Regalingualius posted:

Highlights since then include Quinn posting IRC logs from 4chan that proved it was all a set-up

WickedHate posted:

It's more complicated then that. The vast majority of people in the Gamergate movement were against the small minority doing bad things, and the 4channers themselves made it a goal to police people who went to far, and there's good evidence she faked being hacked along with at least a part of the hate.

WickedHate posted:

It wasn't a set up. She just took captures of people going "Okay, so we'll do X this way", or someone saying "Oh, I'm a minority and I don't like being used as a shield by them, so why not start a NotYourShield tag" to "prove" it was some sort of conspiracy. The kind of conspiracy she was absurd when directed at her.

quote:

Purely Aesthetic Gender
"We just got married, men and women are really different aren't they? But I don't see much difference between male and female Pokémon."
—NPC, Pokémon Black and White
In those RPGs where one can generate one's own characters, it is often the case that the sex of the character is a purely aesthetic choice, with no difference whatsoever in terms of in-game stats. In other cases, there will be a small difference in beginning stats, but no difference in terms of the maximum ability score that can be gained. Character stats aside, often the choice will also have minimal impact on the game scenario, perhaps affecting only the manner in which NPCs address the character. In games with romantic plots, taking this far enough leads to a Gay Option.

quote:

Of course, this is not necessarily negative, as gender differences can lead straight to Unfortunate Implications, such as males being stronger or females smarter by default. Of course, even in real life, males generally tend to be stronger in upper body strength and there are some areas of intelligence for which girls tend to be a little smarter (like verbal skills) and some for which guys tend to be a little smarter (like spatial intuition). But that's just on average, not things you expect to apply to every male or female.
In some cases, however, it comes across very clearly as the game expecting a male player and not bothering with other options. Most easily seen with romantic content - the same female NPCs, and ONLY female NPCs, will flirt with the main character regardless of how the player designed him/her.
See Game-Favored Gender as a reason game designers may do this.

quote:

Mega Man ZX's first game gives you a choice of two characters - a boy and girl, neither of which exist in the story at the same time and are more or less Distaff Counterparts of each other, each existing in their own little world. The dialogue for each is different - the boy is a Classical Anti-Hero while the girl is a Little Miss Snarker — but ultimately they play the same and have the same general story. The only differences are that the girl gets knocked back a little further but moves a bit faster, and one gender-specific mission, in which it's arguably better to play as the girl because she gets palette swapping and he just gets a usable item.
The sequel, Mega Man ZX Advent introduces minor gameplay changes and divergent backstories depending on which character is selected. This is likely because Grey is a male reploid, and Ashe is a female human, so the backstory compensates more for the race than the gender.

quote:

One of the bonuses of World of Warcraft's Purely Aesthetic Gender is that guys can create cute night elf babes (so as to have an attractive bum to stare at for hours on end) with no penalty. One of the problems is that this leads to not being believed if you, an actual female, claim to be so in chat.
Gender in World of Warcraft is not entirely purely aesthetic, as far as the story goes. Sergra Darkthorn admonishes male Horde against sexism, and NPCs at least tend to get characters' sexes right.
One rare example of NPCs reacting differently according to gender is a female quest-giver in Crossroads, The Barrens. Her initial greeting to a male character is a pointed reminder that Thrall enforces equal opportunity for females in the Horde and that she expects you to respect her accordingly. Her initial greeting to a female character is simply that she is glad to meet more female heroes of the Horde. However, she still gives the same quests either way.
Maybe the only other two examples is in Razor Hill, where a female Goblin questgiver will hit on male players, but will act very jealous of female players and warn them not to try and pick up the guys she wants. Also, the Goblin starter zone assigns the player a boyfriend or girlfriend, depending on their gender, while the other tends to function as some random jerk that hangs around (you end up killing both of them anyway).
The PAG also leads to the amusing Les Yay of a Succubus' Seduce spell working just as well on all women. Everyone Is Bi?
A Succubus' attractiveness is supernaturally augmented, thus making the Seduce spell when used on women an Invoked mix of A Wizard Did It, Even the Girls Want Her, I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! and magically-induced If It's You, It's Okay. After all, even if All Men Are Perverts, it's unlikely a man would just flat-out stop fighting in active combat without some supernatural influence. The spell working on women is only a little more implausible than it working on men.

