oldest Ones in the Book, which is basically my favorite thing on the entire Internet
Punk Punk, for -punk subgenres
Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism
The Weird Al Effect is a fun one
Chekhov’s Gun, Chekhov’s Boomerang, Chekhov’s Skill, and further variations
Law of Conservation of Detail
Law of Conservation of Normality
Anthropic Principle
Word of God, Death of the Author
Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness
Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness
Genre Savvy
Flashbacks and Chronology breaks down all the ways you can handle chronology in storytelling
Show, Don’t Tell is a very good breakdown of what is showing, what is telling, and how both can be used effectively.
Lampshade Hanging
Noodle Incident is just fun imo
Genre Title Grab Bag
Fridge Horror
Rule of Cool, and also Cool of Rule
The Smurfette Principle
The Hays Code - not a trope but a very good breakdown of how the Hays Code affected storytelling in film
this is just a really short list of examples I encourage people who write or otherwise create stories to browse around on this site it’s so useful
Informed Attribute is one of the ones I reference most often as an editor.
Theory of Narrative Causality is one of my personal favorites, because it’s kind of fun when a story acknowledges that things are happening in the story because that’s what makes it a good story.
Also Applied Phlebotinum, because sometimes you don’t need to know how something works, it just does, and that’s all that matters for the purposes of the narrative.

i wish there was an easier way to tell the difference between an “if it sucks hit da bricks”…

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:00:40 -0400

respectissexy:

dragongirlbunny:
i wish there was an easier way to tell the difference between an “if it sucks hit da bricks” situation and a “sometimes being an adult means doing things that you dont wanna” situation
The best answer to this that I’ve seen is “You are free to do whatever you like. You must only live with the consequences.”
“If it sucks, hit da bricks” is for when you realize that you actually definitely can live with the consequences of Not Doing The Thing.
“Sometimes being an adult means doing things that you don’t wanna” is for when you’ve thought it over and it turns out you would strongly prefer NOT to live with the consequences of Not Doing The Thing.

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:00:20 -0400

datadegroove:

cannibalchicken:

new doctor who tommorow. And I it’s honour- Here’s this Very Important Post

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 10:00:11 -0400

aquilacalvitium:

ronance4life42:
new doctor who tommorow. And I it’s honour- Here’s this Very Important Post
Doctor who was founded on paper clips, bubble wrap and a budget of about two pounds

I was on vacation with my family and we stayed in some little hotel in a tiny town and the box…

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:59:29 -0400

romanceyourdemons:

when i was a kid, every collection of books—large or small, public or private—had at least one small grubby volume called “fifty japanese fairy tales” “african folk tales” “who’s a-knockin at my door and other scary stories” “haunting mysteries of the sea” “golden threads: slavic fairy stories” “the unabridged grimm’s fairy tales,” and that book would contain at least one short story bizarre and haunting enough to permanently rewire your brain. and babey i was a fucking bloodhound hunting them down

I was on vacation with my family and we stayed in some little hotel in a tiny town and the box spring under the mattress looked like it had blood on it or something so my dad decided to tell me about Raw Head and Bloody Bones before bed

grief is so crazy like what if i forget what her laugh sounds like. does she know i loved her. i…

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:57:49 -0400

glowcowboy:

glowcowboy:
grief is so crazy like what if i forget what her laugh sounds like. does she know i loved her. i miss her so much. i catch myself doing things she used to do. i wish i could call her. i miss her so much. i do a crossword puzzle. i cry while washing the dishes. does she know i loved her? my heart feels like a hummingbird. i miss her so much. what if i forget what her laugh sounds like. what if i forget.
i talked ab this feeling in therapy yday and my therapist asked me, “would it really be so bad if your memories changed? if they softened and faded or looked different over time? why does that frighten you so much?” and i said, “i don’t want the love to disappear.” and she looked at me for a long moment and then she said, “it won’t. it doesn’t work that way. even if the memories soften or change, it doesn’t mean the love does. that love keeps going backward in time, forever, because you love her still. all is not lost.” i just thought i would share that in case it resonated w anyone else too.

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:56:40 -0400

bigticenergy1:

Hearing a banjo just makes me go absolutely feral

@userdramas event 20: revival ↳ the resurrection of wei wuxian

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:55:49 -0400

khaotungthanawat:

@userdramas event 20: revival
↳ the resurrection of wei wuxian
+ bonus:

link: https://bsky.app/profile/brainvsbook.bsky.social/post/3llc72lyhu22j

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:54:35 -0400

the-real-seebs:

blessphemy:
japanwords:
xcziel:
link: https://bsky.app/profile/brainvsbook.bsky.social/post/3llc72lyhu22j
google translate defaulting to chinese at first
okay but for those of us with interests in both the murderbot and the daomu biji fandoms this is kinda hilarious
(english-side-only really, i get that the kanji and hanzi are completely different)
our good (air)ship murderbot! thanks google
I love reading about these kind of translation decisions.
I’ve only ever seen 弊 used to refer to one’s company: 弊社, as the article says.
I’ve been told 弊 is used to refer to one’s own something, and it has a very humble nuance.
So 弊機 translates to something like “I, your humble machine” or “I, who am but a mere machine”.
Japanese is great that it can say so much with simple pronouns.
Romance language translator: well we don’t have a gender neutral pronoun so I guess we’ll flip a coin for male or female
Japanese language translator, an intellectual: none of Japanese’s 30-something plus personal pronoun options have the perfect vibes so I’ll create a new one to bring that special somethin’
what a lovely translation!

rederiswrites: geardrops: rederiswrites:rederiswrites:Honestly I should talk about the ace...

