Trope Launch Pad discard project

Honestly, I think Doors of Doom would be a better title for the trope than Ghost Butler. The latter makes me think it's about a ghost who works as a butler...

Edited by Dghcrh on Feb 29th 2020 at 9:50:07 PM

Keep in mind that Doom Doors is a separate trope about a stock sound effect (as was pointed out in that draft).

Ghost Butler has a weirdly specific title and description. Like it can only occur in a Haunted House to a protagonist creeping about, not perfectly timed doors that close right as people notice them. I would like it expanded and the title changed it Doors of Doom is discarded.

Edited by Tabs on Feb 29th 2020 at 1:33:15 AM

OK, here's the penultimate batch of drafts we need to decide, or at least thin out. Once this and the next batch are done, we'll be caught up through the start of Page 51.

BOMBS OR SAVIORS NEEDED:

Reappearing Destroyed Object The Thing That Would Not Leave, The Cat Came Back, Clingy MacGuffin, take your pick. It's covered.

Esoteric Downer Ending Misaimed Fandom, or, “Fans didn’t take a Downer Ending as intended.” One bomb needed.

Ask a Busy Mother Advertising trope that’s already sitting in the yard. Needs one bomb.

Hero Disposal Series Could be a dupe of C-List Fodder, but it’s a kill-off ‘’series’’ rather than the ‘’characters being killed off.’’ There’s no on-draft examples and 2 in the comments.

Kissing The Proxy This is definitely a trope if we don’t have it; if only the draft wasn’t so awful. Yard fodder? 2 bombs. Yarded, and Discarded

Muscles On Muscles It’s a valid trope insofar as it’s a sight gag that gets used…but it’s one of those really minor, out-of-fashion tropes that are hell to collect examples for. Potential Yard fodder for the masochistic. Yarded, feel free to bomb

Internal Conflict Embodied It could be a Missing Supertrope to Good Angel, Bad Angel. The idea’s sitting in the Yard already, so we can bomb it. Or someone can adopt it as it isn’t really in THAT bad a shape, with 2 bombs 1 hat. Motioned to leave alone

Ridiculous Fictional Award Valid idea, sad draft, never edited. Yard fodder. Yarded and Discarded

Constitutional Monarchy This either needs to be rewritten as a Useful Note (and be more informative), or it needs to go away. It has 2 bombs.

Collective “No” I don’t know if multiple characters saying “no” all at once really qualifies as a trope. We can nuke it now, but I’d like a second opinion first. Yarded and Discarded

Calculator Spelling I still don’t see the trope, but I hesitate to hit the Nuke button without at least some backup, with all those hats. Motioned to leave alone

Relationship Chart As Brainulator said, it’s a Missing Supertrope that would render Love Chart redundant if it were to launch. Honestly the ideal would be to change the latter through TRS, if anyone has that kind of patience. Motioned to leave alone until (if) Love Chart is expanded

ALMOST LAUNCHABLE:

Vocal Tropes This is more of a “do we need this and do we have it” than anything else. It has the hats to launch, and all it really needs is a description and potentially an update.

Back To Basics It has more than enough hats, but it needs a sponsor to get it the rest of the way over the finish line. Adopted by Macron Notes

Class Interrupted Just needs a sponsor and some rewriting, and a couple hats.

Chop Chop Suey I may take this one day if no one else will, but I’m not going to stake a claim right now.

Edited by HeavyMetalHermitCrab on Mar 1st 2020 at 1:26:38 PM

I think Collective No might be tropable. Showing that something is such a bad idea or so undesirable, that everyone is quick to shot it down.

Kissing The Proxy: vote for yard.

Muscles On Muscles: vote for yard.

Internal Conflict Embodied: one of the better-looking drafts on the list. Might leave it alone?

Ridiculous Fictional Award: vote for yard.

Collective “No”: vote for yard.

Calculator Spelling: leave alone...

Relationship Chart: vote to leave alone until Love Chart is (ever) expanded.

The others have my bomb already.

I added the fifth bomb to Constitutional Monarchy. I thought about this draft a bit, and I personally don't see the usefulness of it, even if it will be a Useful Notes page; since the draft is poorly written, I can't see it as a loss to discard it without salvaging it (since we are not losing any "idea"). Anyone against discarding it?