Regalingualius posted:

Quinn's ex posted a list of dirty laundry about their relationship, including allegations that she slept around with other guys, one of whom happened to be a contributor to Kotaku. Gamers being the rabid misogynists they are, they dogpiled on her and claimed she was one of the main reasons for the corruption of gaming journalism*.

Yes, this is all exactly as pathetic as it sounds.

Highlights since then include Quinn posting IRC logs from 4chan that proved it was all a set-up (with channers then posting them in their entirety to try discrediting her ), right-wing blogs trying to get in on the action to sway gamers over to their POV, and some movement to have a mass exodus from 4chan.

*Side note: the guy she was alleged to have slept with never wrote any reviews for her game.

Samurai Quack posted:

they made it sound like she had 100% slept with a reviewer in exchange for positive press.

SuccinctAndPunchy posted:

while the gamergate thing is largely stupid bullshit I'm kinda curious how this works out given that 4chan is an image board and not an IRC channel of any description.

WickedHate posted:

It's more complicated then that. The vast majority of people in the Gamergate movement were against the small minority doing bad things, and the 4channers themselves made it a goal to police people who went to far, and there's good evidence she faked being hacked along with at least a part of the hate.

Squidster posted:

Did Sarkeesian fake the bomb threats as well? Don't be that guy. Nobody likes that guy.

Nintendo Kid posted:

4chan posters told people to go to an irc channel, somehow expecting noone who disagreed with them would also go to the same publicly announced open irc channel.

WickedHate posted:

I'm not being that guy. I'm not even a guy! I said some of it. And again, even the people from the chatlogs she got(from an open, totally visible IRC) were discussing on how to stop people going too far.


Because nothing was being hidden in the first place.

quote:

Sacred Cow: Although the disallowing of YouTube comments on her videos might suggest that she's preventing more Internet Backdraft, there's a substantial amount of people who believe that she has done all she can to shield herself from any criticism whatsoever. Her fans and those who agree with her messages and use her videos as a means to start discussions seem to also not be able to stand when the discussion turns to her, her style, and her fact checking on her videos. Even Constructive Criticism can be met with substantial Fan Dumb. This is actually justified, as there have been several counter videos to her "Tropes vs. Women" videos that not only have this kind of Internet Backdraft to them, but also highlight some comments that they have received from Anita supporters that have been just as bad of a Backdraft when the videos have been constructive. Any attempt to bring up her Bayonetta video, her college thesis, or her TED conference speech, is met with the same amount of Fan Dumb. Some fans do focus on the extremely bad of the Internet Backdraft to raise support for deletion and/or silencing of any criticisms about Anita. This includes, but not limited to, accusing anyone asking about her thesis and/or other videos of being a Sock Puppet.

Strategic Tea posted:

I don't have any of this poo poo saved in my bookmarks to link back to you, but there was good evidence back in the thread that Zoe emotionally abused her boyfriend, deliberately sicced her twitter army on people she didn't like, and sabotaged charitable fundraisers that threatened to steal her limelight.

The ~gaming community~'s response was ridiculous as usual, but there's definitely a nasty, incestuous clique among indie devs that's happy to whitewash the whole thing as another ' victims of internet misogynists' narrative.

As for games journalism itself, oh my god who loving cares

Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman posted:

Nearly Played Straight in EPCOT Center's World of Motion. A scene in the attraction had guests pass a used car lot with a salesman chatting up customers. As an in-joke, the designers originally intended to use the Richard Nixon face mask from the Hall of Presidents for the salesman, invoking this trope nearly fifteen years before the Trope Namer. However, CEO at the time Card Walker had ties to the Republican party, and management was afraid that he wouldn't be amused seeing Richard Nixon the Used Car Salesman in the attraction. Nixon was eventually added to the attraction, though in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in the Egyptian scene.

