Playing With Wiki: General Cleanup and Writing Help

I found this on PlayingWith.Driving Stick:

• Inverted:
  • "I can’t even see a gear stick!"
  "Okay, that means it a column shift."

Is this actually an Inversion? Or any other kind of mutation?

Belated, but I'm not really sure that's any sort of mutation.

PlayingWith.Bully Brutality is mostly fine, but there's some things I question:

• Downplayed seems... too downplayed? Like I doubt a Dope Slap is brutal enough to qualify for this trope.
• Lampshaded doesn't make much sense, it's not written as dialogue and is it even really a form of playing with?
• The reconstructed examples are also throwing me off, though I fully admit to never having understood what "reconstructed" actually means. They just feel like further deconstructions to me, personally...

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 4th 2023 at 3:16:44 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Well, both of the "reconstructed" examples say "for a given value of it" which can be Troper-speak for "this doesn't actually qualify so I'm going to pretend that hedging it makes it okay".

Part of the problem is that a reconstruction can take a number of forms that only have in common that they deny that the deconstruction necessarily discredits the trope, compounded by the troper base not necessarily having a good grasp of the term, especially since it can be a bit of a badge of honor amounting to "played straight but good." Ideally, a Reconstruction takes the elements of the deconstruction and incorporates them into a straight example, making them work in the context of the setting and ultimately makes the original trope richer for it, or at least allows fans of the trope to continue to have their fun. Also acceptable is deconstructing the deconstruction and showing why it wouldn't actually work that way and why the more idealistic (or at least played-straight) approach would actually be better in real life. I think in the past I've seen reconstructions that basically take the deconstruction and say "but Alice has fun anyway", which doesn't really do anything with the deconstruction so much as ignore it, but even that at least attempts to have a straight example in the face of the deconstruction's critique.

Then there's this, from PlayingWith.Summon Everyman Hero (this is just one example of each out of many on the page):

This is just a way for the author to obviate the problem raised by the deconstruction by tacking a new rule onto the setting so it doesn't come up, not to actually work with it. I feel like, to the extent the deconstruction is a "problem" that needs to be "solved", the characters and setting need to have a solution to it, not the author. I might replace it with:

• The magic exists to send messages back to Earth assuring Kenta's parents that he's okay and what he's doing, and maybe to summon his parents as well.

Edited by MorganWick on Aug 4th 2023 at 3:07:53 AM

From Freudian Slip:

• Deconstructed: Bob's inability to talk in anything but Freudian Slip causes him to become mistrusted by the people around him. He is unable to take jobs that require conversing with other people, and is placed into a mental institution to cure his problem.
• Reconstructed: However, Bob eventually learns that through thinking perverted thoughts, they come out as normal words, allowing him to invert his Freudian Slip problem.
• Played For Drama: Bob's inability to talk normally is a common source of angst for his wife Alice, who has to deal with a constant stream of hidden perversion from her husband, eventually leading to divorce.

Yeah, "unable to talk any other way" seems like a stretch.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Aug 14th 2023 at 3:10:01 AM

Not sure about Played for Drama, but "unable to talk normally" should definitely not be under Deconstructed or Reconstructed, since the point of those tropes is to be realistic, and that's not realistic.

For every low there is a high.

Those entries seem to think it's about some sort of Tourette's Syndrome variant, as opposed to being a one-off event. Freudian slips happen often enough in real life that it doesn't really need to be deconstructed or reconstructed (though maybe a deconstruction would dig into the assumption that Freudian slips betray subconscious desires), and you can have a simpler played-for-drama case where a single Freudian slip has disastrous consequences.

Edited by MorganWick on Aug 15th 2023 at 2:05:05 AM

So those entries are not the only problem, I would say something to the troper, but it was almost ten years ago.

• Lampshaded: "Dammit Bob, why is it that whenever you talk you reveal your hidden pervertedness?!"
• Invoked: The character received a brain surgery that rendered him incapable of separating his conscious thoughts from his subconscious thoughts, thus causing a constant Freudian Slip.
• Exploited: Using his inability to talk in anything but Freudian Slip, Bob works as a encryptor for confidential information.

EDIT: I fixed the three above, as well as Played for Drama. Can anyone come up with something for Deconstructed/Reconstructed?

Edited by randomtroper89 on Aug 31st 2023 at 2:54:51 PM

PlayingWith.Failures On Ice has two Implieds. I suspect one of them or both may be misplays.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

The one at the bottom doesn't look implied at all since we can see what happens. I think that one's misuse.

By the way speaking of Freudian Slip, there is this subversion:

• Bob's slip up came not from his subconscious, but from still learning the local language. (EG: in Dutch the "oo"^* spelled "oe" in dutch and "uu"^* doesn't actually exist in (the standard forms of) English anymore sounds makes the difference between "whores"["hoeren"] and "rents"/"renting"["huren"])

Still interested in an answer to this question from a few months ago, but I also have another question.

Suppose you have a Death World that all off-worlders rightly consider to be utterly hellish, but the natives consider it to be more or less a paradise (bonus points if they are thriving despite all odds). What form of trope-playing is this with respect to Paradise Planet?

Edited by MarqFJA on Sep 1st 2023 at 8:38:45 AM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

How is the planet introduced to the audience? Through the perspective of the outsiders or the natives? That's the first piece of information we need before we can tell how the trope is being used.

