Trope Talk: Small Mammal on a Big Adventure

The idea of some eldritch monster reading Lovecraftian horror and being scared for the spunky, fragile human protagonists is oddly adorable.

Reminds me of this post I saw on tumblr: "cosmic horror protagonists are so weak, my dog experiences at least five horrors beyond comprehension every day and is literally fine." "Well, maybe cosmic horror protagonist would fare better if the King in Yellow was there to reassure them and give them a little treat."

There was an SCP story about a sentient, telepathic, but otherwise completely ordinary jumping spider suddenly realising it's place in the world. There's a very touching line where the agent talking to the spider says that he understands, he's dealt with things "as big and incomprehensible to me as I am to you."

'whimsically isekai'd to fairy land to kick it with god's fursona' is potentially the funniest sentence i have ever heard

"They are running out of food" Oh no "They haven't seen any humans lately" Oh no... "Winter is lasting longer than usual" Oh no! "Our scout went to the city and just died half way" OH NO!

A minute of silence for those kids whose parents showed them "Watership Down" thinking it was just a typical Disney family movie...

“Talking animals are for kids” is what led thousands of third graders to read a cat disembowel another cat so hard with detached dog claws he lost all nine of his lives in quick succession

There’s a great bit from Dimension 20 where Cinderella’s mice talk about being traumatized after being turned into people, another great example of cosmic horror for mice specifically XD

"Stay off the thunderpath that's where the monsters with the big round paws live:((((" "You mean the fucking road?" I think my humor is broken on a very fundamental level. That nearly killed me.

"No little humans! Get out of there! The color pusegenta is very bad for organics!" Made me chuckle

What I love about the 'familiar world through alien eyes' is, that someone is going to relate to this supposedly unrelatable pov. A young child, an autistic person, an immigrant. not everyone is the same and in some situations, you are the alien.

I'm in vet school. I completely buy the idea of rabbits having anxiety so profound that it gives them visions of the future. Presumably this also happens to horses and that's why they occasionally freak out and run into the nearest fence. Scurry is also an incredible comic and everyone should read it. I'm getting the paper copy once I have an income again.

“Silly human, only mice have souls” is my favorite background joke in this clip.

Calling Aslan “God’s fursona” is one of the funniest and most correct things I’ve heard in a while

I think Animal Farm deserves a mention here, even if it's not exactly an adventure story. Not only are humans these all-powerful, god-like entities, but by the end of the book (spoilers for a book from 1945) the pigs have become anthropomorphised (walking on two legs, wearing clothes, drinking alcohol, etc.) and this is clearly framed as a sort of monstrous transformation. The increasing anthropomorphisation IS the horror, akin to, say, the way Chihiro's parents turn into pigs in Spirited Away. Animal Farm isn't just dramatic irony cosmic horror, it's dramatic irony body horror.

Normally, Red makes these Trope Talks as an excuse to talk about her favorite media and a common thread between them. I think this time Red wanted an excuse to draw cute animals for once.

My mother didn't assume Watership Down was child-friendly. She saw the name and thought it was about naval combat or some such, and bought it for my father.

there's a great tumblr post this reminded me of: "rabbits know and resent their place on the food chain. mice and rats also know they're prey animals, they just have such joy of living that it cancels out. guinea pigs have no concept of death but understand contextless fear. hamsters however do know the food chain, but they also know that attachment to the earth is the root of suffering and they wisely deny the faults of the ego"

I think the only other time I've seen dramatic irony cosmic horror is watching the first episode of ~~Chenobal~~ Chernobyl as someone who already knew what happened there. Watching people make mistakes like "touching the door" and "looking to their left" and "picking up a dark brick" and "ignoring the taste of metal in the air" is absolutely horrifying and a perfect start to the series.

The fact that i saw Red comment on a Dimension 20 Burrow's End youtube short about how she should do this trope talk a few months ago and now she's actually done it feels a tiny bit like Dorothy seeing behind the Wizard's curtain