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Do these idiots not get that you can enjoy something that isn't good? They constantly feel the need to justify what they like in the form of tropes. "Well, you might not think it's good, but my trope page on the subject shows that it's really sophisticated!" Watching films analytically doesn't mean that you have to give up the entertainment factor. Dumbasses.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:01
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Tiberius Thyben posted:I like how not only do they decide to compare themselves to writers, directors and academics, but they put themselves first. Also, "watching things critically". quote:Avatar film/book review by Aremnant 28th Jan 14 Yes, let's not criticize the film for its cliched plot or the whole White Man's Burden undertone it had going on - the film was fundementally bad because it had awful worldbuilding! Instead developing a story by focusing on an attempt to peaceably remove the (It only took me about a minute to find this review/analysis) Arcsquad12 posted:Do these idiots not get that you can enjoy something that isn't good? They constantly feel the need to justify what they like in the form of tropes. "Well, you might not think it's good, but my trope page on the subject shows that it's really sophisticated!" In nerd culture, any criticism is bullying. Stop being a bully.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:39
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Arcsquad12 posted:Do these idiots not get that you can enjoy something that isn't good? They constantly feel the need to justify what they like in the form of tropes. "Well, you might not think it's good, but my trope page on the subject shows that it's really sophisticated!" Tropers enjoy lots of terrible things.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:43
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Leofish posted:Tropers enjoy lots of terrible things.
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Jan 31, 2014 08:47
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Venusian Weasel posted:In nerd culture, any criticism is bullying. Stop being a bully. I think it actually does have a lot to do with another nerd thing. Namely video games and video game "journalism". Video games have been trying to be art for a long time. And not just the odd game in the Smithsonian or study done in the name of sociology. Games want to be as artistic as film, literature, and music. The problem here, is that all of those mediums have critics. Video games for the most part only have fans. And while these other mediums aren't perfect in how they handle social changes or representation there are always debates going on about what the medium is saying or what a specific piece is saying. Video games only have to be fun and empowering to the players, who are mostly 18-30 year old white men. When all your medium ever tells people is "blowing up stuff is fun" and "this loving bitch should shut up about video game sexism" you had better bring actual critique to talk about that. And you can't critique like that if your critics are all sucking dick for early access and promo copies. Also this tickled me from the worldbuilding chat: quote:• L Frank Baum (if I remember right) developed the land of Oz more as he wrote more books L Frank Baum would have made a phenomenal Troper. He wrote Oz because Alice and Wonderland didn't appeal to his dumb nerd logic. And outside of Oz he was mostly known for writing long diatribes about how the world would be better off if the US government had finished the job on the Native American genocide.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:12
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Arcsquad12 posted:Do these idiots not get that you can enjoy something that isn't good? They constantly feel the need to justify what they like in the form of tropes. "Well, you might not think it's good, but my trope page on the subject shows that it's really sophisticated!" Most nerd culture is based on a foundation on enjoying things because reasons, usually centred around a concept of 'depth'. We've all been told we shouldn't enjoy comics or cartoons or games or whatever, as a kid or an adult because they're stupid. Only thing is, Tropers have never really gotten over that. So they hammer home the point that these things are better because there's more layers to them. It's also where the anti-intellectual hate towards classic lit and things that aren't genre fiction stems from
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Jan 31, 2014 09:13
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Tropers seem to have infested the Rick and Morty thread.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:41
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Anticheese posted:Tropers seem to have infested the Rick and Morty thread. Have they made a whole set of fake pages for a show within that show yet?
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Jan 31, 2014 10:31
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Inspector Zenigata fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 10:32
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Leofish posted:Tropers enjoy lots of terrible things. Come on now, I'm sure a site built around examining the basis of storytelling loves good examples of its execution! Analysis: Hamlet posted:We don't have an article named Analysis/Hamlet Okay, that's unfair, the site skews young and nobody wants to write extra essays on stuff they had to read in school. How about something more recent, one with a ton of things to examine that also is all about people interfacing with entertainment? Analysis: Infinite Jest posted:We don't have an article named Analysis/InfiniteJest That one's a little inaccessible. But they like sci-fi, right? Analysis: Isaac Asimov posted:We don't have an article named Analysis/IsaacAsimov Well, books are always less popular. How about a TV series, one where you could spend tons of time examining how it uses storytelling motifs to be entertaining as hell? Analysis: Breaking Bad posted:We don't have an article named Analysis/BreakingBad Okay. Okay. The running gag is that all they care about is anime. There's anime series' that are famous for both ridiculous popularity among nerds and having ridiculous amounts of stuff to unpack. Maybe one of those... Analysis: Evangelion posted:We don't have an article named Analysis/NeonGenesisEvangelion Oh. I guess they just don't use the Analysis pages, then. Nothing really has anything- Analysis: Doctor Who posted:The Doctor (not "Doctor Who"), a Human Alien who travels through time and space. He started off as an Anti-Hero (or even Anti-Villain) but... gently caress tropers. Every single loving one.
