Laconic Description Improvement

For a list of bad laconics, see Sandbox.Pages Needing Better Laconics.

For generally accepted guidelines for laconics, see Sandbox.Laconic Wiki Template.

Today I found out an interesting fact from troper Ironeye:

Don't ever make the mistake of using the Laconic version as the canonical trope meaning—the laconics are often written by people who don't actually understand the drop. In this case, the laconic only corresponds to one possible cause of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.

The Laconic Description for DIAA states as follows:

• Crapsack World + cast of Jerkasses = "I don't care what happens to these people."

The thing is, these descriptions are supposed to make it easier to understand what the page is about. If they can't be accurate as well as short and sweet, then there's a problem.

So for starters, what would be a better description for DIAA?

Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 29th 2023 at 6:23:45 AM

This is the third thread:1 and 2 for reference.

Here's what I'd use for the Laconic of DIAA: "The work is so pointlessly dark that he audience stops caring how, or even if, it is resolved."

What Discar changed it to is also good. Better, even, in my opinion.

The greater problem with the laconics is that not long after the idea was introduced, a number of people started treating them as either 1) "a joke page, where funny (for sufficiently vague values of "funny") was more important than clarity", or as 2) "a chance to see how many potholes they could jam into a brief description of the trope." This means that there are lots of laconic that are needlessly opaque or downright inaccurate.

There are a few of us chewing our way through the Laconic Index, fixing them, but it's going slowly. If you spot a laconic that either doesn't make sense, or is wrong, or is simply a mass of potholes, go ahead and fix it the best you can.

Laconic List. Unlike YMMV Index, Laconic Index isn't an autoredirect.

I could have sworn there was something prohibiting potholes in laconics, but I can't find the reference anywhere. Am I misremembering, or just looking in the wrong places?

If you're trying to add a new YKTTW draft, using a pothole in the laconic means it doesn't work properly. Outside of that (once the draft is up and running, or on any normal wiki page), I believe potholes are fine and good. If possible, they should only link to other laconic entries.

Potholes aren't forbidden in Laconics, but they shouldn't be used if you can avoid it; the trope should not be defined in terms of other tropes; we don't want to force wikiwalks in order to understand the trope.

Here's another page that nags at me: Glurge.

The laconic description goes like this:

Tastes Like Diabetes meets Fridge Horror and/or Unfortunate Implications.

I don't know about you, but I'm not sure the description grasps what the page is trying to get at. Not only that, but some of the examples listed don't even come close to have Tastes Like Diabetes. Like this one:

• This happens much too often in super-hero comics when it comes to treatment of villains. Heroes often insist on not killing them in the hopes that they can one day become better, but as There Are No Therapists redemption (ones that stick anyway) almost never happen.

The problem with this example is that super-hero comics don't contain Tastes Like Diabetes. That's just plain Fridge Horror.

The Tastes Like Diabetes links needs to go away. It doesn't mean what the editor adding thinks it means.

edited 28th Jan '13 5:03:58 AM by SeptimusHeap

Fixed that one. Better? Oh, and if y'all want to tweak or change the linkback to the main page, ... well, I don't write glurge very well...

Yes, much better. Thank you!

No-Tell Motel needs a better laconic.

That's a good laconic. It may be two sentences, but it's concise and accurate; both parts are important. It could be made more clever, but at the expense of clarity.

Would it work with "A sleazy motel that rents rooms by the hour with no questions asked"?

Yes, that's even better.

Also, it doesn't duplicate the first line of the description.

Edited.

Ah, I didn't see this thread when I put up my Trope Talk thread, so I'll put it here too:

Changing either Obi-Wan Moment or Face Death with Dignity (or both) so they don't sound like the same trope.

I have no idea how Laconic.Crystal Spires And Togas is related to the trope.

What is Bishounen Line anyway?

I agree it sucks, but I do not know a way to rewrite it.

The Bishōnen Line laconic misses the line. ie when they get more powerfull they look more monstrous until they come to the Bishōnen Line where they instead turn more human looking.

edited 16th Mar '13 8:54:51 AM by m8e

How's something like this? "As an evil being increases in power, they become more monstrous-looking until they cross the bishounen line and start heading back towards humanoid."

Good, although I would seek to remove the Bishounen Line from there, as it's Gratuitous Japanese which doesn't help here.

It's the name of the trope. It's what the laconic is describing. "Line" is too vague.

Ah, I confused it with the other laconic - Laconic.Crystal Spires And Togas.