Discussion JustForFun / TVTropesTheWebcomic

Just added in a couple of character for the Catgirl Time Travel arc, which I hope was okay - although I included bits about the PPC in their backstory, so I'm really hoping I didn't just eff the fourth wall.

Nah, it's cool, feel free to add more. Just remember that despite "Worst Case Scenario" being all over the page, the arc is actually concluded—that caused some confusion. ^^;

It's a page for a work that doesn't exist. Basically, everybody "writes" the work by adding tropes to the page, with an explanation of how the tropes would appear in the work if it actually existed.

That's what's fucking with my brain. What stops the page from exploding into a Doorstopper that includes every single trope under the sky?

The writers must be lazy. That's probably the only explanation.

A troper driven mad/about to be driven mad trying to figure this out?

just as planned.

Sky is the limit! It very well can include a full wiki. And itself.

I know what it is supposed to play on. :) Is there a problem? ^^

I...I'm not sure anymore. I can't remember what I found wrong when I wrote this. Maybe I was thinking that Invocation being a play on Invoked Tropes might be lost on the really dense readers.

After reading Seorin's LP of Tsukihime, this can easily become an actual possibility.

Also, I had a weird idea to make a Liveblog LP of Etrian Odyssey 3 with characters from the webcomic, and then post it as the next arc (after Fourth Wall Mail Slot, of course.) Opinions?

I have no idea what LP or Etrian Odyssey 3 is. :D

The former is short for Let's Play, and the latter is the third game in the Etrian Odyssey series.

Still no idea. ^^

Didya click the links? ^_^U

Let's Plays are where someone plays a game, makes a record of what they do, what goes on, and the events in the game, and posts that online. Essentially, it's somebody playing the game and telling other people what goes on.

Etrian Odyssey is a game series by ATLUS. It involves some form of Labyrinth (or in the case of the second game, a tree with a labyrinth inside) that is apparently full of untold riches, and adventurers flock to them in hopes of laying claim to these riches. However, being an RPG, there are monsters inside the labyrinth to impede your path and give you experience; being an Atlus game, these monsters are ungodly hard; and being a dungeon crawler, these monsters remain this way for the entire game. You play as the leader of a guild (that you get to name) and lead your band of adventurers (whose names you also get to choose, as well as their classes) to these riches and (hopefully) survive through near-certain death.

Also, if your feigning that you have no idea what I'm talking about is an April Fools' joke, you got me. If not...well, you still got me.

No, actually, it wasn't a joke. I really didn't know any of this. But hey, if you want to do another arc, go ahead.

You still got me.

EDIT: Liveblog is up now. Check it here

Which memes are we talking about? It would be easier to decide if you had a list...

The memes for the comic are sitting under the YMMV section.

As for where TV Tropes The Webcomic would fall under in the Memetic Mutation section, I have no idea into which of the "memes by medium" category it could best be put.

Awww, man, you started that arc from the teaser a lot earlier than I expected. I had hoped to at least have Flame Bait and Executive Meddling up, Cinam and Iris return, and Brynn killed off before that point, but I guess those can wait (possibly indefinitely).

'Less, of course, you're okay with me adding them after you're done. (Heads up: Executive Meddling is supposed to end with a massive Reset Button)

Well, you haven't updated for a week or so, so I decided that you were done... As for your arcs, you can add them after I am done... I hope. :3

Just for the record: If I don't add any new tropes within the next week or two, consider that I've suffered an Author Existence Failure and "Worst Case Scenario" become an Aborted Arc.

Actually, even if "Worst Case Scenario" does wind up an Aborted Arc (or doesn't turn out to be All Just a Dream or invoke Status Quo Is God at the end), it would provide the perfect set-up for "Executive Meddling" (and to be honest, a lot better than the one I came up with).

Well, as it turns out, I survived today so the arc will continue just as planned. ^^

EDIT: There won't be an update on Saturday because I am still trying to figure out the best way to get Retrope involved in the whole mess. I will try to be done tomorrow.

Try not to kill off Brynn, Axel, or Gabe. They're integral to the next arc I have planned (especially Brynn).