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Jan 31, 2014 10:38
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Are we mining the Analysis/ pages again?Analysis: Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy posted:So why were the Stormtroopers in Star Wars such bad shots?  Well you see if you read the expanded universe novels then you'll understand that This is what tropers think literary analysis is. Lottery of Babylon fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 11:19
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Are we mining the Analysis/ pages again? The last paragraph really shows it. These people have no idea of dramatic tension or basic narrative technique. The reason the blaster shots hit Jedis is so they can deflect the shot and show that they are badass. Non-Jedis obviously don't get hit because they are heroes and can only get hit in dramatically appropriate moments. Its like saying "But why are you swordfighting on top of an active volcano?" This is what they do to analyze, and they don't even get it. If they can't grasp such basics, then how can they ever even try to get to something like subtext or context?
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Jan 31, 2014 11:44
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Are we mining the Analysis/ pages again? I know most tropers are young and that excuses some of this nonsense, but I don't understand how they can miss out on the very obvious explanation for why main characters only get shot or killed in dramatic moments. Lets take a movie I saw recently, Riddick. In it, the main character ends up with a dog. Established in the previous films is Riddick's ability to get everyone around him in massive trouble and tendency to be one of the few survivors in a situation. Still, he bonds with the dog. He spends a good thirty minutes of the film bonding with the dog. As an audience, we bond with the dog, too. Eventually the dog is killed by a mercenary as it tries to defend Riddick's life.] Avenging the death of a friend is a pretty powerful motivator. It's a good way for the audience to firmly start rooting for Riddick despite him being established as not much better than the bad guys, if not worse. In fact, you can very easily tie this analogy in to Star Wars, and many other pieces of fiction out there. I don't consider the movies literary masterpieces and I was able to do some very basic analysis. Let's take a look at what TVTropes thinks!: "Black Comedy Rape" "Scary Black Man"
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Jan 31, 2014 12:20
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TVTropes Analysis Page: Subverted, tropers don't know how to critically analyze anything.
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Jan 31, 2014 12:22
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"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."
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Jan 31, 2014 12:46
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Genius Bonus posted:For the literary player, in Skyrim, finding a copy of the book Palla will induce either grimaces of shock or squeals of delight when they recognize it as a corruption of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. gently caress Tropers.
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Jan 31, 2014 12:54
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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."
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Jan 31, 2014 13:00
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I'm just sticking on the 'reviewer's infatuation with overworked analogies. Just in that one review we have:quote:- the characters were flatter than a medieval portrait as jumped on by Mario One of those bloody things would have been too many, because they're all about as deft as a left-handed painter painting with his right hand after it got caught in a mangle and had to be bandaged with a bandage because it was injured and anyway it wasn't his good hand, and about as funny as a dead dog with no sense of humour who doesn't know when to shut up. But FOUR of them? Did he overdose on Blackadder Goes Forth, or is there some other culprit?
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Jan 31, 2014 13:29
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Gonna go out on a limb here and say they're a big fan of Zero Punctuation. Try reading any of those in Yahtzee's voice and you'll see what I mean.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:45
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:Gonna go out on a limb here and say they're a big fan of Zero Punctuation. Try reading any of those in Yahtzee's voice and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, you're probably right. Mind you, when I try to imagine them in his voice, it immediately adds, 'Oh bollocks, I can't say that. I need some aspirin.'
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Jan 31, 2014 14:01
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In fairness, they're probably trying to keep it more worksafe than his usual output. Try putting in the odd 'poo poo' every now and then, maybe an occasional allusion about how he's not gay because he hosed your mum.
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Jan 31, 2014 14:14
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I thought Yahtzee was unpopular with them because he's a big mean critic who said Fast Eddie was a bad programmer, or something.
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Jan 31, 2014 14:52
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Every week the same handful of people would rush to his YMMV and Dethroning Moment of Suck pages to complain about how he offended America or ignored their pet issue, or something.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:09
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Sel Nar posted:gently caress Tropers. hahaha no it isn't! Here's the text if anyone else is curious. I guess "Palla. Pal La." is sort of close to "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta" but not really? And Lolita is about a child molester and that Skyrim thing is about a heroic woman who fought a monster?? Jesus Christ. That really is perfect troping though: recognize an extremely shallow similarity between two things and exclaim "deconstruction! corruption! I have read the first pages of Lolita and have clocked 400 hours in Skyrim, two things of similar quality. Behold my good taste."
