Acceptable Targets Discussion Thread

Again, Take That!'s description starts out oddly narrow, but if that's how limited it's supposed to be then it doesn't explain the subtropes. Tropes are flexible, so with the conflicting info I have to side with "it's broader".

I guess. I don't know what we should do with Take That! but that's a separate discussion.

Anyway we all seem to agree that Acceptable Targets needs to be TRSed, we just don't agree on what to do. At least this time we actually have ideas unlike last time.

EDIT: Oh I see. Didn't realize my point had already been brought up—sorry about that.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 5th 2022 at 7:46:17 AM

I only found out that Take That! only applied to works of fiction recently. I brought it up at one of the cleanup threads and was told that that was the definition. But that might be a discussion for another thread.

With regard to Acceptable Targets, like I said before, I don't think "groups that it's okay to make fun of" is tropeworthy. It relies on a negative, that the audience doesn't take offense to the jab, which is impossible to prove. I don't think you can establish a list of groups who it's okay to make fun of because that's going to vary from audience to audience and culture to culture. I do think that "thing an author likes to make fun of" is more tropeworthy.

I don't really see how the proposed redefinition is sufficiently different from Take That! (Edit: I can also see a lot of overlap with Author Tract if it's particularly prevalent), either. It's just "Take That!, but done multiple times towards a single thing", which is The Same, but More Specific.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Nov 6th 2022 at 11:23:38 AM

Well, if Take That! only applies to jabs fired at other works, then Creators Whipping Boy could apply to repeated instances of jabs at anything, be it a work, a creator, or something in Real Life that isn't connected to any work.

I like the idea of it being an inversion to Author Appeal.

Again, I remain wholly unconvinced that Take That! is actually so narrow and I'd much rather just expand Take That! to cover the "misuse" if it's even misuse at all.

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 6th 2022 at 3:17:50 AM

I don't think Take That! is that narrow, but I think a work which famously contains a lot of them or use one particular target as a running gag are probably a notable subset.

If/when someone does a wick check, would that check only cover Acceptable Targets, or would it include all its subtropes as well?

I mean, I'd just do Acceptable Targets for now. We can cover the others separately.

Speaking of which, I assume we can start the check now?

I don't see why not.

Like with the OBC Trope Talk thread, I'll dump a possible wick check link here —> Sandbox.Acceptable Targets Wick Check

If I get time, I'll work on it.

How do you propose to sort the wicks?

I do think work/creator repeatedly doing Take Thats at something is tropable. A single instance could be a one-off jokey thing, but repeated instances has the additional meaning of suggesting the creator truly dislikes the thing, and the creator either dislikes it enough and/or the audience is perceived to agree with that and/or the critical takes are still harmless enough that repeated Take Thats will not deprive the work of its audience.

E.g. Producer Guy and Screenwriter Guy on Screen Rant Pitch Meetings often do a Damned By a Fool's Praise or just a direct jab to the Disney Live-Action Remakes. Examples can be found sprinkled on the work page, and there's currently an entry for Acceptable Targets: "Ryan George doesn't like the live-action Disney remakes very much, since the pitch meetings often portray them as cash grabs that don't improve upon the originals." That only involves the audience (the YMMV aspect) inasmuch as the audience is presumed to agree — if a creator does multiple jabs at something beloved by viewers, they'll take a hit to viewership.

That can be a category then. Like I said, I don't have a lot of time now to work on it, but I will see what I can do. What we might do is a wick check without categories, where we just check wicks to see usage—there have been wick checks like that before AFAIK.

Someone moved all the Acceptable Targets entries on WebAnimation.Supermarioglitchy4s Super Mario 64 Bloopers to the YMMV page under the edit reason, "YMMV trope". However, because it's no longer a YMMV trope, can I move them back?

You definitely can.

Thanks.

It's still listed as a YMMV trope though...? Like, there's a big banner at the top of the page saying examples aren't allowed on main work pages.

...Evidently I missed that. ~Random Troper 123 Nevermind, don't do that. That was my fuck-up and I apologize.

It's alright.

Just dropping to comment that I find the concept (or at least every example I saw) of Acceptable Targets extremely Flame Bait-y, and would prefer merging with Take That! / Author Tract / Straw Character (expansion is possible) or disallowing examples when it comes to TRS.

Which examples do you mean? The on page "these people are acceptable to mock" stuff, or the YMMV examples which are essentially just "the creator makes fun of X a lot"?

I’d assume the on-page stuff. To be honest, I agree.

The examples on YMMV/ pages that say "the work makes of this nationality/person or makes them Asshole Victim". I think just being YMMV when it shouldn't be gives it an impression that the audience also agrees with this. But this would need a wick check.

I'd say the on-page stuff is also pretty bad, because it's basically going "here's a group of people you can get away with making fun of."

I don't have a problem with Unacceptable Targets, because that trope is easy to define. The work directs a jab at someone and the audience thinks it went too far.

Doesn't that just make it Dude, Not Funny!, though... which is IUEO specifically due to complaining problems? I guess not all "jabs" are "jokes", but still.

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 11th 2022 at 3:28:51 PM