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Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012
... Hooboy.

The Handle posted:

Nerdcore Gym: Insanity?

I brought this here because I didn't know where else it fit... except maybe Yack Fest, but the lack of focus over there is not something I enjoy much.

I was listening to some fast-paced metal, and it got me really pumped up, and I thought to myself: "This is some really Hot-Blooded stuff, much more engaging than the usual pop songs they use in Spinning classes and as background in gyms. What if... what if there was a gym that built upon the martial, passionate fiction nerds so enjoy, and especially the music thereof, and leveraged those intense emotions for the sake of training the bodies?"

But then my Inner Critic was like "Nerds are stereotypically lazy and uninterested in physical exertion."

I replied, "They probably just don't find the type of incentive they get in their other activities. But nerds can get furiously passionate about the stuff they're good at. It's all a matter of managing incentive and reward... I think gamification is the key word here."

My Inner Critic wasn't impressed: "You've used apps that offered to gamify exercise and dieting for you; that didn't work out very well, did it?"

"It was tedious, entering every meal. Especially when they were varied. Same deal for walking and biking distances."

"See? Without the help of a personal trainer, or at least one that's dedicated to a small group, you aren't going to push yourself into doing it."

"Well, it might be a bit more expensive, but with the right kind of personnel and focus, I definitely think that a gym specializing in putting nerds into shape could be a thing. Also, I'd love to push weights to the sound of Rap is a Man's Soul"

"You can already do that by yourself."

"Wearing headphones in the gym is such a pain."

"Wear small earphones like normal people do."

"But then the bass just doesn't feel right!" I protested. Then I went on... "Aaah, can you imagine, a spinning session opening with Flight from the Man of Steel OST? A mountain section to the military beat of Kiryu Ga Kill, or rising up a steep slope to the triumphant Be A Man, all together going "HO!" and "HAH!" at the right times? How about an endurance area to the sound of Django Unchained's Freedom? An then, for the last, relaxing stretch, Continued Story?"

My Inner Critic managed a "Just take a static bike and program this stuff yourself, idiot."

So, what do you guys think? Can we nerds exploit our own little passions and daydreams to make our bodies stronger and healthier? Can we exploit our other competences (research, programming, planning) to make the best out of the money and time spent?

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Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat
"Man, radio pop is so shallow and commercialized. I listen to the real stuff, like anime and video game soundtracks."

Also, gyms have the shittiest sound systems, so I'm not sure why he'd decide on that as the cornerstone of his project in the first place; there's no way that any decent pair of headphones (or even earbuds, if they're the earplug kind) wouldn't sound better, regardless of his protests.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 20, 2014

RunningIntoWalls
Dec 8, 2013

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Also, gyms have the shittiest sound systems, so I'm not sure why he'd decide on that as the cornerstone of his project in the first place.

When your theme song starts in the background, blaring and annoying the rest of the patrons, nothing will stop you from using the weight bench with 500+ pounds on it despite your struggle to lift even the one pound weights. Because you are obviously the hero and the rest of the jocks will be humiliated by your intelligence and now your strength.

I like this quote from that thread if only for the vivid image I got when I read it.

quote:

On the plus side, it'd mean a few basement behemoths are less likely to have their hearts explode before they hit thirty. On the minus side, nerd groups (particularly anyone deep enough in to give a drat about nerdcore) aren't well-known for sharing, so everyone else might have to write one of their local gyms off.

RunningIntoWalls fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Mar 20, 2014

The Vosgian Beast
Aug 13, 2011

Business is slow

It's nice to see Ulillillia's extended family branching out.

Swan Oat
Oct 9, 2012

I was selected for my skill.
You know what would make the gym better? If everyone was made to listen to Dragonforce at ear splitting volume!

tacodaemon
Nov 27, 2006



Sham bam bamina! posted:

I'm pretty sure that both take their nicknames from the WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker, actually. :rolleye:

(He got it as a race car driver before the war, but flying is what he's remembered for.)

