Not Tropeworthy (alt names crowner 5 July 2021): Recycled In Space

So is there room for a trope about plots being moved into space where they seem out of place? Like the current trope image?

That might be covered by Setting Update, but if the wick check ends up turning up enough literal interpretations of Recycled In Space's name, I'd support the creation of a space-based Setting Update subtrope.

I thought Setting Update was an adaptation trope? For instance, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice that takes place in modern times. Would it cover cases where a sequel or spin-off takes place in outer space?

That's actually a good question. I might have misread the description; I mainly mentioned it because it's mentioned in the bulleted list on Recycled In Space's page, and I didn't see (or possibly just didn't notice) anything else that sounded close.

I was going to say there's a genuine trope here of taking an existing IP and putting them in some other, often incongruous, setting, with "in space", "in the future", "in the present day" (for older works), and "as babies" being the most popular... but there's already some JFF-ery and misuse in the Internet Archive's oldest version of the page, with people saying Show A is just Show B with a twist, which isn't much different from what X Meets Y is now. So this probably calls for a split, with an objective trope where it's either literally the original work in a new setting or, in the case of public domain works where all the names have been changed to protect the innocent, Word of God confirmation of the original inspiration (and probably ditching the existing example format), and a JFF page where we can make all the comparisons we want.

Edited by MorganWick on May 10th 2021 at 5:49:11 AM

Well, 41 wicks into the wick check and thus far, yeah, it's not looking good. We only need 30 wicks to go, so if anyone wants to pitch in who hasn't yet, please do.

^^Also, I am concerned how one could distinguish between valid examples and coincidental similarities. As we've found out with Expy et al. tropers do not do a very good job at separating coincidental similarities from actual derivation.

If the Just for Fun-type misuse turns out to be that much of a problem, I suppose we could do a Trope Transplant by moving Recycled In Space to Just for Fun and moving the setting change examples to a new location.

Move to JFF, and create an intentional setting change trope.

Edited by Albert3105 on May 11th 2021 at 9:42:12 AM

So, I was about to do the last 20 wicks for the check, but I want to address something first:

What do we consider a ZCE with this trope?

Because several of the "correct" examples on the check are ones that I'd personally put in the ZCE bin. I don't want to continue the check and end up with inaccurate results just because we couldn't agree on what constituted a proper example.

I've been putting everything that refused to describe the work in question in the ZCE bin. They might be "right" in that they're describing a plot, but they're so low-context that it doesn't matter. Or should I meet in the middle and do a "correctly used, but lacking in context" section? The issue with this trope is that a vast majority of the examples lack any sort of context, whether or not they're technically correct usage.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 11th 2021 at 9:57:46 AM

To be honest, I think the typical "Work X is Work Y WITH A TWIST!" examples are ZCEs themselves, because they don't say anything useful about what the work's actually like, especially to people who aren't familiar with either work. At least X Meets Y can stand to be more lenient with examples like that because it's already Just for Fun.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 11th 2021 at 10:34:05 AM

And I'd agree with that, but I didn't want to move the examples unilaterally and enforce my own standards over the wick check. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.

Maybe you could just note that it's not clear whether they have sufficient context (which might mean putting them in a separate folder) instead of automatically classifying them as ZCEs, if it's not clear whether they actually count as ZCEs.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 11th 2021 at 10:36:06 AM

But that's the issue; there's an entire ZCE folder with examples just like those ones. I don't want to arbitrarily claim some "might" have context while saying others don't. Either they're all good or they're all bad. Either they can all go in the same folder or they can't.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 11th 2021 at 11:36:46 AM

Ah, that's probably on me. I remember initially marking "X Work...But With Y Twist!" down as correct, but then saw that the entries in the ZCE folder matched that format, so I moved a bunch and probably missed some.

I suggest a separate folder for partial context examples written in that way, because I do believe that is how much of the usage will go — as this is a very old trope of yore and the title itself (The Iliad... recycled in space!) lends itself to that format.

Edited by Synchronicity on May 11th 2021 at 11:02:52 AM

My concern is that whether or not something has "partial" context or not in this case is entirely on how much one knows about the work in question. It's impossible to really draw a line here- another reason why I didn't want to keep charging forward without resolving this issue. The trope is drowning in examples like these and we need to know how to classify them.

Maybe a compromise- we could rename the folder from "ZCE" to "Low-Context" and if there's any we think might be valid despite their lacking context, we can make a note of it.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 11th 2021 at 12:06:49 PM

I have just been considering "X...but Y!" examples as partial context without any regard for how much I know about 'em, tbh, so that's why I've been flip flopping between "correct" and "ZCE". Like it's got the work to be recycled and the bare minimum of how it was "in space", so... (Except for the Romeo and Juliet one because...it's Romeo and Juliet)

Eh...I'll wait for others to chime in now and see what they think we should do. (Also, the more eyes and hands on the sandbox the better.)

Edited by WarJay77 on May 11th 2021 at 12:16:39 PM

Which is higher priority for this check: Determining the extent of a ZCE problem (which is certain to exist along with all other issues that this page seems to have) or cataloging what the tropers meant? If the later, the "X but in/on Y" entries should count fine, as long as we can say "I know what they mean".

RE: existing examples on that check, I think that the Theatre.Curtains entry should count, though I'd mark it as an Invoked Trope —The Show Within a Show is acknowledged in universe as "We're remaking Robin Hood in the Old West!"

Put these "work WITH TWIST!" into a different category than ZCE and full example, I'd say.

Sounds like a compromise. I'll update the sandbox now; tell me what you guys think. If I missed any, feel free to move them.

Edit: Done.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 12th 2021 at 2:38:42 PM

Okay, I finished it (I also changed the bullet markup to numbers because I was having trouble keeping the numbers straight). Again: Wick Check In Space

Results:

• 2/72: Correct usage (older work + gimmick/twist + some context about the twist)
• 34/72: "X with a Twist" low-context examples
• 3/72: Recycled other elements (plots, characters) without a stated twist
• 4/72" Fantastic version of a trope
• 1/72: Complaining (which is actually an example of "X with a twist")
• 15/72: References to space in general
• 2/72: Recycled character
• 4/72: Other ZCE
• 7/72: Other/Unsorted

Edited by Synchronicity on May 14th 2021 at 1:02:50 PM

^ = 79%. What about the rest?

Looking at the WC page, the totals don't match up...

Edited by Berrenta on May 14th 2021 at 12:54:07 PM

Combination of janky rounding errors, the fact that I'd checked an extra wick (so the actual total is 72) and I missed the whole "space reference" category in my post. It's fixed now.

Do you mean the total at the top of the page? The reason I changed it out to numbers was because I kept forgetting to update it. It's fixed now.

Edited by Synchronicity on May 14th 2021 at 1:02:00 PM