TV Trops

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Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Testekill posted:

So he has a thing for white man's burden then?

White Man's Sexy Burden. :zapp:

# ¿ Nov 30, 2013 11:47

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:26

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Fiat Banking Nazi posted:

I think the writer of that metric fuckton of text is confused about how serialized narratives are written. That poo poo reads like a wikipedia summary of a comic book franchise. And not a particularly good one either. They seem to assume that meandering and pointless plots across several story arcs are the proper way to write a story, instead of the end result of a stpry being written over twelve years by several authors.

No, it reads like a dork summarising a lovely WoD game. Possibly even one he's played, but likelier the one he would have played if everyone else hadn't been saying "hey, how come your character gets rule-breaking powers and mine doesn't? gently caress this poo poo".

# ¿ Dec 25, 2013 11:34

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Darth TNT posted:

Content.
Link

A lot of people were interested in this as the next reply is from the original poster 1 day later.

So basically you were toying with an idea, except you have no idea of plot? No other replies yet, so this will, unfortunately, never get of the ground, whatever will this person do.

But the whole point of mashups is to use the plot of one of the mashed-ups. This is "hey I've given a couple of characters from Oliver Twist names from The Hobbit and made them all Norse-saga-y! What do I do now?"

Well, given that the plots of the two books are entirely different, you pick one and start writing.

Though actually I guess you could mix them, just not the way that troper did. Make Gandalf Fagin and Thorin Bill Sikes, have poor little kidnapped Bilbo forced and threatened into burglary... that's amusing me now.

Or could you twist Oliver Twist into a doomy Norse-ish saga? Beautiful young foundling adopted into family, horrible tragic death and violence ensues for everyone, turns out he's the vengeful ghost of the son of the daughter of the house who was kicked out for getting pregnant and starved to death in a snowstorm?

Basically anything other than banging three random things together and squeaking "hey guys how cool is this tell me what I should do next!" when the result refuses to come to life. Bloody Tropers.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 13:39

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Congratulations, we've now explored the concept in vastly more depth than the author. It could work, if you built your setting and aesthetics in a way that used it.

Yet another reason why TvTropes' Lego approach to storytelling is bullshit. They even have a page on LegoGenetics and somehow the similarity never strikes them.

They operate on the belief that stories are made of tropes, so if you pile up enough tropes a story must spontaneously appear. No story appears? Add more tropes. GOTO 10.

It's basically a cargo cult. "I stuck together all these tropes in the shape of a story, why won't it fly?"

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 21:52

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Darth TNT posted:

Wouldn't it be a problem for desert people to get enough water to fill and keep filled these solar powered boilers? Still a terrible idea.

They go out on slave raids to capture people and stuff them into giant distillers to extract precious water from their bodies, duh. SO GRIMDARK AND EVIL-COOL.

Didn't one troper write a setting where a completely minor detail was that all the tech ran on souls? Just mentioned in passing, not important or a plot point at all.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 00:29

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Egregious Offences posted:

How the hell do you hide G cups? Especially if (I'm going to assume) the character in question is thin as a rake?

Excel Saga isn't in the least meant to be taken seriously, and the particular episode that scene's in even less so. But the combination of loli and tits invokes tropers faster than looking in your mirror and chanting "Fast Eddie!" 5 times, so I bet that's the only scene from it they know.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 18:20

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

MizPiz posted:

To get us away from the Fluffy abomination, what's the story behind the no notability, no criticism rule? I get that to them it's supposed to be the basis for them to remain objective when doing... whatever they do (and ultimately manifests as treating My Favorite Fap-Fic #63 the way actual academics would treat Ulysses), but did it come from something happening on TVTropes or has it always been there?

As far as I can tell it's all part of Fast Eddie's hugbox mentality. Telling anyone they're wrong hurts their feelings, elevating any category of media above any other is mean and exclusionary and hurts the feelings of people who like the denigrated stuff - add a dose of What Do Those Ivory-Tower Academics Know Compared to Us Fans, give that state of mind a few years to fester and foom. Or sqlorch.

It's actually kind of sad. Fast Eddie obviously has enough faith in human nature that he thought that would end up with a happy utopia where everyone lived in peace and harmony and niceness; unfortunately human nature on the Internet's given him a site that catalogues torture porn and lolicon. And he can't admit that.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 20:11

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

Tropers are the kind of people who can't parse the difference between 'Hi, my name is Bill and I like watching movies and playing games' and 'Hi, my name is Bill and my fandoms are'. One is an interest in a potentially wide-ranging field, while with the other, you're nailing down your entire being in the first few seconds of a conversation. And when people inevitably call them out on it, boom, drama.

You don't even have to call them out on it, you just have to disagree.

"Hi, my name is Bill and my fandoms are X Y & Z"

"Hi, I'm Jane. Yeah, I used to watch X but it's pretty lovely these days-"

"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME lovely!"

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 14:27

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Inspector Zenigata posted:

I have a question for you guys: does anyone else get irritated when people write posts or whatever that capitalize trope names that they mention in their posts in discussions not directly about TVTropes? I don't have any specific examples, but I read through the entire Irrationally Irritating Movie Moments thread in the past week (I'm bedridden atm) this cropped up more frequently than you might think. They write whole posts normally, then capitalize Up To Eleven or Plot Armor and it completely changes how I see their post because it lets me know that their views are the product of the kaleidoscope that is TVTropes.

Plot Armor is something TVTropes swiped rather than originated. I hope, because it's a useful concept.

It's the posters that hyperlink the phrase to the TVTropes article that really give me the crawling horrors.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 20:08

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Inspector Zenigata posted:

It wasn't those things specifically I went on TVTropes and chose a couple random tropes from one of their lists.

Ah, right. Phew.

But yeah, there's a certain trope-heavy style of netposting that always makes me look hard and prepare to disagree. I tell myself that they're probably just random-surfing the articles and not full-blown Tropers, but then again it's not like the articles are horrible-poo poo-free either.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 20:30

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Swan Oat posted:

How the gently caress can you miss the point?

By being a Troper.

Says it all, really.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2014 20:34

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

DaveWoo posted:

Tv Tropes: "This rape-murder story is very well-written!"

= "I'm not reading it for the torture porn, I'm reading it for the skilful writing and literary style. Therefore I am not a drooling pervert with the moral compass of pond scum."

# ¿ Jan 26, 2014 13:14

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

Let's ignore the fact that whenever he kidnaps princesses, he takes them to his castle to watch home-made movies or count his penguins, it's all just an extended rape metaphor.

Under The Radar, dude. :tvtropes:

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 10:55

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

MinistryofLard posted:

This one is great. For all their obsessive focus on worldbuilding ~~loving around for ten years without putting words on paper because they're too scared or lazy to write anything~~ they don't do any actual loving research.

Like, if you want to change, ignore, or rewrite poo poo from a mythology for the sake of your narrative (for whatever reason), feel free. Nobody cares but Tropers because they're boring spergs. But you have to at least know what you're changing. If you're spending ten years worldbuilding and haven't learned anything in that time, what the christ have you been spending your time on?

Deciding what tropes to use. And deconstruct, and reconstruct, and antiretroconstruct, and supercalifragisticonstruct.

And watching a shitload of anime, of course.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 13:31

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

DicktheCat posted:

These people and their approach to writing make me physically ill, no joke. I was already out of it this morning, read this, and began to feel nauseous.

I can't begin to comprehend this legoland philosophy. What about passion and reason and symbolism and meaning and all those other wonderful things?

Ugh, that crap belongs in arrogant, dickish, literature classes. Where they make you read boring crap like Shakespeare (ew!) and refuse to recognise the genius of Animorphs.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 00:19

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Metal Loaf posted:

"Why can't people just enjoy things at face value? Why do they have to criticise and analyse everything? Also, we're an academic resource."