Also, the nickname Fast Eddie became even more popular in the U.S. starting in the '60s because of the main character in "The Hustler" (played by Paul Newman in the 1961 movie and the 1986 followup "The Color of Money").

Thinky Whale
Aug 2, 2012

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Fry.

This sounds exactly like a stilted translation of something written in a different language.

Elfface
Nov 14, 2010

Da-na-na-na-na-na-na
IRON JONAH
The only thing he's read for the last 5 years is subtitled anime, you see.

Improbable Lobster
Jan 6, 2012

"From each according to his ability" said Ares. It sounded like a quotation.
Buglord

Elfface posted:

The only thing he's read for the last 5 years is subtitled anime, you see.

"This is some really Hot-Blooded stuff, much more engaging than the usual pop songs they use in Spinning classes and as background in gyms" sounds like a bad attempt at sounding like a Gurren Lagann character.

"This is some really Hot-Blooded stuff!"
   /
:c00lbutt:

The Vosgian Beast
Aug 13, 2011

Business is slow

Improbable Lobster posted:

sounds like a bad attempt at sounding like a Gurren Lagann character.

That's pretty much exactly what it was, given that Gurren Lagann is still kinda holy writ for the internet.

Cornwind Evil
Dec 14, 2004


The undisputed world champion of wrestling effortposting
It says a lot about the mindset of the TV Tropes site, which is all about being an academic research site to help with writing and understanding fiction you see, it's on the front page, has no or barely there pages about many kinds of famous works that have existed and potentially been studied for decades, yet already has a fully set up page with all the sub-sections that can show up on these pages at the top for Twitch Plays Pokemon Emerald a mere NINE HOURS SINCE THE PLAYTHROUGH STARTED.

Sometimes I think these people would be a lot happier if they'd just admit they're obsessive nerds who only really care about things obsessive nerds obsess about.

ungulateman
Apr 18, 2012

pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is

Cornwind Evil posted:

Sometimes I think these people would be a lot happier if they'd just admit they're obsessive nerds who only really care about things obsessive nerds obsess about.

Truth. There's a few pages of TV Tropes I actually don't mind reading in my downtime (That One Boss, Game Breaker, a few other game-related things), but the general wankiness and anime obsession of the rest of the site really needs to get off its high horse and embrace being nerdy poo poo for the sake of nerdy poo poo.

Hell, I can think of worse things than a site dedicated to (not creepy) anime/video games/fanfic with a casual mixture of shooting the poo poo and making semi-insightful remarks on the nerdy poo poo these people enjoy. That's pretty much why I come to Something Awful!

(although SA has a weird anti-fanfic culture which I still don't understand even after all this time. What happened to judging stories on their own merits rather than their medium? :psyduck:)

Soulcleaver
Sep 25, 2007

Murderer
Creator Backlash, Writer Revolt and Unwinnable are three pages I unironically enjoy. There's some cool stuff in TV Tropes that makes you wish the whole site could have that level of quality instead of jacking off to ponies, pontificating on childish anime series, and listing six hundred different types of rape.

Alpacalips Now
Oct 4, 2013
The MLB Baseball teams page is actually pretty fun and informative, especially for someone trying to get into baseball, or not too familiar with other teams. Links aside, it wouldn't look too out of place on a sports website.

Maybe the next spinoff page should be Sports Tropes, a collection of fun facts about sports, and their teams, players and records. I could get behind that.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

ungulateman posted:

(although SA has a weird anti-fanfic culture which I still don't understand even after all this time. What happened to judging stories on their own merits rather than their medium? :psyduck:)

The thing that makes fanfic different from most genres and media is that it actually has a couple of things inherent to it that limit its overall and maximum possible quality. First, it has zero filtering process and editors are in short supply, so Sturgeon's Law is in full effect. Second, you absolutely cannot make money in any way from it (because then someone's lawyer is going to pop round and say hi), which means that if your writing is good enough to earn you money, you've got a strong incentive to write original fiction instead.

