Metal Loaf posted:

I've heard that fantasy authors are generally more liberal while science-fiction writers tend to be more conservative, but I've not seen any particular evidence for either assertion myself.

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After all the Tranquil Fury and general badassery by Price, in both games, General Shepherd hands him his rear end in a fist fight. Seeing someone like that receive a No Holds Barred Beat Down is SCARY.

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One thing that videogames have come to acknowledge is that if you have three hundred rounds for your pistol, you can't just shoot it three hundred times without a break, since most weapons aren't belt-fed. Today, almost all games with firearms require a reload period while an animation shows the player character removing the previous magazine and inserting a new one. So now it's totally realistic, right? Um, well...

...Try just shooting one round in a videogame, then reloading. The animation will show your character removing a magazine from the gun, often dropping it or even throwing it away in the process, and loading a new one. But the number of rounds you have available for reloading will go down by just one. Moreover, even if the magazine is retained during the reload animation, you'll never load a magazine and find it's that same one with one cartridge missing; instead, your remaining ammunition is treated as if you're carrying it in the form of single-round stripper clips that are invisibly consolidated into as many full magazines as possible, with ammo from discarded mags magically returning to your stock. It's almost like the FPS Elves take a break from sweeping up spent brass and plastering over bullet holes to climb into your webbing and sort your ammo out for you.

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Ironically, the "puzzle solved" sound. It's loud, and the chiptune-esque way it sounds can make players jump because it sounds out-of-place in a game that otherwise uses more modern video game sounds. It's particularly startling in dungeons, as it runs counter to the eerie calmness of the background sounds and music when there are no enemies around.

Improbable Lobster posted:

I remember some of the Fallout New Vegas devs being asked by a troper if the I Am Not Left Handed challenge was a reference to tvtropes.

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The trope name and the page quote come from The Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya is so good that he fights with his left hand just to keep things somewhat challenging, but when faced with the Man in Black, he realises he's being outmatched, and switches the sword back to his right hand to gain the upper hand again. Too bad the Man in Black was also fighting with his off-hand, presumably for the same reason. If you look closely, you'll notice when the Man in Black first starts to draw his sword, he is drawing it with his right hand until he notices that Inigo plans to fight with his left-hand.

Alpacalips Now posted:

I think that tropers don't like classic science fiction because they seem like the kind of dolts who read that a character in the future is using a radio or writing with a pen and paper and they immediately scoff at how the setting is so inaccurate and implausible. Never mind that 1984 is perhaps more relevant than it ever has been, or that William Gibson's work, for all of its clunky 80's-early 90's futurism, raises important questions about how technology is altering humanity. Alien hasn't aged a day because it taps into so many primal fears. But why explore boring, hard themes when you can feel so clever for pointing out that no one will be using land line phones in 2030? I think that 25 years from now, the equivalent of tropers will roll their eyes at Mass Effect and Firefly for the same reasons.

1984 is a sequel to Jack London's The Iron Heel, and the rebels of that book eventually won and became the Party posted:

London's rebel Socialists and Orwell's Party both call each other "comrade," hate capitalists, are masters of disguise and undercover work, are adept at brainwashing (as seen by the incident in The Iron Heel involving young Wilkins), value abstaining from all sexual relationships so as not to distract one from his or her devotion to the cause (the Red Virgin Anna Royalston and male rebels who refuse to marry are honored and praised just like the Comrade Ogilvy Winston invents), and encourage family members to turn against each other in support of the cause (one of London's rebels is excommunicated for protecting his traitor son, and Party children are turned into spies against their parents). "The Brotherhood of Man" that (eventually) defeated the Iron Heel is either the Party, or the hegemony that succeeded the Party.

Room 101 contains a boggart posted:

It's your worst fear, after all? So if Winston had been a wizard, and he'd had access to his wand, then all he'd have to do would be to say "Riddikulus" and the rats would turn into Alvin and the Chipmunks or something.

The Doctor will come in his TARDIS and save the day posted:

1. It seems that in order for anything to change would take outside interference. 2. I really really want it to be true!

The Party WILL fall. Via Aliens posted:

Now, it's quite a stretch, but this is how I think it'll all go down:

The Party want to rule forever.
If Eastasia or Eurasia win and beat back the surviving state, things won't change much and there'll never be another state.
Eventually, assuming humanity doesn't nuke itself into oblivion, aliens will show up. Why? Well, the Party, whichever state it's from, is apparently unstoppable, i.e. there will never be a successful rebellion. This also means that, with the war apparently being perpetual, someone WILL lose eventually, assuming it's not just Oceania screwing with everyone. In that case, there is already only one party. Anyway, with no threat, life will go on as it always has... until something from far away in the galaxy shows up, albeit in a very advanced stage of the Party's collective life. What happens then is up to debate. Aliens might conquer, since the Party, as a whole, would never progress (science is obliterated) and would be kind of military pushovers who keep lying and doublethinking to themselves. They might help the common man for whatever reason. Who knows? But if the Party keeps stamping on a face "forever", they'd better be prepared for the odds of something like this happening.
Or maybe this will be the successful rebellion
The aliens and rebels work together
The party loses the war
The Party is forced into Room 101 until they die.

