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I started posting here and on TV Tropes concurrently, feeling that this was a "grey area" thing after seeing Morven post without any consequence. But then I saw that the surge of former Tropers caused a dramatic decrease in the quality of the thread and a lot of goons were (justifiably) upset with this, shouting "permaban all tropers" and the like. Subsequently the OP here became harsher and more direct about being active both there and here than the previous one, and specifically singled out Morven as the only exception to the "if you post here stop posting there" rule. So I went back to lurking. I wouldn't have even posted this, but I figured it'd probably be best if I explained myself right away. Again, back to lurking. Sorry for the infraction, I had good intentions.
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| # ¿ Mar 8, 2012 17:40 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 04:50 |
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I hope you'll excuse me for sharing with you the following bit, courtesy the latest strip of Subnormality:quote:You grow up with this goddamn screen in front of you that entertains but tells you nothing about real life, and when you turn it off it remains in your vision without you even realizing it and it reduces the world before you to a collection of stereotypes and stock situations, so you're never actually listening, you're just fitting everything to those stock situations like an effing trained parrot. Now we just need some well-meaning TV Tropes editor to recognize this as a Take That (or, failing that, a Subversion thereof) and meticulously catalogue it in the shiny bullet-point list where it belongs.
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| # ¿ Apr 6, 2012 03:09 |
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No, it's the same kind of thing as nightmare fuel or crowning moments of awesome. Any trope that can be interpreted as a "hall of fame" type of thing, does, and soon it's a list of everyone's favorite anime. When you read a trope description and you want to know what the page is actually going to be about, disregard the definition and ask yourself, "what can I shoehorn in here?". TVT has guidelines against shoehorning, but just like most of the site's other guidelines, they aren't enforced because 99% of the user base is there to do exactly the thing the guideline ostensibly wants them not to do. So for instance, what can you shoehorn as an "SNK Boss"? Any Boss that can do something unusual that the player character can't. That's what you're reading a list of.
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| # ¿ Apr 8, 2012 04:25 |
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quote:but not all of it is porn Oh, god, that thing. Every other line is furries doing it. All plot points involve furries doing it, or are furries doing it. Character arcs begin in furries doing it, take a surprising turn due to furries doing it and end up with a satisfying resolution that draws heavily from themes of furries doing it. I daresay that furries doing it was a major theme of the work, if only by default due to lack of other themes overshadowing it. But, of course, it's absolutely not porn, because insert some convenient and ridiculous analogy.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2012 00:29 |
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Tropes are the fundamental lego pieces of fiction posted:I'm sad to say that's one of the more benign features of Writer's Block I've seen. At least it deals with, you know, sitting down and writing. As opposed to the twelve megathreads where everyone's idea of a character gets together for a huge roleplaying session, because if one person being the protagonist and driving the story is fine, thirty must be excellent.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2012 01:11 |
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Patter Song posted:Triple Elation, what was it like being told to read countless horrifying stories of Well, since I'm being asked directly here I'll answer. Yes, it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, and I was only willing to do it because of the stakes. That place is a place writers tend to find when they're starting out, and they'll end up influenced by it. So if you have any concern for the young minds that might end up being the future of literature, you either hope TV Tropes hugely improves or you hope it dies in a fire. Tragically, I belong in the former camp, and I thought -- you know, tomorrow all the creepy pages will be gone, the day after that TVT might stop being obsessed with endless, pointless lists of things, who knows what wonderful news is around the corner. By the time the coding for the panel's operation was near-ready I saw Bobby and Librarian gone and basically figured this is the death knell for that particular scenario, at least for the foreseeable future. If the forum-goers who want to see it happen seem to consistently disappear from the site for these reasons and others, and all the relevant forum threads seem to consistently be full of the opposite kind of people, the theory emerges that I might have been wasting my limited time on trying to force TVT to be something it clearly doesn't want to be.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2012 02:49 |
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and determine whether they are family friendly or not?
