Needs Help: Badass Blink

Misuse? Some, but not terrible. Somebody made the mistake of listing it under Eye Tropes (it isn't), but as for the rest, let's fix them and get it over with.

Remember, this trope isn't about the Invisibility by itself. It's about the invisibility failing (or having to be switched off) before taking an action. To that extent it's really not a clear name and needs some Redirect Farming badly, but I'm not proposing a rename (yet).

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This Wick Check was a 100% coverage of all 57*

Lists and indexes

• (9 pages total)

Ambiguous or lacking context (10)

• Alundra2: "Red Fang can turn itself invisible." (example? [1])
• Crysis
• Final Fantasy XI: "Opening a door is far too awesome for an Invisible spell."
• Hyperion: "The Shrike does it deliberately."
• Characters.Rurouni Kenshin: (Seta)
• Tenchi Muyo GXP: "Kiriko"
• The Doomy Adventures Of Irken Doominess: "any Disguise malfunctions could somewhat count as this." (Not Arguable)
• The Five Star Stories: "Speciality of both Headdliners and Fatimas, as well as members of the myserious Mimiba people."
• The Forgotten Spartans: "The elites"
• The Third The Girl With The Blue Eye: "The Blue Breaker, particularly if he's feeling excited about a battle."

Misuse (12)

• Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium: "...the deadliest and most instantaneous deathmove ever: Misogi"
• Cold Fear: "The invisible specimens become visible for a split second after being injured."
• Eye Tropes (FIXED — removed and noted as not related)
• Characters.Fate Moon White: "Just because you can't see [Servant Assassin] doesn't mean you're safe." (@Arha)
• Characters.Fate Stay Night Servants: "[True Assassin] has the ability to melt into shadows and hide himself from sight right up until he kills you." (@Arha)
• Front Mission: "stealth wanzers codenamed ''Loki''"
• Awesome.Full Metal Alchemist: "...so quickly you can't even see him" (not this trope)
• GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra (FIXED — is Chameleon Camouflage)
• Characters.Star Trek Film Series: General Chang
• The Night Angel Trilogy: "A voluntary example; this is Kylar's modus operandi for scaring people as Judgment."
• V2009: "The Vs can't quite seem to get those irises right when things get dramatic."
• TropersDoIt.With Video Games: "Chipp does it with lightning-fast reflexes." (not this trope)

More or less correct

• (35 remaining pages)

edited 5th Apr '12 10:11:13 PM by Stratadrake

I agree that the name is bad and misleading. I know that "blink" can also mean teleportation, although I can't think of where that's been used except in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne for the Warden's "Blink" ability. Maybe that's where it started? I've never seen "blink" used to reference invisibility, though.

The problem, I think, is that "blink" most commonly means blinking the eye, and a secondary (but still common) meaning of a light blinking. That's why it's used to mean an invisibility-off flash, but it's still not very clear. The fact that Badass is tacked on to the front of it makes matters worse. The word really means nothing at this point, although we already know that. Something like Sudden Visibility Blink or Invisibility Off Flash could work better. Neither of those sound very good, though, but something to that effect.

Is that a wick check out of 50? Anyway, the Characters.Fate Stay Night example is incorrect and therefore the Characters.Fate Moon White example is also wrong. The Hyperion example is correct. That puts you at a minimum of 24% misuse.

I'll also note that this trope came up in a Special Efforts thread which is trying to get rid of the Badass snowclone when they are not actual subtropes of Badass. It was pointed out that this trope is not a character trope and thus cannot be a subtrope. That's another reason there's something wrong with the name.

edited 31st Mar '12 10:20:07 AM by Arha

Rename is a good idea. Misuse is proven, and a better name could help with wicks.

Badass Blink can easily be misdefined as "blinking eyes [at the right time] means your badass", like the rest of the Badass X tropes. Wrong!! Others ideas for a different name are: -No Invisible Badass Allowed, Un-Invisible Badass, Audience must see (invisible) you, Badass.

edited 1st Apr '12 1:50:22 AM by spacemarine50

Flicker would be better than Blink (and another instance of Blink as a teleport would be Starcraft II).

