Unclear Description: Instant Costume Change

Instant Costume Change is described as a subtrope of Changing Clothes Is a Free Action, but it's not clearly explained what the difference/specific trait is.

I think the difference might be that Instant Costume Change is demonstrably some sort of actual ability rather than being basically inexplicable. If that's true, the description should reflect that and some of the examples should be moved around.

Both trope descriptions say that Instant Costume Change is a superhero trope. But I'm not sure what's so special about a superhero's instant change of clothes that it should warrant its own subtrope.

Maybe it would if the superhero trope was about a magical or superpower transformation, rather than a mundane (albeit unrealistically quick) change of clothes, but the trope description explicitly includes Superman changing in a phone booth, which to me seems exactly what the supertrope is about; just The Same But More Specific in that it's a superhero changing.

Maybe it would be better to follow the OP's suggestion: the supertrope is about all kinds of unrealistically quick clothes changes, while the subtrope is about the magical or superpower transformation kidn (which would exclude Superman).

edited 18th Jun '15 5:44:51 AM by GnomeTitan

I think they're sister tropes rather than super and sub.

Changing Clothes Is a Free Action is where they logically would need more time, but the work just skips out the changing part and have it be done instantly. It's more of a pacing and convenience trope.

Instant Costume Change is the explicit super power to change your outfit instantly. If you have that, you don't need the other trope.

Agreed all-around.

In that case, would Instant Armor be a subtrope of Instant Costume Change?

Yes. There are a few tropes around the area that are a bit messy with exactly what they include and how they're defined.

Transformation Is a Free Action is another, which seems to be both where it takes little or no time, but its screen time is long; and when it actually takes a long time but no one interrupts anyway.

Might be an idea to streamline a few of the trope pages to make them consistent with each other, although that might be out of the scope for this thread.

edited 18th Jun '15 8:05:15 AM by AnotherDuck

And then there's Offscreen Reality Warp, which count as the supertrope for Changing Clothes Is a Free Action.

It's worth interesting to note that this trope's actually being misused for when changing clothes seems to be near instantaneous, if not outright. In other words, it's being misused for Changing Clothes Is a Free Action.

Incidentally, I also believe Changing Clothes Is a Free Action to be a Bad Snowclone simply because I had confused it with Transformation Is a Free Action.

edited 24th Sep '15 11:53:51 AM by KarjamP

The way I see it is

Transformation Is a Free Action is more Transformation Sequence Is A Free Action, they transform and the enemy doesn't try to interact or is unable to interact, some might actually be instant but to the viewer it is certainly not instant.

Changing Clothes Is a Free Action is more you get clothes and bam they are on, it's assumed that the character does actually manually change its just not seen simply because there is a jumpcut or a cut away or something. In video games, it would be like equipping things in a menu and when you exit they have em on its pretty much a law of Conservation of Detail. Some games like Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain avoid this by having the character hop into a cardboard box and ruffle around while changing, which people complain about taking too long and leaves you open.

Instant Costume Change, it's more of a superpower where stuff like Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII you set up 3 costumes and change them instantly realtime via R1 and L1 as a power, Superman spinning once and bam changed explained as Super-Speed vs finding a phone booth or Q in Star Trek doing Q things.

edited 24th Sep '15 12:22:12 PM by Memers

The true question is, is this trope worthy of existing as a Sub-Trope to Changing Clothes Is a Free Action?

This trope's technically Changing Clothes Is a Free Action, but as a super power (in other words, The Same But More Specific). If it's noteworthy enough to exist as a sub trope, then we can keep it. Otherwise...

It very much deserves its existence, the law of Conservation of Detail is one of the biggest media laws, we don't need to see every costume change or Launching Sequence and such but the cutaways, jumps and such are blatantly obvious.

Instant Costume Change is NOT Conservation of Detail, it's an involved mechanic in the work and is a deliberate ability which might be Super-Speed, Morphing Costume, teleportation, Reality Warper, Divine Ability, result of a transformation and such.

edited 24th Sep '15 2:33:02 PM by Memers

The thing is, this trope's very often confused with Changing Clothes Is a Free Action simply due to the names being similar.

Heck, there's evidence of misuse even on the main page. For example, apparently, all sims have this as a super power, with which they all use to instantly change their clothes instead of doing it normally.

I'm all for renaming to make the difference clear, I am also for renaming transforming is a free action too to add 'sequence' into it

I don't play sims at all but isn't that kinda a menu based choose an outfit which they just have it on type thing?

edited 25th Sep '15 3:04:39 AM by Memers

Isn't it more just an animation shortcut and balance consideration in The Sims than an explicit superpower. I mean, the games runs on an accelerated clock, so taking time to change clothes would mess the balance up.

The description of the animation (spinning around) does bring to mind the way Wonder Woman changes costume in the 70s live-action series, which definitely involved superpowers.

edited 25th Sep '15 8:40:25 AM by thatother1dude

If time moves faster and they move faster then that is not a super power, that just a cheap way to get out of animating them changing so damn quickly.

Locking as part of New Years Purge.