Wall of Text cleanup

Most of it isn't necessary, particularly since it invokes ROCEJ as a form of begging the question.

I just looked up the "angry reviewer" entry on Deader Than Disco, and it's kind of lengthy. Anyone want to take a crack at bringing it down to a reasonable length?

At the very least cut out the stuff about all the scandals. The only one I could see having a negative effect on the genre was the Change the Channel stuff maybe. I'd argue a bigger killer was the rise of video essay channels like Lindsay Ellis, which were seen as more intelligent and thoughtful than the "angry reviewers".

Maybe I'll do a write-up. Give me some time though.

They also don't need to namedrop so many specific examples, as some of those sentences border on The Long List.

It's clear that whoever writes the majority of what is seen on the YMMV page for The Bold and the Beautiful has some obvious bias (loves Brooke, hates Liam and Hope, etc.), but I cannot get my mind around deciphering this entrance underneath The Scrappy:

• Liam has essentially taken over the role after breaking up the love triangle. After spending years in the midst between Steffy and Hope, after Steffy divorces and leaves Liam, believing he'd be better off without her, he is surprised and offended to find that Hope has begun showing interest in another man, his long lost brother Wyatt. For the entirety of the rest of the year Liam constantly complained that Wyatt was getting in between him and Hope, who conveniently forgot that he'd done the same thing when Hope and Oliver were trying to work out their problems. Unfotunately, everyone else couldn't stop singing his praises, especially after Wyatt's mother Quinn was revealed to be mentally unstable, and interfering on her son's behalf, which was Wyatt's fault. After Hope gave him an ultimatum, that he meet her in Paris, he was tragically detained to save Ivy, after she was pushed in the Sein, by a disguised Quinn, leading Hope to think he had abandoned him, and move on with Wyatt. Of course when Liam found out he was quick to point out that he would have been there in time if it wasn't for Quinn. Completely leaving out the part where he had to be convinced to meet Hope, leaving at the very last minute instead of sooner. After Hope had left the show, the triangle once again repeated itself this time with Steffy, whom once again after Liam broke up with her, and was kidnapped by Quinn while struck with Amnesia, Wyatt and Steffy ended up falling in love and got married, while he pointed out that, the marriage was a sham due to Quinn and Wyatt's machinations. This time however everyone reminded Liam that he had broken up with Steffy before disappearing. Still acting entitled, his father finally stood up to his tantrums and reminded him of all the times he had jumped between Steffy his true love and Hope, his other true love.

Live-Action TV sums it up like this:

• The Bold and the Beautiful: Liam Spencer, despite being a selfish, spoiled, self-righteous, two timing Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Manchild, everyone on the show can never stop singing his praises on "What a nice guy..." he is.

(It's kinda cheating to just steal a rewrite from somewhere else, but I feel like I would have needed to make a chart to keep track of the character relationships... Plus, it kinda seems like it could be summed up as "The guy's a hypocritical, entitled jerk, but everyone on the show loves him anway.")

This Wrestling example from Beat the Curse Out of Him is so convoluted I can't even tell if it's actually an example or not.

I...can't actually tell what's being talked about here, though I have no knowledge of wrestling whatsoever, either. Does anyone actually have a curse beaten out of them?

YMMV.The Simpsons S 1 E 10 Homers Night Out

Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Bart secretly takes a photo of Homer dancing with a stripper at a work party. Marge finds it and is utterly pissed and throws Homer out the house. When he begs for her forgiveness, she claims that she's upset at him not for dancing with a stripper, but for letting Bart think it's okay to treat women like objects. However: 1. Marge was mad at Homer before knowing Bart was the photographer; claiming Homer set a bad example felt like an excuse to guilt-trip him. 2. Homer had no idea Bart was there. And Marge wasn't mad at Bart for sneaking into an adult party and taking a photo of people in a compromised position without their consent. 3. At no point was the girl disrespected. She was hired to perform, and nobody—including Homer—ever touched her or verbally demeaned her in any way. If anything, Homer's conduct at the party was exactly how one should treat exotic dancers (don't touch them, don't insult them, pay them fairly, and yet still try to have fun with it).

This is quite a wall of text for a UU entry. The list Word Cruft isn't helping either.

While I didn't sympathize with Marge in that episode either and I do see the point of what they're trying to say regarding Princess Kashmir, the amount of text takes away from the point. At any rate, I would say that it can be significantly chopped down.