As if Report and Ere were not integral to any future arcs. :3

Alright, I am officially done now. ^^ The "Worst Case Scenario" arc is over, you can start new ones now. It only took me one and a half months. :D

PS: Sorry for all the Schedule Slips. :(

Turning Ere bisexual at the end of Worst Case is forcing me to rethink half of the arcs I had lined up, so it might be a bit before I resume updating.

Also, I'm planning an arc called "Fourth Wall Mail Slot" (I'm pretty sure the name is self-explanatory), but from you I need an "Author name" and which Age you were responsible for previously.

Oh well, Ere has long had it coming. :P

And I am "Sarevok", the Silver Age guest author. :D

I killed off the comic's original protagonist, too, in case you didn't notice. :3 But this arc isn't over yet. =)

No, it's just, killing off Gabe debunked a theory I had going about Worst Case.

Also, it occurs to me that since you have Gabe getting eaten by Adbot, that Adbot would get some sort of ESD-induced indigestion from Gabe's Lightning.

Gabe lost the Lightning, remember? ;)

Gabe can't have lost the Lightning completely, because that would have killed him. Since Gabe was still alive after losing his powers, he had to have had some left, which he just could access (Psychosomatic, remember?). If any of the Eht-Ecas lose their powers completely, the end result is death (the same goes for Axel's earth and Brynn's light; if they use theirs all up, they die).

Puts a nice little limitation on Marty Stu-dom.

Oh well, that's all Depending on the Writer. =)

What were you gonna have him do?

Return later during the final stages of the battle for the New Trope City.

They can still do that. Or was Tnanmer somehow going to figure into that?

Y'know, Excluding the CMOA entry and Axel's Catch Phrase, I don't mind if you take those additions out if they interfere with what you had going.

OK, I will resume updating later today. ^^

Um...careful with what you do with Gabe. Unless you plan to reinstate the status quo at the end of the arc, I need Gabe alive and well (along with Axel and Brynn) for the next arc I have lined up.

"Well" is an operative term here; I need him alive and able, but I don't mind lopping off an arm or two (no legs, though, 'cause that would suck).

Got you at the edge of your seat, huh? Good. :3

Make the ending a good one, then. I don't wanna fall off because the drama got killed.

That's the plan... One thing I can promise though: there will be major changes in the comic once I'm through with this arc. %)

Hopefully it's not all of the darker sort. I've never been too good with Cerebus Syndrome.

Darn my idealism.

Cerebus Syndrome doesn't have anything to do with idealism. :P More with comedy vs. drama...

So then, I'm comedy and you're drama? Makes sense.

Idealism can figure into Cerebus Syndrome if your preferences of good things happening to good people and happy endings all around prevent you from killing off any central characters or turning things crapsack, like me.

No comment. :3

Be sure to tell me straight-out when you're done with your new arc(s). I won't know or be able to figure it out otherwise.

Also, it occurs to me that when I established Viel I made his sole ability too powerful without setting limits. My bad.

You have made almost all your characters too powerful, not just Viel. :D And no, writing them so on purpose is not a valid excuse. :P

And yeah, I'll tell you when I'm done.

I meant powerful even compared to my purposefully overpowered characters. He essentially has a version of the Sharingan that allows him to mimic even things that would exceed his physical limits. He's a Marty Stu among Marty Stus, and I felt I already had too much Marty Stu in the pot to begin with.

Personally, I don't care what kind of powers anyone has, as long as they allow me to tell a story. :3

I am not sure what you mean. I am only aware of one TV Tropes The Webcomic—this one. Is there another?

About moving it to another namespace, I don't think so. Part of this project's appeal was its ambiguous meta-fictionality from day one, and moving it to another namespace would be a dead giveaway.

I am also not sure what you mean with "exact copy". Since this page is constantly updated, any external mirror would have to do so, too, and I don't see a point of doing the same updates twice. If you are talking about full-blown Defictionalization, however, then by all means, do. ^^

Of course, said Defictionalization would require the artist(s) (not necessarily the authors) to be able to render several entire arcs in three different (but equally well-drawn) artistic styles.

Also, each "author" that's had a part of the webcomic's history would have to actually write out each arc they did. I'd be mostly fine with it (though since I shove a lot into the Bronze Age, I'd have a lot to write), but I can't speak for others.

Heh, I'd assume that anyone that tries to actually make this a comic would suffer Spontaneous Cranial Detonation Syndrome.