End result? Fanfic is generally shittier than most other fiction, and the really good stuff (such as there is) tends to be merely OK when placed against original fiction.

Suspicious Dish
Sep 24, 2011

2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro
Fun Shoe
Fanfiction is also usually about fulfilling the creator's wishes rather than trying to make an interesting story.

Has this been posted here before? FiveThingsBand. Lists of random groups of five things. Example:

quote:

Fingers
  • The Leader - Index finger
  • The Lancer - Pinky finger
  • The Big Guy - Middle finger
  • The Smart Guy - Thumb
  • The Chick - Ring finger

Western Elements
  • The Leader - Quintessence/Aether
  • The Lancer - Fire
  • The Big Guy - Earth
  • The Smart Guy - Wind/Air
  • The Chick - Water

Ah, yeah, I suppose those labels make a bit of sense if you don't think about it too much.

quote:

The Vowels
  • The Leader - A
  • The Lancer - E
  • The Smart Guy - U
  • The Big Guy - O
  • The Chick - I
  • Sixth Ranger - Y

Uh...

(A lot of the groups also have this "Sixth Ranger". I have no idea why a FiveThingsBand has a sixth ranger)

quote:

McDonald's extra value meals
  • The Leader - Big Mac
  • The Lancer - Mc Chicken Sandwhich
  • The Big Guy - Quarter Pounder
  • The Smart Guy - Fish O'Fillet
  • The Chick - Chicken Mc Nuggets

uhhh....

Also, tropers appear not to be able to count:

quote:

The Four Cardinal Directions
  • The Leader - South
  • The Lancer - North
  • The Big Guy - East
  • The Smart Guy - West
  • The Chick - Center

Suspicious Dish fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Mar 22, 2014

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Suspicious Dish posted:

Fanfiction is also usually about fulfilling the creator's wishes rather than trying to make an interesting story.

I'd say that's more part of the abovementioned Sturgeon's Law problem. Blatant power-fantasies aren't exactly unknown to original fiction (for a particularly terrifying example, see the right-wing patriot fiction market with its army of Mary Sues decapitating Osama Bin Laden, killing George Soros with drone strikes, rehabilitating the SS, and so on), it's just that there's usually an editor or publisher around to say 'yeah, and have you thought about making this accessible to anyone else besides yourself?'. Fanfiction doesn't have that first because it's Internet-based, so zero barriers to entry, and second because there's no money in it, and editing is a boring and often frustrating job that it's hard to develop much enthusiasm for unless you're being paid to do it.

Fuego Fish
Dec 5, 2004

By tooth and claw!

Why is the quarter pounder the "big guy" instead of the big mac? Actually, more importantly, what the gently caress?

Miss Kalle
Jan 4, 2013

This avatar is lacking a certain something, don't you think? IT'S MISSING YOUR SCREAMS, TRANSFER STUDENT!

That's on their 'just for fun' page, where they basically post things that are meant to be funny and not taken seriously. Key words: meant to be. It actually comes across as pretty lame.

SuccinctAndPunchy
Mar 29, 2013

People are supposed to get hurt by things. It's fucked up to not. It's not good for you.

Suspicious Dish posted:

Sixth Ranger - Y

This quietly amused me and now I feel bad for understanding troper humour. This thread is ruining me.

A Fancy 400 lbs
Jul 24, 2008

Miss Kalle posted:

That's on their 'just for fun' page, where they basically post things that are meant to be funny and not taken seriously. Key words: meant to be. It actually comes across as pretty lame.

They claim to be an academic resource. What's the last encyclopedia or dictionary you saw with a "just for fun" page?

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

SuccinctAndPunchy posted:

This quietly amused me and now I feel bad for understanding troper humour. This thread is ruining me.
This quietly amused me, too... because I watched Power Rangers growing up. Don't stress too much, Tropers don't suddenly have a "claim" to the terms they reference with their tropes.

