Misused (alt names crowner 27 Jan 2021): Reality Ensues

Reality Ensues has suffered ridiculous Trope Decay, going from "Trope is turned on head by having by having actual realistic consequences one would not usually expect in fiction" to "Anything remotely realistic that happens in fictional media ever". In the Reality Ensues Wick Check sandbox of ~120 examples done by the cleanup thread, for every one example used correctly, there were 30-40 misused examples, along with five ZCEs, some examples that didn't explain enough for us to actually tell, and a few examples that were just different tropes entirely. This check is not taking into account the countless amount of "examples" brought to the cleanup thread that were misuse.

Opening for discussion.

Maybe a rename can help? I'll start off the name pitching with...Realistic Deconstruction, maybe?

Maybe, but people don't really seem to know what "deconstruction" means, and it could also Reality Ensues could apply to subversion just as easily, as long as it's not just "realistic thing happens".

Maybe some sort of overlap with Wrong Genre Savvy?

If Consistency's description is to be believed, would a better title be something like Unlike Fiction But Like Reality or Unlike Fiction Like Reality? Feel free to build upon it.

Associating it with deconstruction or genre savvy tropes may not help given how misused those can also be.

Looking at the trope description, I think that's part of the problem. A lot of that trope description doesn't know whether to be trope description or trope analysis.

I think if that was cleaned up first: sort out what is the actual trope description then move the rest to an analysis page and change the Laconic to something that's based on what Crossover Enthusiast said (for example: 'A trope is turned on its head by using realistic consequences that wouldn't normally be used in the story' or something like that), it might be easier then to see if the trope needs a rename — and the content may help a new name jump out.

As it is, the first post essentially suggests that Reality Ensues is actually Turn A Trope On Its Head. Not that I'd suggest that because that could lead to Playing With misuse.

Speaking of... are we sure Reality Ensues isn't just 'Playing with a trope'? Twisting a trope is what 'playing with' tropes does — the difference is merely the tool used to play with the trope, in this case by using real life rather than narrative.

Fiction Versus Reality?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 17th 2020 at 2:52:23 PM

It's not "twisting a trope"; it's "twisting a trope to show the real-life consequences of what would happen". It's a broken convention that doesn't normally follow real-life logic and physics, broken in such a way that it suddenly does follow those logic and physics.

The realism part is vital.

How about Unexpectedly Realistic Trope Results? Rather lengthy, but it might work.

... or Surprisingly Realistic Outcome?

The crux of the trope seems to be that the realistic consequences are unexpected so maybe something like Unexpectedly Real Consequences or Surprisingly Realistic Consequences. (To add to the previous two suggestions.)

Names like Unlike Fiction By Like Reality overlap too heavily with Reality Is Unrealistic, which is not the same thing as this.

RE Wyldchyld: This is more like a specific way a deconstructed trope might be played, so I wouldn't call Reality Ensues a method of playing with a trope.

I'd say do what we did for What An Idiot, requiter example to:

1. . Start by explaining what we expected despite it bringing unrealistic due to the works or genres conventions.
2. . Then give the realistic outcome we got instead.

The first one should filter out misuse.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Apr 18th 2020 at 5:27:56 AM

I like Surprisingly Realistic Consequences. The classic example is the page image: You've got a cool, badass moment, and then bam, reality.

I'm not sure that the surprise is supposed to be mandatory, though. I'm not involved in the cleanup thread. I just know that's the classic example. So that might not be the best name after all.

How about Realistic Trope Break/Realistic Convention Break?

I'm hesitant on using anything with "Surprisingly/Unexpectedly Realistic" in the title. If Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay is anything to go by it'd still be prone to misuse.

I'd suggest either Conventions Do Not Apply, As Reality Not Fiction, or Plays Out Like In Reality.

Also, an idea: What if we instead use it by acronym only, so it becomes CDNA, ARNF, or POLIR? That way it would force people to actually read up on what the trope is supposed to be.