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:40:05 -0400

rederiswrites:

geardrops:

rederiswrites:
rederiswrites:
Honestly I should talk about the ace experience more. I don’t see enough. Like–obviously it’s dehumanizing to be repeatedly compared to robots or aliens but uh…sometimes it feels like that??
My husband will get all horny while I’m, I don’t know, changing out of sweaty gardening clothes. And I’ll be like, “But we have to make lunch?? I stink? Now is not a good time?? Logic?” And clearly it’s not about logic to him. He is experiencing the entire scenario very differently. And I’m here like,
Or the times where you realize that like, having an actual physiological reaction to attractive people is not some enculturated metaphor, and people are actually doing that all around you all the time, and you’re like, Ah, clearly my studies of human culture have been incomplete. I have missed a critical psychosocial component. Many things now appear in a different light. *takes notes on holopad*

The notes on this post are just a shitload of aces going…I don’t get it. Or sometimes for a bit under very special circumstances I get it, or almost get it, and then I’m like “Wow this is a huge energy drain; you guys live like this?” Or just, “Totally baffling truly an alien species why would you lick someone?” And I am feeling the kinship in this here post.

a friend of mine once said “Wow! You must get so much done!”
to which i replied “No, no, I still have depression.”

I made this post two years ago and this is maybe the funniest addition in all that time.

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:38:28 -0400

naamahdarling:

6qubed:
moniquill:
heymerle:
absentlyabbie:
epically-epic-epicosity:
#she really did breast boobily down the stairs (via @boxingcleverrr)
It’s hard to do that in clothing from that period - that’s bad costuming.
No, that’s historically inaccurate costuming. It is good costuming in that it is doing exactly what it is trying to achieve. It’s just that what it’s trying to achieve is BOOBS.
so dig this; in this movie (which is Clue, if you don’t know) she’s not actually a french maid, she’s a call girl who is playing the role of a french maid, and in all likelihood provided her own uniform from either her “work” closet or that of the brothel where she was employed
Yeah that’s, ah, that’s very good costuming. It held everything in but let it do its thing. And it looked good and properly fitted. A+!

This is it, this is my worst joke for sure

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:37:51 -0400

shencomix:

This is it, this is my worst joke for sure

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:37:18 -0400

shencomix:

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:36:42 -0400

shencomix:

thank you huma–

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:36:19 -0400

dogposts:

thank you huma–

saxifraga-x-urbium: excessivebookshelf:“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you...

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:35:33 -0400

saxifraga-x-urbium:

excessivebookshelf:
“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

this means that every person brings themselves to every piece of art. it means we all experience a different piece of art. each time we return to a story we are creating a different story. rereading is good actually

sztupy:pudimdosubmundo: tuulikki: kyraneko: barbaric-gentleman:...

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:34:51 -0400

sztupy:

pudimdosubmundo:

tuulikki:

kyraneko:

barbaric-gentleman:

squareallworthy:

shieldfoss:

counterclockworkminds:

shieldfoss:

esoanem:

notcrazyiswear:

iuliaolmeda:

Russian handwriting

I’ll forever be amused at the Russian word “deprived” (лишили) in cursive, which looks like

for people wondering how the hell that works

I still don’t know how the hell that works.

See, to me it looks a lot like ‘minimum’ in English cursive:

Ok not so bad right? But it gets worse…

Like… what even is this?

Can’t tell me that’s a word right? But it is! Sure you could dot the i’s, but would it really help?

source here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Handwriting/comments/1hgsc8/write_minimum_in_cursive_without_dotting_the_is/

Yes. Yes it would.

Wikipedia: Minim (palaeography)

Why the fuck would language evolve in such a completely illogical way like this

fuck every last bit of this

Humans invented writing as a way of communicating information and it’s pretty great on the whole but we maybe did not adequately prepare for depreciation in legibility

@official-linguistics-post ?

Waiting for the bus simulator

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:33:37 -0400

ofishal-fish-posts:

ofishal-fish-posts:
Waiting for the bus simulator
bus due in 5 mins
bus due in 4 mins
bus due in 3 mins
bus due in 2 mins
bus due in 1 mins
bus due in 0 mins
Whoops we forgot to send the bus again
bus due in 30 mins
glad to see this is resonating with the bus taker fandom

greelin: here’s a concept: me, riding your ceiling fan like a gargoyle. you, smacking me with a...

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:33:17 -0400

greelin:

here’s a concept: me, riding your ceiling fan like a gargoyle. you, smacking me with a broom. both of us are yelling

when you go to bed significantly earlier than usual, a little menu should pop up asking if you want…

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 09:33:08 -0400

neednothavehappenedtobetrue:

when you go to bed significantly earlier than usual, a little menu should pop up asking if you want Wake Up Early or More Sleep. and then you should get what you requested. that’s my human body UI improvement for the day.