I'm sorry if this is taboo or bad form, but I'm the creator of the webcomic Life on the Fourth Floor. I'm getting a lot of traffic from this page, for which I'm grateful, but the entry describes all my female main characters as having impossible hourglass figures, which I think is a little unfair. It also describes the one character who I deliberately designed to fit the trope as a "Dumb Blonde", when she's actually written as a shrewdly intelligent, manipulative, passive-aggressive Alpha Bitch. I don't want to just go into the entry to start editing it, because that feels like cheating, but I'm also a little hurt that the one TV Tropes page referencing my work contains such a reductive and cheap misreading of the characterisation.
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Seems to me you’ve got a point. I never saw your comic before until five minutes ago, and with a cursory comparison between the first and last couple of pages, I'd say that Charlotte would qualify as IHF the way you first drew her, but not the way you draw her now. The massive improvement in your skill and evolution of your style since you began clearly effects the degree to which the trope applies in a given part. As for Amy's characterization, that would require me to read the story. If no existing fan takes it up, I’m willing to attempt an archive binge over Thanksgiving as research for a potential revision.
To be clear, I think this trope should not be used as a reason to insult the works it appears in. It’s an artistic exaggeration that has its uses, and can also be used in homage to a particular style. I think the factors behind its bad reputation are how omnipresent it's been for the past century, instances when it appears incongruously in a work which aspires to an overall realistic style, and instances where it’s used in combination with other problematic body image tropes. Even if it did apply to certain characters at certain times, you shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of your style.
Edited by TheBigBopper
Sorry, I didn’t think I would be this busy. Feel free to bug me about it if I’m taking too long.
plenty of real life women fall under this trope, maybe you guys should try going outside sometime
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Souless, He Who Wears Many Souls
Can we make an exception to the No Examples Please? Denise Milani has a near-impossible figure. With nearly a 5.5 waist-hip ratio she may be a contender for the most impossible hourglass figure on the planet. Also, a blurb on the ridiculous rarity of a waist-hip ratio below 7.0 would be appropriate. Our girl Tropers need to know they shouldn't conform to Hollywood's ridiculous standards.
Edited by Neogeo I like to pick up heavy things and put them down. Hide / Show Replies
Not every girl is conforming to Hollywood's standards with a smaller ratio than that. My waist-hip ratio is naturally 0.62 as is my bust-hip ratio. Other girls also can have very small waists compared to their hips; I've seen it myself.
nothing ridiculous about the standards if you say no to the ninth twinkie ;)
🍊orange fursona🧡
I tried adding this to the Fashion Design section,
the waist with the background color.But couldn't because it's a Real Life example. How do I rephrase this?
ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔|I DO COMMISSIONS|ᜇᜎᜈ᜔ᜇᜈ᜔
It is not better make this page a No Examples Please page? Because the entire page is filled with ZCE.
Sanity is overrated
Wouldn't Penny Brown qualify for this trope despite being a real person? Given that she purposely invoke this trope as a shout out to Jessica Rabbit .
Zzzzzzzzzz
Permanent Link to YKTTW. Originally launched as Hourglass Hottie.
Link to TRS thread that lead to rename and restoration of original definition.
I've been doing some thinking lately and I think would be best to revert the trope definition back to back to old one. The old definition was basically a character with an hourglass figure that was impossible in real life, without use of a corset. It did not include character's that hourglass figures that were rare in real life.
1) The idea to expand the trope definition was from a trs thread were there was no consensus to do so.
2) This is, was meant to be anyway, a graphical trope, meaning that it's only possible in animated or drawn works. If we're including character's with proportions that would be rare in real life, then it make no sense to not have real life women with those proportions as well.
3) Related to the previous point. An hourglass figure is already a rare shape for a woman in real life to have. So asking tropers to go the extra mile of figuring out what's uncommon for a figure that's already uncommon is just too much.
Anyway, I'm going to start a TRS thread soon for reverting this trope back to it's original definition. If anyone has any opinions on the matter they would be much appreciated.
Edited by captainpat Hide / Show Replies
Agreed. Restricting this to a graphical trope is effective enough.