Manga: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind posted:

Armour Is Useless: Subverted and played straight. Various armor are demonstrated to be capable of holding up under direct hits from rifles and machine guns at various points in the manga. OTOH, an Ohmu shell blade will cut through ceramic armor like cardboard.

quote:

Intimate Healing: Nausicaä saves a Torumekian soldier who was poisoned by the miasma by taking the poisoned blood from his lungs via mouth-to-mouth.

Samurai Quack posted:

So are all presidents just action heroes then?

Chromius posted:

Improbable Lobster posted:

Zoe being a shitlord doesn't actually change anything about how the whole gamersgate fiasco was dumb garbage for misogynist manchildren, hth.

Content:

quote:

Incest Subtext: There's significantly more of this in this version than in the manga/Brotherhood, which is a large part of the reason that Ed/Al is as popular of a ship as it is (probably the second most popular slash pairing after Roy/Ed).

Deconstruction posted:

The first episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comically deconstructs the entire underlying concept of the My Little Pony franchise, and similar "little girls' shows" in general, by focusing on a cynical loner stuck in a Sugar Bowl where everyone else seemingly lives in perfect harmony. The other ponies' attempts to befriend her come off as antagonistic insanity to Twilight, and the fact that her peers are too absorbed by their joviality to take notice of the incoming Sugar Apocalypse doesn't help. The episode closes with a Downer Ending in which the fantasy setting that enables the existence of this too-perfect world comes back to bite it in the flank in the form of a Mad God seeking omnicidal vengeance against the world that wronged her, with Twilight left helpless to do anything about it and no less alone than she was before. Thankfully, the next episode is spent reconstructing all the ideas that Part 1 dismantled.

The means by which Discord corrupts the mane cast in the Season 2 premiere are designed to demonstrate the flaws inherent in their Elements of Harmony, thus picking up where the show's second episode left off by re-deconstructing The Power of Friendship. As the ponies all see for themselves, sometimes Honesty can prove more painful than deceit, Laughter can be a cruel thing, greed can reap rewards that Generosity can't hope to match, your Kindness can fail to help you in the face of the world's unfairness, conflicting Loyalties can force you to choose one at the price of abandoning the other, and even the Magic of friendship can be reduced to so much worthless tripe when your friends turn on you. Though Discord used subtle (in all but one case) but powerful brainwashing to achieve these effects, and in the end, he is Hoist by His Own Petard and defeated because he thought his victory was assured.

"Lesson Zero" deconstructs the Once an Episode lesson-learning nature of the show. Twilight Sparkle realizes that she hasn't learned a lesson this week, and she only has a day left to write her weekly "friendship report" to Princess Celestia. After futile attempts to find some problem to solve, she ends up cracking under the pressure and creating a Conflict Ball for her to resolve, which quickly escalates beyond her control.

"Magical Mystery Cure" takes on the more disturbing implications of the "cutie mark" concept, i.e. what if somepony got stuck with one that didn't suit them? Twilight casts a spell that inadvertently switches the cutie marks of the rest of the Mane Six around, resulting in all of them being thoroughly miserable but determined to stick it out in their new jobs simply Because Destiny Says So. Twilight realizes that to fix the situation, she has to convince them all to Screw Destiny and do what they want rather than what their cutie mark tells them.
* Still, the episode takes care to pull yet another Decon-Recon Switch at the end when Twilight goes along with her own "destiny" being seemingly forced upon her because, much like a genuine cutie mark, it's something she truly wants.

On a less broad note, various episodes revolve around breaking down the personality traits of their central characters that usually fall under the Rule of Funny/Cool umbrella. For example, "Party of One" and "A Friend In Deed" give a rather thoughtful take on Pinkie Pie's emotional vulnerability as an extreme extrovert; in the first, she suffers a psychotic breakdown when her friends seemingly reject her and the constant-party lifestyle she uses as a means of self-validation, while she spends the second continuously chasing the one Ponyville resident who refuses to be her friend. Among some of the others are "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" for Rainbow Dash, "Putting Your Hoof Down" for Fluttershy, and "Sweet and Elite" for Rarity.