Family Guy S8 E1: "Road to the Multiverse" has this:

• Critical Research Failure:
  • In the Japanese universe, the Griffins live in a Japanese-style house. In real life, Japan had Westernized during the Meiji Restoration (though Japanese-style houses can be found in some parts of Japan. It's just not as widespread as what's depicted in the media, both Western and Japanese). The only justification is that the show was going for stereotypes, but chose a point of divergence too late given that Japan was still a modern great power far before World War II.
    • What is a bigger failure is the idea that "Japan never quit" WWII because America never dropped the nuke. In reality, other factors like the Soviets invading Manchuria also contributed to Japanese surrender, and the allies were not about to let Imperial Japan go unpunished with or without a nuke. Even worse than this case of America Won W Orld War II, is the implication that Japan Takes Over the World without nukes, never mind the Point of Divergence was when Japan was practically defeated and on the brink of ruin, and would be in no position to invade anyone for years even if the allies randomly decided to end the war and go home before invading Manchuria and nuking.
  • The first universe shows what the world would look like if Christianity never existed, in which the Dark Ages never happened and science was able to progress by 1000 years. There are multiple problems with this speculation:
    • Firstly, the Dark Ages weren't caused by Christianity being imposed on other cultures, but rather the fall of The Roman Empire.
    • The real cause of scientific regression during this period was West European scholars' inability to decipher Greek texts. Christian monasteries actually helped preserve education and research within this region.
    • Many important scientific discoveries had been made in other parts of the world during this period, including enhanced agricultural techniques, algebra, and the scientific method. Modern society as we know it would not exist without these discoveries.
    • More obviously, the Sistine Chapel would never have been built without Christianity.
  • The Disney universe appears to be based on Disney's Golden Age from the 1930s to the 1950s (particularly Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as Lois looks like Snow White and Peter looks like Doc). However, Disney Meg is based on Ursula from The Little Mermaid, and Disney Joe is on a teapot from Beauty and the Beast. Both movies are from Disney's "Renaissance" era (which is the late 1980s into the 1990s, after its disastrous Dork Age following Walt Disney's death and several flops and forgotten movies now considered cult classics that appeared from the late 1960s into the early 1980s).

Regardless of the points raised here, I think the CRF entry has become too bloated.

Could anyone help for the Wall of Text for the What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? example on YMMV.Ghosts Of The Future? (NOTE: GOTF's example on the trope page is the exact same.)

A lot of that would better fit Artistic License anyway, since I'm sure most of the inaccuracies stem from Rule of Funny and not a pure misunderstanding of what's going on here.

Thanks for your advice. I've cut the Critical Research Failure section and merged the text into three fitting tropes; Artistic Licence – History, Artistic License – Religion, and Anachronism Stew for the information about Japan, Christianity, and Disney, respectively. I've also removed natter and complaining, and shortened pieces of information that most people would not be expected to know (i.e. the part about deciphering Greek texts).

Edited by Shadow8411 on Feb 28th 2021 at 1:36:16 AM

Bump for

Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Mar 2nd 2021 at 12:13:55 PM

I did my best to cut down the text on the Ghosts of the Future page, but I couldn't find it mentioned in the trope page.

EDIT: Never mind, I found it.

Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Mar 8th 2021 at 4:16:55 PM

The Simpsons entry on Comic-Book Time seems wayyyyy longer than it needs to be.

The entry seems to mention just about any and every instance of Comic-Book Time in the series, from Grampa still being a WWII veteran in the present day, to nitpicking about characters not aging despite there being numerous Christmas Episodes, and even some political rambling. The entry should definitely be shortened.

Edited by Shadow8411 on Mar 9th 2021 at 9:22:38 AM

Why did you cut the fact that the comic is created by a Sonic comic writer and artist, which is the primary reason why this comic can be easily mistaken for kids, and reasons of Nightmare Fuel, Tear Jerker, (usually) mild profanity, and the fact that one of the pages' description on DeviantArt has a joke clearly about and mentioning erection?

Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Mar 9th 2021 at 8:59:01 AM

To make the article shorter.

Seriously though—it's because we can't really trope every single part of the comic that's child-unfriendly. Some stuff have to be left out. And the fact that it's created by an official Sonic artist isn't part of the actual content of the comic, so I figured that it made sense to cut.

As for mentions of Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker content, those things can be found in child-friendly stuff too, like Disney movies or the original Sonic SatAM. So the fact that something has Nightmare Fuel and Tearjerkers in it doesn't really warrant mentioning when we're talking specifically about child-unfriendly content. And even if it had, those terms are just too vague. Lastly, they're also subjective tropes. I felt it was better to mention only things that objectively exist in the comic.

Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Mar 9th 2021 at 5:42:47 AM

A creator is the big part of a work, and there are many What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? examples of works created by creators of children's media. Also, Stanley mentions her DeviantArt gallery as the comic's main host.

Well, I guess the thing to do here is ask a third party. Anybody else wanna weigh in? What's your opinion?

EDIT: Forgot to mention—mentioning that the creator's famous for children's stories isn't wrong, per se, but those other entries you mention aren't as long as this one was, so they had room to mention that fact.

Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Mar 9th 2021 at 7:17:24 AM

Okay, I see you've re-added the entries that I removed. Thing is, that counts as an Edit War, so it would have been good to wait for an opinion from a third party instead.

Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Mar 9th 2021 at 11:16:25 AM

Gotta love it when someone asks for an entry to be edited down, and then throw a hissy fit when they don't like the end result. :P

But to answer the question:

1. That entry spends almost as much text on the fact that this guy is/was working on official Sonic comics as the trope itself.

2. The tone of that entry reads kind of like an old lady clutching her pearls and being SHOCKED, SHOCKED I TELL YOU that someone who works on the official Sonic comic once wrote a fan comic that ain't for kids. This isn't exactly a unique or even particularly rare occurrence.

3. The fact that this guy now works/has worked on the official Sonic comic isn't very relevant to the trope itself. Honestly, if you absolutely MUST point out that fact, just put it under Bleached Underpants or someplace where it actually fits.

4. I sincerely doubt the fact that this guy has worked on an official Sonic comic is going to attract anyone but comic book nerds to his webcomic. IME authorship just isn't something most young children care about — if anything, they'd look at it because it's Sonic, not because some guy who worked on a couple of official comic storylines made it. Creatorship might be more relevant if the Sonic comic was like a manga or newspaper strip and was attributed to a single creator, but it's a work-for-hire project where writers and artists switch in and out all the time.

Edited by HeavyMetalHermitCrab on Mar 10th 2021 at 12:18:00 PM

this was pointed out in the description improvement drive- It's Popular, Now It Sucks! is too long (1435 words). I made a shorter version that contains almost all of the same info : Sandbox.Its Popular Now It Sucks (455 words)

Bringing up the following example from Captain America: Civil War:

• Spiritual Successor: To First Blood, due to both movies being an action blockbuster and a Psychological Thriller (which the Russo brothers has liken this movie to). They're both being adapted from literature, with this movie mostly from the Civil War comic arc and First Blood from the novel of the same name by David Morrell (who himself written a Captain America comic mini-series titled The Chosen). They share themes of Good Versus Good and the injustice towards America's heroes, sub-themes about revenge and the plot about war heroes who end up as fugitives from the law. Bucky Barnes here even channels John Rambo through his scruffy long hair and Perma-Stubble, being war veterans reduced to drifters walking on the face of earth to seek self-identities and peace in their lives. The fact Bucky still has the Hydra brainwashing lingering in his brain mirrors that of Rambo being a Shell-Shocked Veteran suffering from PTSD; those mental traumas even cause both of them to break out and fight their way through to escape from federal custody. Also, both T'Challa and Tony Stark fulfilled the main vengeful Inspector Javert Hero Antagonist roles that was fulfilled by Sheriff Will Teasle (it helps that Stark's actor Downey had appeared in The Judge as the son of a character played by Robert Duvall, who himself was one of the considerations to play Teasle before the role ultimately went to Brian Dennehy). In addition to the Stark and Teasle comparison, this film reveals at the beginning that Pepper Potts broke up with Tony, which is akin to that of Teasle being separated from his wife Anna in the original book as revealed in the first act, while Tony calling out to Steve that the vibranium shield no longer belongs to him while lying on the floor after being defeated by the latter mirrors of that of the film's Teasle's Defiant to the End Get It Over With egging as he lies on the floor too after being defeated by Rambo in the final confrontation.

I really hate myself now. I felt like those components shouldn't have been removed at all, just kept in there with their statements trimmed. I have to tell that the creator, Evan Stanley, being an official artist of the Sonic comics actually led people to assume that Ghosts of the Future is also official. I could see some kids who come across this comic and assume it's kid-friendly just because they saw her name as the writer/artist in the comic.

Is this going to turn into a dispute over whether the authorship makes a work a What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? example?

Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Mar 10th 2021 at 9:25:30 AM