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"Wikistress" is actually a term that originated in Wikipedia. Maybe someone should come up with a buttload more informal term for it.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2012 03:47 |
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Olive Branch posted:I wonder how Eddie feels like knowing one of his elected-to-fix-the-wiki picks jumped ship to join the GOONS! I can only hope that he would hold no ill will, given that TV Tropes has always been at war with the pedophiles, assisted by its goon allies. This has all been an elaborate gambit to put Eddie in a position where he "regrettably" has to step in, subjugate the panel and once again seize ultimate power. EDIT: I apparently can no longer edit the TV Tropes wiki, or read the forums. I have a private message from someone, but I can't read it, because the PM system has been turned off for me. I've never vandalized the wiki, trolled the forums, or generally abused any of those privileges; and did my best to give reasonable criticism, even when posting here, rather than say anything mocking or vindictive. Alas, thus ends my vain effort to bridge the gap between SA's criticisms and TVT's userbase, mindset and moderation. Cue the Greek chorus.
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2012 21:34 |
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General Panic posted:This is one of several reasons why changing your username between sites is always a good idea, especially when dealing with people for whom "reasonable criticism" is a tautology. You mean an oxymoron, but yes. I hear the decision was contested by at least one mod, but it seems anything having to do with this thread just hits a nerve over there. They must've assumed that in order to post here you have to pass some sort of initiation ceremony where you kneel in front of a burning lampshade while everyone else stands in a circle chanting "Eddie sucks, notability exists" in Latin, and then The Saddest Rhino pours water over your head and says "I deem you acceptable; rise". The ridiculous thing is that as far as I'm aware no one on the moderation team has any fundamental objection to the idea that TVT could incorporate an academic viewpoint into its articles. They just think this process ought to start happening on its own by the power of "wiki magic", or else they enjoy cultivating a huge playground for disaffected 16-year-olds who only care about their two fandoms and consistently oppose any attempt to improve anything with shouts of "Despotism! Dictatorship! We are the contributors to the wiki and demand to have our say!", even though 90% of their 'contribution' is roleplaying in the "We Are Our Avatars High School AU V2" thread and the rest goes like "actually this troper remembers that in ep3 of azumanga daioh it was hinted that theres more of a story behind her likiing cats than we were led to believe so the cat-bat theory still works if you assume batman isn't a full time lord but only has some time-lord powers".
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2012 09:09 |
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quote:His case had no hope of being solved however, a key piece was missing from the scene. Was it by any chance a rare first-edition copy of Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation?
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| # ¿ May 1, 2012 09:02 |
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Yeah, I don't think there's much left for me to say over there. Even if I had anything more to say, most of the people who I'd want to say it to are banned now. I had no idea anything CLOSE to this would happen. Just wow. Until last week I thought that the "GOOOOOOOOOONS!  " thing was a silly exaggeration.
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| # ¿ May 2, 2012 17:22 |
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quote:Swords are no longer widely used by the American military (there are some armies that still use them) because of logistics. That being the logistics of having to evacuate lots and lots of sword-wielding corpses.
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| # ¿ May 3, 2012 11:36 |
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Tomu's old picture seems all lively and he mentioned he was living with his girlfriend then. You have to wonder what exactly happened in the span of a few years to turn him into the person you see in the second picture. Maybe it's just the creepy angle, the crappy resolution, the "shiny glasses" effect (tip: this doesn't work very well in real-life stills) and the "Agent Smith watches paint dry" expression. All things that can be rectified, and don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Contemplated matricide, on the other hand, is forever.
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| # ¿ May 4, 2012 07:38 |
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Mills College Anime Club posted:"Oh, God, that," Alistair spat. This Alistair guy spits an awful lot.
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| # ¿ May 4, 2012 20:26 |
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quote:Here's an idea: if someone defends its right to be there, cut it. If they try to tell you to cut it as a form of reverse psychology, cut it. The Granted, the correct counter-argument to that is "well, when you put it like that, gently caress you".
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| # ¿ May 4, 2012 20:42 |
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AHR posted:Teens should be raped until they know their place What in the hell. Most posts by AHR I've seen were in the con crit thread in the Writer's Block forum. They involved a comic starring an aspie and his lightning-shooting amulet. By that point I already knew the place was full of some unique sorts of character, but nothing about AHR, nothing at all, triggered even an inkling of a suspicion...  Gilgameshkun posted:The Panel should be more pro-porn At this point, Martello's probably only still on the panel so he can feel the high of tasting the sweet, bitter tears of Gilgameshkun and people like him.