Ascended Fridge Horror posted:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:

The episode "Secret Of My Excess" applies ascended fridge horror to the implications of a dragon living in a pony community, even though most other episodes before it stepped around it. Later, though the issue isn't explicitly dwelt on for very long, "Dragon Quest" addresses the fact that Spike is an orphaned child and neither he nor Twilight knows where his egg came from or who/where his real parents even are. Ouch.

It's been suggested by some that Fluttershy's Shrinking Violet characteristics are at least partially the result of childhood trauma. "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" establishes that she was bullied, but Rainbow Dash seemed to get it about as badly as her (at the hooves of the same bullies, no less), and look how she turned out. But then "Hurricane Fluttershy" shows us just how pervasive the problem really was, and how it affected her to the point that its resurgence is enough to provoke graphic, demonic hallucinations well into her adulthood.

"Keep Calm and Flutter On" confirms the popular theory that Discord is still aware of everything while in his stone prison.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle" revolves around how Discord, a massively vindictive Reality Warping Manipulative Bastard, left a few nasty surprises around for his captors even after he was defeated the first time, an idea that fanfiction writers used constantly ever since his debut.

Despite the show itself glossing over it, fans quite reasonably speculated that Celestia being forced to banish her sister to the moon for a thousand years, to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, would have been devastating to her. Cue Twilight's vision of the past in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", which shows Celestia desperately pleading with Luna to stop, tried to stop her by herself, only using the Elements of Harmony when it was clear Nightmare Moon was too powerful, and when she makes that decision she starts crying, one of only two times in the series she does so (the other being when Luna returns to her old self in the pilot).
* Similarly, the first part of the season opener addresses Celestia's feelings about the Summer Sun Celebration, with Celestia confirming to Twilight that to her, the Celebration was for a thousand years little more than a bitter reminder of the banishment mentioned above, with Celestia putting on a brave face for her subjects while hiding her inner pain, and that she's happy that it can now be a reminder of their reunion.

When It's About Time introduced the realm of Tartarus, where various monsters and villains were sealed away, many people feared that someone may have been able to escape it while Cerberus was away from his post in that episode. In season 4's finale, it turned out Tirek HAD.
* The same episode also addresses the fan-theory that Discord may not have been sincere in his Heel-Face Turn.

Genre Deconstruction posted:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, being the self-aware show that it is, devotes its premiere episode to comedically deconstructing the premise of its parent franchise and the "little girls' cartoon" genre which its predecessors codified by asking what happens when a setting where everyone is friends with each other by default plays host to someone who isn't interested in friendship. Enter the introverted (and somewhat conceited) Twilight Sparkle, who is dumped in Ponyville and left to react as any of the sane, adult human beings who may be watching would if placed amidst the colorful characters that inhabit such a world: with bewildered frustration. Throughout the episode, the other ponies' overzealous attempts to befriend Twilight merely drive her to ever-greater seclusion and jadedness in their unwitting validation of her cynical worldview. The close of the episode is a Downer Ending where Nightmare Moon (who acts as a dark counterpart to Twilight thanks to her past exclusion turning her into an omnicidal Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds) demonstrates the inherent dangers of the fantasy setting that helps Equestria exist in such perfect harmony by plunging the world into The Night That Never Ends. Miraculously enough, the following episode manages to reconstruct every last one of these elements with flying colors.

Normal episodes end with Twilight Sparkle sending a message to her mentor Princess Celestia about what she learned about friendship that day, satisfying the Edutainment quota for the week. The episode "Lesson Zero" specifically begs the Aesop-breaking question: "What happens if there was no friendship message to write about?" Thus begins one of the most bizarre, creepy episodes of the series when our normally calm and collected (and slightly OCD) Twilight races to find, and eventually create, a friendship problem to report about. Ultimately, an Aesop about missing the Aesop is arrived at, and introduces a running change where any of Twilight's friends can provide the Aesop (likely as a way to avoid having to shoehorn in Twilight into every episode).

Deconstructed Character Archetype posted:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is fond of deconstructing common cartoon character archetypes.