Define "current arcs".

I've still got some arcs planned, but not ones I'd need to tack directly onto what's currently up there.

Well, you added the Christmas arc recently, for example. If you wanted to add some more tropes from them, I didn't want to get in your way. ^^

Okay, I see what you did there. You neglected to mention Axel, though.

That wasn't the arc. It was just a teaser. It seems we have different ideas of what an arc is. When I write an arc, I don't just add it to the list and add a couple of tropes here and there. I write the complete story in form of tropes. And that usually takes several weeks, like a real webcomic arc usually does. :) That's why I wanted to make sure you finish all your arcs before I can move in and secure exclusive access to the storyline for a couple of months. Until I do, I'm not finished with this.

PS: And there is a reason Axel is not in that teaser, it will be explained later.

Ah, cool. I just write as I go, no matter what I'm doing. It gets kinda problematic when I try to tackle a bunch of different things at once, though.

And hey, as long as Axel doesn't die or turn into the next Big Bad, I'm cool.

Hehe. For now, I will cryptically ignore the two possibilities you've outlined for Axel. :3

Well, it's been a week and no word, so I'll just go ahead. :P

So, what do you think? ^^ I have another arc in mind, explaining the adventures of Retrope and Ere taking place simultaneously with Song For You...

Gabe was meant to be over-powered; I wrote him specifically to be a Marty Stu (Axel as well).

I felt it would make a certain event I had planned for down the line to have a more profound impact if I had Marty Stu characters already established.

But you are aware that Mary-Sue-ing is considered Bad Writing and intentional invocation of said archetype is not among the few ways to make it better? Also, the last time a guy trying introducing an overpowered character, his contributions boiled down to generic fascination with his own avatar and did extremely little for the story progression. I am not telling you to rewrite your characters, but I recommend you to be very careful with canonizing Marty Stus.

The dichotomy between the cast's Super Weights invariably results in different conflict difficulty requirements to challenge each character. And that, in turn, leads to either storyline separation (running the risk of abandoning the weaker characters' storyline, especially if they are not your own creations) or the weaker characters just tagging along behind the Marty Stu. Neither situation is particularly fair for the old cast.

Apropos established characters. I noticed that lately, most of your additions were to Gabe and Axel's character list entries. Please don't forget that the story already has a substantial old cast. Concentrating too much on your original ones may ultimately result in derailment of the whole series, and nobody wants that.

The only reason I added so much more to Gabe and Axel's character entries were because as direct creations of mine, I can say exactly what they do, think, and are. The other characters were already established, so I am afraid to flesh out theirs because I don't know everything of what they have already been made up to by other people (not to mention you and previous authors), and don't want to risk going against that. Heck, I didn't even have a clue as to what Report's hair color was until I found the "Troper Crue" image link two hours ago.

Also, I haven't been writing much of characters like Yug Gib, Ms. Naf, and Bertrand because I have no idea how to write them.

The fun part about this comic is that everyone can contribute to it, just like the actual wiki. As long as you don't directly contradict what was already there before you, you can expand any part of it you want (you can even retroactively add tropes to long-completed arcs). Only that which is included on the main page and the character list is Canon, so if you've read all of it, you have nothing to fear. The Troper Crue image, for instance, is fanart. :D

Awesome fanart, though.

Yeah, Seraph really outdid himself on that one. ^^

You have no idea how long the "late stages of development" can actually last, so don't worry about the nomenclature. :D

Ah, sorry, I overreacted. I'm not quite a Grammar Nazi, but I still have a weakness to semantics; if something is worded in a way that I wouldn't if I had said it, I usually get confused.

That being said, I am planning on making a future arc a direct Castlevania parody (specifically, Dawn of Sorrow), but am considering breaking the "Sprite"-taboo—if only to get a few jokes out of it.

Hmmm. I guess it's OK to do it once but make sure that the characters Lampshade how horrible Sprite Webcomic format is and how it goes against everything the comic has stood for. :D

I was also gonna have them get mad and storm off in different directions, leading to them each getting lost in a different part of the castle. As well as something about having to do sprite comics not being in the contract.

Alright, then. Any suggestions on a title?

Since it's mainly about G.A.V.I.N. why not just call it that? ^^