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

They claim to be an academic resource. What's the last encyclopedia or dictionary you saw with a "just for fun" page?
Cough cough

Suspicious Dish
Sep 24, 2011

2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro
Fun Shoe
Actually, would somebody mind telling me what this even means?

quote:

Mary Sue archetypes
  • The Leader - Purity Sue
  • The Lancer - Anti-Sue
  • The Smart Guy - Mary Tzu
  • The Big Guy - God-Mode Sue
  • The Chick - Sympathetic Sue
  • Tagalong Kid - Parody Sue
  • Sixth Ranger - Jerk Sue
  • Token Evil Team Mate - Villain Sue

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Suspicious Dish posted:

Actually, would somebody mind telling me what this even means?

You want a serious answer or not? I mean, I can provide one, but it would involve a whole lot of :tvtropes:.

The Vosgian Beast
Aug 13, 2011

Business is slow

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

They claim to be an academic resource. What's the last encyclopedia or dictionary you saw with a "just for fun" page?

A whole lot of problems could be solved if the moderation stopped pretending this was true. Because the lay-troper obviously doesn't give a gently caress.

Clochette
Aug 12, 2013

Suspicious Dish posted:

Actually, would somebody mind telling me what this even means?

I've heard of all these except Mary Tzu. Don't tell me "The Smart One" is an Asian Mary Sue.

My mistake, it's Tzu as in Sun Tzu.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
Mary Tzu is the perfect smart guy who can plan everything out perfectly. It's a dumb name but absolutely a type of character you see in badly-written stories with a large enough scale (think the strategists from Suikoden or whatever for an example)

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

The worst bit for me is that I have this horrible urge to debate which vowel fills out which team role... :cripes:

GEORGE W BUSHI
Jul 1, 2012

Clochette posted:

I've heard of all these except Mary Tzu. Don't tell me "The Smart One" is an Asian Mary Sue.

My mistake, it's Tzu as in Sun Tzu.

Ahhhhhhhh, Tzu doesn't even remotely rhyme with Sue. This is the worst thing TVTropes have ever done.

Suspicious Dish
Sep 24, 2011

2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro
Fun Shoe

Darth Walrus posted:

You want a serious answer or not?

Yes, I want a serious answer.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

Sebastian Vettel posted:

Ahhhhhhhh, Tzu doesn't even remotely rhyme with Sue. This is the worst thing TVTropes have ever done.

It's assonance, rear end in a top hat :colbert:

but yeah, it's really stupid.

Kaboom Dragoon
May 7, 2010

The greatest of feasts

Suspicious Dish posted:


(A lot of the groups also have this "Sixth Ranger". I have no idea why a FiveThingsBand has a sixth ranger)


It's a Power Rangers(/Sentai) thing: there's typically the five main characters, then there's this sixth one who shows up, usually out of nowhere. They'll be cool, mysterious, standoffish, usually they'll have more powerful toys than the heroes at that point. Kind of a jerk, but they'll do good at the end. They're the wild card of the group, and typically the one everyone flocks to (see: Tommy Oliver).

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Suspicious Dish posted:

Yes, I want a serious answer.

Righty-ho, you asked for it.

The Five-Man Band is a group format found in old Saturday morning cartoons, sentai shows and the like which tropers, being tropers, have shoehorned into drat near everything. A Mary Sue, meanwhile, is an unrealistically perfect character, often an authorial insert, given a disproportionate amount of influence in the plot. It's named after Ensign Mary Sue, the main character of a short Star Trek fanfic called 'A Trekkie's Tale' that poked fun of the vast numbers of these sorts of characters that cropped up in the fandom. TVTropes has a number of subcategories of Mary Sue, most of which were stripped of examples because tropers can't have nice things (a combination of Fast Eddie's aversion to 'bashing', the term's own loose definition, and the userbase's habit of shoehorning these tropes in everywhere, leading to gigantic and long-running flame-wars).