Twilight Sparkle resembles a common Smart Girl protagonist, but her intellect and no-nonsense behaviour are exaggerated to the point of being a Super OCD perfectionist prone to mental breakdowns over the smallest slight, meaning she is just as often reliant on her friends' support as being the Only Sane Man to arguments.

Rarity resembles a traditional snobbish young entrepreneur, but rather than crossing into Alpha Bitch territory, Rarity embodies generosity in her materialism and her ambitions and, while prone to delusions of grandeur at times, generally doesn't end up forsaking her friends.

Pinkie Pie deconstructs the Plucky Comic Relief by often taking her comedy to genuinely obnoxious and even hurtful levels, and because she is intensely emotionally dependent on people liking her, especially her friends. Any comedian will tell you haw dangerously addictive making others laugh can be.

Discord deconstructs the Token Evil Teammate. Though he was a former villain who underwent a Heel-Face Turn, he only went so far as becoming a Wild Card; he never really became "good", he was just friends with one of the heroes and there was the constant threat of being imprisoned again if he stepped out of line. In the Season 4 finale, with Discord trusted to capture the new villain Tirek, Tirek instead manipulates him into evil again. Celestia even lampshades they trusted Discord too much and overestimated what The Power of Friendship meant to him.

Deconstructed Trope posted:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has a habit of deconstructing tropes in the process of teaching its aesops:

"Party Of One" did the same to Pinkie Pie with her role as the Genki Girl. When people start making up excuses to avoid a party, and discovers them trying to do something without her, she extrapolates that everyone has gotten tired of her and gets clinically depressed as a result.

Twilight Sparkle has immense magical power, more than most unicorns, but lacks the real training to use it effectively (since up until she was sent to Ponyville, she literally spent all of her time reading and studying magical theory, not practice.) This really comes back to bite her in the flank in "Swarm of the Century" when she casts a spell to stop the Parasprite infestation from eating all the food in town. They stop eating the food all right...they just start ripping their way through the buildings instead!

"Lesson Zero" deconstructs the Once an Episode formula a lot of shows, including this one, use. Twilight freaks out because she doesn't have a letter to send to the Princess, as there wasn't much conflict in anyone's life lately. She goes crazy and tries to create a problem for her to solve, but things get horribly out of hand.

"Luna Eclipsed" deconstructs multiple scenery-chewing tropes, particularly Large Ham, Milking the Giant Cow, and No Indoor Voice; Princess Luna has undergone a Heel-Face Turn and is trying to improve her public image, but she keeps scaring everyone away with her "Traditional Royal Canterlot Voice," which she (and presumably her sister) used back when she ruled before her Face-Heel Turn, and practically required her to be a Large Ham.

"Applebuck Season" deconstructs The Reliable One, when Applejack tries to harvest all the apples in Sweet Apple Acres by herself, because Big Macintosh injured himself, and be there for her friends at the same time. She ends up with severe sleep deprivation, and creates several issues such as flinging Rainbow Dash into Twilight's balcony, and practically poisoning plenty of ponies. The trope is deconstructed again in "The Last Roundup". Everypony expects Applejack to win enough prize money to pay for the city hall's repairs. When she only places second or lower (but still high enough to have LOTS of ribbons) in all of the events, she is so ashamed of letting down Ponyville that she decides not to return until she's earned enough money to pay for the repairs by working on a farm in Dodge Junction.

Possibly due to the Broken Base it caused, Twilight Sparkle's new princess status has been the subject of deconstruction several times in Series 4. From the start it's established that just because she's gained wings doesn't immidiately make her a good flier, and her status means her friends send her away from their adventure because Equestria can't afford to lose her. In "Twilight Time", she has to deal with unwanted attention from a mob of fillies who only want to spend time with her because she's a princess, and "Trade Ya" also deals with the unwanted attention issues. Finally in the finale the fact that she doesn't actually do much befitting of her title causes her a great deal of angst.

"Power Ponies" deconstructs The Load and Butt Monkey tropes that were otherwise Played for Laughs in previous seasons, by showing that Spike has very low self-esteem due to always feeling like he's only there for comic relief.

