Broken Base Cleanup

As someone with minimal context besides what's represented in the excerpt, this sounds more like a disagreement with Lucasfilm's choices rather than with other fans for liking it. Are there equally heated sides arguing over this inclusion? If the episodes are considered the best in the series, it doesn't sound like people felt that strongly about it, only that it was an annoyance.

Thank you for the breakdown. I think some of the entries to be kept might have to be expanded on for context reasons even if they are/were valid debates, but at least the page can be trimmed down a bit for the misused entries.

I remembered I actually asked a year ago while cleaning up Zestiria and Xillia 2, that since Broken Base has to apply to people who are fans of the work (and thus part of the fanbase that gets broken, so people who are critical of it don't count), do standalone entries in a Thematic Series count because while there are existing series fans, the games themselves are all mostly standalone? I was told it could go under Contested Sequel instead, so I'd like to suggest the entries for Legendia and Abyss and Zestiria that boil down to "some people like the game but others don't" can be put there instead.

(There was a question of if Contested Sequel can be used for Thematic Series, but other franchises like FF and FE both have used Contested Sequel for their standalone games so I think it's fine.)

I don't know Arise that well but I'll take a shot at it. Several just tie into whether people liked Arise at all, especially older fans who know of the series' conventions, and since the Arise-specific fanbase died out pretty fast after its initial release, some of these can be cut for not being sustained and equally heated arguments.

I can see the argument about Tales of Link given the same thing happened in Asteria, so I'll agree with keeping that and cutting the rest.

What do you think?

See, my thought would not have been to put the games under Contested Sequel because they're not direct sequels of one another. But if that's what you were suggested to do then sure, we can move the contentious game examples to Contested Sequel.

For the Console Wars fighting, the reason I consider them valid is because there were Sony fans who praised Bamco for their Sony-pandering and went out of their way to antagonize the upset Nintendo and Xbox fans, mocking them for having bought Graces and Vesperia's "inferior" versions and saying they should have just waited for the inevitable PS 3 versions. But yeah, the primary anger was at Bamco and not other fans so it's fine to cut them if that doesn't really count as a fandom conflict.

I'll start cutting the examples we've determined definitely don't belong.

As an aside, it almost feels like Arise fans aren't really Tales fans. Not that they're not welcome to become Tales fans, just that they kind of showed up and disappeared out of nowhere and didn't really engage with the rest of the games (not that Bamco makes it very easy...). I dunno. Makes me kind of sad.

Edited by PhiSat on Oct 12th 2023 at 12:48:37 PM

If it gets asked I think I can defend putting it under Contested Sequel, even if they're a Thematic Series, they're still the same franchise deriving similar gameplay/story elements and comparisons with preceding entries are easy to make, even if they're not in the same continuity. Tropes Are Flexible and all that.

I definitely believe you there were fans who were hostile about the console versions, but since Broken Base has to be a big, consistent argument between an equal number of fans that has little middle ground, I think people being smug over Sony getting the best version were likely a Vocal Minority having one-sided beef with the rest of fandom that either didn't care or wasn't going to fight back to the same degree, so to speak.

I'll take a shot at rewriting some of the entries tomorrow, since there's some "is this" and "recently" writing from the original entries that should be fixed to bring things in line.

I agree, it is a little bit odd how that turned out especially with how well the game sold internationally. I guess it might be because Arise doesn't resemble other Tales games at a glance, so people might not have cared to try the others. Maybe the DLC expansion will change that, but that's probably a discussion for the Tales thread.

Does this Broken Base entry on YMMV.Spider Man No Way Home seem like too minor a nitpick to count? It also admits there's a middle ground opinion.

• The "Scooby-Doo this shit" scene is either; a truly hilarious joke, an ok joke, or one of the cringiest jokes in the MCU.

Nitpicky, has a middle ground, and uses the term "cringy" in the year of our lord 2023. I'd chop it if I were you.

I've been feeling uneasy about this Base-Breaking Character example on Bojack Horseman for a while, and was hoping to get a second opinion:

Pete and Penny became this after their surpirse return in the final season. Fans noted both of them telled very manipulated versions of their prom night that twists BoJack's actions to make him look much worse while not mentioning their own willingness in participating in BoJack's actions that night and Penny's attempt to seduce him. Depending on the fan they come up as Unintentionally Unsympathetic individuals that refuse to take responsability for their previous screw ups or they are justified to feel like that, given BoJack wasn't acting like a proper adult and they were teenagers that didn't know better.

It feels very one-sided to me, as well as unpleasant reminders of how much I saw "it was Penny's fault/she was fair game" excuses for Bojack's actions.