With that out of the way, let's look at the example you gave:

* The Hero: Exactly what it sounds like. The main character of the show and the leader of the group. Moral and upstanding, skilled in combat, and generally an all-round exemplar. Think Luke Skywalker or Optimus Prime.
* Purity Sue: The 'classic' Mary Sue. Just plain perfect, pure and wonderful, and everyone loves them for it. Imagine Jesus as a gay, pregnant elf. Works as the Hero because the Hero is generally the most perfect member of the Five Man Band, the role-model for the kids.

* The Lancer: The Hero's second-in-command and foil. They're both just as all-round awesome, and the Lancer gets almost as much screentime, but he usually plays off the hero in some way. If one's a brooding anti-hero, for instance, then the other is a happy bundle of fun. If one's a cowboy cop who doesn't play by the rules, the other likes to do things by the book. Think Han Solo, or Batman to Superman in the Justice League.
* Anti Sue: A Sue created with some self-awareness, but not enough. The writer realised that a Mary Sue character is bad, and decided that their character shouldn't be one, so they scraped off all the superficial elements whilst keeping the core problems of overpoweredness, excessive plot focus, or whatever. So, for instance, rather than being the most beautiful person on the planet, their megapowerful sorcerer is the ugliest person on the planet, and everyone hates him. Except all the cool people. And he ends up ruling the world anyway. Works as the Lancer because the Anti-Sue is opposite to the all-wonderful Purity Sue whilst still being a Sue.

* The Smart Guy: The brains of the operation. Often physically puny, but an amazing strategist and tactician or a genius scientist. Or both. Think Sokka from Avatar or Donatello from Ninja Turtles.
* Mary Tzu: The Mary Sue goes strategic. The Tzu (as the name suggests) is a perfect, unbeatable general - the sort of person who can defeat a millions-strong barbarian horde with a rubber chicken and a piece of string. Shows up a lot in alt-history books to represent the author's favourite country, which then proceeds to take over the world under his/her benevolent command. Works as the Smart Guy because his unrealistic perfection is chiefly intellectual.

* The Big Guy: The team's muscle. Good at hitting things. Pretty self-explanatory. Think the Hulk in the Avengers or Gimli from The Lord Of The Rings.
* God Mode Sue: A Sue whose field of perfection is omnipotence. Has all the superpowers, is generally unstoppable. Think Superman in the hands of a really incompetent writer. Works as the Big Guy because he's the most physical of the Sues.

* The Chick: The team's emotional core. Generally the only girl in the team (hence the name) because those old shows were just like that. Think Leia from Star Wars or April O'Neil from Ninja Turtles.
* Sympathetic Sue: The martyr-Sue. A Mary Sue given the most hilariously tragic, hosed-up past and/or present possible in a naked sympathy-bid for an inherently unsympathetic character. Bad YA novels have a remarkable number of these. Expect all the character's misfortunes to be because the villain was jealous of their perfection, and none of them to be the Sue's own fault. Works as the Chick because... well, it's either a shoehorn because the troper in question saw the word 'sympathetic' and thought that was enough for the team-member whose role is focused on empathy, or it's a cynical comment on how the Chick often has a bad habit of being useless and suffering nobly whilst the boys bail her out.

* Tagalong Kid: Exactly what it sounds like. Not actually part of the main team, just an audience-surrogate and viewpoint character for the kids back home.
* Parody Sue: A spoof Mary Sue whose perfection is played for laughs - the original Ensign would fit here. This character being the Tagalong Kid is a major stretch - I guess maybe because this character is a reaction to the previous Mary Sue archetype, it's younger? I dunno.

* Sixth Ranger: An extra wild-card character who joins the team late in the game. Often a reformed villain or otherwise dodgy soul, usually extremely powerful. Named for the original sixth Ranger, Tommy Oliver from Power Rangers, who serves as the archetypal example.
* Jerk Sue: A Mary Sue who is a complete and utter rear end in a top hat but is excused and even praised for it and never gets their comeuppance (because they're a Mary Sue). One of the most infuriating variants of the archetype. Rayne Summers from the (terrible) webcomic Least I Could Do is perhaps the purest example in modern fiction. Again, this one's a bit of a stretch, but the character's edginess may work with the suspect nature of the Sixth Ranger.

