Playing With Wiki: General Cleanup and Writing Help

I'm pretty sure that works aren't meant to have them. It can probably go on the cut list.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Cutlisted

The Playing with pages for Mystical Waif and Mysterious Waif is almost exactly the same.

The example seem more closely related to Mystical Waif, so can the other be removed?

I've been working on a Playing With tab for Boxing Lesson. This is my very first one so I felt it was better to run it by the forum users before posting it; if I did anything wrong, I'd rather it be pointed out here than with a big edit or embarrassing PM.

Basic Trope: A victim of bullying takes lessons in boxing or Eastern martial arts to protect himself.

• Straight: Ted is bullying Bob regularly, so Bob learns karate to fight back.
• Exaggerated: Ted bullies Bob. Bob takes a single lesson in karate and then Ted gets Punched Across the Room next time they meet.
• Downplayed: Bob, a victim of bullying, learns self-confidence and Verbal Judo to defuse hostile bullies.
• Justified: Learning boxing, karate, judo, etc. will give Bob the knowledge and courage he needs to deal with any bullies.
• Inverted: The bully takes up boxing to deal with Bob.
• Subverted: Bob learns kung fu after being bullied by Ted. Bob verbally defuses hostilities with Ted the next time, rather than get physical with him.
• Double Subverted: Talking doesn't work and Bob ends up punching out Ted.
• Parodied: After just a few hours of boxing and lifting weights, Bob punches Ted into lower Earth orbit.
• Zig Zagged: ???
• Averted: In spite of being bullied, Bob never even considers learning how to fight.
• Enforced: The writer of the Bob/Ted conflict had the same thing happen to him in real life.
• Lampshaded: "Ha, I knew learning how to box would come in handy!"
• Invoked: Bob openly admits that he'll need physical self-defense lessons to deal with bullies.
• Exploited: Bob wants to turn into a professional prize fighter. His training and battles against bullies end up launching his career.
• Defied: "Bob's taking karate classes? I'm getting a gun!"
• Conversed: "I'm going to start learning karate. It worked for Daniel-san."
• Implied: "You know, Bob, you learn to learn how to protect yourself. You should learn boxing or I know this guy who could teach you karate for cheap."
• Deconstructed:
  • After losing a fistfight to Bob, Ted escalates the conflict by coming at Bob next time with a weapon, like a knife or a baseball bat.
  • After losing a fight with Bob, Ted gathers a gang. They all overpower and overwhelm Bob, delivering a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Reconstructed: Bob continues his lessons over the course of a lifetime, learning how to deal with multiple attackers, armed attackers, and so on.
• Played for Laughs: Bob tries various styles (boxing, karate, kung fu, judo, etc) but gets easily beaten by the bully. Bob learns something Simple, yet Awesome like krav maga and turns the tables on the bully.
• Played for Drama: Bob knocks out the bully in a fight. He is then arrested by the police and goes to trial, either for being the aggressor or using excessive force.

edited 8th Apr '14 9:10:44 AM by MaxWest2

It looks pretty good to me.

The only one that really needs work is Enforced Trope; it needs to be something the writer was obliged to include, not something they merely wanted to.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

I see, Bisected 8. I'll play around with it some more. I honestly couldn't think of anything to put for zigzagging - that's always a tricky one.

Still waiting on suggestions for this item, though lately I'm starting to think that we might need to first iron out a clear but not-too-brief laconic definition to use for the played-straight entry, then work from there. Laconic.The Empire says that it's "an extremely large, powerful, autocratic state", while the Playing With subpage's played-straight entry says "big, mean, and obsessed with conquest"; which of them is it?

edited 14th Jul '14 10:53:41 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The Empire is basically "the bad guys' government, usually autocratic and an oppressive regime".

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

So expansionist desire for world domination/hegemony is not an indispensible trait (compare to how you can't have any form of Innocent Fanservice Girl if there's absolutely no hint of fanservice in the first place)? How does that affect the current Playing With entries?

edited 16th Jul '14 8:30:09 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I created these two pages, Badass and Large Ham. Can someone help out please?

I thank whoever expanded the Badass page. Now can somebody also do the same to Large Ham?

edited 30th Aug '14 6:53:05 PM by AHI-3000

Hello?

Have you considered adding a few entries to the page yourself to start things off?

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Well I did add a few examples to the Badass page, but I was stumped by Large Ham. I guess I have to try harder.

[1] Am I the only one who thinks that this thread is woefully "undermanned", so to speak? I was under the impression that participants would collaborate and trade tips on fleshing out Playing With pages (or writing them from scratch if they either don't exist or are badly written), yet the lack of feedback makes me (and probably other potential contributors) hesitant to bother bringing up anything new.