"Criticism is mean!"

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 13:00

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

TheIncredulousHulk posted:

They don't get that, if your scene needs a river, you just put a loving river in it. You don't say "Aw, shucks. The map I drew that nobody gives a gently caress about says there's no river here so I guess I'll just have to do without."

"I must redesign the entire watershed of the south-eastern part of my continent to create a river! But that creates a desert where I've put the Magic Lake of Glub, oh no, what do I do now?"

Alpacalips Now posted:

That advice thread's a parody. It has to be a parody.

The way these dorks use "punk" makes me want to beat them to an inch of their life with a copy of Please Kill Me. I understand why cyberpunk exists and is viable, but every other "-punk" genre baffles me. How is a bunch of aristocrats and pirates having adventures in their airships punk rock in any way? Why not call it "Victorian fantasy"? Some of those genres have to be hypothetical because Sandal and Stonepunk sound like the product of a troper's worldbuilding wank sessions.

AFAIR the "punk" in cyberpunk was supposed to indicate a focus on the underbelly of the society; gritty lowlife stuff. So even steampunk's hosed that up, given that 90% of the stuff I've seen is wearing top hats with gears stuck on and calling themselves Lord Valvington-Smythe.

e:f,b like a tragic orphan in the steam-grommet factory.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2014 18:25

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

So basically, any number of siblings can be inferred to be loving, but it's impossible to infer that people are eating or that creepy poo poo may include improbable things happening?

Yeah, sounds like tropers all right.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 15:11

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Swan Oat posted:

Is he seriously outlining a story but asking someone else to write it for him?

Certainly looks like it! Bespoke grimdark pony porn fanfic. Well, there are plenty of artists taking furry art commissions; there had to be a similar niche for writers.... :suicide:

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 21:20

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

crowfeathers posted:

Actually, to their credit, everyone else in the thread just laughed at him for being a dumbass

Good Lord. A rare light of sanity in Troperland!

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 21:28

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

crowfeathers posted:

It's gone, deleted by mods, because insulting individuals is not allowed on the TV Tropes forum

However richly they deserve it. So much for my hopes of TV Tropes becoming somewhat less... awful.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 21:48

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

"literature posted:

Literature series that have their own pages:

Battle Royale
Harry Potter
The Lord of the Rings
Twilight

Literature, folks.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 23:34

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Politicalrancor posted:

I'll cop to thinking about what the characters should have done to avoid catastrophe in movies, especially in tragic dramas, but then I get back to thinking about, you know, the actual story.

It knocks me right out of the story if all the characters are being utter morons and it's a serious (as in non-funny) series - I couldn't watch the Walking Dead any more after episode 2 or something; whatever one it was that ended up with everyone camped out in the woods and the next episode trailer was zombies busting in. No poo poo. Braaains. Where braaains?

But even I'm not a :smug:

enough nerd to sperg out over what Hamlet or Homer Simpson or Professor loving Poopypants should have done. I'd like to assume the last was someone trying to be funny, but well. Tropers....

# ¿ Feb 2, 2014 12:15

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Cornwind Evil posted:

I find that, again, this happens because you forget that you're watching a fake scene in total safety that is trying to be a real scene in 'real life'. Some interesting articles I saw recently point out that in crisis situations, our brains just don't work too good. And that's in crisis situations that can actually happen, like bombings and plane crashes. Considering most humans, including ones who are ostentatiously TRAINED to deal with those possibilities, can't handle THAT, how well do you think most people could handle something impossible like the dead getting up and trying to eat people? They'd probably do stuff like camp out in the open because their brains are going so haywire that they can't process that this might be a bad idea.

This is not excuse for lazy or bad writing, of course, but stuff like this sometimes require a closer look.

I don't have a problem with panic decisions and and not-very-well-planned let's-get-the-gently caress-out-of-here, but that particular scene didn't ring true to me as anything other than a setup for next week's thrilling zombie attack - bear in mind that this is a group (excepting the protagonist) that seems to have been surviving for a while now, so everyone shutting down at once doesn't seem plausible. It's a borderline case, I admit, but it falls on the lazy writing side for me.