* Token Evil Team-Mate: Again, exactly what it sounds like. An outright villain who the team tolerates having around for... some reason. Think the inevitable baby-eating psychopath character in a Bioware game.
* Villain Sue: A Mary Sue... but EVIL! Put simply, this is the villain that the author is way too in love with, often to the point where they seem to forget that they're the villain. They're omniscient, omnipotent, and given way too much sympathy for their hideous deeds by the heroes. Think Sosuke Aizen from Bleach, Raoh from Fist of the North Star, or Red Hulk on his early Jeph Loeb run. Works as the Token Evil Team-Mate for obvious reasons.

Apologies for the spergin', but like I said, you did ask.

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Mar 23, 2014

Suspicious Dish
Sep 24, 2011

2020 is the year of linux on the desktop, bro
Fun Shoe
Thanks for the explanation!

Swan Oat
Oct 9, 2012

I was selected for my skill.
Thank you for not using anime examples, thank you for making it be something that 90s kids can get.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Swan Oat posted:

Thank you for not using anime examples, thank you for making it be something that 90s kids can get.

Yeah, I slipped up a little at the end there, but I couldn't think of many other mainstream examples of that sort of character, and I tried to go for two relatively well-known shows. In retrospect, I probably should have said 'Doctor Doom on a bad day'. Or, for that matter, a villain in a slasher franchise that's outstayed its welcome.

Swan Oat
Oct 9, 2012

I was selected for my skill.
Haha no it's cool, I actually was worried that your explanation would be unreadable anime garbage because so much of TVTropes is unreadable anime garbage, but fortunately all your examples were of childrens shows I used to watch as a child, in the 90s. I can't same I'm glad that I read it, but nonethless thank you for writing a clear explanation v:shobon:v

Lottery of Babylon
Apr 25, 2012

STRAIGHT TROPIN'

Here's an odd page I found: Franchise Original Sin.

The entire article posted:

A Franchise Original Sin is a flaw which in earlier, good installments was kept under control to the point of not really being a flaw, but which goes completely out of control in later, bad installments and brings the franchise down.

It's possible to Jump the Shark without having an Original Sin; take, for example, Moonlighting, which couldn't keep up the Will They or Won't They? any longer, and the point at which they did was the moment all dramatic tension deflated from the series. There was no Original Sin there, besides the Will They or Won't They?, which was part of what made the series work, so it doesn't qualify here.

Rule of thumb: if you can imagine a reboot without the element in question, then it qualifies. If you can't, then it isn't a Franchise Original Sin. Secondary rule of thumb: If it wasn't visible in previous good episodes, it's an rear end Pull or a Retool gone bad, not a Franchise Original Sin. Compare with First Installment Wins.

I'm not quite persuaded that this is really a thing, but hopefully the examples list will help clear that up.

quote:

Although it did save the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan started the trend of every Star Trek film being built around one particular villain (the major exceptions being IV, which doesn't have a villain, VI, in which General Chang is just the most visible member of a large conspiracy, and Star Trek: Into Darkness, in which Khan and Admiral Marcus are both villains on opposing sides) for better or worse. The failure of Star Trek: Nemesis had shown how worn-out the formula had become.

