Leather Pants and Death Eaters

Then isn't that just Alternate Character Interpretation?

Every example of a possible non-fic scenario is covered by a pre-existing concept.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The "specific fanfiction" variatiation is also redundant as a fanfic only version of Adaptational Heroism, Adaptational Nice Guy, Adaptational Villainy, and Adaptational Jerkass. Even if we settle on a definition, we have to deal with the fact that both proposed definitions are redundant with other tropes.

Absolutely true. However, I believe that the fanfiction version is more tropeworthy, as we're not talking about how fans feel about a character but how they use a character. And if we go that route, citations would be needed to avoid general examples, where other Audience Reactions are about how fans feel about the character and don't need citations. The trope itself is "Fans dislike a character so they make them evil", not just "fans dislike a character", right?

Despite that though, the tropes are in horrible shape and I'm not disputing that one bit.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 25th 2020 at 12:59:58 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

But do fanworks count as adaptations? I personally don't think so. Fanworks are by definition amateur in nature. Adaptations are official and usually have to deal with things like studio interference or budgetary limitations. There's also an expectation that an adaptation will closely resemble the work it's based off of. If a character is vilified in an adaptation, it's most likely because of practical reasons. When it happens in fanfiction, it's usually because that author hates the character. I'm not saying someone working on an adaptation can't let their personal feelings of a character affect the final product, but it's something that's much more common in fanworks.

Ri~ight, so who is getting royalties from Walt Disney for making adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and Robin Hood?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

We have Running the Asylum for the concept that the line between fan fiction and official adaptations becoming blurred. Speculation about author intent is usually a bad distinction to be made, as Word of God on the exact matter can be sparse or contradictory and is something that can be applied to any trope ("the writer used Adaptational Heroism on the character because they felt they got a bad rap in the original work"). We simply DON'T KNOW if it's because the writer didn't like the character, the changes needed for the work objectively needed an alteration, the performance redeemed the character or it's purely fan misrepresentation and the writer felt they captured the original character just fine.

Personally, I feel that Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants is simply better suited towards ymmv and fan discussions, since that's how it's used in general and the concept of fans exaggerating or downplaying character traits is a lot more distinctive than the Adaptation Tropes it's related to. It certainly helps to have some fan fiction to refer to, but fan fiction is one of the least troped media works on the site.

Edited by KJMackley on Mar 26th 2020 at 12:25:11 PM

So far:

• Those who think this should be a "trope" for fanworks: Fighteer, War Jay
• Those who think this should be a YMMV as is: me, KJ Mackley, Adept, rjd1922, Tommy Fresh

But let me reiterate again, that I've seen DILP and RTDE being played for laughs instead of done out of hatred. I don't think they're a misuse.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

I need to ask; what's the tropeworthy core to having this be pure YMMV? What would it mean? How would proper examples be written, and how would it stand out?

As established it's got issues either way, but the trope is about what fans do, not how fans think, which is an important distinction as one affects the narrative of a work and one, well, is standard YMMV fare. If we remove that whole "this is what audiences do to the character" idea, what are we left with, and how is it unique from tropes like The Scrappy and Ensemble Dark Horse?

And if we don't remove that part, how could it possibly be a normal YMMV item if it's about what happens in fanworks?

I feel like people on the "Normal YMMV item" side just haven't fully thought through the implications of what they're advocating for.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 26th 2020 at 4:16:04 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

"I need to ask; what's the tropeworthy core to having this be pure YMMV? What would it mean? How would proper examples be written, and how would it stand out?"

Tell that to many other YMMV thingies we have, particularly Never Live It Down and Alternate Character Interpretation.

"As established it's got issues either way, but the trope is about what fans do, not how fans think,"

We've been clear here that we get it. RTDE is fans making heroes bad, DILP is fans making villains good. For whatever reason.

At least tell me, has there been an example of either YMMV thingy that don't follow what I said above?

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

As I keep saying, those other ones are what fans think of a character. Things that don't need to have citations because they're abstract concepts about how fans feel about and react to a work.

But this, this is something that objectively happens in works.