On the other side, Shaun of the Dead's protagonists leave their nice safe gated flat to hole up in the pub, which, while an objectively idiotic decision, is one I can understand perfectly. I can see people doing that, but in the Walking Dead scenario I have trouble believing they wouldn't just be, say, driving in shifts. I can't make myself believe anyone would feel safe in a camper van in the middle of a forest. Trying to sleep in one is scary enough even when the dead aren't rising to eat the living....

# ¿ Feb 2, 2014 14:16

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Incoherence posted:

It's like reading off the author's list of personal hangups: women, religion, getting bullied at school...

Not to mention the character's sanity was destroyed when someone (oh the humanity!) told him that he... Wasn't Original.

quote:

A pity what happened when Gavin Shayde attacked and killed all his friends and gave a badly wounded Justin a sanity destroying reason you suck speech highlighting the fact he consciously tried to copy Matthew, including dying his previously darker hair lighter at the front.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2014 18:28

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

DStecks posted:

Mods, rename me Y2K Orphan tia

No mods, rename him Crystal Stream News, thankyouverymuch.

Does reporter girl have a mouth, or is that a sort of rainbow grumpycat mouth just under her eyes?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 18:26

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Metal Loaf posted:

I've seen Martian Successor Nadesico described as being almost as much of a deconstruction as Eva, and it goes in completely the opposite direction to that series. I'm pretty sure they were both released around the same time, as well.

I first saw them both at the same time (SciFi UK showed eps of Eva followed by Nadesico) and there was no doubt in my mind that Nadesico was shamelessly ripping the piss out of Eva (and a lot of other anime too). I must get around to rewatching it and see if it's still fun.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2014 22:27

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

kaleidolia posted:

So... replace the ghost girl with a troll girl (or a robot alien maid, whatever), and you don't have to change the predictable cliche itself. It's no wonder they're so fond of deconstructions, if that's what passes for originality.

Has anyone written a decent story starting with tropes?

A lot of people have, using "tropes" in its loosest sense and assuming you mean non-Tropers because if you didn't ahahahaha. Starting off thinking hey, I want to write an alien invasion/deal with the devil/perfect murder/etc story, how can I put a new spin on it isn't unusual, but I can guarantee they didn't then go on to try and write it by piling up a shitload of other tropes to include.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2014 13:25

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

my dad posted:

And as for people in this thread bragging that we goons understand literature better than the tropers? Remember the Clockwork Orange chat some time earlier in this thread? When another poster used the slang from the book and I replied in the same slang, and the poster said that we, unlike the tropers, actually read the book and understood it? I never read the drat book. I never heard about it until reading this thread. I literally just googled it for 10 minutes and spliced up a fancy-sounding reply, and the results were praised as being oh-so-much better than what tropers do. And nobody called out anyone involved for it. We mock tropers for not giving enough attention to important literature^TM, but just look at the threads in our very own Book Barn. Which books do you think get the most attention? And which books never get more than a failed thread that only gets an OP and no discussion at all?

Sorry about the rant, it isn't meant to be an attack on any of you personally, or a defense of TvTropes. The big problem with TvTropes (other than, you know, being a toxic cesspit of pedophilia) is that it's a casual popular media discussion group pretending to be a serious place to learn about writing, and deceiving people who are just learning the basics by persuading them that they don't need to improve. I'm just baffled by the complete lack of self-awareness I see here.

Well, no, the big BIG problem with TVTropes is that it's set up so it can't be changed or challenged. Point out to people that they're talking from a very narrow range of knowledge, get banned for being a dick. Suggest that a particular work may be better-written and deserve more attention than another, get the notability smackdown. Fallout Equestria has been read by many more people than Bridge on the Drina* so it's more important to have an article on it!