Badass Flicker, then? The badass part does seem to be a significant part of the trope, after all.

I would rather not have "badass" in the title at all.

I don't see that the nebulous concept of "badass" has much to do with this trope at all. The invisibility-off-flash is to show the character moving or attacking or whatever. It's used because otherwise, we wouldn't be able to see them. You could just as easily tack Badass onto something like More Dakka, making it Badass High Rate Of Fire, and it would be just as stupid.

I agree - badass adds nothing to this but confusion.

This trope is about cloaking vanishing during action. Or during poses. It is not about cloaking vanishing due to people being intimidating or implacable or skilled (though any or all of those may come into play).

Also, badass sounds like an adjective. The current title strongly sounds like "A blink that is badass," which isn't the definition at all.

Invisibility Flicker seems like a better title than anything with Badass in it.

Edit: Though technically Visibility Flicker would be more accurate.

edited 2nd Apr '12 9:07:18 AM by Arha

Invisibility Flicker sounds good. You're right, Visibility Flicker would technically be more accurate, but it doesn't sound quite as clear.

'Blinking' as disappearing and reappearing or teleporting probably goes back at least as far as the Dungeons And Dragons spell 'Blink'. You think Warcraft did anything original?

Agree about the "badass" part, that seems clear-cut. That seems to have led the description to be written about how this absolutely must be caused by "sheer badassery" rather than trying to discuss the trope properly. There are actual considerations and justifications for the trope other than "it's totally badass, dudes!" such as game balance for stealth units, the magical or technological nature of the invisibility, or Rule of Perception.

Invisibility Flicker sounds good.

Both points are excellent.

And of course I didn't think that Blizzard invented the term, any more than I believed that a "warglaive" is a real weapon and not just using the name of a great but little-known real weapon to describe an unwieldy metal abomination. Sadly Mythtaken and using the names of real weapons for stupid fantasy crapsticks (do we have that one?) are Serious Business for me. I wish Blizzard would stop being derivative as fuck and concentrate on story and character instead of just great gameplay, but now I'm derailing.

edited 2nd Apr '12 9:43:09 AM by Martello

Misuse stands at 24%+ with a misleading title and clear thread support for a rename. I am thus making a crowner here to decide whether we should rename.

Hooked.

Yeah, Invisibilty Flicker sounds like more of what we want. Invisibility distortions count for this as well right?

I'm for the rename, but I got questions. Should we remove all traces of "badass" from the article, if we're renaming this trope? We should also define it more; does making a character visible so we can see him fight count? Does the character's invisibility cloak failing and making him visible count? We should also separate this trope, whatever it ends up with, from a maybe-nonexistent (that I might make) trope called "Audience must see you, invisible(means: invisible character is visible [only to the audience] so we can see him)

edited 2nd Apr '12 4:25:26 PM by spacemarine50

Spacemarine, that last one is called Visible Invisibility. I would support splitting/YKTTW'ing "visual distortion as invisibility clue" into its own page, because it usually isn't an in-universe flaw/failure of the cloaking device.

edited 2nd Apr '12 10:13:19 PM by Stratadrake

Okay, so like when the ninja in Metal Gear Solid flickers into view, it's this trope. When the Tachikomas and the Major in Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex are semi-visible due to warping effects on the environment around them, that would be another trope? I think I can get behind that, because the second one makes some kind of scientific sense at least.

The other trope is Visible Invisibility.

Forced decloaking before attacking as gameplay balance might be a distinct trope, actually.

edited 3rd Apr '12 8:49:50 AM by Treblain

The Tachikomas use Active Camouflage. We should probably have that as a trope as it's a common type of Cloaking Device in Speculative Fiction that just happens to be based on real life theories.

Wow. Crowner really hates this name.

Yup, 'cuz it sucks.

@22: We do, it's Chameleon Camouflage.