The prostitute Winston sleeps with is his mom posted:

Think about it. She's about the age his mother would have been, and it's never directly said what happened to her. Maybe at some point, rather than join the Party, she became a prole.

Julia is Winston's sister posted:

Winston isn't sure of his exact age, right? And they both have dark hair...

Hence why the Party cracked down on them, it wans't because they were having sex for pleasure (seriously, how can sex for pleasure be a threat to the power hunger of the Party? It's like saying playing with an old, harmless toy is a threat to your mom, or Tv Tropes is a threat to wikipedia), it was because of the outright Squick that even the Party and Big Brother himself can't handle.....
Winston's hair is, "very fair."
Sex leads to attachments, which lead to people's loyalties being outside party needs. That is why they hate it. Almost every totalitarian system in history has despised sex, from Phillip and Isabella to Stalin.

East Asia is ruled by Anonymous posted:

The name of their ideology is translated as "Obliteration of the Self", right?

So, Death worship is actually Desu Worship? Eastasia is better, it has memes and anonymity hence Rule 34 hence way more better than anti-sexual Ingsoc, better move to Eastasia.... *unpersoned by Thought Policemen*
According to Orwell himself, it's supposed to be a totalitarian deformation of Buddhist and Taoist teachings. Might be a Take That on Mao's instrumentalization (and subsequently violent deformation) of Confucianism in his own ideology.

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The Bad Guy Wins: The whole point of this book is that moral and/or ethical standards are irrelevant to Realpolitik, and thus the good guys never will remake the world in their image. Ever.

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Big Brother Is Employing You: Winston works for the Party.

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Crapsack World: Living in the world of 1984 is a Fate Worse than Death even worse than living in a Cosmic Horror Story. At least in a Cosmic Horror Story you lived just like a Prole with privacy and freedom because the gods don't care about your thought-crimes (unless, of course, your curious mind actively seek them out with punishments galore).

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Disproportionate Retribution: The hell Winston Smith is put through is astonishing, considering that his rebellious acts — keeping a diary, having an affair and enjoying it — are so trivial and furtive that he would pose no threat to the Party at all if he were only left alone. Very likely he would not agitate, or publish samizdat tracts, or even whisper thoughtcrime to his acquaintances. He would just go on and on, writing lies for the Ministry of Truth and meeting up with Julia and wondering wistfully if there is a Brotherhood, until his natural death. But for the Party, mere obedience is not enough.

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False Flag Operation: It is heavily implied that Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are basically ruled by the same ideology, and are bombing each other/themselves to create a Pretext for War and totalitarianism, and that the Party is using the Brotherhood to bait dissidents for capture.

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Not So Different: The rival countries. Oceania may be bad, but the implication is that the two other superstates, Eurasia and Eastasia, are almost exactly identical to it. The three states are always at war with each other, with nobody ever winning. If you live in one of the areas the three states are always fighting over, you are a slave in both body and mind to whoever has power over the area at the current time.

It is heavily implied that an unspoken gentleman's agreement exists between the three states that they will never make a serious effort to destroy the others - this is the reason no state ever uses mass conscription or WMDs - because the war is part of the Evil Plan for the three of them to keep the standard of living down and mobilize the hatred of the population. Goldstein's book even mentions that Oceania could probably conquer all of Europe up to the Polish frontier, or that Eastasia could likely seize Australia, but that neither state does so for fear of upsetting the Balance of Power.

In fact, the actual state of the world is so poorly known that (a) the idea that Oceania dominates the entire world, and the existence of the other states is simply a fiction to justify a war with which to keep people's expectations of a better life crushed, and (b) the idea that Oceania is little more than a Banana Republic consisting of only Airstrip One, and is applying propaganda to make its position on the world stage sound grander than it really is, are both equally valid interpretations of what might really be going on. The "Three states making only token attacks on each other" is just one other possibility which may or may not be the truth.

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Secret Police: The Thought Police.

William Bear posted:

I don't know if it's just me, but I just did a google search for the Turner Diaries. Result one is its Wikipedia page. Result two is its Tvtropes page.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheTurnerDiaries?from=Main.TurnerDiaries

I get that it might be worthwhile to point out its flaws in logic, but it doesn't seem like an appropriate format.

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Genius Bonus: Take a good look at the colors of the book cover: red, white, and black. Look familiar together, don't they?

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The increasingly-stricter demands by public groups for gun control makes one wonder just how stupid the idea of Congress throwing out the Second Amendment might be.

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The four armed dragon picked up a surprisingly appropriately sized phone out of nowhere, all the while carrying a crystal ball, "You have reached Swami Parallaxus, fortune teller who can tell you your future, your present, your past, your past that was retconned in, your past that occurred in an Elseworlds, your past that has been rendered no longer in continuit- Huh, she hanged up."

Random Stranger posted:

It's a rule of thumb that you just use "said" for dialog unless you know what you're doing by not using it. Obviously this guy hasn't heard of that rule.

