TV Tropes meta thread

This, a million times this.

Like it or not some people are going to be much more hyperbolic in these situations so arguing "but this isn't scary!" is pretty moot because that's exactly what subjective means.

Yes, I shake my head at some of the examples in "nightmare fuel" or "tear jerker" and whatnot but it's something that's subject to interpretation, and I find it even more annoying when someone just up and says "Well I think my interpretation is better than yours/yours is bad and you should feel bad". At least in the really inoffensive stuff.

That being said, I think some examples could use a rewrite in order to sound less, well, silly.

edited 9th Apr '13 2:03:59 PM by ThatOneGuyNamedX

Eh, let them be.

Personally, if those pages were formatted differently so that it was more like people submit...submissions to it, similar to how the reviews are here with their name showing and everything except easier on the eyes and without the ability to comment on them, rather than it all being anonymously jumbled together, I don't think I'd have as much of a problem with the content of them. I'd probably disagree with people's submissions, a lot, but then that's all they'd be—people's submissions rather than what posits itself as a definitive list of OMG!SCARY or OMG!ICRYD.

The fact that people seem to look so long and hard for the most horrifying, disturbing, nightmare-inducing shit in the most innocent of things (MLP being a prime example—Cupcakes notwithstanding, do people legitimately believe that the main characters are all suffering from severe untreated mental disorders?) is... Perturbing, to say the least. Is it some kind of backwards desire to pervert the things you love and defeat the purpose of you liking it in the first place (that is, people like MLP because it's lighthearted and funny, not a gorefest)? Or is it more like an Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory kind of deal whereby people get all paranoid that the creators are trying to sneak Fridge Horror into fluffy, lighthearted works?

Also, is there a trope for like a group of people whose personalities all somehow correspond to mental disorders—sort of like the Four-Temperament Ensemble and the Freudian Trio? Because the same thing was said about the Winnie the Pooh characters, and I'm starting to think people are able to diagnose a fictional character with just about any mental disorder, if Nightmare Fuel pages are anything to go on.

I think it's just people thinking too hard about these things.

I mean, overanalysis is fine, that's the foundation on which this site was built, but there has to be a point where you just look back and think, "What the hell am I even saying, and why?"

And there is Ambiguous Disorder...which used to be called "Ambiguously Autistic". Because apparently, every single character who demonstrates even a single symptom of someone who isn't 100% neurotypical must have autism or fall further on the spectrum than most people would probably logically classify them. I think someone once listed Phineas from Phineas And Ferb on there simply due to the fact that he is creative and seems oblivious to Isabella's crush on him. If that's all you need, then I think we could probably classify nearly anyone as autistic. But we don't. Because it is a pretty specific set of symptoms, which, granted, vary on a spectrum for how high- or low-functioning the person is, but still.

...ahem. [/soapbox]

Observations about this wiki...well we're pretty damn quick in putting up trope pages and sometimes you'd be surprised at what gets trope pages(like some flash game or internet reviewer). Maybe it's just me being used to Wikipedia giving certain internet reviewers a small paragraph, while Tv tropes seems more appreciative.

Regarding anime fans...it's not just that, but the similar tastes and awareness in anime as well. I know this is tv tropes, and discussions get more prominent(as well as being aware of what animes get released in what season, as well as scantalations), but it's still surprising sometimes. Like that one series you found one some long archive has the same fans. Then again, animes that get scantalated or subbed had to have had a sufficient fanbase, so it's still not "obscure".

Actually forget anime, it seems like there's a lot of overlap in interests. I'll frequently see the same tropers commenting on a variety of topics

edited 13th Apr '13 3:16:09 PM by blueflame724

Well, if on a character page a character has a ridiculous amount of spoiler tags, they're probably the villain.

And some obnoxious guy called This Troper is going around being obnoxious.

And the more popular a series, the more likely it is to have tons of shoehorned in examples. Like "Fluttershy is a Sassy Black Woman except not sassy or black."

But hey, there are people who like the stuff I like. And people who overanalyze stuff along with me. That's a community I can fit into.

