Ball Abuse

A mess. Mostly a tennis mess.

[loonyloopylisa]

2000: Doesn’t share personal information online so online people can’t find me in real life.

2020: Doesn’t share personal information online so real life people can’t find me online.

[experienceandobservation]

Jonathan Bailey | In a Snapshot | May 11, 2024 | 🎥 BAFTA

[kkachi35]

I made something

[axj2094]

[vangoghcore]

by postcards.from.haley

[figdays]

Speak Friend and Enter Print // NatalieAndrewson

[tainted-scholar]

Rewatching Treasure Planet (great movie, watch it) made realize something about the way that stories convey information to their audiences. There's been a lot of discussion on the overuse of plot twists and how many stories prioritise surprising their audience over telling decent stories. However, if you instead reveal the "twist" to the audience before it becomes known to the characters, you can build tension and stakes. Treasure Planet comes right out and tells you that Long John Silver is the main villain almost immediately after his introduction (And even before he's introduced we're warned about a cyborg, so you'd have to be pretty dense to not put 2 and 2 together and realize he's a bad guy). So when the audience watches him and Jim bond and grow closer, it builds tension for when Jim finds out and it highlights the tragedy of their friendship, because we all know it's not going to end well. Then, after the truth is revealed, stakes are created because we want the friendship between Jim and Silver to be repaired, because we know it was real, but we don't know if can be after what Silver's done. And all of this would have been lost if Silver's true nature had been a cheap plot twist. The tragedy would be completely overshadowed by the surprise and betrayal, and any investment in their relationship would have been built on the false impression that Silver was a good guy.

Another good example of this is Titanic. Even if you were somehow ignorant of the ship's sinking, the film makes sure you know that it sank with its framing device of Old Rose telling her story to people salvaging the Titanic's wreak. And Titanic's plot structure could only possibly work if you know the ship is going to sink. I'm not just talking about building tension, tragedy, and stakes for the characters like with the above example, I mean that if you didn't know that the Titanic was going down walking into the film, the abrupt shift from romance to suspense-disaster would be an increadibly tough pill to swallow. But it works because we expect it. You don't walk into a film called Titanic without expecting the damn boat to sink.

However, the sad thing about both of these examples, is that despite all the benefits that came from telling the audience these things ahead of time, I think the main reason the creators didn't make them plot twists was because they couldn't have. Treasure Island is the single most influential piece of pirate media out there, and you'd have to have been living under a rock for over a century to not know the Titanic sank. So, the writers had to work around the fact that these important turning points in the narratives were common knowledge, and they wound creating incredible stories as a consequence.

I want to see more of this style of writing in stories where the writers aren't forced to do it. We've clearly seen that you can tell some really damn good stories by giving information to the audience before the characters learn it, and I just wish more works would do that instead of trying to surprise people with shocking twists.

[inneffablehusbands]

RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE FirstPrince moments - flipped

[catchymemes]

[prokopetz]

I've seen posts going around claiming that petting animals is basically tricking them into thinking they're being groomed, and it's bugging me because, like, there's no trickery afoot. Petting and scritching are grooming activities. They help to dislodge loose fur and foreign objects and more evenly distribute protective oils, among other things. Primates are social groomers, and the human impulse to scritch is the legacy of our primate ancestors. We see an animal we like, even a dangerous one, and the monkey brain says "groom that thing".

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Sucking a guy's dick is basically tricking him into thinking he's having sex

[indecisitivity]

derin why

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I'm helping

[acidgirl]

jacob elordi thinks he’s christian slater

christian slater thinks he’s jack nicholson

jack nicholson thinks he’s bacchus god of party and wine

[depsidase]

[laughconfetti]

environmental storytelling

[phoebewallerbridge]

Dua Lipa Plays Unpopular Opinions with BBC Radio 1

[copepods]

leitmotifs never get old to me like holy shit dude there’s this melody that corresponds to this one guy and if you hear the melody it means the guy is there. holy shit. and sometimes it refers to ideas too not just guys. has anyone heard about this

[duckapus]

Sometimes something fucked up happens to the guy and their melody gets fucked up too. Sometimes the thing that fucked them up also has its own melody and when the first melody gets fucked up the second melody gets mixed in

[copepods]

no fucking way dude. are you serious

[natashatrace]

TWISTER (1996) dir. Jan de Bont

you've been chasing these things since you were a little kid. it's what you do. go. do it.

[spiribia]

pesto is great for many bites but to me it’s always been a kind of samey indulgent experience in a specific way where if you happily eat your way through a large enough portion there will hit a point where you will very suddenly experience something called “pesto remorse” which i have just invented

[hauntedhotel]

Me, on the welcome desk in the library: Good morning, how are you today?

Customer: I have welcomed Jesus into my heart and so I am well today and every day.

Me, a little unnerved: Okay then! Is there something I can help you with?

Customer, digging around in his bag and pulling out an iPhone in a box: Unfortunately, Jesus can't help me with this fucking phone, so I came to the library.

[gallusrostromegalus]

The Library!

For When Not Even God Can Help You!