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Several people are terrified by Boos. It pretty much all boils down to the fact that they only chase you when you're not looking. It only leaves the door open to Fridge Horror.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Uh... what? How, specifically?

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In the first Ace Attorney game's final case, Damon Gant asks the 16-year-old Ema to stay in his office after he kicks Phoenix and Gumshoe out. Afterward, Ema seems... withdrawn. Very withdrawn. Um.

He was blackmailing Lana and could pretty much do anything he wanted with her. Ew.
And Phoenix just left her there without a second thought? What the Hell, Hero?

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A Darker Me: It's a joke on Something Awful that every goon is a nerdy, overweight "neckbeard" in Real Life. Individual goons, however, tend to make up obvious lies about how awesome they are for the fun of it.

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(it was due to a Chrome plugin that changes the word 'cloud' to 'butt' - I have since removed this plugin from my browser)

Fridge: Modern Warfare posted:

Another No Russian one: obviously shooting any of the terrorists will lead them to brand Allen a traitor and kill him in retaliation. But why would throwing a flashbang or grenade too close to the group lead to the same reaction? Because getting hit by an unexpected blast would cause them to cry out in Russian, giving their true nationalities away. Most people, even if fluent in another language and have it ingrained in their heads, will yell in their native tongue in a sudden moment of severe pain/surprise. Pvt. Allen's stupid act would have jeapordized the mission just as much as wearing a shirt saying "WE'RE NOT AMERICANS, WE'RE RUSSIANS!"

Alpacalips Now posted:

I probably played Wind Waker more than any other Zelda game because its graphics, music and over all fun never failed to cheer me up, and it helped me through some rough times. Let's see why I should have been making GBS threads myself like a wuss instead of enjoying it.




It's easy to beat, it makes loud noises, and looks like a tiki statue. It's practically a Scooby Doo monster, and someone's trying desperately to convince the world it will haunt your dreams.

sweeperbravo posted:

Didn't namtab or somebody do a chapter-by-chapter tour of this travesty

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Paranoia Fuel: To anyone who owns, or has ever owned, Godzilla: Monster of Monsters for the NES. Maybe Zachary's copy isn't the only one of its kind floating around. Or maybe you had/have it and were never aware of it! Feel like giving it a whirl?

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To be fair, while it's true Voldie was never a nice guy the rather heavy-handed way this is shown has lead to some fan revolt—we only ever hear Dumbledore's side of the story. The orphanage matron's complaints in the pensive memory sound eerily similar to the slander Harry receives on Privet drive which opens up an Alternate Character Interpretation of Tom Riddle being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. And then there's Dumbledore's method of dealing with a troubled kleptomaniac orphan with mental/behavioral problems: is to set his things on fire and think that will teach him a lesson. It taught him a lesson all right—that Might Makes Right. And just like with Harry, Dumbledore could have helped Tom but he chose not to. He kept sending Tom back to the muggle orphanage in the middle of the Blitz and then you wonder why the guy is interested in, you know, not dying.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Some people are able to work out that LBJ must have been Vice President at some point if he became President when JFK was shot. But that logic doesn't extend to Lincoln; after Lincoln was shot there just wasn't a President.

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On the subject of Vietnam, I realized later that the flag hanging on Lt. Dan's latrine in the scene when Forrest and Bubba arrive is a Viet Cong flag. Three guesses what they use for toilet paper when they run out of the usual stuff.

tacodaemon posted:

The Internet claims that this is what an N cup looks like

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None of the tentacles go up her skirt, but on the other hand Gabrielle isn't burned, either.

BlueDude posted:

No way. The eternal monument to troperdom is still this:

Segmentation Fault posted:

Wasn't "the gift" an M16 or something?

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Alternatively, Alice isn't so innocent as she looks, and is cynically manipulating Bob for her own ends, while Bob, a prisoner of his own attraction and Alice's mind games, can only follow along helplessly, knowing that if he slips up, or she gets bored with him, Alice can ruin his reputation and get him thrown in jail with ease and make herself look like the victim.

Cornwind Evil posted:

Tropers can't handle the most basic people interactions, you think they can wrap their heads around complicated things like that?

I was listening to a history podcast recently that talked about how the Mongols had their victims so terrified that one Mongol rounded up a group of people to kill, then realized he forgot his weapon. He told them to wait while he got it, and they ALL STAYED THERE AND WAITED, even though he was ALL ALONE, until he came back and killed them all. Do you really want to work out how tropers would try to understand something like that?

Knowing them, their Assessment would be A Sentence with lots of Randomly Capitalized Words because You Can Define existence by Applying Fiction Concepts To Everything.

Djeser posted:

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Have you ever been confronted by a large chunk of text and caught your eyes heading toward the upper left corner of the page in pursuit of the "Find on Page" function before realizing you were looking at a book and not a web browser?

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Automatically skipping over banner ads before realizing you're reading a text book and all the brightly coloured, highlighted boxes are in fact "important key information" notes.

BlueDude posted:

*insert my childhood being raped, burned, and shot here *

Dr. Killjoy posted:

1984 but with animes.
Julia is a tsundere