Tropers / Hershele Ostropoler

Hershele Ostropoler is a semi-employed 41-year-old writer in New York. If you would like to fully employ him, get in touch.

I gave myself the name because I'm Jewish and sarcastic. If you see comments from this username anywhere on the Web, odds are it's me.

(If there's interest in a FB group to replace the old N*nnery, PM me; if there's critical mass it may be worth setting one up. If anyone has any better ideas about an off-wiki replacement, PM me. If such a thing already exists, on FB or elsewhere, I'd be honored to be part of it. I don not wish to restore that conversation to the forums here^* per se)

A note on transcription

The name הערשעלע is spelled with the letter ש, transcribed in English as "sh". Therefore the proper spelling is "Hershele" and shortened forms of that.

Wiki politics

Cutting pages for content

There are no works pages I would rather cut than keep. Not even that one. Nope, not that one either. There are some that I don't think are as, well, important than others; there are some where the preference to keep is razor-thin and based entirely in the general principle. I am concerned about an attitude of "'art' is a word perverts use to defend their filth" or, more Godwinishly, "when I see the word 'art' I reach for my revolver." That's not quite the comparison that best fits, but I do think it's McCarthyist. I worry about a tendency towards prudishness that I think will weaken the wiki.

On a not unrelated note, changing things to fend off concern trolls and TOS trolls, especially after the fact, is essentially feeding them.

The content rules

We are inevitably going to lose things I don't want to lose; I don't want to lose anything.

We are probably going to lose pages I like^note not as fap material; I have odd tastes, and I like beige descriptions of sexual topics like on the page for Literotica, or for The Story Of O.

But I don't think we'll lose anything I don't want to lose aside from all that if we get rid of pages on pure pornography (works whose sole raison d'être is causing arousal) and on anything with:

• An endorsement or positive portrayal of non-innocent sexual activity involving children.
• Any portrayal of children as the legitimate objects of sexual desire for normal adults in a way that implies this is or should be normal or acceptible in contemporary U.S. society.
• Pornographic scenes involving children.

As well as Porn with Plot works in which children appear. I don't think this is automatically icky, if a strict separation is maintained, but I'm totally sympathetic with people who think it is, and I don't think it's worth arguing over.

I can hear the Rules Lawyers now: "What makes someone a child?" "What makes a portrayal positive?" "What's legitimate? What's normal?" "What makes a scene pornographic?" The answer to all of those is "whatever the panel decides, ultimately, but it probably means pretty much what you think it means." Fetish Retardant and Fan Disservice (beyond the fact that there are kids in) aren't directly relevant, but I imagine the panel would take them into account when considering if a portrayal is positive.

After I write this, I looked back at this and I think what I have pretty much agrees with it.

I'm fine with that. I don't think I'm going to agree with all the P5 decisions but if that's a reasonable guide I think I can predict a lot of them fairly well, and duly prepare defenses and appeals.

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That's a content approach to defining pedoshit. As an alternative or supplement, there is also a context approach. That asks why (in the Doylist sense) there's adult-child/adult-teen sex in the work:

• To tittilate: cut
• To shock: probably cut
• To groom: nuke from orbit
• To advocate: cut, unless, perhaps, it does such a poor job of it that it has the opposite effect
• To show the perpetrator's depravity: probably keep
• To show the society's depravity: probably keep
• To elicit sympathy for the victim: cheap emotional manipulation, but probably keep
• To explain the victim's later behavior: probably keep?
• To elicit sympathy for the perpetrator
  • If it's "that poor person, there's something wrong with them that drove them to do this horrible thing", possibly keep
  • If it's "that poor person, society just doesn't understand them," almost certainly cut
• Etc., etc., etc.

Again, which it is in each case is something a person — or, say, a group of five people — is going to have to decide.

Tropes found in this user

• Big Applesauce: I'm a lifelong Brooklynite
• Cake Eater: When I met my partner I was 25 and she was 31.

• Communitied Out

• Fo RKS
• Heroes Want Redheads
• Informed Judaism
• Knife Nut
• Most Writers Are Writers
• NaNoWriMo:
  • 2010 participant, though thanks in part to computer troubles I lost momentum after about a week.
  • 2011 participant, ran aground on the Eight Deadly Words but got further, both in word count and days of writing, than ever before.
  • 2012 participant, with a version of Robin Hood. Scrapped it a week or so in; cheated nearly to the finish line with something else.
  • Script Frenzy: 2011 participant, but for no good reason lost momentum even faster.
• Porn Stache: Until I shaved it off
• Twitter: It's right here
• Writers Cannot Do Math: averted

Brag List

• archy and mehitabel
• Boogie Nights
• Showgirls
• The Extra Man
• Anonymous Author
• Go The Fuck To Sleep
• Informed Location (YKTTW, not launch)
• The Rum Diary

Curating

I'll happily share, but PM me so we can coordinate and cooperate rather than the alternative.

• Obliviously Evil
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny

Troper Tales pages:

• Acceptable Lifestyle Targets
• Accidental Pervert
• A Date With Rosie Palms
• Badass Longcoat
• Brains And Bondage

• Casual Kink

• Conveniently Common Kink
• Did You Just Have Sex

• Fetish Retardant
• Friends With Benefits
• Headphones Equal Isolation
• Home Porn Movie

• Moe

• The Jail Bait Wait

Shows and movies that have filmed/taped on location near my home (at the time):

• A sketch on Chappelles Show
  • When I lived in Harlem
• Third Watch
  • When I lived in Prospect Heights
• My Super Ex Girlfriend (subway station near my apartment near Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn)
• The Brave One (also the subway station)
• Cupid
• A Spider-Man reboot, for some values of "near" (a subway stop away, but on the other side of it)
• The Delivery Man, a 2013 remake of Starbuck
• The Great Gilly Hopkins
• Stuck (the subway station was re-dressed as the one in the movie) (Fall 2014)
• The Night Before (subway station again. The MTA specifically touts that station as a good place to shoot a movie) (Fall 2014)
• Codes Of Conduct (Winter 2014)
• Forever (Subway station) (March 2015)
• Mr. Robot (ditto, and also used a home in the neighborhood for interiors) (April 2015)
• Girls (yup) (June 2015)
• History Of Love (I think) (July 2015)
• Limitless (August 2015)

Also, someone working for JJ Abrams considered but rejected my parents' house for scenes in Fringe.

I was in the studio audience for:

• Two different not-for-air pilots of American versions of Have I Got News for You
• The Daily Show
• The Colbert Report (four times!)
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
• Ask Me Another on NPR (twice!)
• Thrilling Adventure Hour (twice!)
• Duck Quacks Dont Echo

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Vandalize Here:

• Don't forget to smile! It's very important you know.
• I could not help vandalising your page after I saw the Yiddish in your title. -desdendelle
• I can vandalize your page here? AWESOME! -Pittsburghmuggle
• After reading your own personal ideas on what should be kept and saved content wise, you have no idea how sensible I'm convinced you are and wish you were on the P5. -Rpgingmaster
  • OHMIGOD NO!!!