SuperSpeed versus FlashStep

Super-Speed and Flash Step.

I've been mulling over these two tropes but I can't quite work out the difference between them. Please could someone help?

Flash Step is a specific use of Super-Speed, where the character uses their speed to visually teleport from one spot to another, apparently with no momentum or anything. Some characters who can Flash Step are not shown to have Super-Speed in other ways, which is just kinda weird but sometimes explained as being a discrete technique.

edited 20th Apr '14 5:20:30 PM by Clarste

Flash Step: an intermittent effect, limited to short distances, possibly done through Super-Speed, possibly by teleportation, possibly through some other means.

Super-Speed: The character can move inhumanly fast, at will or continuously. It may be limited to running, but often isn't.

edited 20th Apr '14 5:36:32 PM by Madrugada

If that's the difference, the trope namer of Flash Step (Bleach) is not an example of the Flash Step trope. Bleach characters are using Super-Speed. The Super-Speed does not create a Flash Step effect. Any 'teleporting' effect that occurs depends on the watcher's lack of ability to keep up with the Super-Speed user, in effect making it 'look like' a teleporting effect was used when it wasn't. If the watcher is good enough to keep track of the Super-Speed user, there's no such effect at all.

One of the Super-Speed techniques in the story is called "Shunpou" which translates into English as "Flash Step". It's Shunpou that is the Flash Step trope namer, but it doesn't fit the trope description, the trope description it fits is Super-Speed.

There is a special combat art based on Shunpou called Hohou. A Hohou user can do a couple of techniques that sound like they fit the description this thread has given me of Flash Step, but that's not Shunpou by itself. It sounds like most Bleach speed users aren't Flash Step at all, they're Super-Speed, leaving only a couple of Hohou users as falling under the Flash Step trope.

edited 21st Apr '14 7:43:10 AM by Wyldchyld

Sure, why not? If you dispute an example then remove it (although you might want to to take it to the discussion section if it's controversial).

^^

How does the fact that the Bleach characters are using Super-Speed to achieve the Flash Step effect make it not an example?

edited 21st Apr '14 9:03:34 AM by Madrugada

Say Characters A and B are standing side-by-side watching Character C moving. A is good enough to see C's steps but B is not. B will think C 'appeared out of nowhere' (ie, used a Flash Step effect) but A will have seen every single one of C's steps and therefore know that all C did was run from one spot to another spot too fast for B to keep up with (which is the Super-Speed trope).

However, if Character C is using a special Hohou technique, it really will look like they 'teleported' even to A because Hohou very often produces after-images or clones that make it look like a character has teleported. The Hohou art seems to fit the Flash Step trope description because it really would be 'an intermittent effect, limited to short distances, possibly done through Super Speed'.

That means straight-forward Shunpou/Sonidou/Hirenkyaku/Bringer Light use would be Super-Speed whereas examples of Hohou use (and one Sonidou user who created special effects based on his super-speed) would be on the Flash Step page. At least, given what's been said in this thread, that's how it sounds to me.

edited 21st Apr '14 3:34:21 PM by Wyldchyld

Character C has Super-Speed and used a Flash Step.

Character A was able to see through the Flash Step, but that doesn't negate the use of the Flash Step.

Thank you for fielding that one, Samaritan. I was still trying to figure out why it was a question.

A Flash Step is when you use Super-Speed in brief bursts. You can have a character who uses Flash Step but not regular Super-Speed, generally for one of two reasons:

• The speed comes from a supernatural power which must be "turned on", and the user can only maintain it for a moment before losing focus/energy or suffering backlash. Often true Super-Speed will be available as a refined version or a Dangerous Forbidden Technique.
• The user doesn't have much control over their speed, and needs to stop in order to turn or avoid crashing into things.

The visual effect isn't the important part, so maybe "some examples of Flash Step use actual teleportation" should be removed from the description.

edited 27th Apr '14 9:37:03 AM by Prime32

Some examples of Flash Step involve no supernatural abilities whatsoever. The character is just "quick" for a moment, moving in a blink of an eye, with no supernatural powers.

There's no reason to remove teleportation examples, because not all teleportation is instant (see Star Trek for teleportation that takes between 10-30 seconds.

Kind of like Hammerspace and its subtropes. People that pull sledgehammers out of their back pocket don't have Reality warping powers or anything else that explains it, they simply just pull sledgehammers out of their back pocket.

or Bottomless Magazines, neither the gun or the shooter have any special powers. The gun just happens to never run out of ammo.

This can also happen in Flash Step. The character have no special powers that allow or explain it, they simply just take a Flash Step.

edited 28th Apr '14 11:11:48 AM by m8e

Even the page image is just a normal guy doing it for Rule of Funny.

@crazysamaritan: That depends which of my Character C scenarios you're referring to. The first one is just Super-Speed. Someone moved from X to Y very fast. The second one (the Hohou example) was an example of someone with Super-Speed using Flash Step.

The story has lampshaded the speed issue a few times: Renji and Ichigo couldn't initially follow Byakuya's movements (to their eyes, he could move from location X to location Y and return to X without appearing to have moved at all). When they both gain their power ups, they could follow every single step he took, so they could see he was just running from X to Y and they could therefore respond accordingly.

As far as I am capable of understanding what's written in these two tropes, that's Super-Speed, no Flash Step involved. Renji and Ichigo would initially think Flash Step was involved until they were good enough to realise it was only Super-Speed all along.

However, Hohou techniques really do fit the description of a character that possesses Super-Speed performing Flash Step. Yoruichi's technique called Utsusemi allows someone to shed a cloak and zip to a new location a short distance away and it looks like they teleported leaving behind an item of clothing. They didn't teleport, they discarded an item of clothing as a distraction to very speedily move to another location close by.

