Music Tropers YMMV main index Narrative
|
Once upon a time there was a nine-year-old bookworm with pet rats. Because her father knew that she loved her pet rats very much and spent so much of her time reading, he decided to get her a book with rats in it as a Christmas present. That book was called The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. The girl's father had never really been that into fiction. He had given his daughter lots of books that she'd never got around to reading. He knew nothing about the story or about the author. All he knew was that this book had rats in it. There was no way he could have known that this book would change his daughter's life.
When that little girl finally got around to reading The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett, it quickly became one of her favorite books. It was this book that made this little girl become a troper at heart, years before she discovered this site. She read and reread this book. It was recognizing the name of the author of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents while browsing through her school library that led her to pick up the first book in the Discworld series. Unfortunately, the library only had the first two books, but with time and lots of trips to Barnes & Noble, she made her way eagerly through the series.
Along the way, she found that the author had written a book with another author, an author she didn't recognize. She bought this book anyway, because Terry Pratchett was one of the best authors she knew of, even if she had no clue who on earth this Neil Gaiman person was. This book was called Good Omens. And it was hilarious and this troper loved every second of it.
In this book there was a character named Anathema Device (seriously, if you don't know this already, stop reading this right now and go and get yourself a copy of Good Omens). The girl (now in high school) had read the word before, but wasn't entirely sure what it meant and thought it was a pretty cool looking name, much the same as Anathema Device's parents. So she got a dictionary and looked the word up (somehow skipping the part of the entry that tells you how to pronounce the word) and thought that the word was fairly interesting. Even though she didn't realize it was pronounced "un-NATH-uh-muh" rather than "ann-uh-THEE-muh" for several months.
So, when she decided to get known on TV Tropes, she chose to go by the name of Anathema. In part as a tribute to her love of the works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. In part because she still thought Anathema was a pretty cool word. In part because it served as a personal reminder to be careful and actually pay attention to the fact that dictionaries actually tell people how to pronounce words correctly.
Today, Anathema is a college student. She no longer has pet rats, but she is still a bookworm. Her favorite authors include Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, J. K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Amy Tan, and (thanks to TV Tropes) Jasper Fforde.
She also blamesTV Tropes for introducing her to The Order of the Stick, Channel Awesome, xkcd, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series and Doctor Who.
Anathema is living proof that TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life. It has also ruined her vocabulary. Of course, ruing her life and vocabulary, Anathema means that it has also enhanced her life. Why would she spend her time on TV Tropes if it wasn't for the fact that she thinks this site is pretty freaking awesome and has served as a gateway to so many things she now loves.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Privacy Policy
4