On the other hand, if a villain has a ridiculous amount of spoiler tags, there is a high chance s/he will pull a Heel–Face Turn.

Not a lot of people follow our guide on how to edit pages.

People like to gush about how nice people are, which I find a bit repetitive after awhile

In the forums: Though people don't seem to do it as often lately, people tend to post in Absent People that they will be gone for the day, or even for an afternoon, or a few hours. As if that really mattered too much, considering how that's not really being absent so much as it is having a life.

And in the Romance thread, people tend either to be self-loathing or to gush about their partner in vague terms in a way that guarantees the next few posts will be "d'awwww" or something to that effect until the next person with issues comes in.

Also, I cannot seem to ever post in the Insecurities thread anymore unless I actually have some problems I need to dump off to be ignored because people here have tons of problems that I can't even process a response to—much as I would always like to post something potentially helpful or comforting, I seem to always be at a loss for words and feel like if I can't think of anything helpful or useful or something that sounds sympathetic or comforting rather than just the same old platitudes, then I just shouldn't post anything at all. I feel like just posting a generic response that offers nothing of value would just end up being frustrating for the other person, even more frustrating than the absence of a response.

Oh, and we seem to have a lot less garbage threads than we used to. You probably know the type. I was actually considering starting one the other day based on the worst pun I'd ever thought of, but I forgot what it was going to be.

What is a "garbage thread"?

If memory serves, you were the one who once wrote something along the lines of, "Going to the bathroom, be back in a few minutes."

I wrote it making fun of everyone else who was posting stuff like that. I didn't realize that everything like that needs to be tagged with "Sarcasm Mode" rather than just letting it be subtle.

(Wow, I'm really on edge tonight. Need to calm down.)

@Rosvo: Basically, a thread in which the title is something like "This is a pointless thread!" and the first post says "I just wasted your time." Basically, a thread that is meant as nothing more than a one-off joke that will be dead in a few minutes.

edited 14th Apr '13 1:49:24 AM by 0dd1

I know that feel. I would love to leave a detailed and sympathetic response for each person who posts in there... But I don't have that much wisdom to offer, and I hate leaving the standard messages of "I'm sorry about that" or "You have my sympathy". I frequently worry about posting in there because I have this idea that if I do, I have to reply to someone else's post in order to "return the favour" or feed the sympathy I received back into the thread. It takes its toll, man.

Also, the text in the quote boxes needs to be bigger.

Pretty much this. I also feel the need to try to "pay it forward", so to speak, but there's only so much one person can do. But, then, it's not impossible, I suppose.

For trope and work pages hard-split into subpages, the subpages deteriorate in terms of natter and indentation and duplicates faster than they do when they are folders on the main page. I don't know whether this is because they are larger or because they are separated.

Lightflame, third observation: Yup, that one is a massive problem. Fluttershy was once listed as a Deadpan Snarker; I think all of the Mane Six have been on Ensemble Dark Horse; the Dethroning Moment of Suck page had more than a season's worth of episodes listed when last I checked; and there's just miles and miles of character pages for people who may not speak at all but get tropes added on no real basis. It happens more the more popular a series gets, as you say.

Odd: Oh, that kind of thread.

How much trimming has been done since then?

Which page? The DMOS one grows (though it's in a far better state than it used to be since there are now several curators and it's on a tight leash). I just pulled some stuff about "Most ponies have their moments, e.g. Pinkie and Fluttershy" from DeadpanSnarker.Western Animation. Ensemble Dark Horse has been thoroughly trimmed by others and is now mostly okay. The character pages have not changed to my knowledge, but I don't look at them much so my knowledge is of course very limited.

Character pages. If they've got pages for, like, the background ponies, that's gotta go.

You mean the separate pages for the One Shots, Common Background Ponies, Other Background Characters and Supporting Cast?

There are 23 FIM character sheets. Some of them are relics from before it was so split (e.g. the main Background Ponies page, which is now split into three pages, still exists with "generally shared tropes" but isn't as large as many), though.

what the actual eff

I wonder how big the Character Sheet page for Law And Order would be if it included every character that appeared even once in every episode.

Yeah, none of those pages need to exist. Cut them all.