Needs Help: Cosmic Comic Story

First off, the description is about twice the length of the examples. And getting down to brass tacks, the trope seems to be... a parody of an adventure genre. I'm not sure, to be honest, but that's the closest I can get.

The name is obviously a takeoff of Cosmic Horror Story, but I don't quite know how they relate. Really seems... nonsensical to call it Cosmic. From the description, the Cosmic comes from the fact that the work is about the high stakes of the potentially mundane situations. Alternatively, (especially with the Futurama picture) it seems like it might seem like a comedy series set in space. Which it is not.

14 wicks total. Examples are all parodies of various adventure genres, but their individual descriptions don't seem to indicate any particular common thread between them, other than "Yep, this work is silly."

Honestly, I say we axe it altogether. Parts of it are already covered by Parody, and other elements are covered by World of Weirdness and the YKTTW Zany Fantasy.

I think this is an Example as a Thesis of Futurama. As I understand it, it examines the main cast of Futurama and assigns them to seven "standard roles" (akin to Five-Man Band) and then asserts that this particular combination of characters is a trope.

The trouble is, it's not.

You might be onto something there... except I'm not even sure Futurama fits because the first trait it lists is "A premise for adventure, high stakes and pandemonium as an actual plot as opposed to mere hijinks or non sequiturs. " while Futurama is about as based around hijinks and non-sequiturs as you can get (granted it's formed a surprisingly solid myth arc, but it's still incredibly hijinks-y).

Then again, the description altogether is very jumbled. And as a whole, the examples are... not very professional looking.

So yeah. The name's bad, the description's bad, the examples are bad, the image isn't clear, the quote seems completely unrelated, and there are 14 wicks. I reeeeeeeally don't see anything worth saving here.

I think that pretty much describes Too Rare To Trope.

edited 30th Jul '13 11:45:22 AM by Larkmarn

Do we have something like Example As Trope, where someone builds a trope around an example?

I really don't get what it's supposed to be. A parody of epic works with lots of meta jokes? Deconstructive/exploitative parody?

I don't see anything of worth here.

edited 30th Jul '13 10:43:27 AM by AnotherDuck

I have no idea what this is supposed to be, beyond a particular comedy genre.

Perhaps this trope definition should be widened. It seems to follow a very rigid formula.

edited 30th Jul '13 1:12:44 PM by Rethkir

Expand to what, then?

I say axe it. If someone gets an idea out of it for a trope, they can take it to YKTTW, but what currently exists is not a trope at all.

It's as tropeworthy as Middle Child Hates Tomato Sauce And Loves Disco. It looks like someone just took Futurama and put similar works to it.

Except it doesn't even entirely fit Futurama.

I vote chuck it.

Should we make a single action crowner for cutting?

Options are cutting or expanding. But with no real idea of what to expand to.

I'd say cut it, and Rethkir can take his idea for the trope to YKTTW (because the trope as it stands doesn't seem to resemble his idea).

It has an edit history dating to late 2011, but only 14 wicks and 10 inbounds. Cut it.

i vote for a cut as well.

Cut.

I'd say that's at least eight votes for cutting and one for expanding.

edited 31st Jul '13 5:45:45 AM by AnotherDuck

I am inclined to wait for a few more votes here.

If there's not a coherent trope here, I'd say cut it.

Cut! Slice! Stab! Chop with prejudice!

If this doesn't get cut, the description needs a total rewrite. It gets way too specific, to the point that it's hard to see how most of the examples fit.

What Prfnoff said. The description (aside from being overly long) is too specific for the examples.

I'm seeing a legitimate trope in there, though it's buried under a ton of crap.

The basis seems to be "a story that has the sort of high-stakes Save the World premise that you'd expect out of an epic adventure, but instead it's a comedy". That does seem to be a legitimate trope of which all the works listed are legitimate examples, but the writeup itself is horribly bloated and overly specific.

The easiest solution may well be to cut it back to YKTTW. (I'd suggest the name High Stakes Comedy — or perhaps High Stakes Comedy Premise so it isn't mistaken for "be funny or we'll kill you".)

I think it looks like Bathos as a genre.

Rereading the page, it looks like the kind of stories I write. Parodies of drama that play as comedy. The point about tropes not being played straight look like Troperiffic.

edited 2nd Aug '13 2:04:55 PM by MikuruFan