I mean, speaking for myself, I don't know where to begin when it comes to writing a Playing With Wiki page's entries from scratch.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That's what the thread's for...

The problem seems to be that it's used so rarely that when someone does ask for help, there aren't many people actively watching the thread.

As for writing a PWW entry from scratch:

1. Go to the PlayingWith/ namespace for the page you want to make the PWW entry for (just replace "Main/" with "PlayingWith/" in the URL).
2. Click on the "Tools" tab to the left and click on the "Set page type" button.
3. On the page which comes up, select "sub page" from the "page type" and click on "save change".
4. You should be taken back to the Playing With page; hit edit and copy and paste the template from Playing With Wiki Template.
5. Place a laconic description on Basic Trope (if the page has a laconic entry, you can use that) and modify the link back to the main page (feel free to make it self demonstrating. Save.
6. Edit the page again and add as many entries for the various trope tropes as you can.
7. Add the page to your watchlist, if you like.

edited 9th Oct '14 3:58:43 PM by Bisected8

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

I know the mechanics of how to create a page. My problem is that I have zero experience with going beyond the "Basic Trope" category, at least for the more complicated tropes, like Never a Self-Made Woman.

Ugh, whatever; let me try my hand at this. Won't get anything done if I don't get over my worries of humiliating myself...

Basic Trope: Behind any woman's achievements, whatever they are, there's the expertise of a man.

Played Straight: Alice has gotten far up the social ladder through her acting career. Key to her success is the fact that she's the daughter of Bob, a famous actor.

Subverted: Alice has gotten far up the social ladder through her acting career. Though she was personally taught much of her initial acting skills by her father Bob, a famous actor, she proved to be even more talented and successful on her own merits.

Does this look right?

edited 9th Oct '14 4:13:43 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well...I don't think there's much that can be done about that (other than posting in the thread and hoping more people show up).

Playing with a Trope has a description of each (with sample examples), and if you have any more specific questions...at the very least, I'm here.

EDIT:

Yep, that looks good to me.

Although it might be worth making Bob's lack of influence on Alice's career a bit stronger. e.g. Everyone assumes she got some sort of advantage from being Bob's daughter (e.g. training, being introduced to the right people, etc), but she reveals she didn't (perhaps from being disowned, or Bob's untimely death, or it turns out she wasn't related to him as people assumed).

It might help if the basic example specified how Bob helped Alice, so you've got something specific to avert. Sort of like:

• Basic Trope: Bob helps Alice's career by doing XYZ.
  • Subverted Trope: Everyone assumes that Bob XYZ'd to help Alice, but actually [insert reason why Bob didn't or couldn't XYZ here].

edited 9th Oct '14 4:27:32 PM by Bisected8

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Well, I could use an answer for this proposed addition to My Country, Right or Wrong. Maddy already gave her 2 cents a few posts later, but I could use a third opinion.

Wait, if the subversion is that everyone making a wrong assumption that she had any advantage at all from her relation, then what would be the case were she did have some advantage, but it's not the reason she's so successful (that is, she genuinely has more natural talent in acting than her father or most other actors of her generation have), rather it just explains why, for example, she didn't have a horrible start as a complete amateur saddled with very minor roles for her first few years in the field?

You're right. Can't believe I forgot about that when I edited the Subverted Trope entry. How about this:

Played Straight: Alice has gotten far up the social ladder through her acting career. Key to her success is the fact that she's the daughter of Bob, a famous actor who personally oversaw her training before she officially entered the show business scene.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

To be honest, I'm not sure Never a Self-Made Woman is a great test trope for this, since it's always been a little vague on what the limits are.

Well, what do you suggest then? Both regarding a test trope on the one hand, and regarding what to do with Never a Self-Made Woman, to be clear.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I'd lean towards the MCROR example being a reconstruction, too (it's basically giving an idealistic reason for not turning on your country). It might even be a Justified Trope (since it's giving a reason for following the trope).

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

Here's something to work on: PlayingWith.A Man Is Not A Virgin

Most of the examples are focussing too much on In-Universe mockery, when it's supposed to be the narrative which treats the man in question as pathetic.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

I was thinking of adding an entry to Horrible Judge of Character under Subverted:

Alice gives a lot of trust in Lance, who seems Obviously Evil and Bob says as much to Alice in private, only to be told by her that while she understands that Lance may seem genuinely suspicious, she sees something in him that Bob (and most other people) does not and thus believes that he's trustworthy. It eventually turns out that her trust was not misplaced, as Lance proves to be completely trustworthy to the heroes and his suspicious behavior did have justifying reasons behind them.

Does that seem right to you guys? I think it's too wordy, either way, so I appreciate any suggestions at condensing the example if it's indeed correct.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

It could be a bit more concise, but it sounds right.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer