Trope Idea Sounding Board

I was thinking of possibly creating a draft for parodies of Furby, but I'm not sure if it's Too Rare to Trope or not. I only have three examples currently:

• The titular toy from Tattletail

• The Chattermax toy from Bluey

• Fuzzy from The Amazing World of Gumball

back lol

I think Justified In Universe Musical is worth a shot if you can easily explain how the tropes are different; I think they are, if I'm understanding your idea correctly.

Ehhh, yeah, that might be a little too rare to trope, but no harm in giving it a shot.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I've been thinking of making a work page for "The Death of Koschei the Deathless" and I stumbled upon a possible trope that if it'd exist would be a fit and would make it possible to fix up the description for "The Homunculus of Maimonides", which I hate. My problem is that I don't know how to define the trope beyond that it juxtaposes nearly complete destruction and rejuvenation/immortality/doesn't-stay-deadness.

The main examples are:

• In Egyptian mythology, Set murders Osiris, cuts him into pieces, and spreads the pieces all across the land/world. Isis retrieves them and reconstructs Osiris. He lives only for a short bit, but then goes on to be the God of the Afterlife.
• Depending on the version of Medea's tale, Medea has Pelias's daughters cut him up so she can boil the flesh and rejuvenate him. It's either all a trick, or she simply refuses to perform the final rites as she'd previously done with a ram and Dionysos's caretakers. (Note: entry should probably also mention Aeson's resurrection by blood rejuvenation and compare Pelias's death with the murder of Absyrtus.)
• One legend regarding Virgil has him try to gain immortality by getting killed, cut up, and boiled for some time. He only tells his assistant, who also is to ensure that nobody disturbs the pot before the proper time or the whole process will fail. But then on threat of torture the king demands the assistant to tell him where Virgil has gone to and he goes to check on the described pot, thereby unintentionally killing Virgil.
• Same legend supposedly exists for Paracelsus. Haven't tried to look for a direct source yet.
• "The Homunculus of Maimonides" uses the same "don't disturb before the time's up"-plot.
• In "The Death of Koschei the Deathless", Ivan gets chopped into pieces and put in a barrel. His brothers-in-law learn of this, find him, put the pieces back in human shape, and sprinkle it with the Water of Death and the Water of Life to get Ivan back on his feet.

So the traits here are a kind of destruction only one step below Kill It with Fire, the promise of "more life", and Heal It with Water (or at least a fluid is involved). The outcome can go multiple ways. It's not Frankenstein's Monster, because it's a resurrection rather than a creation. It's not We Can Rebuild Him, because there's no tech involved. And it's not quite Came Back Strong, because that's about a specific result rather than the process. Matter of fact, I think that "my" trope here is more "the fantasy counterpart" to We Can Rebuild Him (which is also about bodily destruction) than "Came Back Strong", which seems more like a supertrope to both.

Going with that and easing up on the specifics of the process, other examples would be "The Jigsaw Corpse" (60s short horror comic), in which a rebel is killed and chopped up only to get reassembled into a zombie to finish his vision, and if not the baby birds from the Grimm's "The Four Skillful Brothers" then at least the eggs, which get sewn back together to prove the youngest brother's skill as a tailor.

I want to know if this all seems about right, particularly the (potential) relation to the other tropes and the extent the specifics of the six main examples should be eased up on to get a more viable trope.

(For example, DC's the Patchwork Man is a Frankenstein Monster, but he's not new. He's the resurrected form of Gregori Arcane, but since his body was blown up what was left was repaired with spare body parts his brother had lying around. It doesn't quite fit with the other examples, but it would fit as a fantasy counterpart to We Can Rebuild Him.)

I think I might have an example... I'd have to reread to check the details, but there's a demon, he was defeated, his skeleton was hid in one location, maybe other body parts elsewhere? (This is the detail I'm unsure on.) He finds his skeleton (being a spirit or something at the time) and recombines with it.