If you separate that requirement from the trope, you're left with something indistinguishable from other YMMV tropes, like Die for Our Ship; but the trope is that fans make a character evil or good in a fanfic when it's OOC- that's not just troping how the fans feel, but what they actually do, and that's not a concept that can be captured without specific examples.

You guys keep saying what the definition is, so how can you not see the contradiction that this trope is about fans writing a character differently, and not just about fans disliking/liking a character in the abstract? You said it yourself- it's when they make a character good or bad. Even if that's a reaction to the original work, it's also objective whether or not it happens- either we can find fanfics that do this, or it's just fans disliking a character, which is The Scrappy, not Ron the Death Eater...

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 26th 2020 at 4:43:36 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So, I totally lost control of where this thread went, but I'll astate my current stance; Let's make the tropes YMMV items that regard how the audience views the character, not how much they like them. Like, "Evulz is actually a great person" instead of simply "I sympathize with Evulz" and "Hiro is actually a villain" instead of "Hiro is kinda unlikable".

We already have tropes for works making characters better/worse and nicer/jerkier and having a negatively-tinted version just for fanfics doesn't seem like a good idea. Alternatively, we can just purge those items outright, for all I care. I just don't want to have tropes with multiple different uses.

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

Alternate Character Interpretation...

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Subtropes...?

Apathy is Death. Worse than Death, because at least a rotting corpse feeds beasts and insects.

"but the trope is that fans make a character evil or good in a 'fanfic when it's OOC- that's not just troping how the fans feel, but what they actually do, and that's not a concept that can be captured without specific examples."

Oh no, it doesn't have to be a fanfic. See: fanarts, fan videos, forum talks and the "shitposts". Therefore, I peg them as "fanon as a whole". RTDE page says explicitly that it doesn't have to be done out of disdain towards the character, so knowing what the fans feel actually isn't a requirement.

That's your (and I think Fighteer's) problem.

And yes, RTDE and DILP are subtropes of Alternate Character Interpretation. Seeing a bad guy as good has to be a different interpretation of a character, yes?

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Also, changing the personality/alignment of a character to the point of OOC is already covered by Character Derailment, no? This is why I'm against turning DILP and RTDE into objective tropes specific to fanfiction because it's redundant to other, existing tropes.

And as subtropes to Alternative Character Interpretation, DILP and RTDE isn't limited to the fans creating new headcanons where the hero suddenly turns into a mass-murdering psychopath, or where the villain is a sweet and harmless saint, but also when they reinterpret the canon motivations and actions as more heinous or virtuous than they really are—such as painting the La Résistance as a bunch of anarchist criminals and saying that The Empire is justified in trying to eradicate those lawless terrorists.

The way I see this, fanworks are the only way to gauge if this trope is happening, because this trope is about how characters are portrayed by the fans. This is what separates these tropes from The Scrappy or Ensemble Dark Horse. It's one thing to dislike a character or like a villain. It's another to rewrite the character to be an irredeemable villain or a misunderstood hero.

This is intended as sarcasm?
Article Count:

• Over 42,000 pages in Recap, which is (mostly) used for television episodes (animated and live-action)
• Over 14,000 pages in Film
• Almost 13,000 pages in VideoGame
• Over 12,000 pages in Literature
• Over 10,000 pages in Creator
• Fanfic is arguably the fifth-most troped medium on this wiki, at 8,197 pages.
• Live-action television series have almost 6,000 pages (2,000 fewer than Fanfiction)
• Music (songs/albums/bands) only have about 5,000 pages (3,000 fewer than Fanfiction)
• WesternAnimation, ComicBook, and ComicStrip add up to about 7,000 pages
• Anime, Manga, Manhua, Manhwa and LightNovel add up to less than 7,000
• WebAnimation, Webcomics, WebOriginal, Website, and WebVideo add up to less than 7,000
• There are 1,779 pages for FanficRecs
• The following mediums have even fewer pages than we have pages for fanfic recommendations; Roleplay, Theatre, Wrestling
• The following mediums have less than half as many pages than we have pages for fanfic recommendations; TabletopGame, VisualNovel, LetsPlay, Multimedia Franchise, Podcast, Pinball, Animation, Blog, Radio, Machinima, Toys, Ride, Advertising, Magazine, AudioPlay, Bollywood, Myth, Art, Wiki, Script, LARP, ARG

tl;dr — fan fiction is one of the most troped media works on the site

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

True, we have a lot of fanfic pages, but many are short and/or poorly-written.