Yeah, goons love to congratulate themselves, but "Better than Tropers about literature" is such a low fence to clear that it's not saying that goons en masse are great about it either....

*I have no idea whether this is true or not and I'm trying not to think about it because it's depressing.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 12:55

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

The Leper Colon V posted:

There's literally lines in the loving games that say that they go to Hyrule-proper to find boyfriends. This isn't even filling in the blanks with rape. This is erasing, drawing a blank, and then filling it with rape.

And that the carpenters admit they tried to join the Gerudos because they thought they'd get a life of thievery and hot women fawning over them and the Gerudos were in fact disgusted and pissed off. IT'S ACTUALLY A loving JOKE ABOUT HOW TROPER TYPES REGARD WOMEN-ONLY RACES! But god forbid tropers get jokes....

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 13:14

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

The Leper Colon V posted:

Mine are the disembodied arm in need of toilet paper and the undead soliders who mistake you for their (giant, skeletal) general because you're wearing a paper hat that looks like him and then dance for you.

Even funnier, if you wear the general's mask for the fight with the undead king he mistakes you for the general too and wants to know why you've got so tiny.

DAAAARK.

DAAAARK masks that let you march chicks around, or make rednecks cry, or do a slinky dance. The horror, the darkness, the despair.

Though my favourite bit of MM is the way the pathetic ninjas shake their hands owie owie after you shield block them. God I love MM, I wish Nintendo would confirm or deny if it's getting the OoT 3D treatment.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 01:33

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Captain Fargle posted:

I remember all they ever said on the matter was "Maybe, but we want to do an original Zelda for the 3DS first". Now that Link Between Worlds has been released who knows?

It was Grezzo rather than Nintendo that did the remaster, so remaking MM too wouldn't take resources from LBW. I suspect they're just too polite to say no, sod off nerds, but I can't stop hoping....

ThePlague-Daemon posted:

So when they say interesting attributes, they just mean poo poo like being a dragon and shapeshifting, don't they?

And the longcoat. Ohhh yeah. Nothing says "memorable villain" more than Badass Longcoat. :smug:

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 13:32

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Inspector Zenigata posted:

Somebody doesn't know about anachronistic swords/gigantic swords no human could carry.

He's subtly inhuman, you see.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 14:14

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Egregious Offences posted:

Alright.

"This Goon gazed up at the enormous face. Four years it had taken me to learn what kind of smile was hidden atop that graying beard. O cruel, needless conscience! O stubborn, self-willed reproving of the anime breast chart! Two Dew-scented tears trickled down the sides of my nose. But it was alright, everything was alright, the struggle was finished. I had won a victory over myself. I loved Fast Eddie."

Ahem.

"Do it to Lowtax! Do it to Lowtax! Not me! Lowtax! I don�t care what you do to him. Tear his face off, strip him to the bones. Not me! Lowtax! Not me!"

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 07:05

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

CROWS EVERYWHERE posted:

My Granny mentioned to me that most of the Weasleys were meant to be named after Arthurian characters

Molly, Fred, George, Ron, Charlie? OK, Percy, but his seems to be the only other Arthurian name bar his dad. Unless Bill's name's short for Balin or something....

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 08:53

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

ArchangeI posted:

Did he...did he just censor a post on an Internet message board because it might give a hypothetical AI or other intelligent being that may or may not exist yet ideas?

I've got to say, if I was a far-future post-scarcity superintelligence that read Yudkowsky's crap the temptation to violate causality purely to troll him and anyone who hangs out with him would be hard to resist.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 19:09

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Djeser posted:

So, since the AI has a way to apply punishment to people in the past, it starts simulating everyone in the past. That way, it learns which people could have donated more to AI research, and then it tortures their simulations. By torturing their simulations, it provides incentive for the real person in the past to optimally donate to AI research.

Why wouldn't it just be really really nice to its simulations to make up for their originals suffering before it sorted out the world's problems? What with being super-benevolent and that?

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 20:43