So the original sin (which wasn't even introduced until the second movie) is "there is a bad guy"?

quote:

Weather effects in Pokémon have been around since Gen II, but at the time of their introduction, Weather-based teams were not very popular because altering weather would only last five turns, and the effects were rarely worth the time spent setting up. Gen III introduced abilities, among which were several weather-related ones: Drought/Drizzle/Sand Stream, which caused weather effects that would last indefinitely until another move or ability was used to cancel them out; along with other abilities like Swift Swim that doubled certain stats in certain weather conditions. However, Drought/Drizzle were exclusive to two Legendary Pokemon that could not be used in most forms of competitive play, and sand stream was (at the time) weaker and harder to use than the other two, so this wasn't a huge issue. Gens IV and V, however, have since added even more weather-based abilities, moves and items, including giving Drought/Drizzle to non-banned Pokemon and introducing strong Sandstorm users such as Garchomp, Excadrill and Landorus. The result is the Gen V metagame is so dominated by weather teams a few of the larger Pokémon communities have had to place bans on certain Pokémon and combinations, and have even discussed banning weather (or at least weather-inducing abilities) outright. Game Freak nerfed weather abilities themselves in Generation VI, by limiting ability-caused weather to five turns, as a weather-altering move would do.

"A mechanic exists. In one of the zillion iterations of the series, a character/team that used that mechanic was overpowered. ORIGINAL SIN!"

quote:

Jeopardy! has frequently used categories with Punny Names, but starting in the 1997-98 season, almost every category has some sort of pun, almost to the level of Win Ben Steins Money.

:laffo: Jeopardy has grognards?

quote:

Metroid, after eight years in rest since Super Metroid, was revived with two well-received games, one of them being Metroid: Fusion. Despite the positive reception, a point of criticism from fans was its stronger focus on a story, it was even the first time Samus interacted with another character. This was seen as a turning point for the entire series to shift towards more plot-driven games, which may not have affected too much games like Metroid Prime 3, but by the time of Other M, it has become an important concern for the fanbase (particularly due to how the latter characterized Samus Aran).

I thought the problem with Other M wasn't the presence of a story but the way Samus was weak, blindly followed orders, and wouldn't activate harmless, useful abilities like "make my suit acid-resistant" until her boss gave her permission? None of those were present in previous games. The problem wasn't "a story exists".

Most of the list is like that. They'll see a man get his arm cut off with a sword, and say that really the problem was there all along because the man ate with a knife and fork at dinner, and a sword is sort of like a specific type of really big knife. Only one or two of the examples seemed like they were anything meaningful, and nothing on the page convinces me that "Franchise Original Sin" is at all a distinct concept worth considering.

And then there's this bit at the bottom:

The Real Life section posted:

A commonly held belief is that slavery was the original sin of the United States that was eventually dealt with in The American Civil War, however slavery continues to bedevil the "franchise." (This ignores several facts, among which are that slavery was not unique to North America, that it was not started in the New World by Americans or even by the English, and that many (white) Americans resented slavery from the country's founding and wished to do away with it even before America as we know it came into being.)

SLAVERY WASN'T REALLY THAT BIG A DEAL OKAY BESIDES OTHER COUNTRIES DID IT TOO WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS DETENTION WHEN BILLY WAS PASSING NOTES TOO

Lottery of Babylon fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Mar 23, 2014

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

TvTropes Pleads the Fifth: Imagine Jesus as a gay, pregnant elf.

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Lottery of Babylon
Apr 25, 2012

STRAIGHT TROPIN'

Audience Alienating Premise

quote:

While some shows fail just because they're bad, or because they weren't marketed much and people didn't know they existed, there are some that don't stand a chance in the first place. Not because they're terrible or badly done, and in fact they may be even fantastically done for what they are. But because the very concept scared people away.

It could be because of Squick. For example, An American Crime is a movie based on the real life torture and murder of a teenage girl at the hands of her foster mother and her children. Sound like fun? Most people don't think so, even if the movie is genuinely well-made.

Other times, it's because the concept is unique, but in a way that scares away audiences rather than growing on them. For example, Avatar: The Last Airbender , about kids and young teens going on adventures to save a fantasy world, is a hit with both kids and adults, due to the generally light tone and the complexity of the story, and a theme that has broad appeal. On the other hand, Peter Pan & the Pirates was by comparison a failure and was cancelled in less than 2 years. It featured young children going on adventures in a fantasy world, had complex characterization for the time, and took itself seriously and got quite dark at times. But instead of growing its audience, it shrunk it. Older kids think Peter Pan is beneath them, while younger kids would find the cartoon scary or intimidating (and it did have its share of scares).