So it's about someone gets mutilated (either it kills them, or it is done after their death) and then gets put back together to be resurrected?

It'd be a subtrope to Back from the Dead, at any rate

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

I have a notion swishing through my head. An audience reaction "trope" that would be called "Accidental Representation" (working title). Basically, it's when a creator accurately depicts a certain demographic, usually in a positive light, without even trying. And sometimes does a better job at depicting the demographic in question than creators who are actually trying. The difference with Accidentally-Correct Writing would be that Accidentally-Correct Writing happens when the creator is trying to depict the demographic in question, doesn't do any research (or deliberately takes Artistic License on the knowledge they do have) for whatever reason, but still gets things right. In "Accidental Representation", the trying part isn't even there.

Generic cases of the trope:

• A LGBT Fanbase induced by accidentally getting LGBTQ+ experiences right with a character who was never meant to be LGBTQ+.
• Readers/viewers living with named and diagnosed disorders recognizing themselves in an Ambiguous Disorder (may incidentally be an extra means to clean up that trope).

Specific cases:

• Stand Still, Stay Silent: Lalli's Ambiguous Disorder lands close enough to the milder/Asperger Syndrome end of the autistic spectrum that many readers on the spectrum have reported finding him relatable.

[I saw 2-3 occurences of the following idea in the comments of a single video review, so I have no idea if this is actually shared by a significant portion of the work's fanbase]

• My Next Life As A Villainess All Routes Lead To Doom: The work is a standout of the Harem Genre due to the harem being of mixed sexes with a fairly balanced ratio (four men and three women), rather than being made out of a single sex. The men and the women are on about equal standing as potential partners for the female protagonist, who, while engaged to one of the men, spends a lot of time admiring the beauty of both the males and females within her circle of friends. Bisexual people among the audience have found the work to be a surprisingly tasteful depiction of bisexuality.

Edited by Nazetrime on Jun 9th 2020 at 6:21:48 PM

You get Accidentally-Correct Writing wrong. It's whenever the writers get some facts right without researching, i.e from pure guessing.

But more importantly, your concept sounds like the underlying idea behind the "What Do You Mean, It's Not X?" stuff... Like, you could name it "What Do You Mean, He's Not LGBTQ/He Doesn't Have Autism" and people will get it the same.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

To be sure we are on the same page:

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Trying to depict X without knowing anything (eventually very little) about X, but getting a few things right despite this; by the way, the Artistic License bit was from the Accidentally-Correct Writing page itself, so it may need to be removed from the description if it has nothing to do with it in reality.
• Proposed trope: accurately depicting X despite not even having it in mind while writing.

Otherwise, I did bring the idea here because it struck me as something that had a 50-50 chance of being a good or bad idea. While I appreciate the feedback, I don't feel like I've gotten a clear answer on wheter I should give it a try or let go of it yet.

Edited by Nazetrime on Jun 11th 2020 at 4:53:48 PM

It sounds interesting, but is it distinct enough?

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The latter sounds like too much extrapolation and, um, Fan Wank.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

I'm not sure if "X is a positive/accurate representation of Y subgroup" is really something noteworthy. But then again there's a lot of Audience Reaction and YMMV pages that I personally find irrelevant.

Edited by Adept on Jun 12th 2020 at 1:53:20 AM

I guess it's worth a shot; most audience reaction drafts get bombed for being complain-y, so this one wouldn't have to worry about that as much.

Is a trope on "intentional mess making" viable? I asked about it at Trope Finder and the only response was someone giving the query a thumbs up, so I think it has some support, but my examples range from "making an intentional mess to get someone else in trouble", "making a mess to force someone else to clean it", and "making a mess to get yourself into trouble" so if I'd need to narrow it down (maybe to, say, Malicious Mess Making) I could probably do it but I'd lack more than two of examples of it (and one of them the character isn't even malicious but just kinda dumb and trying to force the other character to be honest with his love interest, smashing glasses when he knows the other will be blamed for the mess but otherwise not being a jerk during the scene).