Okay so this is on Cry of Fear:

• Broken Base: Ever since Lowtax's very mocking Let's Play (which complained about the voice acting, the slow pace, the darkness of the mod, the puzzles, level layout, and the over-reliance on jump scares, on top of the LP overall really being an excuse to bash PewDiePie and the various "stick a camera to record my scared reactions" copycats that propped up around the game in the wake of it all), there's been a growing hatedom amongst the goons. It's bad enough that SA's Let's Play Archive has two LPs of the game on it now — one by Mr. Sunabouzu, a known fan of the team, that is rather respectful towards the game (at worst only being mildly sarcastic), and another by chocolatekake that was done for a bad games thread and gives it no respect whatsoever.

I'm not an expert on this trope i'll admit, but even then this just sounds like flatout misuse. It's not talking about how an aspect of the game divided the fanbase, just that there's a Hatedom against it from an entirely different fandom.

Edited by DoodSlayer136 on Oct 18th 2023 at 3:00:17 AM

While I have seen people get mad at Pete's misleading recount of events (mostly the point he claimed BoJack "forced" them to drink the alcohol, though I assume it's meant to be slightly inaccurate but still sympathetic given how the evening traumatized him), I haven't seen anybody say Penny was wrong in recalling the events of her evening / wanting to bring him to justice, and if they do, they tend to get downvoted to oblivion. I've also seen pretty much nobody suggest Pete and Penny are entirely to blame (Pete didn't even really do much at all, which is part of the point) While there's some Broken Base stuff regarding Penny (I did make an entry about it, despite very much having a side in that debate), I don't think this is it.

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 18th 2023 at 12:21:06 PM

Two things I'd like to address here. Firstly, this example from BrokenBase.Video Games, which seems to exist solely to whinge about Lucky Chloe with no fair representation for her supporters and their points of view. Yet another case of "Some people like or are at least neutral towards it, but COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN" misuse:

• Tekken 7: To say Lucky Chloe divided Western players is a huge understatement; since while some were fine or at least neutral, many cried out that the Rated M for Manly franchise had sold out to the Moe crowd for creating a "Furry Vocaloid Idol". And when director Katsuhiro Harada sarcastically responded that she was Japanese-exclusive (along with other Take That, Audience! moments) via Twitter people took them at face value and rejoiced.

Gah. Also, I don't know if I'm overreacting or not, but the tone of the example in its current state comes across as borderline misogynistic, although I can't quite put my finger on why. I have heard that Lucky Chloe was divisive, but this example is in dire need of a rewrite to not be so biased towards the negative, preferably from someone who's more familiar with Tekken than me.

Secondly, concerning this: It's my understanding that policy additions like this would require consensus, and that's why I've held off from adding it. Should I wait until that consensus is reached, or am I already good to go? If so, I'll try adding it to the factions bullet point; if it turns out it doesn't flow well enough, I might give it a paragraph to itself.

Edited by Riolugirl on Oct 20th 2023 at 1:46:15 PM

That entry could probably go better on Americans Hate Tingle if the backlash occurred primarily in the Americas.

Disregard.

Edited by AnotherOnlinePersona on Oct 22nd 2023 at 9:53:57 AM

I can kind of see a point to the Mandalorian post. To me it seems like the two camps are "the execution is flawed for meta reasons so I wish they did something different with them but I'm not opposed to bringing them into this show" and "I hate that they were even in this show at all". That's been the source of conflict in other fandoms before.

Samus Aran's Zero Suit is listed as an example of Base-Breaking Character in YMMV.{{Metroid]}. Do examples of a single character trait/aesthetic being divisive count as Base-Breaking Character, or should it be moved to Broken Base?

If it's not Samus herself and just something about her, then I'd say Broken Base.

I think this entry on Lindsay Ellis' YMMV page has some issues:

• Broken Base: The backlash over her comments on Raya and the Last Dragon and the fallout thereof. While many of Lindsay's fans saw the viciousness of the backlash as completely out of line for what looked to be a mildly insensitive comment at worst, a good deal of her South East Asian viewers were genuinely offended and saw the backlash as justified. Lindsay's prior history played a role too, as her sometimes flippant attitude and Crosses the Line Twice brand of humor led to growing resentment from progressives on social media^note another element at play was that Lindsay was yet another white and privileged American producing video essays in a field where and privileged voices are the overwhelming majority, and some used the backlash to attack Lindsay as obstructing marginalized voices simply by being present. There's also those who think the controversy was engineered by Lindsay to have a sympathetic excuse to back away from essays and focus on her writing career, a theory boosted by her returning to video essays on Nebula on a limited basis.

While I'm uncertain whether this should be troped at all (it's a real life event but she talked about it in her videos, so I think it's a gray area), I take particular issue with that last bit.

