TV Tropes meta thread

No, more minimal than that.

I've noticed that since TVT has become prevalent people have been throwing around a lot of terms that they don't really understand that well (deconstruction being one of them).

In addition to that I see a fundamental misunderstanding outside of TVT of what a "trope" even means. You'll frequently see people complaining about "tropey" characters or stories outside of TVT, when in reality they're complaining about characters being cliché/formulaic/exaggerated/not grounded. It's literally impossible to write a story without using tropes, the difference usually is whether you do them well or whether your story feels overly defined by them.

The reviews hosted here often tend to be either overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative. There's rarely an in-between.

I think "tropey" has some validity; it's usually shorthand for "I cannot see this story/character/setting as anything but a collection of tropes". Tropes are not bad, but a story has to transcend its separate elements to become something more if it is to have an emotional pull on the audience.

I'd be more inclined to call that "formulaic", but I definitely understand what people mean by it and why it bothers them.

As far as some forums go, I am amazed at how civil OTC forum actually is especially in regards to gender issues, politics, philosophy and religion. This isn't to say that we don't have heated arguments but I am amazed at how controlled and organized that forum is despite the differing opinions on those subjects.

I guess compared to other places it is pretty civilized. Not that that's a high bar to cross.

This thread consists of either actual reviews or single, brief sentences you can barely even call reviews.

edited 30th Apr '17 4:14:09 AM by MrLavisherMoot

They're not supposed to be "actual reviews" in the first place, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Going up to what was said about people misusing terms: This is a general issue with people in general, they find a 'new term' and tend to think it has multiple applications, thus it strays from its original meaning so damned much that it becomes barely recognizable in the first place.

And for a bit of bitter irony, with this people tend to also rattle on by using terms that sound impressive but aren't really used as they should be, thus you end up with people who talk about deconstructions which are just things played dark, missing the point entirely.

I know language shifts, but this isn't a shift over years, this can be a shift over days within communities.

This is pretty much what happened with words like "edgy"; once meant to describe something intended to shock or offend an audience, eventually it's been degraded to "too grimdark for me to handle". Thus you get things like Attack on Titan being called "edgy", despite not being any gorier than any other action anime, and not even in the same ballpark as various 90s OVAs.

Honestly, I've found the difference in quality of some of the reviews (well, "reviews" in some cases) is huge. Some people actually put work into explaining their ratings and then some just write one sentence saying the feeling they get from it and boom, rate their song now.

Yeah, that really bugs me in that thread. Like, someone took the time out to put a song out there for you to listen to, the least you can do is put some effort into discussing it. Hell, sometimes people don't even listen to the whole song before they post their response (and you can tell by the time between posts), which kinda feels rude. Just seems like common courtesy to at least listen to the whole thing.

I really appreciate when people actually do put that effort to actually dig into the music that's presented before them. It feels like an honest attempt at at least giving the song a try instead of just being like, "I like it" or "it bad" or what have you.

, I stopped using the music sub-forums because I honestly thought people were more rude in it then most other sub-forums.

edited 30th Apr '17 11:54:36 PM by Wispy

It isn't limited to music as I see it in video games and books. I know it is a meme but it really is getting grating to see it used.

x4 Some of us just don't have that much to say about a song. What do you want from us?

OTC doesn't care much for people pushing Clean Wehrmacht nonsense.

This warms my heart.

This has nothing to do with the community at large, but recently there have been a lot of spambots getting fucked over by how new users can't post any text.

It's a shame, because I really wanted to know how dietplan.usa was the most emotional anime of the season.

That's probably exactly why that was rule put into place.

It definitely works wonders, but I really did want to know how dietplan.usa would change video games.

Well, the game industry is pretty bloated.

Something I've noticed is that TV Tropes has gotten me in a habit where I'll close out of it after going on a Wiki Walk...

...only for me to immediately decide to log back into it and hit Random Trope.

I've noticed that people here have a tendency to talk about their personal lives a little too much. Some of the threads are guilty of this.

Also, I've noticed that on the metal thread in the music section, most of the talk seems to be about Death Metal bands. I like some Death Metal songs but I'm not really into the genre.

edited 13th May '17 6:51:21 AM by pointless233

Apparently, there isn't actually a mobile version of the website. The layout is determined by the width of the browser: if you narrow the window on desktop, you end up with the same layout seen on mobile.

Why don't more websites do the same thing?

A lot of the Forum Games regulars seem to really love Homestuck.