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| # ¿ May 5, 2012 12:19 |
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quote:"the evil wife who schemes", "the troubled husband who has a multitude of problems", "the son/daughter who has issues with their parents and is just trying to get a romantic love life", and "the maid/cook who is around to help the family but loves to gossip about what is happening to their employers with their peers". These don't seem to be exclusively Latin American archetypes, or at least they seem to have gained influence beyond their native land and genre, given that you've just described half the plot of Revenge.
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| # ¿ May 5, 2012 19:38 |
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Time Braid posted:My first time was especially embarrassing, though at least I had the excuse of ignorance. I started awake with a scream, my head still full of the disastrous fight with that snake-wielding ninja who'd attacked my team in the Forest of Death. I'd died slowly, drowning in my own blood while poor, brave Naruto went down trying to defend me. He called out more of that strange red chakra than I'd ever seen before, so much that it formed a solid aura around his body, but it didn't make any difference. This opening paragraph is godawful. It just ever-so-strongly signals "ahoy there; let us go for a swim in the great oceans of mediocrity". We begin by immediately assaulting the reader with a flashback within a flashback in the span of two sentences, something that even the Naruto series -- which has weaponized the flashback into an instrument of viewer grief -- usually has the decency not to do. A character "starts awake with a scream, her head still full of" -- echoes of screams? Blurry, nightmarish sensations, pieces and bits of images that might or might not have been real? No: Her head is full of self-debriefing inner monologue, dry and hasty, eager to be done with itself past any reasonable point of suspended disbelief. Then you come across both "that snake-wielding ninja" and "that strange red chakra", both of which serve no purpose but to force-spoon-feed the reader the incredibly surprising notion that, yes, this character doesn't know about parts of the plot which haven't happened yet. And then, as if suddenly realizing that it's lacking in the department of emotional depth, this piece of respectable literature rushes to make up for it with plenty of colorful adjectives like "disastrous", "poor", "brave" and "strange". I hate fan fiction.
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| # ¿ May 6, 2012 10:14 |
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quote:I've slowly moved away from the idea that women don't really like sex and only participate in it out of love or personal gain, to that they could like it, but they need a lot of controlled variables. For instance, you could put a woman in a little cage in a lab, and then give her an electric shock every time she would refuse to have sex with you until she changes her mind. After all It's Not surprise sex if You enarrrrgh god I can't bring myself to complete this sentence Wait, why is that article still even there? Weren't all the titles that read like "surprise sex is okay if XYZ, ha ha just kidding or are we" supposed to have been wiped out?
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| # ¿ May 6, 2012 21:55 |
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Namtab posted:I'm not saying she's ugly, I'm saying that she posted a loving retarded picture of herself. Oh, that's what? Well spotted. I definitely couldn't figure out what she was saying.
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| # ¿ May 6, 2012 22:31 |
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Metal Loaf posted:I suppose that if somebody takes TV Tropes very seriously and believes it's an important resource for aspiring writers, they'll have a very negative reaction to what's said about the site on Something Awful. Conversely, if somebody sees the concept of TV Tropes as nothing more than a bit of fun, perhaps they would be more likely to agree with - or at least tolerate - criticism of the site. From my experience the opposite is true. People who think TV Tropes ought to be an important resource take the criticism seriously, because if something is broken about a big and important resource, you obviously want to fix it. Conversely, the people who see TV Tropes as nothing more than a bit of fun tend to channel this attitude towards screaming "But FUUUN! You're ruining our FUUUNN!" whenever you take away their Troper Tales and their Pedoshit no Fapfapfap and their right to give write-ups on literary phenomenons titles like "The Daisuke".
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| # ¿ May 7, 2012 13:01 |
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Well, I don't know Spanish, so that first post is complete gibberish to me. What's this? Chrome is offering to translate it?Google Translate posted:I chechado some translations on the site and have seen some articles that use words native to several countries like Spain. And in conclusion: Panty Shots! This makes exactly as much sense as I thought it would.
