Misused: The Sociopath

And remember, checks need to be randomized, so if you do do a second check, pick the wicks blindly.

The problem with Hollywood Personality Disorders was less about it being about mental disorders and more because it was explicitly based on speculation, running afoul of Examples Are Not Arguable and rules against Speculative Troping.

Anyway, since the wick check wasn't done properly, I'm retracting my vote for now.

See How to Do a Wick Check for how to do this; doing a wick check involves selecting a random sample instead of intentionally seeking out specific kinds of examples and leaving out other kinds of examples.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 10th 2021 at 5:04:19 AM

I'll think about it. Might need to motivate myself to actually get around to it, though.

Maybe this thread should be clocked until a wick check is done, though that's ultimately up to the mods to decide.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 10th 2021 at 5:08:08 AM

I mean, I wouldn't mind whipping up a new sandbox. If we all pitch in it'll take no time at all.

I'd be up for that.

Alright. Sandbox.The Sociopath Wick Check 2. Redlink at the time I'm writing it. Should be blue in a moment.

ETA: Link is now blue. Didn't add folders since I'm not sure what sort of ones we'll need.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 13th 2021 at 9:39:27 AM

Personally I think The Sociopath could be tweaked to something like Hollywood Sociopathy and cover characters who are diagnosed with sociopathy (and maybe even broaden it to psychopathy because people rarely differentiate the two) who are depicted as heartless and murderous and stuff. The other traits present in the disorder are often still there, but like other Hollywood Psych tropes we can focus on how it's stereotyped in media, which makes it a trope.

Of course, we haven't seen the approximate number of actual correct examples yet, so maybe it's not as problematic enough to warrant that.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 14th 2021 at 5:45:02 AM

Yeah, that's what I was thinking (and why I originally brought up Hollywood Personality Disorders — forcing characters to adhere to the real life sociopathy checklist does not seem like it will be very productive and might encourage speculation, but turning it into common portrayal might help).

I chucked the list of wicks into random.org, pulled up the first 120 items (we only need 86, but just in case one of them is a namespace like "YMMV" or a page that will be unwieldly to check, like one that uses it 10 times), and put them in the sandbox. After you check a wick, just remove it from the list.

Something from my original post here that hasn't been answered: what exactly is correct use supposed to be? Do they have to fit all the traits listed in the description?

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 14th 2021 at 6:38:26 AM

That question is why I didn't start wick-collecting last night. I wasn't sure how the categorization process worked.

That's why I think it should be about usage in general, rather than correct/wrong usage.

Okay, I have 10 wicks on the sandbox. Other than 2 ZCEs I am not sure what to do with the other eight. Some of them pothole "a sociopath" or similar to The Sociopath while elaborating on more villainous behavior.

Folder ideas for the wick check:

• Fit all criteria listed
• Fit some, but not all criteria
• Canonically diagnosed as sociopathic
• Character just commits evil deeds, no diagnosis or mention of specific traits
• Complaining
• ZCE / Murky

Some of these might be mergeable.

Sound good to me.

I just turned the unwieldy mass of text into a proper list of clickable, alphabetized links. Don't worry, all I had to do was throw it into two different websites, one that removed the blank spaces and one that alphabetized it.

Honestly though having to painstakingly fix the list after I generate the randomized wicks was so frustrating, it's one of the reasons I've started just scrolling up and down at random.

Adding folders now. Then we can sort what we already have, and then do the rest of the wicks.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 15th 2021 at 5:01:35 AM

Clock expired; closing.