I agree with this. WarJay, do you have a response?

Keet cleanup

I can provide evidence that there are many short and/or poorly-made pages for every medium. If you want this claim to have any relevance, you need to show a consistent bias towards bad pages in comparison to another medium, such as Literature or Series.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

This discussion isn't about the quality of articles for fanfics. If a fan work (of any sort) doesn't have enough interest or tropability to have a wiki article, then any tropes that would pertain to it would not be listed anywhere. That's true for all works of all types.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Okay, I'm with you until forum talks and shitposts. That's not portraying a character differently in a work of some sort; that's just discussing an Alternate Character Interpretation, which I for some reason have to keep reminding everyone in this discussion about. I'm also not sold on this being a subtrope, as that's interpreting a character's actions differently in the main work itself, not changing how they act in a fanon work. It's a different thing, but what everyone here is talking about- pretending in general that a good character is evil or vice versa- isn't Ron the Death Eater until put into a work of some kind. Otherwise they're just throwing around their own alternate interpretations of canon events.

Yeah, the page says it doesn't need to be done out of hatred. Cool; I mentioned that myself and was shot down by Fighteer, but I'll roll with it for now.

So even removing the hatred requirement, it's just "people portraying a character differently in fanon". That's still an action being taken, an action that objectively does or doesn't happen.

If they're just talking about how they interpret a character, that's Alternate Character Interpretation.

Still, you guys keep dodging the actual issue of this being something that objectively happens, rather than something that the fans feel and think. It's troping what fans do- you're even advocating for it not being based in hatred! So what's left is that fans make a good character evil in fanon- again, that's a thing that happens objectively.

Look, I can give or take the citations, but at least admit that this is troping what happens in fanon works, not just what fans feel, please...

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 26th 2020 at 3:13:00 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Fan fiction pages are like the episode recaps, tropers can make them by the dozen but that doesn't mean they are well crosswicked. That should be for obvious reasons given their visibility, but we've also had people come to the site and make a page for their own work. Any given trope page is bound to have healthy anime, film, tv and western animation sections, but it's not surprising to lack fan fiction examples.

What has been said about the tropes in question is that if they are ymmv then they are about fan reactions. If they are fan fiction only tropes then they need to be removed from the parent work and made objective, but then I don't see any distinction between those tropes and Took a Level in Kindness / Took a Level in Jerkass or Adaptational Heroism / Adaptational Villainy.

Edited by KJMackley on Mar 26th 2020 at 12:12:35 PM

And the overlap is a serious problem, but just because the concept might already be covered doesn't mean we should change how it's intended to be used so casually. And I also maintain that the subjective version is also covered by things like Alternate Character Interpretation, The Scrappy, Ensemble Dark Horse, Die for Our Ship, Memetic Psychopath, etc...

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think what sets Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants from the other tropes is two things:

1. The degree to which the personality is changed. Ron the Death Eater isn't about a character being portrayed as a bit more of a jerk than they are in canon. It's them being portrayed as an outright villain.

2. The fan's feelings towards the character. The fan has to be motivated by either an extreme hatred or love of a character.

Is it possible to compromise and keep both these tropes as YMMV/Audience Reactions, but require that examples need some citation?

Edited by SharkToast on Mar 26th 2020 at 12:29:01 PM

That's a problem we run into just about any trope, dozens of similar ideas to where a Venn diagram is 99 percent the same examples.

I will say that Alternate Character Interpretation can be easily dismissed as either A) being the supertrope or B) it's not about exaggerating/downplaying established character behaviors but about reinterpreting motivations and outcome of a particular situation. Likewise The Scrappy and Ensemble Dark Horse are about exceptionally liking or disliking a character, not about the exaggeration/downplaying traits.