Yeah, leave Relationship Chart and Calculator Spelling alone. Not only are they workable without the salvage yard, but they're also pretty popular drafts and the discussions should take place on those drafts instead.

OK, here is the last batch of old business. These are what seem (to me) to be the most contentious, so I won't be too surprised if most end up being left alone. Which is fair play; this one isn't as full of total duds as many of the others.

After this, there's one post on Page 51 with some unresolved business, but I didn't include most of those drafts because they're too valid to discard and not bad enough to Yard. Other than that, this is mostly all the old stuff to give a second look.

Anachronistic Typewriter It’s in good health as far as mothballed tropes are, but it really needs a sponsor to go anywhere. 2 hats.

Bounty Squad I originally proposed this to discard because I thought it was “Vigilante Man only plural.” I still think that, but we can Yard this if need be. If you were to salvage it you’d basically have to rewrite the whole thing.

Wormholes Are Blue I don’t know the first thing about this so I’m sitting this one out. But I will say that my first gut reaction was “Yeah, and…?”

Arrival Amnesia. Needs a sponsor but is otherwise in decent health.

Remote-Controlled Tank Boss It’s a workable draft that really just needs examples. There’s no real reason to discard or yard it, but it does have 2 bombs 1 hat.

Test on a Mook It has some decent examples but the description is a stub. Only has 1 bomb so it could easily be rehabbed if someone should want to.

Punching Bag of Hate I’m not denying that it’s a thing, but it really isn’t functionally different from Dartboard of Hate. In any case, needs a lot of work, especially the fact that there’s no description save an Example As Thesis. 1 Bomb. Yarded & Discarded

Tycoon Game It’s only got one bomb and it’s definitely a genre, but it’s just barely more than a stub. Yard or mothball? Yarded, bombs plz

Actually Pretty Awesome It’s been said before, but this is I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham. Someone said that we could make the this about non-food stuff and Green Eggs… about foods, but is that really a meaningful distinction?

Purchase Plea “Begging for people to buy your stuff in an ad.” It’s mostly limited to In-Universe jokes. It’s a trope but it’s like a lot of “minor detail” tropes — is it meaningful beyond a cheap gag, and would anyone care enough to drum up examples?

Stand-Alone Expansion Pack The question is, is it really common enough to justify its own page. Asides being abandoned, there isn’t a hell of a lot wrong with it.

Coach Dad It has 3 bombs and it honestly could be a new trope, but man that needs some rewriting. Yarded and Discarded

Costumes Go Together Honestly, the only real decision here is if this is worthy of a split from Coordinated Clothing.

Embarrassed Beauty I’m just including this one because I do think the discussion raises an important question: is this distinct enough from So Beautiful, It's a Curse?

Edited by HeavyMetalHermitCrab on Mar 2nd 2020 at 3:24:13 AM

I agree with "Bounty Squad". On the mothball list, it claims to be "workable", but I disagree with that take.

So apparently, I made a post on Bounty Squad back in 2012, while I still had my old username. Thank you, TLP, for reminding me of it. Anyway, group of Vigilante Men, Carnival of Killers, Sacrificial Lion, I'm sure we have it covered already.

I also do not think that Actually Pretty Awesome, Costumes Go Together, or Embarrassed Beauty are distinct enough to be their own tropes.

Coach Dad already has 3 bombs, so we should probably just yard it.

Edited by Serac on Mar 1st 2020 at 10:39:14 AM

Anyway, looking at the others, I say we:

• Yard:
  • Tycoon Game
  • Punching Bag Of Hate
  • Coach Dad
• Leave Alone:
  • Arrival Amnesia
  • Anachronistic Typewriter
  • Test On A Mook
  • Remote Control Tank Boss
• Discard:
  • Bounty Squad
  • Wormholes Are Blue
  • Actually Pretty Awesome
  • Purchase Plea
  • Standalone Expansion Pack

On the fence about the others.

Also, my goal with the mothball-list posts have been to purge the mothball list. Because I sincerely don't understand the point of it. The tropes there just sit around and rot without any discussion, and now that the Yard exists, it's only real use of saving good ideas has been stolen.

It made sense when this project was younger and smaller and we didn't know how many drafts we'd end up talking about. But now? It's just getting in the way of progress, and a majority of the drafts that have been mothballed could easily be discarded with nothing of value lost. The others just need a bump.

Oh, I'm not going to argue. The Mothball list at the very least needs scrubbing out.

