Ah, the classic vagina dentata trap. Always practice safer sex and check for teeth first, guys!

Wife

I'm exactly on the same page. Huge leaps in wage, but my life is moving backwards.

I'm European. No wonder I didn't know. Always cool to see what kind of stuff grows in other places.

Oreo

I've never seen those black ones. Where are you from?

Ein Gasspeicher hat den meisten Nutzen, wenn er leer ist. - Lao Tse oder so.

RHINO HAM

Well that makes my job easy

Once you dabble with storytelling, dramaturgy and all tropes, you automatically start to dissect any media you consume, notice the patterns and wonder about it. You'll notice what's meant to be easy to digest, fast to setup and made to please the masses (like classic Shonen). You'll notice when good authors try to make something new or take popular formulas to dissect them as a commentary or underline tropes.

Enjoyment is no science though. There's more to a story than tropes and dramaturgical tools. You may like a certain theme or a system in its world building for example. I personally like well-written and deeply psychological characters with development. Or take one of the many slice of life things, that have nothing much going on, which are something like Zen for your mind. So even if the formula is bland and predictable, there can be other aspects that make one enjoy a story.

Ps: I love Higurashi, too. They established a pattern with deeply dark and psychological arcs, then they broke out of those patterns themselves by undermining their own patterns in ways I couldn't predict. Also they layered their arcs in such a way that you always learn of a new, deeper aspect of the overarching story they were trying to tell.

Target locked

Love/friendship/family/moral high ground/any virtue/you name it always wins and is the solution for all your problems.

Reality is never that simple. So there's nothing to take away from such a lesson except for false hopes.