Deconstructive Parody posted:

The premiere episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic quite extensively deconstructs the concept behind its parent franchise and the "girls' cartoon" genre codified by its predecessor shows, but plays all of its deconstructive elements for laughs (thanks mostly to Twilight playing the Straight Man to a cast of outlandish characters whose overbearing friendliness unwittingly results in the antisocial Twilight becoming The Chew Toy).
Twilight Sparkle: All the ponies in this town are crazy!

"Lesson Zero" shows what happens when a Super OCD character in an Aesop-driven Edutainment Show is met with a situation where there isn't an Aesop for her to find. Namely, nightmarish psychotic breakdowns propped against a backdrop of facing the threat of being taken away from the friends that have come to mean so much to her. Thank God it's also one of the funniest episodes of the show, or this would all be incredibly bleak.

Decon-Recon Switch posted:

The premiere episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic uses a cynical, snarky introvert as its protagonist in order to demonstrate how frustrating an experience it would be for such a person to be stuck in a cartoon for little girls, and how dangerous the fantasy setting that allows this Sugar Bowl to exist would be - especially when its half-insane inhabitants are too carefree to pay the imminent threat any attention. The following episode makes a point of demonstrating that, for all its quirks and annoyances, there's ultimately a lot to be said for the optimistic camaraderie that the concept underlying My Little Pony represents. Twilight comes to wholeheartedly embrace her new friends, a Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Heartwarming defeats and redeems the omnicidal Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds via The Power of Friendship, and the series moves forward from there.

The two-parter that kicks off the second season follows a similar pattern. In Part 1, Discord demonstrates that the foundations of friendship (which formed the basis for the reconstruction of Season 1's second episode) are fundamentally flawed and thus fallible. Part 2 accepts this fact, but leaves no question that friendship remains well worth the struggles that go into it.

The season three finale tackles a question fans had been asking for years: if a pony's cutie mark determines what they'll do for the rest of their life, what happens if somepony gets one that they don't want? Twilight casts a spell that accidentally switches her friends' cutie marks around, as well as giving them false memories of always having had their new ones. The result is that they're all miserable, but determined to stick with their new jobs Because Destiny Says So. But then it turns out that if need be, a pony can Screw Destiny and go after whatever else they want to do, replacing their cutie mark in the process.

Internal Deconstruction posted:

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, in its first season, ends every episode with Twilight Sparkle summarizing the aesop of the week by sending a "friendship report" to her mentor, Princess Celestia. Early in season two, the episode "Lesson Zero" confirms that this Once an Episode schedule translates to Twilight sending a new friendship report every (in-universe) week. The deconstruction comes when Twi realizes that she hasn't learned anything worth writing about this week—as the deadline approaches, Twilight becomes increasingly unhinged by her fear of failing Princess Celestia. Ultimately, this alters the status quo of the series: Celestia tells Twilight that she doesn't need to follow a rigid schedule for these reports, and she asks Twilight's friends to also start sending in reports.

Reconstruction posted:

This is most apparent in the second episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which is spent picking up the pieces left by the parodic genre deconstruction that the first episode dedicated itself to.

There's also Rarity: Told that there would need to be fashion elements, the writers dumped that role on a single stereotypically vain and superficial character — and then made her strong, independent and capable anyway, with a meaningful artistic career in fashion.
Afterwards, the series flip-flops between this trope and its opposite, although not necessarily from one episode to the next.

Unbuilt Trope posted:

My Little Pony was just a sugar bowl of cutesy ponies until Lauren Faust got her hands on the franchise and created My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, right? Try the original My Little Pony TV Specials where the ponies had to be brave and resourceful to deal with a monster centaur who transformed captured ponies into winged beasts to bring eternal night using the dark rainbow and later a monstrous cat junkie who wanted to turn them into slaves to make her Fantastic Drug.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

These deconstructions are brutal

WickedHate posted:

There was a quote by CS Lewis about how being scared of liking childish things is childish. Someone should tell tropers that.

quote:

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Tropers on maturity posted:

This show for little girls is great and all, but you know what would make it more mature? Tons of graphic tape and violence

Don Gato posted:

That's all well and good, but tropers always forget the first and last parts of that quote, and focus on putting their childish things away.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

That's called 1 Corinthians 13:11.

Let's see what tropers have to say about The Bible!

These tropes are all totally distinct and necessary we swear posted:

Big Breasts, Big Deal
A link somewhere on the Internet or TV Tropes sent you to this page. It may refer to one of the following items:

Big Breast Pride: Someone who is proud, often boastful, of their large breasts.
Buxom Is Better: When characters see a large bust as a positive trait
D-Cup Distress: Someone who hates their breasts because they are too large.
Gag Boobs: A character's large breasts are a source of comedy.

Please change any link to this to point to the correct page.

Kaiser Mazoku posted:

How is it that there is more than one page titled "Big Breasts, Big Deal"?

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Deconstruction: The whole show takes the idea that a woman's breast size equals status and authority and shows in unequivocal terms that it's a terrible way to judge a woman's worth as opposed to their actual talents and ability to contribute to their society.

Ague Proof posted:

It deconstructs how a society based around breast size would not be a good idea in reality.

The entire YMMV page posted:

Les Yay: Played with a lot. Especially with Kaede.

Older Than They Think: The show's obvious moral is based off historical conceits from many cultures where physical attributes (such as dainty feet or plumpness) were seen as attractive and the worth of a woman was based around them, often for fallacious reasons that, much like the show premise, resulted in warped societal standards of attractiveness.

Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: This show takes the idea that a woman's breast size equals her importance to society and mocks it, showing that its a superficial distinction that does nothing to compensate for a woman's actual abilities, and it also shows that basing societal worth around a physical vanity corrupts many and makes society shallow and shortsighted, and the resultant societal shallowness results in some lovely social standards dominating the public consciousness regarding the worth of women.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

In an alternate feudal Japan (specifically set in an alternate Edo era), breasts mean everything. Literally.

In this strange time, the social status of a woman is entirely dependent on the size of her mammaries. The more favorably endowed tend to live the life of aristocracy and wealth. The less-than-ample are treated like trash. Of course, a system such as this would lead to a very erratic society, with wealth shifting hands haphazardly every generation. That's where the Manyu Clan comes in.

The Shogunate employ the Manyu Clan, a group of samurai who know the endless intricacies and knowledge of the human breast, to keep the rich and poor in their place. Using knowledge and techniques passed down through the generations, the Manyu Clan nurtures the future aristocracy to reach their buxom potential. They also dispatch of the poor who develop massive, magnificent mounds through the use of their secret slashing technique, which rips the "soul" of the breast out of the target's body. Without harming their supple body, of course.

Chifusa, the future successor of the Manyu Clan, becomes disillusioned of the crazy society in which she lives, and flees with the sacred scroll of the clan, which explains all of their breast-growing secrets, as well as the technique to destroy the breast. Chifusa gained her status as successor not because she was the eldest of the aristocracy (although being one of the previous successor's children helps a bit), but because of a technique she and she alone possesses: the ability to not destroy, but absorb breasts. While remarkable, this is mostly a hindrance to Chifusa. Despite this, she goes on a Robin Hood-esque quest to right the wrongs of society and to punish the unjust who flaunt their wealth.

Author Appeal: Not the author of the manga, but the director of the anime adaption, Hiraku Kaneko. He has a blatant love for oversized breasts. A lot of elements from the manga are exaggerated in the anime. This is par for the course when it comes to his the other adaptations he has worked on, either as a director or an animator (Witch Blade, Queen's Blade, etc).
The anime adaption has added nipple sucking in many episodes, a holdover from Seikon No Qwaser...where there was actually a reason for it.

Deconstruction: The whole show takes the idea that a woman's breast size equals status and authority and shows in unequivocal terms that it's a terrible way to judge a woman's worth as opposed to their actual talents and ability to contribute to their society.

Even the Girls Want Her: Chifusa, and it's not just Kaede who goes after her.

Fanservice: Considering the type of magazine it is published in, as well as the very concept of the work itself, this shouldn't come as a shock. However, as the series has progressed, fanservice has become less and less frequent.
The anime is exactly the opposite. It took the fanservicey nature of the first volume and cranked it Up to Eleven.