We could be dealing with a subversion of Death World or Paradise Planet. We could be dealing with both tropes being played straight. It could be zig-zagged, exploited, discussed, etc. Without the context, it's impossible to tell.

---

Regarding your Language Equals Thought question, I agree that the paragraph on subversion is wrong. The trope is not about whether a language describes a concept in an elegant or clunky way. It's supposed to be a trope that uses a language's lack of native word for something as proof that the concept of it doesn't exist in the culture/species that speaks it — the trite example being that a war-loving culture has no word in their language for "peace" because the concept of "peace" doesn't exist for them and is an alien idea if introduced. I disagree that it's a downplayed example. I think a downplayed example would be if they have borrowed a word from a different culture's language for "peace", thereby "proving" that while the culture does now have a word and concept of peace, this had to introduced to them from elsewhere; it just happened in the back story instead of the main plot.

So, on the Playing With Page, the first Subversion bullet point (a culture has no word for "murder" so murder doesn't exist in their society... until it turns out that they do have the concept, but they're so good at hiding murder that they've effectively "hidden" it from their language, too) is a legitimate example of a subversion. The second bullet point, however, "language has the concept, but just uses clunky terminoloy" has nothing to do with the trope and is misuse.

That's my thought on it, anyway.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 5th 2023 at 6:53:32 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

In PlayingWith.Byronic Hero, the "main character" uses the name Lord Byron. Although the latter is the Trope Namer and is himself considered an example of the trope, is it appropriate to use? It feels kind of like troping a real life person.

Should Playing With Wiki Template even include Averted Trope? It may be inviting adding it to examples where it's almost always not allowed.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Found this on PlayingWith.Brick Joke:

• Enforced:
  • The accidental launching of Prop #35 Fine China Tea Cup against Bob's head during scene 33, take 12 of the Series Finale, made for a nice, though unintentional, callback to him launching it into LEO to demonstrate his strength during episode #1.^note That's some hang time it got.

Does this sound at all like Enforced? Also, it seems like misuse since a Brick Joke needs to be deliberately set up. It's not just a Call-Back played for laughs.

I should also note that this entry was added by Sky Charger who seemingly edits only Playing With pages and has a history of nonsensical edits on those.

Also note that the indentation on this is because there was another entry under Enforced. I hope it was legitimate because I submitted it when I created the page.

These entries on PlayingWith.False Friend seem more interested in the scenario (pretending to be a friend to steal a boyfriend) then the actual trope:

• Inverted: Alice befriends Tasmin because she believes David is cheating on or abusing her(whether this is real or not), and wants to help her out of her situation.
  • David breaks up with Tasmin, and Alice becomes her shoulder to cry on. They become friends soon afterwards.
  • Alice is genuinely Tasmin's friend, albeit not a very good one. Despite this, stealing David from her is the one thing Alice won't do, because she believes in The Girl Code.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Oct 19th 2023 at 6:49:09 AM

This entry under the Played for Laughs section of PlayingWith.Shaking The Rump has an unnecessary(?) Played for Horror sentence in it:

• Alice shakes her rump, but gets a little too into it,and throws her back out. She is left confined to her bed, in terrible pain. Could be Played for Horror as well.

Should I remove the sentence?

he/him

I think you could move it to Played for Horror.

For every low there is a high.

Something about Sarcastic Title doesn't seem right. I don't see how calling an animal focused work Humans has a point. In fact it seems to fit the exact complaint from SquarePegRoundTrope.Q To Z.

• Sarcastic Title means that title-content dissonance is played for sarcasm to drive a point home. It's frequently applied to any title that intentionally inverts Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Dec 13th 2023 at 6:30:38 AM

That seems more like Never Trust a Title, since I don't think the title was trying to be snarky.

For every low there is a high.

nvm

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 13th 2023 at 5:18:12 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

@389: Yeah, I personally don't see the point of listing aversions in the PW pages either. It's almost always written as a generic "this doesn't happen" anyway.

As the person who originally wrote the page, I was kinda imagining a work in which the fact that the animals clearly aren't humans was a major Running Gag or something similar to that (if I remember correctly, the Justified example was something like "the work is about animals pretending to be humans"). In hindsight, I probably should've specified that was a part of the hypothetical example. Sorry.

Given that I was relatively new to the site when I made the page (I think my account was only about 6 months old at the time), it was kind of a product from that phase where I didn't quite understand what Playing With pages were, and misusing tropes was one of the mistakes I occasionally ran into.

(I actually kinda came here asking if it was okay to completely change the hypothetical scenario in a Playing With page for what I assumed was no apparent reason, but now I can understand the reasoning.)

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.

Found on Beware the Silly Ones:

For reference, here's the straight example: So, it's an inverted example just because a villain does the straight one, even though the trope is not an inherently villainous one.

I suggest we remove the reference to villain/hero altogether, so everyone who does it is a straight example.

I think that removing the reference to heroes/villains sounds like a good call, because Beware the Silly Ones (as well as related tropes, e.g. Beware the Nice Ones) doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the moral alignment of the character. For "inverted", maybe change it to something like "Someone who looks dangerous, but is actually a Plucky Comic Relief"? That feels like the nearest opposite to the trope.

Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.