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| # ¿ May 7, 2012 22:33 |
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Where I come from, nearly everyone goes to basic training, and nearly everyone passes basic training. My best friend's story is virtually identical to Tom's -- and given all the personal effort my friend's had to make to get over the experience and what other people will think of it, the mere idea of glorifying it and taking pride in it seems ridiculous to me in every which way.
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| # ¿ May 9, 2012 17:08 |
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ActionZero posted:Oh man I really hope you know what you're getting yourself into doing this. I once tried to read this (god knows what insanity possessed me) and I think I got partway into the third chapter before throwing my hands in the air and giving up. Suffice to say the horrible will ramp up very quickly and you will soon wish it was only as bad as what you've read so far, I dread to think how bad it gets past where I got to. Let me guess, this piece of fan-fiction has thousands of glowing reviews. I remember once reading a huge-rear end Naruto fanfic on ff.net that revolved around a bunch of OCs coming in and just trampling over everything with their superior life philosophy and ingenuity (LOGIC!), incredible powers everyone in the original cast can only dream of and kuh-razy antics, until there was no actual conflict or nuance left. I don't know if a troper wrote it, but the feel of it certainly seems close to this "Time Braid" depravity, and I found it via TVT fanfic recommendations. It had thousands of glowing reviews fawning over the incredible execution (which wasn't). After 20-something chapters I went away quietly to cry in a corner. I hate fan fiction.
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| # ¿ May 10, 2012 14:00 |
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quote:Is a fallacy bad? People use fallacious logic all the time to influence others. Moreover, sometimes it feels really arbitrary what gets labeled as a fallacy. No, you're wrong. A "fallacy" is a kind of argument that's factually wrong. This tirade already starts with a slicky, slippery whisper in the vein of C.S. Lewis' Lady of the Green Kirtle, snickering its little snickers of "Ah, but with is 'truth'? But what is 'what'? But what is 'is'?". I feel sick. quote:The Gold Mean Fallacy Golden. And now it suddenly occurs to me that I'm kind of sad there isn't a Golden Retriever fallacy. quote:Compromise is bad. No, you're wrong. The Golden Mean Fallacy is about how compromise isn't automatically good. Perhaps you can't see the difference between "Bad" and "not automatically good", but I assure you that one exists. quote:but on the other hand this means that "give some money to charity" is bad whereas either "give all your money to charity" or "Never give money altruisticly" is correct. No, you're wrong. It means that if someone shouts "Give all your money to charity!" and someone else says "Give no money to charity!", and then a third person says "Hey, these two are extreme positions; give some of your money to charity", the third person is not automatically right just by virtue of having offered a "compromise" between the two "extreme" positions. He's saying that you can argue something true with a fallacy, therefore the fallacy must be valid. Basically he's committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent in trying to disprove fallacies. This is meta as poo poo. The same goes for his "biased media" example. quote:Or what about the Slippery Slope (principiis obsta)? Arguing that is gay marriege is allowed we will soon be marrying our own dead great grandmothers is absurd, regardless of what side of the issue you are on. And yet if it somehow came to pass then what are we to say? We are to say that most of the time when we argue something we argue it because it is probably true, and not because it is an absolute, irrefutable truth, especially when we make predictions about the future. I argue that if I jump out of the building, I'll die. So what if somehow I land on a passer-by mattress? Well, gee, in that case, you're a smartass. Also, all the Nazi analogies are kind of grating. quote:Is a fallacy just logic someone arbitrarily decided was bad because, taken after the fact, it ends up being false most of the time? Is it still a fallacy if it is proven true in a given case? See above. You're still wrong. If you accidentally argue something true using bullshit logic, the bottom line of what you said is still bullshit. Ask Edmund Gettier, he'll be thrilled to tell you all about it. You're a hack who can't tell his priors from his posteriors.
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| # ¿ May 13, 2012 17:57 |
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quote:Constructive criticism is saying what's good about a work. Well, that's concise.
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| # ¿ May 15, 2012 22:14 |
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Somfin posted:It's when guys throw lightning and fire at each other like Pokemon. Hey, now. At least the Pokemon franchise knows the value of simplicity. Not Pokemon posted:
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| # ¿ May 16, 2012 02:30 |
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Adelheid Stark posted:Fast Eddie is the Fast Eddie of TVTropes. And believe it or not, there's a trope for that.