Again, as far as I am capable of understanding this trope, that would be a case of someone using Flash Step on top of their normal Super-Speed and whether or not their opponent is good enough to see through the Flash Step doesn't change the fact a Flash Step was used.

If Flash Step and Super-Speed overlap, the Flash Step is the way in which the Super-Speed is used — to move a very short distance — a few steps, like from in front of a person to behind them, or across a room. If it's much longer than that, it's not a Flash Step, it's just Super-Speed. And FlashSteping doesn't require Super-Speed. Batman can Flash Step but he doesn't have Super-Speed.

edited 28th Apr '14 3:11:24 PM by Madrugada

I addressed the generic example only. You gave an example where Character C moved so fast, it looked like he teleported from one place to another to Character B. However, the Character A says Character C isn't that good. Character A can tell that Character C is simply very fast.

• Tropes are allowed to overlap. Characters are allowed to use one trope many different ways. Characters are allowed to use two tropes at the same time.

To follow Goku's usage of the Flash Step from DBZ, he initially does it at a "normal human" level (no superpowers). By the time he's fighting against "Jackie Chun", Goku can engage in Doppelgänger Spin and No, I Am Behind You. However, he's still not able to use Super-Speed. That comes later, around the Saiyan Saga period or fighting Piccolo Sr. Then, he picks up teleportation in time for the Android Arc / Cell Games. The reason Goku is able to use Flash Step changes as the characters become more powerful, but it doesn't change the trope just because you're using more than one at the same time.

My generic example wasn't that Character A could tell Character C "wasn't that good". It was simply that Character A knew that Character C had not used such a technique in the example mentioned. That's why I then explored the second example of Character C using such a technique as well as the super speed. Whereupon we'd find Character C listed on both trope pages due to having displayed both Super-Speed and Flash Step in the story. Whereas if we'd only seen the first example, we wouldn't know he could use Flash Step, we'd only have his use of Super-Speed confirmed.

I never said tropes can't exist at the same time or overlap. My posts have even been exploring examples where they would overlap or be used at the same time. I'm trying to understand the two tropes descriptions, that's all.

I've never seen DBZ, unfortunately.

edited 30th Apr '14 5:02:24 PM by Wyldchyld

Moving fast enough that it seems to some characters that the person is doing a Flash Step is enough, though. Well, assuming they're relatively normal and not distracted. Maybe. It can still work depending on how the work presents it.

Right, so what you're saying is that Flash Step isn't simply dependent on what the moving character is actually doing (or is actually capable of doing). It does rely, at least in part, on what an observer thinks is happening, or how the whole thing comes across to the observer?

With tropes, presentation is key. If you never see it from a normal POV, and only from the super-speed characters, so it never looks like anything special, it wouldn't qualify (unless maybe if it's mentioned). But if someone, such as in the page image, just surprises someone by moving quickly and it's presented as if the character basically teleported, it qualifies.

Right, tropes are narrative devices. It's all about how they are presented to the audience. If the work uses Alice's perspective to show that she is seeing Bob shift location with uncanny speed, then it's the trope, regardless of whether Bob actually has Super-Speed or similar powers.

edited 30th Apr '14 7:17:12 PM by Fighteer

Which is why the initial example (using Super-Speed) counts as a Flash Step, even if Character B is actually the Rule of Perception, and only two characters (A & C) are on the screen.

You'd probably find DBZ boring, but that wasn't my point. It was to show Flash Step being used by one character in a variety of methods.

@Another Duck & Fighteer:

Okay, that makes much more sense. So, the difference between Super-Speed and Flash Step is that sense of "being able to keep up" with the movement? If a character appears out of nowhere, or vanishes like they'd never existed, that scene would be Flash Step because it happened too fast for you to see what they did? But if you were instead allowed to see ("keep up with") their every movement, that scene would be Super-Speed? And if you (the reader) saw the scene as a vanishing act, but another character claimed they could see every single step the moving character made, that would be both Flash Step (to us) and Super-Speed (to the other character) at the same time?

Am I on the right track?

@crazysamaritan: I do better when I can tally what I'm seeing with what I'm reading, which is why I've been struggling to match the trope descriptions to what I'm seeing in the shows I am familiar with.

Before I posted here, I did go to that section of the Wiki that compares two similar tropes (or similarly named tropes) to briefly explain the difference between them, but I couldn't find one for these two tropes, which is why I ended up asking here.

edited 1st May '14 10:23:08 AM by Wyldchyld

Super-Speed is just about the stock Super Power. Which may be used for a Flash Step (and it's actually one of the more common uses, I believe). It's a capability, so it's more objectively defined (can move faster than humanly possible), while Flash Step is a specific move or action, or perhaps more accurately the effect of a move or action (seems to move from one place to another instantly).

Something that's presented as Super-Speed but actually isn't is probably a subversion (such as if it was an illusion). Someone who is that fast but not as far as another character still has Super-Speed.

Something that's presented as a Flash Step but someone caught is probably still a use of the trope, even if the purpose for the character using it failed. A subversion of Flash Step would probably be someone who isn't actually moving between two places at all, but gives the appearance to, rather than someone who isn't doing it fast enough.

Put another way, Super-Speed is a basic superpower. Someone has it or they don't. Flash Step is a Rule of Perception effect. It may be employed to represent Super-Speed or for an entirely different purpose.

Either or both may be present in a work, separately or together.

edited 1st May '14 11:09:51 AM by Fighteer