For one, that's absolutely against the rules. Titles don't work if people don't know what they mean. Making it more obscure won't solve the issue, it'll just throw the trope into being underused as people won't know what the hell the acronym means and wouldn't want to look.

So many problems would be resolved if people checked the trope description if they were confused about a title. In practice, they just don't use the trope at all.

The title still needs to be clear, concise, and (ideally) witty. Acronyms obscure meaning and so are antithetical to the clarity requirement.

Also we run in to overlap problems with tropes like Reality Is Unrealistic or with names like Like Reality, Unless Noted.

Edited by WaterBlap on Apr 19th 2020 at 6:22:56 AM

Yeah, but as Wyld Chyld mentioned this straddles the line between a trope in its own right and a category. So honestly, I think we should consider the possibility of putting it under a type of "playing with". Just throwing some ideas around.

Such a playing with would be redundant with Subverted or Deconstructed so to that.

The list at Playing with a Trope is exhaustive, iirc. People have attempted to make new pages in TLP for different ways to play with a trope, and eventually it was decided that any "new" method of playing with tropes is, in actuality, just one of the "old" methods but more specific. So, instead of saying it was "played tricky" you would just say it was "double subverted" or "zig-zagged."

In this particular case, I disagree that Reality Ensues is just a method of playing with a trope. But, if it were, then why not just say "deconstructed"? I'd argue that most people don't treat this like a method of playing with tropes, but then we once again fall into the pit of needing a wick check.

Edited by WaterBlap on Apr 20th 2020 at 1:28:07 PM

We provided a wick check in the OP, or do you mean a second one?

I do agree that this isn't just a "way of playing with a trope", but if it was some examples are more along the lines of subversion than deconstruction, so we need to keep that in mind.

Still, most people use it just to mean "realistic thing happens", and treating it as another Played With variant is at least closer to what it's supposed to be.

This is a tough one. I really like this trope when it's used properly. The trope image is a good example, and I do like the name, but the misuse is definitely a problem. As much as I like it, I know I've run into so many examples of just "something realistic happens" or even just a sort of "I'm going to claim that a subversion or deconstruction is innately a more realistic outcome, even when it arguably isn't".

I just don't really know what to fix to prevent that.

EDIT: I just went through the clean-up thread and re-read the trope page, and I feel like I have a better perspective.

First off, the description definitely needs cleaning. It rambles a lot, and it's too long for something that's vague enough as it is. This is one of the places where being concise really matters. I think the "Please Note" at the end should be near the top. Clearing up the distinctions is one of the most important things. Likewise, the note about how it differs from Deconstruction is really important if the misuse is any indication, but it's not part of the main description and is hidden until you click.

Second, I think the suggestion of requiring some context like What An Idiot would be a good idea, where you have to explain the convention that's being broken. I think that would help focus the examples onto the convention instead of just "being realistic" in general, while also still allowing some wiggle room for examples where it might be more of a Meta Twist-style franchise or author-specific convention that's being broken, without inviting more misuse.

Edited by Jokubas on Apr 20th 2020 at 1:17:49 AM

A wick check for what, exactly? This trope already has one in the Reality Ensues Wick Check sandbox, which was linked to in the opening post.

Anyway, I'm in favor of renaming this. I like Surprisingly Realistic Consequences, but I don't like the idea of using an acronym or initialism in the trope name.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 20th 2020 at 4:04:58 AM

I agree with the need for a rename. The name is vague since it can be misconstrued for any type of consequence 'realistic' in the world of the story, and the rambly description doesn't help either.

What An Idiot style context would help a lot too.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 20th 2020 at 4:18:44 AM

Honestly, other (whatever) Ensues tropes might also be worth looking at. I've seen Hilarity Ensues misused to mean "funny things happen" instead of "dangerous and/or illegal things are funny instead of harmful"; a TRS thread for that would definitely require a wick check, but maybe it would be worth adding to the Tropes Needing TRS sandbox for now.

...That's what Hilarity Ensues means?

Oh...oh... I've been using it wrong for a while.