I haven't seen anyone saying that the controversy was "engineered" (granted, I don't lurk her subreddit and I don't use Twitter anymore, so it is possible I missed it). Furthermore, regardless of whether or not you think the backlash was justified, it certainly happened. I'm not sure how Lindsay would've allegedly engineered all that- are they supposing she said something controversial on purpose? The idea that someone would turn the full wrath of Twitter on themselves to take a break and move platforms seems far-fetched.

Plus, Lindsay has talked about how traumatic it was to have so many people sending her hate and digging up her past mistakes and threatening her, and it indeed got incredibly vitriolic. To accuse her of, essentially, faking it, seems in poor taste.

I also question if the backlash actually came from her own fanbase, let alone her SEA fanbase

Like Ive always understood it to be one of those situations where people got offended on behalf of a minority group, when the group in question wasn't particularly offended.

But maybe im wrong

That also seems way too negative. And seems to be going into weird conspiracy theories.

Do we think the entry can be salvaged or edited? Or should I just axe it?

I really don't think this backlash came from her actual fanbasw. So it wouldnt be an example either.

Plus adding an entry about how Akshly internet harassment is cool and totally something that they created themselves is in super bad taste.

^ Agreed. I'll cut it and link to this discussion.

Also, why does she have a Trivia.Lindsay Ellis, YMMV.Lindsay Ellis, Lindsay Ellis, Awesome.Lindsay Ellis, and Heartwarming.Lindsay Ellis sub-page? Those aren't allowed for creators.

So any thoughts on this? Kinda went ignored for a few days among the other posts.

They're for examples from her videos. Her page doubles as a Web Video page for the stuff that doesn't have its own page.

FWIW, I did see some SEA people offended by what she said, or at least by her defense later. But I don't think most of them were fans, so it's not an example as most Lindsay fans defended her.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 8th 2023 at 12:15:16 PM

YMMV.Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

• Broken Base:
  • Fans of the book cannot decide which version is the superior adaption, this or the 1971 film. The Stuart adaptation invokes more nostalgia, deviates from the book, and takes more risks with mixed results. Whereas the 2005 film follows much more closely to Roald Dahl's work, many perceive it as a soul-less parade of neverending, exceedingly weird imagery (it IS a Tim Burton film, after all!) which ruins Wonka's mysterious character with a forced Daddy Issues-themed backstory. This has led to a pretty heated Fandom Rivalry regarding which one is the better movie.
  • In regards to the Adaptation Expansion, particularly Wonka's new backstory which shows his father was a domineering, strict dentist who denied the young Wonka any candy whatsoever out of obsessive concern for the health of his teeth. Eventually, Wonka re-encounters his estranged dad with Charlie's help and both reconcile. Those who like this new element claim it helps add a whole new layer to Wonka and greatly humanizes him beyond being, in Burton's words, "just a weird guy". Those who dislike it, however, claim the Daddy Issues-themed backstory feels too clichéd and ruins the mystery behind Wonka, which has always been a staple of the character ever since the original Dahl novel. Granted, even the most ardent detractors of this have been a little forgiving on it because Sir Christopher Lee's acting as a stern, cold, nightmarish dentist is simply top-notch.
  • Even fans of the 1971 film had to appreciate the Four Bratty Kids, except for Veruca Salt, were all subpar, lackluster and Unintentionally Sympathetic. The 2005 film showcased their brattiness and horrible natures properly, except again for Veruca Salt, because Julie Dawn Cole embraced that spoilt girl's character so well it left a Tough Act to Follow.

Regarding the last one, it doesn't really explain where the Broken Base is on this one.

For context, they made Veruca Salt more of a Manipulative Bitch in the 2005 version. They were pretty much all Flat Characters in the 1971 movie, they just flanderized her brattiness to the nth degree. It's not like she's any less of a bad person in the 2005 version, they just do it in different ways (and less obnoxiously in the latter adaption imo).

Carrying over from this ATT query, since this fits here.

Currently on BrokenBase.The Loud House, there is a folder dedicated to shipping. And There are also other related Broken Base entries surrounding ships (like for one, on YMMV.Little Witch Academia, there is an example covering Akko/Ursula).

My question is, what should we do with these types of examples?

Now generally, many on the query feel fan ships in general shouldn't qualify since they are part of the fandom and not part of the work proper.

IMO, I think there can be a compromise. If the divide surrounds how a canon couple is depicted in the work proper and if that canon couple is good or not, then I think that can work since that is still related to the work proper.

But fan ships with no canonical basis should not be a part of it since they are not a part of the work and can potentially lead to ship-warring and other unpleasant fandom stuff.

Edited by Tylerbear12 on Nov 19th 2023 at 1:46:55 PM