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Jan 31, 2014 15:12
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Let's see what they have to say about the new show Rick and Morty.quote:The "Pregnant Jerry" scene will not in an episode nor will the Cthulhu one. quote:Before "Rick Potion #9" I would have said the same thing about the scene of Jerry shooting his gun at the creatures. quote:TC: Well I've been wrong about alot of stuff...Like I thought I was gonna have my second girlfriend for a long time...That didn't even last a year.  What the gently caress, troper.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:37
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ArchangeI posted:The last paragraph really shows it. These people have no idea of dramatic tension or basic narrative technique. The reason the blaster shots hit Jedis is so they can deflect the shot and show that they are badass. Non-Jedis obviously don't get hit because they are heroes and can only get hit in dramatically appropriate moments. Its like saying "But why are you swordfighting on top of an active volcano?" It's been brought up in these threads before, and you can observe it in wild nerds, but people like this approach fiction from a fundamentally different angle than you or I. A story, to them, isn't a writer weaving together ideas with head and heart to produce something that communicates those ideas. It's about the writer "discovering" something and then transcribing it, as if fiction exists in an alternate universe and the writer's chief function is that of a reporter. That's why you get tropers focusing purely on tangible details of a story instead of what those details are being used to say, and if they want to criticize a story, they can only do it by nitpicking the "logic." That's probably why there's so much loving emphasis on worldbuilding over storytelling there. 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."
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Jan 31, 2014 16:50
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:It's been brought up in these threads before, and you can observe it in wild nerds, but people like this approach fiction from a fundamentally different angle than you or I. They even have a sodding trope for it: the Literary Agent Hypothesis: quote:This is the hypothesis: I first saw that page a while ago, and it seems to be in the middle of some edit wars. The old page was pretty straightfoward, but from the amount of clarifying and direction-pointing and quibbling, sounds to me like there's some trouble in paradise over it: quote:This is a thought experiment that occurs in many fandoms — that the series in question is a Dramatization (even if it's from another universe). The theory goes something like this: While the fan accepts that what he is watching is a television show (or book, etc.), he theorises that the events portrayed happened. Essentially, the fan surmises that the film, TV show, or book (etc.) is a covert re-enactment or re-telling of real events for our education and entertainment. Fans will sometimes claim to believe this wholeheartedly, though this is almost always an exaggeration. Or, to sum up: the number of ways in which you can find an excuse to pretend that stories aren't written by actual people with more talent and work ethic than you is almost limitless.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:20
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I was going to talk about the hilarity of tropers missing the forest for the goddamn leaves while talking about Neuromancer or the REAL LIFE section of Steampunk (long story short, if it ran on steam it's obviously STEAMPUNK), but then I noticed this little gem at the bottom of the page.quote:Punk Punk quote:By period quote:By Genre (because that's totally different than by period) Because cyberpunk is cool, steampunk is cooler, so adding the word punk to whatever era you want will instantly make them awesome  . And I thought the word punk couldn't be any more played out.EDIT: Oh, and apparently the Flintstones are punk, remember when Fred was a burned out stonecutter trying to make his way in an uncaring world and reliving the plot of Neuromancer in the stone age? Same with Gilligan's Island. Don Gato fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 17:22
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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." Which reminds me of one of the best TVTropes writing advice-seeking threads ever posted. quote:So, at the end of Issue One of my current story, the main character has been injured by various fights with Mooks and also a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere. He then gets into a fight with the Big Bad (of issue one). My problem is that the main character doesn't have enough health potions to recover enough health to win this last fight. Furthermore, it's absolutely vital for the plot of future Issues that he win this fight, because he gets his Yandere girlfriend as a Random Drop at the end of the fight, completing the Battle Couple. So how should I fix the discrepancy?
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Jan 31, 2014 17:32
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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.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:02
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ArchangeI posted:If they can't grasp such basics, then how can they ever even try to get to something like subtext or context? They don't use subtext unless they're trying to mine for "naughty" jokes or signs of a non-existent romance in kids' cartoons/TV shows. Context, much like soap and their brains, they don't use at all.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:07
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Are we mining the Analysis/ pages again? A lot of them seem to have disappeared for some reason. I'm positive there was an Evangelion one a few years ago because I distinctly remember them going nuts over the implied masturbation scene. On that note, the game Serious Sam has a generic pistol that never runs out of ammo (and iirc never needs reloading) as your base weapon. All the weapons in the game have little one-paragraph descriptions and since the game is really tongue-in-cheek the pistol's description rationalizes the infinite ammo as the forces of good teleporting bullets directly into your gun as needed. There was at one point at least a page of troper analysis trying to rationalize this by tying it haphazardly to the rest of the story (all of which is just filler since the game is very direct about being a mindless silly run-and-gun fps).