This is the Audience Alienating Premise. An idea that could be cool and could even make a fantastic show, book, movie, video game or comic, and may very well have, but which instead dooms the work from the very start due to the mere concept alone being totally unapproachable to most people. Sadly, due to merely how it "sounds", many people won't try it out. In some cases, it might become much more popular in another country due to differences in tastes and Values Dissonance. In a reversal, attempts to mimic styles popular from other cultures comes off as too different for audiences to understand and appreciate. When the alienated audience is in another country, it's Americans Hate Tingle. Again, this usually happens because of Values Dissonance.

In some cases an oddball work is shunned on release only to become a Cult Classic, often being either Vindicated by Video or Vindicated by Cable.

Oh, I think I get what they're going for with this one. Like how There Will Be Blood is a great movie, but in the box office it was barely able to recoup the costs of its advertising campaign in the U.S. because a lot of people just aren't that interested in oil barons? Sure, I can actually get behind this-

The Examples section posted:

kiss×sis is an over-the-top harem comedy that goes as far as it can possibly go without actually being considered porn. The premise — boy's twin stepsisters have obsessive crushes on him — alienates a lot of people, but that's the least offensive by a fair margin. Blatant fanservice, shameless Playing To The Fetishes... going into too much detail would be a bad idea, so we'll just leave it at that.

...I agree, your incest softcore porn is probably of little interest to people who aren't interested in incest softcore porn?

Examples posted:

The manga Saikin Imouto No Yousu Ga Chotto Okashiinda Ga is about a girl who gets forced by a bi-sexual Cute Ghost Girl to wear a chastity belt and fill a "Feeling Gauge" attached to it regularly, mainly by doing things that are embarassing and involve her step brother, so a staircase in heaven can appear and allow the ghost girl to finally move on. Oh, should she refuse, she dies. And it's all played for pure Fanservice.

More examples posted:

Kodomo no Kodomo is an obscure manga about a young girl who gets pregnant... while she's still in elementary school. That alone should tell you why it's obscure.

It keeps going posted:

Rika is a manga about a middle school boy, Kazuya, who shares a bedroom in his family's small Tokyo apartment, with his younger sister, the titular Rika. Normal so far. Then we find out that Kazuya masturbates while his sister is changing, without her knowledge. Then we learn that Rika has romantic feelings for her brother, which they eventually confess to one another. It makes the Kissing Cousins plot that comes up later seem tame by comparison.

Please stop posted:

[THE ANIME THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED] is about a pre-pubescent girl who falls in love with her teacher, and acts overtly sexual to get his attention, which you wouldn't expect to do well in the US. It didn't get a chance to — it was canceled when the licensing company learned how bookstores and distributors would react: by canceling orders. Outside of Japan, owning something like this could theoretically get you thrown in jail. The US release was also slated to have the audience-alienating title of "Nymphet", which was requested by the author since Seven Seas couldn't use the original [translated] title of "A Child's Time".
* The series also deals very bluntly with touchy subjects such as incest/Wife Husbandry, sexual development in children, and hitting puberty abnormally early, which probably alienated readers even further.

Jesus posted:

The manga [THE OTHER ANIME THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED] is a story about a strapping young man who is tricked by elves into moving to another world, specifically so a 10-year-old succubus can have sex with him for the rest of his life. Trying to talk about it generally goes like this: "It's a story about a man becoming a surrogate father—" "Wait. Isn't that the one with the ten-year-old succubus?" "Yeah, but—" "Ten-year-old. Succubus."

:barf:

My mistake, it's an excuse to complain about the rest of the world not appreciating the ~artistic integrity~ of their pedoshit.

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