Edited by azul120
Alright so we've got a good number of examples of this page but a lot of One Word Examples. Which, I contributed to unfortunately but I intend to correct it. I'm gonna try to flesh out the examples. If anyone wants to help, feel free to do so.
However two things. 1) please try avoid out right lusting and keep the examples descriptive 2) I know that a lot of examples in this page are characters with large breasts, a character simply having large breasts is not a trope. Make sure to read trope descriptions for Buxom Is Better, Most Common Super Power, and Boobs Of Steel, before you tack them on and please avoid Pothole Abuse.
Edited by captainpat
If characters have that hourglass figure (wide, curvy hips and breasts plus narrow waist) but not to the exaggerated lengths of this trope, then would they just fall under Curves in All the Right Places?
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Do you have an example for comparison?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
I wish, since it would've saved me the trouble of not have to create a new trope, but Curves in All the Right Places is a Stock Phrase and pretty ambiguous in where those right places are supposed to be.
You know, I'm starting to think that the trope criteria are a little too restrictive. I can't name any particular examples off the top of my head, but I don't see why a woman with unusually huge breasts, very wide hips and yet a normal waist doesn't count as Hourglass Hottie.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
That might be the case here, since the requirement of "Exaggeration" being a "key component" of the trope limits it from the gray zone of those that just meet the intention of the trope's wording without "Exaggeration". Call it meeting the 'sprit' of the trope, I guess... And given that there are quite a few more examples which I would consider without that limitation. Like from the Gundam SEED series, the ship captains... and so on.
It is something that I could see being discussed at a later date with more eyes on this page and it's contents.
Edited by TheLeangle
The thing is, I would argue that regular hourglass figures are another trope, because they don't fit the reason for this trope. The reason is to exaggerate normal female characteristics. If the animator is going for normal proportions, they are specifically not trying to exaggerate.
I'd actually just put it on a trope that says that all women have to have hourglass figures, as is often the case in animation.
Everyone Has An Important Job To Do
A TRS thread on the matter has been created, just to let you know.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
So, just to make sure I got my tropes right: Hartman Hips and Hourglass Hottie are mutually exclusive, right? Or is it more like "Hourglass Hottie = Buxom Babe + Hartman Hips"?
Edited by MarqFJA Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus. Hide / Show Replies
Sorry for the late reply but yes, it's pretty much a woman with is Hartman Hips and huge breasts and these two are mutuality exclusive because a character with Hartman Hips cannot have large breasts, her hips have to be the main visual cue that she is in fact female.
Think hello nurse
or Jessica rabbit
when using this trope
Oh, I know what a typical Hourglass Hottie should look like. I was only wondering about possible overlap between the three tropes, in case I see them together in a character sheet under a single character's entry.
I guess this means that both Buxom Babe and Hartman Hips should be zapped from every character entry that has (or qualifies for) Hourglass Hottie, huh?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Pretty much. An Hourglass Hottie can overlap with a Buxom Babe, but she does not have Hartman Hips
Edited by captainpat
"can overlap"? I think it should be "always overlaps".
On a related note, where does this trope leave Baby Got Back? I mean, real hourglasses are three-dimensional objects; having both a big bust and wide hips would only create an hourglass silhouette on the front/back axis.
PS: Do you think this trope could use an article image?
Edited by MarqFJA Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Well, females with hourglass figures don't always have big backsides.
BTW, we may need to transfer more examples from Hartman Hips. This trope is underoccupied so far.
I don't think characters having both this and Buxom Is Better would hurt, since some characters have already had both Buxom Is Better and Most Common Superpower, for instance. Plus, Buxom Is Better is more a direct huge bustline related trope, while Hourglass Hottie has more to do with overall figure, even though it includes wide hips.
Edited by azul120
Then I would not be wrong to include a line about "sometimes overlaps with Baby Got Back", then?
Buxom Is Better (which, BTW, is undergoing maintenance) doesn't always involve huge bustlines; "normal" largeness is within its scope. Thus, Hourglass Hottie is always by definition a Buxom Babe, just usually more closer towards the "realistic" end of the Breast Size Spectrum.
I said can overlap because I was still under the impression that a character who would fit under Buxom Is Better required some In-Universe reaction to count. I dunno, that trope is still very vague in what exactly it means and I should probably get back to the trope repair discussion.
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