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Perhaps "Purposeful Mess Making" would be better? One can make a mess out of anger for one.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Right; though that seems a little redundant with Percussive Therapy or Tantrum Throwing. Then again, intentionally messing something up out of spite or anger is a bit different than just doing it for catharsis...

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

This is slightly different, but with the renewed interest in cleaning up the big tropes I think it worthwhile bringing up.

Back in mid-2019 I proposed we create a new namespace for attention to detail in movies and games, largely spurred by the fact that Developer's Foresight and The Producer Thinks of Everything have suffered from decay and shoehorning which I feel is at least partly due to the absence of said space.

Yes, no, maybe?

So here's a question I asked in TF and got no response, but is there a trope where people use psychic powers to heal another person's mind?

Basically it's an inversion of Mind Rape and (possibly) the psychological equivalent of Intimate Healing or Intimate Psychotherapy if the psychic connection between the "healer" and the "patient" is deliberately reminiscent to intercourse (which is not always the case).

IIRC, I'm pretty sure there's a branch of magic in Harry Potter that deals with that exact form of healing, but the wiki says nothing about this.

Edited by Adept on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:42:43 AM

Like, what kind of detail?

I know "gushing over the details" is an impulse for us, but I want to know the limits as well.

You mean something like curing mental disorders, or at least treating depression, with mind control?

That sounds like a good concept, but sadly I've never seen any examples, or if I did, I might've forgotten.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

The kind of details that enhance the game/movie but are ultimately unnecessary. They should be so subtle that most people never notice and only learn of them because someone else told them. So not things like Easter Eggs or really well done animation, but little facts like "In Inside Out Riley's sweaters are a reflection of her emotions" or "If you wear sunglasses in first person in GTA V your view actually gets tinted".

Edited by BreadBull on Jun 12th 2020 at 3:43:26 PM

i checked in Trope Finder to see if we have this one and the responses suggest that we don't. i think there's a trope here, but the only examples i have off the top of my head are from The Elder Scrolls, so i want to make sure it's not isolated to that.

Bottle from Nowhere: When crafting a potion, no bottle is needed to store it in. A bottle magically appears to hold a new potion, and just as magically disappears when the potion is consumed.

Probably Just Add Water

...How are those not Easter Eggs?

Edited by 4tell0life4 on Jun 12th 2020 at 5:28:33 AM

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Ignore this one

Edited by 4tell0life4 on Jun 12th 2020 at 5:27:36 AM

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Because...Easter Eggs are meta-references or gags that have nothing to do with the story?

no, an Easter Egg is any hidden detail that usually wouldn't be noticed unless you were specifically looking for it. those are still easter eggs.

e: the GTA one is Developer's Foresight, not an easter egg, my bad

Edited by ChloeJessica on Jun 12th 2020 at 11:46:43 AM

Well, after some Internet research it seems that half the web uses Easter egg to mean anything hidden while the other half uses Easter egg only when they're gags or extras or bonuses. Frankly I think if it enhances the work, even if it's subtle it should not be called an Easter egg - that seems to invite a can of worms on at what point does detailing become "hidden bonus" and I'm not opening it.

The GTA Developer's Foresight thing is why I proposed the namespace in the first place though - by its definition on the page it should only be for ultra-rare actions or occurences that 1% or less of players would try. Putting on sunglasses has probably been done by like, everyone who plays the game in first person.

I’ve got an idea, but I can’t find any example for it besides this one.

Rarer Than They Think, a YMMV sister reaction to Older Than They Think and Newer Than They Think about things the fandom thinks happen more than they actually do.

• Example: In the Ultra Series, the term “Ultrawoman” to refer to female Ultras has happened only twice in the main canon, in the form of Ultrawoman Beth and Ultrawoman Grigio, but 75% of female Ultra Series OCs on the internet use this name as the default term for female Ultras (the other 25% go by “Ultragirl”).

If you want to take this to the TLP you’re completely allowed to.