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| # ¿ May 16, 2012 03:40 |
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Not pictured: any semblance of rhythm, meter, or flow. Then again, at least he gets across the message in a way actual humans can personally relate to, as opposed to the first letter on every line spelling out FATHERHOOD IS INEVITABLE.
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| # ¿ May 16, 2012 04:20 |
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So Flyboy and another user had a discussion on BTL (A TVT offshoot) during which the other user brought up the old "pedo anime can be covered neutrally, if Wikipedia can do it so can TVT" argument. This gives Flyboy an idea:Flyboy tempts fate posted:I tried to make that argument to TvTropes for the sake of fairness and as an experiment. And lo and behold, not a few pages later, the ever-vigilant TVT administration delivers: Flyboy posted:But, while this is fascinating, I'm more interested in the fact that I've apparently been totally banned from the TvTropes forum, PM system and even looking at threads...? What the hell did I do? Alas, Flyboy, you were in illegal possession of an ounce of decency. This gets brought up in the TVT "absent people" thread, where people want to know how severe the Ban is and are waiting to hear what fascinating excuse the TVT higher-ups are going to come up with this time to cover up for the actual reason, which is obviously "we are cleansing the site of goony-sounding propaganda". Fortunately, TVT has long-standing and experienced volunteer spokesmen for just such an occasion: Tomu to the rescue posted:I kind of noticed how heated he was getting with things. I don't remember what the post said, but I remember at the time that some of the rhetoric that was flying around was building up to the "Well, I'm not a pedophile supporter-YOU must be if-" thing. You know, the "Let me show my anti-pedo bona fides" thing. But even Tomu feels kind of uncomfortable with Flyboy's ban, given that he apparently knew him personally, and he has this to add: quote:He's a bit hot-headed at times though-something Fast Eddie has noticed-but he's generally a decent enough fellow and, while he sometimes loses his temper and gets ahead of himself, he's not a troll. I'd vouch for him. That you will, Tomu. That you will. May you -- in your official unofficial capacity as spokesperson on behalf of the eminent TVT mod team -- succeed in getting Eddie and Flyboy to look past their differences and see that this was all just a huge misunderstanding. Good luck and godspeed. We leave resolving the apparent contradiction between Flyboy's ban and Martello's non-ban as an exercise to the reader.
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| # ¿ May 17, 2012 06:25 |
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TVT is a nice resource for writers looking to be exposed to new ideas, but the way the community influences aspiring writers is just the worst. It's the one thing that more than anything else makes me wish there were a honest-to-god alternative that gets things right. I mean, obviously it would be wonderful if TVT itself got its poo poo together and became that alternative, but at this point I've become kind of disillusioned with that idea.
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| # ¿ May 18, 2012 22:22 |
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quote:Heck, sometimes Nash Equilibriums will force you to do those things, because if you don't then the truly nasty people will, and they will prosper, and you, the good people, will fail. It was either cater to the pedophiles or perish! They are legion, and I would like to see what you would have done instead of me -- if it was you who had to make this impossible choice, either to fill your work with panty shots of thirteen-year-olds as far as the eye could see, or to watch your piece sink into obscurity and drown in the waves of oblivion, uncared for by the teeming pedophile mainstream markets! It was bow to the teenage succubus or be killed, let go of all decency or disappear, fap or be slaughtered!
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| # ¿ May 19, 2012 20:06 |
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quote:And then I decided that the time had come to finally law down the rules regarding uncleanly discharges and what should and should not be done with them. Not more of this, thought Moses and pretty much everyone else, please, no, we've been standing in this desert for over three hours listening to all those pointless rules, I'm so thirsty, please make it stop. Yeah, this is actually a goon on the 3rd thread mocking the premise of 1st person omniscient Bible fanfiction originally brought up in TV Tropes. So "Browsing around" stands for "Browsing around the Something Awful thread on TV Tropes". Careful now, The Handle. You're treading dangerous ground.