I've yarded Coach Dad, Tycoon Game, and Punching Bag of Hate, so bombs away on those.

As a recent development, Miss_Desperado harvested Voice Tropes and added them to Vocal Tropes, so if a fifth person could do the honors and send it to its fate...

- Voice Tropes nuked.

How come Slapping Yourself in the Face is mothballed when it should be discarded for Yes, We DO Have This One? It's already covered by Slap Yourself Awake, which has a much clearer title.

It's been there for ages, and we just haven't gotten to it yet on our "deal with the mothballs" efforts. I removed the entry, the draft just needs a couple bombs now.

Edited by HeavyMetalHermitCrab on Mar 2nd 2020 at 11:35:46 AM

Purchase Plea is Self-Deprecation/Ain't Too Proud to Beg. Otherwise, too trivial to be its own thing

Discarded Punching Bag of Hate

Edited by Tabs on Mar 2nd 2020 at 12:35:06 PM

Hey, if you want to tackle some of the Mothball list, be my guest; I've been going through in alphabetical order and I'm still on the early ones.

Wait, do we have an actual list of mothballed drafts somewhere, or are we just going through old forum posts here?

It's on the original Trope Launch Pad Discard Project sandbox.

Thank you!

After a preliminary look, I see Furnace Execution on there. But it looks pretty redundant with Murder by Cremation. The draft says that MBC is a subtrope of it, but a lot of the examples on MBC list things that aren't cremation ovens (in fact, the Hansel and Gretel example is listed on both pages), so I think we should discard it.

I removed Manic Pixie Ill Girl and Peter Jackson Shot from the Mothball list since they were already discarded.

Also, I added We Have an App for that to the yard, since I think it might be viable, but the draft is zero-effort, so we should discard it.

And I found this draft of Kimono as Modern Fashion. Which, while very intersting, it seems kind of chairs-y. I think the information can be added as Analysis to the Kimono Is Traditional page.

Kimono As Modern Fashion could be folded into Good Old Ways if it has any narrative significance. But yeah, some of the description could go into an analysis page for Kimono Is Traditional.

Edited by MacronNotes on Mar 3rd 2020 at 4:34:24 AM

Agree.

Okay, I know we've been worried about a mothball list lately, but I think we should take a step back and have fun digging through some easy garbage I found when sorting through the highest bomb counts:

• Everyone Gets A Trophy: The comments all seem to agree that though the concept might be solid, the draft is far too bashy against the concept. Easy bait for the Yard- and with all the bombs it has, discarding it is as easy as hitting the button.
• Undercover Robot: Stub draft that already has enough bombs to discard it. Again, the concept is viable but we should just toss this draft out.
• Six Stat Ensemble: A couple of issues here. First, it's an ensemble trope, and as we all know those are problematic as people tend to just shoehorn characters into the roles regardless of if it actually works. Second, it's based solely on D+D stats, which as WaterBlap once pointed out, "I think this is a bit odd. How do we know for certain that this group composition is something creators intentionally have done? Would this overlap with other Cast Calculus tropes? Also, any work that originates from pre-1974 (when DND was first released) would be suspect of shoehorning, as it would pre-date DND entirely. And I'd think anything that predates the mid-1980s would also be suspect, as that's only ten years after the release of DND. (Note that TMNT were first released in 1984.)"
• Faceless Non-Binary may be covered by Non-Human Non-Binary- granted, this draft came first, but now we can toss it.
• Screw Feelings, I'm Having Fun! is already covered by Lack of Empathy and It Amused Me.
• New Love Interest Looms: This was already bumped by Xfllo as part of this project, and with their post on the draft, it seems like a solid Salvage Yard candidate.
• Aliens Without Genitals may also be Non-Human Non-Binary.
• Creepy Kid's Show is a low effort draft covered by something with much more effort.
• Trade Your Hero For Peace might be a solid idea, but with zero on-draft examples and this many bombs, we should Yard it.
• Useful Notes: Self Harm: Comments point out some valid concerns, like that it may be used to give out psychological advice, or that it's off-mission. I'm a little worried about it too, as the last thing we need is a page that may actually teach people how to self harm.

For the self harm page, I could see a point in having useful notes about media misconceptions for writers. However, the whole first paragraph is a how-to guide. If it's kept I suggest just writing something along the lines of "a variety of ways".