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Monday, Feb. 10, 2025

9:03pm EST

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Writing Blog Number 2

by S 🤦

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #2311764

This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC

This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario.

An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"

Feel free to comment and interact.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

S 🤦

about 16 hours ago
In response to "20250210 Science Fiction Tropes I Dislike"

Patience, padawan...

1 Like

Ms. TerrifyingTuber

about 20 hours ago
In response to "20250210 Science Fiction Tropes I Dislike"

Are there any Sci-Fi tropes that work well in your opinion?

S 🤦

Jan 31, 2025 at 2:25am
In response to "20250131 Mythological Or Legendary Creatures As Cliché"

Ms. TerrifyingTuber - This is mainly Western dragons because those are the ones that feature most in books. That was the idea of this - looking at creatures that have become cliche in books. As for Eastern dragons, around 50-50 good-evil. And Native American beliefs had very few dragons, so calling them good or evil was difficult.

2 Like

Ms. TerrifyingTuber

Jan 31, 2025 at 1:45am
In response to "20250131 Mythological Or Legendary Creatures As Cliché"

Interesting, so most of the characteristics for dragons listed in this entry were more typical of western/European style dragons. In Eastern and Native American folklore their dragons can be benevolent. Are often associated with rain, rivers or the ocean and sometimes have antlers. Or so I've heard in the folk tales I've read.

But anyways, thanks to the textile industry and weird obsessions from the 80s and 90s, the Eastern Dragon has probably been overused.

1 Like

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

Jan 27, 2025 at 2:18pm
In response to "20250127 List Of Bad Tropes"

Similarly, minimum workers who drive an expensive, new car and travel overseas, stay in high end hotels, etc...

Kissing in the rain? My wife and I had attended a street dance many years ago that had been moved inside the Fire Hall because it was raining. It was hot and humid, about 39^oC with a relative humidity in the upper 90% range. They had the overhead doors open and fans, but with all the people it was stifling, so we stepped outside the doors and danced in the soft, light, and slightly cooling rain.

I agree, however, they use kissing in the rain way too often, and it's usually in a cold downpour.

1 Like

Jayne

Jan 27, 2025 at 11:28am
In response to "20250127 List Of Bad Tropes"

Basically agree, except #12. There's a reason women cut their hair after leaving awful relationships. There's a reason women cut off their hair as a middle finger to society. Ask around and see how many women with short hair have been told they're cute but would look cuter if they grew their hair out. Why do we need to look cute? Why can't we have a style that makes us feel fierce?

Not all women, of course. It's not that wide of a brush. But for some women, absolutely empowering and does result in a different outlook and demeanor. As to having a hairstyle that won't get in the way - yeah, that's part of it.

I freely admit I'm part of the empowered brigade. Fierce jet-black pixie-cut bed-head I-don't-care-if-you-think-women-should-have-long-locks mention-it-at-you-own-peril hair.

Not directed at you. But it's mind-boggling how many strangers still call it 'brave' or ask 'why did you do that?'

My least favorite is, "Oh, I wish I could do that. My husband/boyfriend/partner would throw a fit." I don't usually say anything, because it's not my place to say, "Get a new partner."

If you feel it's overused, that's fine. But it's definitely one of the more believable ones and has a valid reason for sticking around.

2 Like

Ms. TerrifyingTuber

Jan 27, 2025 at 10:15am
In response to "20250127 List Of Bad Tropes"

The way you phrased number 11 in this list really made me giggle. Although I agree, it is a really annoying trope.

1 Like

Dave Ryan

Jan 27, 2025 at 5:03am
In response to "20250127 List Of Bad Tropes"

There was a comedy sketch show in the UK in the late 90s called The Fast Show, where the sketches each week used recurring characters. They had fun with trope 2 in a series of spoof trailers - "coming soon to the BBC, a brand new drama series":

John Actor is a tough, uncompromising cop

.
John Actor is a tough, uncompromising doctor

.
John Actor is a tough, uncompromising vet

.

and so on, and it was all the same ridiculous cliched crap every time.

2 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Jan 23, 2025 at 1:02am
In response to "20250122 Romance Tropes That Annoy Me"

As Quilli ☕ said, "we've seen it all before". It becomes boring.

The Thai BL industry overdid 'enemies to friends' except perhaps "Bad Buddy" where the parents were the true enemies and the two main characters struggled with their childhood secretive friendship becoming much closer. Personally, I've had friendships that had rocky starts, and that's common.

The 6 you mention may exist in reality... as do unicorns and dragons...

Quilli ☕

Jan 22, 2025 at 7:17am
In response to "20250122 Romance Tropes That Annoy Me"

Great entry! Most of these annoy the hell outta me, too. I think some tropes, regardless of genre, bug folks who do a lot of reading, like us. Often while watching a movie with my husband, I goran and tell him that it's too predictable and then tell him how things will go down - because we've seen it all before.

February 10, 2025 at 12:19am

#1083612

20250210 Science Fiction Tropes I Dislike

Science Fiction Tropes I Dislike

Let’s go back (briefly) to tropes I want to dump on. I think some of these might have come up in other places, but I am looking here specifically at those tropes from science fiction that just annoy me no end.
But it doesn’t matter, because they are going to continue regardless…

1. What aliens look like
It might be a bit much, but unless played for comedy, I have grown to truly dislike aliens that are just humans in a skin with knobbly bits. Star Trek and Star Wars might be great bits of science fiction space opera, but they follow the Abrahamic ideal of humanity and the human form being the ultimate in creation. What a load of crap. In fact, some scientists seem to think the octopoid form might be the best one, not humanoid.

2. Anachronistic civilisations
I guess this sort of follows on from the first one, but when the members of a space crew come across a civilisation and it is stupidly close to a history period of Earth. So, with all the infinite possibilities out there, a burgeoning civilisation would somehow mirror Earth? Why? That makes no sense! In so many cases, one little change in history and our world would be different. If William the Conqueror hadn’t taken England, it would still have been Anglo-Saxon and Viking, it is estimated the USA would have been colonised around 500 years earlier, and who knows what English would sound like! And yet this newly found planet somehow has a “wild west”, a “middle ages” or a “world war 2”? Give me a break!

3. Aliens being the invaders/ bad guys
I think humanity has proven in the past 5000 years that we are the most unstable, angriest, most violent and most obnoxious species on Earth, and I dare say that would be translated to when we discover extra-terrestrial species. We will be the bad guys, the enslavers, the conquerors, the aggressors, of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

4. Teleportation
Look, I know science is amazing, and we are doing and learning more and more all the time. But teleportation just seems to me to take it to a level that is, well, insane. The body has to be turned into something that can be teleported. At a quantum level, some small forms of matter can do something akin to teleportation, but only across a small distance. As a science, it makes no sense. I’d also like to mention backwards time travel here, but I’ve read some good stories with that trope.

5. Humans becoming super-powered
With the past few decades of super-hero stories coming to the popular culture away from the comic book aficionados of the past, the amount of stories about regular humans getting superpowers is growing. Look, I was a comics reader, but I liked Batman and Superman. Yes, Superman completely goes against the first item in this list, but he was fun. Spiderman, bitten by a radioactive spider; the Fantastic Four, hit by space rays; the Flash, lab explosion; and so on… but really? Having biomech transplants and becoming cyborgs, sure; genetic modification… maybe? Mother bitten by a hyper-dangerous spider in the Amazon jungle while giving birth and subsequently dying (Madame Web, in case you think I’m having a joke)… no. Just, no.

And there are 5 science fiction tropes that we can do without. We’re better than this; let’s use our imaginations!

In. My. Opinion.

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