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| # ¿ May 19, 2012 22:11 |
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quote:Mr. Jabrosky also enjoys making comics. I'll share some with you! I hate the world and everything in it.
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| # ¿ May 20, 2012 10:12 |
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Nautatrol Rx posted:
Dude, you're pushing the "obviously you're a pedophile lol, gently caress you forever" thing way too far. Maybe I just prefer to see the best in people, but it really seems like the guy's just arguing it would be a nice step forward for pedos to recognize they are creepy fucks with a creepy fetish and at least shut up about trying to justify it.
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| # ¿ May 21, 2012 13:45 |
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Pladdicus posted:Pedophilia is not on the level as weird fetishes like getting your kicks off a nazi uniforms or being lost at sea. surprise sex fantasies, though... Anyway, I sincerely hope the point of that post was not to actually say a Nazi uniform fetish is comparable to wanting to gently caress children. I took it as an example of something that if you're into, you ought to at least have the minimum of self-awareness to not sperg in public about how actually it's totally acceptable because bullshit, bullshit and bullshit cream with a bullshit cherry on top. The world really is full of horrible people with horrible fetishes, some of them at least as bad as pedophilia and some probably even worse. No matter how abhorrent and reprehensible a scenario is, some sick gently caress on the internet probably has a fetish for it. But somehow, it's only the pedophiles who've created a thriving culture dedicated to normalizing their perversion, enabled by TVT's unique atmosphere. Or am I wrong about this? Is there a "finer points of enjoying baby mutilation as a metaphor" group on Facebook, or something? God. quote:If I said I had homicidal tendencies, I might not act on it either, but wouldn't you rather I was vocal about that and got help? Silence is the worst answer You know, normally I would agree with you, but we've both seen TV Tropes, which is a counter-example to this statement. Silence is not the worst answer. Going on the internet and forming a huge pro-homicide community where all the murderers can tell each other how justified and acceptable they are is worse. Of course it would be best if these people one day woke up and magically up and realized they need help, but that's not going to happen with the above community in full swing of its unholy self-affirmation. quote:The tears must flow, and whoever controls the tears controls the universe. Heh. I guess you can call me naive for secretly hoping something good comes out of all of this. Fake edit: Also what general Panic said.
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| # ¿ May 21, 2012 17:43 |
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quote:Mutsumi How old is the person that came up with this? It very strongly reminds me of basically every work I've ever come across by creative people younger than 18. "Her real name of Hannah caused trouble around school, so..." has this adorable innocence to it. Oh, that's the reason? This "trouble" sounds vague and it's not at all clear what would stir it, but, well, what you say goes, Mr. Artist. I swear, if I didn't know better I would've thought you just came up with "Mutsumi" because it sounded cool to you, and only came up with this excuse later.
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| # ¿ May 21, 2012 23:45 |
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Time Braid posted:a Sanin Meaning, "a three people". Excellent.
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| # ¿ May 29, 2012 03:41 |
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I occasionally read/post at BTL (Edit: as noted above by Namtab) and compared to TVT, that place is a hall of saints. e.g. If I recall correctly, when Draven showed up one of the mods went "Oh gently caress no" and banned him before the guy made a single post. Compare Fast Eddie's treatment of this same scenario. That's not to say the place hasn't had its questionable moments, and at times the forum seems concerned about this to an absurd degree -- probably a symptom of Post TVTropes Stress Disorder ("we're okay now, right? We're not surrounded by pedophiles any more, right? RIGHT???"). That said, Roland Jones' post above ought to give them food for thought (it did for me, at least). Fake edit: RE: Celery Face -- well, there's a reason I qualified that statement with a big "IF". IF it's true, it really is brilliant. To be clear, "play" was not meant as in "lol the tools", especially given that this quote:Draven and Potato have been attacked for being lovely remorseless paedophiles, not because they're being paedophiles to lolacat. Is perfectly true. And now this is getting meta as poo poo, so I had better stop cross-posting.
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| # ¿ Jun 3, 2012 14:38 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 04:50 |
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quote:Alright, that's fair enough, it just seemed to be a tad in bad taste Yeah, you're right. Sorry.
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| # ¿ Jun 3, 2012 15:43 |
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