Story Lab

For my lab I went on TVTropes and shuffled through random tropes and these are some of the ones I found that were worth writing about.

Once Upon a Time Trope - It's exactly what it sounds like. It is the trope how every fair tale used to start with "Once upon a time" and end with "and they lived happily ever after." This trope is a pretty obvious one, but it is the first trope I read about so I felt compelled to include it. Every journey starts somewhere, even if it isn't the most interesting.

Sdrawkcab Name Trope - This is a trope where villains or whoever will go by their real name, but backwards. This allows for a shocking reveal. A good example of this trope is a vampire going by Alucard. Then at the climax of the story the villain can reveal his real name was there all along. This is similar to Lord Voldemort being an anagram of "Tom Marvolo Riddle." I haven't read or seen an Harry Potter movie in quite a while so I apologize in advance if I butchered that.

Unscrupulous Hero Trope - In stories there are heroes and there are antiheroes. The unscrpulous hero is an antihero with traits of an ideal hero. "They are usually defined by dark experiences that have made them cold and unforgiving, and due to the settings in which they exist, there will usually be no compunctions to using more extreme methods. They are as much about payback (or any assorted type of catharsis) as they are the greater good, and their targets will be deserving of it, more likely than not." I was not aware of this specific classification, but after learning about it I can think of a few unscrupulous heroes. Captain Jack Sparrow and the Blues Brothers are good examples of this trope in film. In comics Red Hood and the Punisher are great examples of unscrupulous heroes.

The Snark Knight - This is the winner of the most fun name award. The entire entry is hilarious and definitely worth the read. "This character has a world-weary disdain for everyone, themselves included. They might see themselves as the Only Sane Man, but only in the sense that they're maybe one full notch above everyone else while still falling miles short of where they believe everyone should be." There are so many examples of this trope! Some of my favorites are Meg from Hercules, Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, Juno from Juno, Kim from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Obi-Wan. I use way too much self deprecating humor in my day-to-day life so a lot of my favorite characters are very snarky.

This is probably my favorite assignment we've done so far. I've really enjoyed learning about all of these tropes I didn't know existed. I am at the beginning of my descent down the TVTropes rabbit hole. 

The famous four words. Source

Reading Notes: Cupid and Psyche B

Cupid goes home to his mom, Venus, and she is not pleased with him at all. "How could you fall in love with a mortal woman! You had one job!"

While Cupid is taking a verbal lashing from Venus, Psyche is wandering around searching for her lost love. She is wailing and praying for her Cupid to return to her. She comes across a house and cannot find who lives there. So she does what anyone would do in that situation - she cleaned the house. It turns out Psyche has stumbled into the home of the goddess Ceres. Ceres sees Psyche and is impressed with the work she did. She asks Psyche what's wrong and Psyche tells her. Ceres says she wants to help, but can't get in the way of Venus.

Meanwhile Venus is searching for Psyche. She seeks out the services of Mercury, the messenger God. Mercury makes a reward for finding Psyche. It is a fine reward that everyone wants.

Sure enough someone finds Psyche and takes her before Venus. Venus is furious. She lashes out at Psyche and cuts her all over. Finally she presents Psyche with a task. She tells Psyche to organize all the wheat, millet, barley, poppy-seeds, chickpeas, lentils, and beans in her store house by the evening. The task would have been impossible, but thankfully some ants came to save the day and helped Psyche organize the whole thing.

Venus knew the whole thing was orchestrated by Cupid so she gave Psyche another task. This time she has to retrieve golden wool. Psyche wanders off to kill herself, but a reed sees and tells her how to get the wool. Psyche uses his advice to obtain what Venus wanted, but Venus does not care. Venus orders Psyche to go down into the underworld.

Psyche thinks she has to kill herself to get to the underworld, but luckily Cupid's voice comes through and tells her what to do. She makes her way to the gatekeeper and begins her descent into the underworld.


Psyche makes it to the palace in the underworld. She tells that Venus wants to borrow a some beauty. Proserpine A gives Psyche a box, and Psyche leaves.

Cupid’s voice warns Psyche not to open the boxno matter what, but Psyche does anyway because she wants some of the beauty for herself. Unfortunately, there's no beauty in the box. When Psyche takes off the lid, she's plunged into a deep sleep. Psyche collapses in the middle of the road.

Cupid goes to help his wife. He wakes her up with one of his arrows, and he points out that once again her curiosity has gotten her in trouble. Cupid tells her to take the box to Venus and to let him take care of the rest. He flies to Jupiter and he begs the king of the gods to help him and Psyche.

Jupiter summons Venus and convinces her to let it go. Then he brings Psyche up to Mt. Olympus and gives her some ambrosia, which means she is immortal now. Psyche and Cupid can finally be together, and now they can finally be together.

Psyche's jar of beauty. Source

Bibliography:
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Translation by Tony Kline. https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-apuleiuss-cupid-and.html

Reading Notes: Cupid and Psyche Part A

Our story begins with an old woman telling a tale to a captured girl. The story she tells the girl is the story of Cupid and Psyche.

Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen with three beautiful daughters. You know the rest. The youngest daughter was the most beautiful of them all and people traveled to admire her beauty. They would even compare her to Venus, and they even started praying to her like she was the goddess. Obviously this made Venus mad so she summoned her son Cupid.

The plan was to let Psyche continue to be admired, but like a statue. No one would ever want to marry her. Her father noticed something fishy was up so he prayed to Apollo. Apollo answered the father with a prophecy about his daughter, and it wasn't good news. This brought great sorrow to Psyche and her family. Psyche insisted her family let her go to die. She said there was no point in running from the inevitable. So she went to the cliff and Zephyr lifted her up with the wind.

She wakes up in the courtyard of an amazing palace. It had all the typical amenities like treasure, riches, and invisible servants.

Finally her husband arrives, but he's mysterious and we don't know what he looks like. He tells Psyche that if she hears her family not to answer. Psyche agrees to this so the husband reluctantly agrees to bring Psyche's family to visit.

The sisters arrive and Psyche greets them. "Why mourn when I am still here," she says. She takes them inside and the sisters get envious. Why were we not deserving of this fate they thought. So they did what all sisters in fairy tales do. They devised a scheme.

Once again Psyche's husband warned her about her sisters. He tells her "do not talk to them and you will bear a child." Psyche pleads and her husband agrees to bring the sisters back again.

The sisters congratulate her on her pregnancy. They want to know about her husband. She makes up a lie to tell them, and the sisters know she's lying. The sisters warn Psyche that her husband is a monster. Psyche ignores everything her husband has told her and believes them. The sisters tell Psyche that she has to sever her husbands head.

Well, Psyche is going to sever her husbands head, but then she sees him and realizes he is Cupid. This made her fall more in love with him. Oil from the lamp Psyche was using to see drips on Cupid and wakes him.  Cupid wails "I warned you over and over again yet you disregarded my warning. Why Psyche?"

To be continued...

Psyche's arrival to the palace. Source

Bibliography:
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Translation by Tony Kline. https://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/05/myth-folklore-unit-apuleiuss-cupid-and.html