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Jan 31, 2014 18:21
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Steampunk as a literary genre at least had an idea behind it: technology outpacing human ideologies. Setting it in the Victorian era helped show just how bad society could get in real life, and how much worse it would get with advanced technology. All Tropers see are gears and steam engines, none of the social commentary.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:21
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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." Alpacalips Now posted:That advice thread's a parody. It has to be a parody. e:f,b like a tragic orphan in the steam-grommet factory.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:25
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Runcible Cat posted:"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?" There is a good rule for steampunk and dieselpunk. If you haven't read London Labour and the London Poor, you cannot write steampunk. If you haven't read The Jungle, you cannot write dieselpunk. The -punk suffix means it is a derivative of the cyberpunk genre, focusing on alienation, rebellion, exploitation, technology, and corruption. Steampunk and Dieselpunk can also be used to explore globalization, imperialism, and industrialization. Tiberius Thyben fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 18:55
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Arcsquad12 posted:Steampunk as a literary genre at least had an idea behind it: technology outpacing human ideologies. Setting it in the Victorian era helped show just how bad society could get in real life, and how much worse it would get with advanced technology. The only steampunk anything I've read was The Difference Engine, which read like a William Gibson novel set in alt-history Victorian England, which makes sense since it was a collaboration between Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, and that was plenty punk. I was actually surprised, it had almost nothing to do with the usual GEARS, STEAM AND LORSHIP fetishism that every other steampunk work I've seen has, and I sure as gently caress wouldn't want to live in that universe. Speaking of which, their page on the Difference Engine was surprisingly sterile and stale. I didn't see anything, other than a bunch of tropes with no explanation of how the example fit the trope. I still have no idea what alternate history wank is supposed to be though, the examples just show how the world is different but not how England controls the world or whatever. EDIT:vvvv Pretty sure that most early steampunk was like that, seeing as it was pretty much just cyberpunk in the victorian age. That's what Wikipedia tells me at least, so take that with a massive loving grain of salt. Don Gato fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 19:02
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Arcsquad12 posted:Steampunk as a literary genre at least had an idea behind it: technology outpacing human ideologies. Setting it in the Victorian era helped show just how bad society could get in real life, and how much worse it would get with advanced technology. Did it originally, or was it originally a case of 'fantasy but with that cool Victorian aesthetic' and then people started taking it seriously? Genuine question, I'm not exactly au fait with the history of steampunk.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:04
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A lot of steampunk in general suffers from not remembering the fact that the guys in top hats with monocles were the bad guys. Like, the modern nerd steampunk aesthetic ignores the fact that the Victorian upper class were basically awful.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:18
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Darth Walrus posted:Did it originally, or was it originally a case of 'fantasy but with that cool Victorian aesthetic' and then people started taking it seriously? Genuine question, I'm not exactly au fait with the history of steampunk. Well Steampunk was coined in the 80s as a riff on Cyberpunk, which dealt with similar themes, albeit in a futuristic setting. Steampunk as a genre was inspired by late 19th century, early 20th century novels such as stuff by H.G Wells, where fantastical machines far beyond what was possible at the time were a focus. See books like The Time Machine, or 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. This stuff was all coming out while the Industrial Revolution was getting a second wind. With technological progress skyrocketing, works of speculative fiction showing the potential for new devices became popular. Fast forward to the 80s, where Steampunk as we know it today emerges. You take that same setting, and then change the intent. Rather than showing how these machines make the world better, you show how technology outpacing human social and moral progress can have disastrous consequences.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:20
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Arcsquad12 posted:Well Steampunk was coined in the 80s as a riff on Cyberpunk, which dealt with similar themes, albeit in a futuristic setting. Steampunk as a genre was inspired by late 19th century, early 20th century novels such as stuff by H.G Wells, where fantastical machines far beyond what was possible at the time were a focus. See books like The Time Machine, or 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. Since this discussion touches on cyberpunk, I encourage everyone to go out and read the Sprawl Trilogy and the short story collection Burning Chrome, both by William Gibson. They are the true cyberpunk poo poo, potent and uncut. Extra points if you purchase a copy from a used bookstore located down a dark alley that only accepts cash, as that is the second-most cyberpunk method of purchasing anything.(The first-most method is of course cracking into the publisher's network and stealing an electronic copy, but I don't want to get into  )
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Jan 31, 2014 19:28
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