What separates Troperiffic from Cliche Storm?

I'm hazy about what distinguishes a Cliché Storm from a Troperiffic work. The former seems straightforward enough on the face of it: a work that is noticeably bereft of originality, using a great many cliches. Then it gets somewhat confusing once the description notes that

this is not a bad thing; originality and greatness aren't necessarily intertwined, and as such, many Cliché Storms are good in quality, as good stories, characters, humor, action, or whatever can produce a high caliber book regardless of originality. You can also see from the examples that people can intentionally create as big a Cliché storm as possible... and then start having fun with all of the Clichés. Oftentimes, they may not start around deconstructing or playing with the cliches as so much play it for laughs. It's very common in an Affectionate Parody — most of the times, they start poking fun at these Cliches. Very often, something may be intended as an homage, and it may be wise to look at them as such.

To begin with, I'm not really sure if you can claim that Tropes Are Tools when this is a YMMV page. I don't really mind the expanded definition much on its own, but once you consider Troperiffic's description, it starts posing problems.

[...] there are some gems that take delight in their tropes and then turn them Up To Eleven. This is especially common in Reconstructions, where all the narrative conventions that made the genre fun are present in full (and generally goofy) force, or parody works, usually of the affectionate variety, where the whole point is to laugh at as many tropes as humanly possible.

So affectionate parodies can be either Cliche Storms or Troperiffic?

In short, works that are deemed Troperiffic apologize for absolutely nothing and just have fun with every convention or tried idea and taking it to places never thought possible. MST3K Mantra will be sometimes be a requirement to enjoy the work, because without it, Troperiffic works can come off as confusing. Then again, a good Troperiffic work will be fairly obvious about it in some way.
Note that one person's Troperiffic is another person's Cliché Storm, although most Troperiffic works have a certain level of Lampshade Hanging, sarcasm, or underlying love for the genre the work exists in.

The description implies that Troperiffic is supposed to be "work deliberately uses a lot of tropes and cranks them Up To Eleven" (which is a bit problematic in of itself, given how Up To Eleven is currently being examined for widespread misuse), but the Laconic page and several examples seem to use it simply as "work uses a lot of tropes". This is fundamentally extremely similar to Cliché Storm, which is "work uses a lot of cliches". About the only major difference between them is that Cliché Storm seems to refer to cases where they're used without any kind of irony (while Troperiffic appears to use self-aware moments like Lampshade Hanging more)... but then there's that part of Cliché Storm's description where it notes that it can be used deliberately as part of an Affectionate Parody.

In short, they seem too similar to each other. Even Cliché Storm's description admits as much:

Troperiffic [...] is a more fun version of this trope, although the lines between the two are blurry and kind of subjective

I feel like there might be something salvageable in Troperiffic, given how much emphasis it places on works that are made out of love for a specific genre and indulge in its conventions, but as it is right now it seems more like "Cliché Storm but good".

Edited by BlueGuy on Nov 20th 2020 at 7:39:32 AM

Pinball cleanup thread

Troperiffic is that a work is intimately aware of the conventions it is using and will play with them across the Playing with a Trope spectrum. Cliché Storm is a work that feels like it was stitched together from a collection of other stories such that you can anticipate all major twists, it may not be bad but it doesn't play with them in any significant fashion.

The original Tremors was a Monster B-Movie that knew it was a B Movie, but from scene to scene would alternate between playing things straight or for comedy, with a few parody winks included. In contrast, Eragon was beat for beat a fantasy version of Star Wars A New Hope, it had a consistent Worldbuilding but didn't innovate much at all.

It's funny, when I was watching the film of Eragon, I didn't notice the Star Wars stuff... because I was too annoyed at the way it was a poorly-done imitation of Dragonriders of Pern. :/

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If you like it, it's Troperiffic. If you hate it, it's a Cliché Storm.

That makes sense. I might start a wick check for it, because a lot of the examples I see treat it as either "this work uses a lot of tropes" or "this work uses a lot of tropes and it's good".

Edited by BlueGuy on Nov 22nd 2020 at 12:13:13 PM

Pinball cleanup thread

I've always gone with KJ Mackley's definition above: Troperiffic works play with/subvert/deconstruct/reconstruct a lot of tropes, hardly ever play them straight; Cliché Storm works just use the tropes.

I agree with that definition too.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I agree. Something like Community, which is built on parodying and Conversational Troping as much as it is a sitcom about a group of friends, is Troperiffic, but as there's nothing inherently overused in its plot or characters, it is not Cliché Storm. A synonym for the latter might be "formulaic".

Trope also has this to add:

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 22nd 2020 at 9:25:34 AM

On top of what others have said, a clichéstorm is by definition in a single, well-established genre, while a troperiffic work is often some form of Genre Mashup.

We should avoid treating troperiffic as good; it is quite easy for such things to fall into more-clever-than-wise and feel like the author is showing off and self-indulging.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

"We should avoid treating troperiffic as good; it is quite easy for such things to fall into more-clever-than-wise and feel like the author is showing off and self-indulging."

Agree 100%.