Crowning Moment of Awesome: Lord Mio kicking rear end and taking names in episode 8, when he sees a cut mark on Chifusa's boob.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Christ I'm sorry I asked. Everyone shut the gently caress up about gamesgate or I'll repost every last word of My Little Galtse.

But for now let's just stick with ponies and deconstructions:











These deconstructions are brutal

quote:

Ponies and deconstructions

Lottery of Babylon posted:

In an alternate feudal Japan (specifically set in an alternate Edo era), breasts mean everything. Literally.

In this strange time, the social status of a woman is entirely dependent on the size of her mammaries. The more favorably endowed tend to live the life of aristocracy and wealth. The less-than-ample are treated like trash. Of course, a system such as this would lead to a very erratic society, with wealth shifting hands haphazardly every generation. That's where the Manyu Clan comes in.

The Shogunate employ the Manyu Clan, a group of samurai who know the endless intricacies and knowledge of the human breast, to keep the rich and poor in their place. Using knowledge and techniques passed down through the generations, the Manyu Clan nurtures the future aristocracy to reach their buxom potential. They also dispatch of the poor who develop massive, magnificent mounds through the use of their secret slashing technique, which rips the "soul" of the breast out of the target's body. Without harming their supple body, of course.

Chifusa, the future successor of the Manyu Clan, becomes disillusioned of the crazy society in which she lives, and flees with the sacred scroll of the clan, which explains all of their breast-growing secrets, as well as the technique to destroy the breast. Chifusa gained her status as successor not because she was the eldest of the aristocracy (although being one of the previous successor's children helps a bit), but because of a technique she and she alone possesses: the ability to not destroy, but absorb breasts. While remarkable, this is mostly a hindrance to Chifusa. Despite this, she goes on a Robin Hood-esque quest to right the wrongs of society and to punish the unjust who flaunt their wealth.

Author Appeal: Not the author of the manga, but the director of the anime adaption, Hiraku Kaneko. He has a blatant love for oversized breasts. A lot of elements from the manga are exaggerated in the anime. This is par for the course when it comes to his the other adaptations he has worked on, either as a director or an animator (Witch Blade, Queen's Blade, etc).
The anime adaption has added nipple sucking in many episodes, a holdover from Seikon No Qwaser...where there was actually a reason for it.

Deconstruction: The whole show takes the idea that a woman's breast size equals status and authority and shows in unequivocal terms that it's a terrible way to judge a woman's worth as opposed to their actual talents and ability to contribute to their society.

Even the Girls Want Her: Chifusa, and it's not just Kaede who goes after her.

Fanservice: Considering the type of magazine it is published in, as well as the very concept of the work itself, this shouldn't come as a shock. However, as the series has progressed, fanservice has become less and less frequent.
The anime is exactly the opposite. It took the fanservicey nature of the first volume and cranked it Up to Eleven.

Crowning Moment of Awesome: Lord Mio kicking rear end and taking names in episode 8, when he sees a cut mark on Chifusa's boob.

Ague Proof posted:

It deconstructs how a society based around breast size would not be a good idea in reality.

WickedHate posted:

Clearly we're the real sexists for hating this magnificent satire of misogyny.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

The YMMV page explains why it's actually really important and deep


No, no, you see, this giant breast / breast expansion fetish comic is actually about how only caring about breast size is bad, and definitely doesn't undermine its own message by being aimed exclusively at fetishists who will read it one-handed just for the giant breasts, it's very feminist and empowering

e: the nipple-sucking symbolizes the industrial bourgeois

Wales Grey posted:

Is this about that anime lad game? (Which also likely has a spinoff animation and comic series.)

E: found the thread, realized its probably about a different thing but probably still relevant: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3644400&pagenumber=1&perpage=40

E2: don't dogpile it, the thread is already full of semi-unironic ironic posting ironically ironic anime. Ironically, of course.

EKDS5k posted:

Is this an actual thing? You know it's bad when I can't tell if it's real or just made up shitposting.