fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2142 ]

[ SECRET POST #2142 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2142 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Sorry it's late!

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 066 secrets from Secret Submission Post #306.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Also, anytime I see anyone using tropespeak, I kind of wince a little, and it makes it just a little bit harder for me to take them seriously.

I used to be real big into TVTropes and tropespeak and everything. I was one of those people who would spend hours and hours reading page after page, but then I stumbled upon the forums. And... just... ugh. D: It's like a site peopled entirely by the worst of the internet.

And then I just noticed that, for a site that's purportedly all about analysis in pop culture and media, it's... got an unspoken rule against analysis. Every article and trope page is just boiled down to meaningless lists of "RIFLES APPEAR IN HOMESTUCK (but let's not talk about what this indicates about the character's personality)" or "KYOKO FROM PUELLA MAGI EATS A LOT (but let's not talk about what this indicates about her past, her character, her role, or how it might, in part, foreshadow the entire setup of the series before the terrible reveal is made)." Instead we get "Sniper Rifle -- Eridan from Homestuck uses rifles." or "Big Eater - Kyoko from Puella Magi eats a lot." Full stop, that's it, onto the next totally random and meaningless item on the list. It's not a very good writing resource, because it offers you no insight as to why this story-telling tool exists or why it is an enduring image, and thus why a writer might want to use it as visual shorthand for something or a character trait or whatever. It just says "this is a character who eats a lot" and leaves it at that.

It's just lists upon lists upon lists upon lists, with no context or reasoning. Everything that happens is a trope, everything that doesn't happen is a trope, and that's not including playing with, zigzagging, subverting, averting, inverting, perverting, whatevering tropes.

Plus the community is full of dopes who think that just adding together tropes makes a story or characters, like there's some kind of equation you can put together to make the next Great Gatsby. "Badass Longcoat x Deadpan Snarker / Bottle Fairy - Moe + Katanas Are Just Better + Woobie Destroyer of Worlds = Profit" or whatever. Character creation--writing in general--just doesn't quite work that way.

It just bugs the hell out of me, every bit of it. And that's just my writing-related pet peeves. We won't even get into the other kinds of disgusting shit they harbor and encourage in the forums.

Heh. If I took tvtropes that seriously I'd hate it too, because, yeah, characters and works cannot in any way be defined by the sum of their tropes and all attempts to do so set my teeth on edge because no, just no.

I just read it for the rush of gleeful "someone else noticed!" enjoyment of having my attention brought to various little random details and aspects I liked about a fictional work, or reading lists of examples of the usages of certain cliches and patterns (although argh it pains me when people reach pathetically hard to fit a trope to something that just doesn't fit.) ;) I do use tropespeak when referring to things that are used in a very noticeably trope-y manner though, especially fan reaction stuff like "Ron the Death Eater." That seems only logical.

I do still like their silly trivia-type pages, I won't lie. (And I still like the "Crowning Moment of Funny" pages, because I am very very very easily amused.)

Tropespeak can occasionally be helpful if there's a term like "Ron the Death Eater" that might take a few minutes to explain what you're talking about. But I hate it when people try to sum up a story or a character with random TVTropes lines that don't even apply. @_@ (Like you said, when people reach really hard to fit a square peg into a round hole. ARGH.)

Yeah, it's my go-to for fun trivia and Crowning Moment of X and that sort of thing. Not character analysis :D I just get a kick out of reading descriptions of scenes or plot threads I loved. It's pure indulgement, ngl. Like the non-personal version of squeeing with your friends because "omg do you remember that??"

TVTropes is good for pure indulgence. As that anon pointed out a few lines down, it's perfectly fine when taken that way--not seriously or anything.

But the community that maintains it does take it really freakin' seriously and does pass it around, recommending it as a writing resource, and that does bug me a lot! Does that make sense?

Oh yeah definitely. As a writing resource? No...just...no. It'd be like a refresher course on how to pander without coming up with substance.

Yeah, definitely.

The really weird thing about TVTropes--no matter what you use it for, silly trivia or a writing resource--is that it sometimes makes people think "this is writing? Pfft, I could do this with my eyes closed, if that's all it takes!" and then run with that idea.

I like the nightmare fuel page, even if I have to roll my eyes at few of those "nightmare" examples. But my favorite is the pokemon one. Cause much of that IS a sudden fridge horror type deal cause you may have missed that when you were a kid.

Like the Haunted Mansion in Platinum. The antidote you find...is in the trashcan in the kitchen....where in the dining hall there are ghosts.

O_o

Hooray!

It's like all the Something Awful forums regarding the site condensed into an eloquent conclusion and without the hate and mocking.

story of my life

Like the other anon said, yeah, you put it all into words perfectly.

Full stop, that's it, onto the next totally random and meaningless item on the list. It's not a very good writing resource, because it offers you no insight as to why this story-telling tool exists or why it is an enduring image, and thus why a writer might want to use it as visual shorthand for something or a character trait or whatever. It just says "this is a character who eats a lot" and leaves it at that.

What.

Tvtropes's purpose is not being a "writing resource" or for explaining enduring images or deep character traits and metaphors. It's for, exactly as you say, listing random things about a character. Full stop. That's exactly it. It never has pretended to be anything but random lists of traits and narrative devices. That's what people use it for. Only fools would use it as a writing resource. It's...it's like you're criticizing Ocean's Eleven for not being Casablanca.

Just chill. I assure you that very few people take it as seriously as you do. And if they do take it that seriously, well, they're probably too dumb to grasp any deeper meaning to a character than "eats a lot" anyway.

Fair enough, but it did start out trying to be one, many many moons ago, and a lot of people on its forum use it as a writing resource, recommend it to others as one, and so do the people who run it. The admins seem to think that they're actually kinda academic and stuff.

A trivia page is perfectly fine. I like stupid and meaningless trivia. But as long as it's honestly stupid and meaningless trivia, and not trivia poorly attempting to masquerade as a writing resource.

"Tvtropes's purpose is not being a "writing resource" or for explaining enduring images or deep character traits and metaphors."

I've seen at least one mod say that it totally is, along other forum regulars. They only stopped claiming that (in the forums, at least), when someone pointed out why it wasn't academical.

(I can't find the thread. It was during the whole purge thing, where one user started a topic asking where TV Tropes was headed and what it wanted to be, if academic or not, and a whole argument ensued where the final decision was that, nope, not analysis, but in, for example, FastEddie's appeal to Google when they withdrew their ads, and in other sites when playing damage control, he and other mods have claimed that TV Tropes has value because it can be used by academics as a source.)

"Tvtropes's purpose is not being a "writing resource" or for explaining enduring images or deep character traits and metaphors."

Tell that to, pretty much all the forum goers in the Writer's Block forum. Ha.

"I assure you that very few people take it as seriously as you do."

Yes, it's only a few, but it's the few that put in their weight every time policies and major edits and such are brought on, so when people point out -like you correctly did just now- that they're just lists upon lists and serve no academic purpose they either insist that it totally is and backpedal when they realize that they're caught.

I liked tv tropes pre-natter policy much better. I mean, I can understand why they want to limit conversation, but it was so much more fun and interesting to read the pages.

These days, I just stick to the headscratchers, which is the only place where discussion takes place. And maybe YMMV, because that's more interesting too.

Me too, actually. It beat the lists of lists of lists.

Finally! Someone else who feels this way!!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2142 ]

+1

my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: my various beefs with tvtropes, a novel

Re: +1