So Bad It's Horrible and So Bad It's Good: Can They Overlap?

I'll run a second crowner regarding the situations mightymewtron and Tonwen mentioned after the current one is ready to be called. I'd rather not change the current one since it's already gained so many votes and will be ready to call as soon as tomorrow.

Regarding historical examples, there was a TRS thread for Base-Breaking Character that had an option on its crowner for whether historical examples (conflicts that were ongoing closer to the work's release date, but blew over later on) should be allowed. (I forgot what the outcome on that one was, but I think the consensus was to allow them. I was in favor of it, at least.)

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 7th 2022 at 10:56:01 AM

To clarify our previous post: if our stance is "mutually exclusive for any given time period", do we vote yes on the current crowner because we want to exclude overlap or no because we want some works to have entries on both pages?

Would it be fine to add an exceptions list option?

What do you mean?

Basically, there are some works (most notably Big Rigs) that seem to qualify for both SBIG and SBIH simultaneously, regardless of any other restrictions. The idea is to make an "exceptions list" for the few works that we deem to qualify as both, kept around as some unusual examples with unique situations, while the tropes would still otherwise be completely incompatible.

This exactly.

(Retracted. Accidentally called the crowner prematurely because I got this crowner's timestamp mixed up with a different one. The crowner's unlocked again.)

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 10th 2022 at 6:08:59 AM

While they're both in the green, I'm curious why the one about video games is attracting considerably more downvotes. It seems like SBIG story, SBIH technical design (or vice-versa) is about as clear an edge case as can be imagined.

One good example of a game that's So Bad, It's Good in terms of story but So Bad, It's Horrible in terms of gameplay is Spanish for Everyone!. Gameplay consists of doing the same four basic minigames over and over, which fails at both the game's goals: being fun and teaching you Spanish.

The developers knew they were making a crappy shovelware title however, so they decided to have fun and fill the story with as much dark subtext as they could get away with. The result is that if you watch the cutscenes on YouTube, you'll probably have a good laugh, but if you actually play the game yourself, it'll be a miserable experience that's not worth it.

Sorry for the late response (since I was tired when the question was clarified, and I had just gotten out of bed when I made my previous post, hence the timestamp mix-up in the latter case), but I'm a bit iffy on making exceptions that don't fit at least one of the criteria on the crowner, especially since I'm pretty sure Big Rigs is one of the works that started the debate this thread was created to settle, and whether SBIG and SBIH are mutually exclusive tends to come up whenever it or another work listed under both comes up.

I'm not shooting down the proposal (hence why this isn't a mod post); I'm just giving my own opinion on the idea. That said, I'd prefer to use a separate crowner for it since the current one will be ready to call tomorrow.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 10th 2022 at 4:17:54 AM

I mean, we technically already allow those exceptions to exist anyway with the new rules.

Another work listed under both is Garzey's Wing. Specifically, the SBIG entry puts it under the Voice Acting section:

I personally always considered it just SBIG, and it has quite a number of fans for this reason and is certainly how it's mostly known - however, the main thing people seem to like about it is its hilariously awful English dub. Disregarding that, most other parts are just considered uninterestingly bad or blandly average at best from what I can tell.

Edited by Zanreo on Jun 13th 2022 at 9:57:57 PM

What about the original Japanese? Is that just considered awful? If so, it can probably be kept on both with the specification that the Japanese dub is Horrible and the English dub is SBIG.

Shouldn't this be discussed at the cleanup thread?

Probably, I'll move it there

Sonichu is another classic example that gets brought up as both, I'm shocked it wasn't mentioned yet. I haven't read it, but as far as I understood, it's SBIH in terms of art, production values, characterization, etc, but SBIG due to the plot's insanity and how incompently it's put together.

I'll also mention the SBIG entry needs updating.

I think a lot of the SBIG attitude towards Sonichu is related to the obsession with its creator, which we're barred from discussing.

I think this is also something to discuss at the cleanup thread? The crowner's done; this thread was just to hash out the policy itself.

I'm a little confused about why video games would be a special exception, though I think it also has to do with the fact that I feel Play the Game, Skip the Story involves special pleading.

I've seen multiple movies where my reaction has been "this is a perfectly good setting that was actively made worse by the need to justify these idiots wandering around in it", or "why would they subjugate such delightful people to such a shallow and contrived plot". (The blockbuster is an entire genre practically defined by making no promises beyond spectacle; Feast Your Eyes, Skip The Story, one might say.) It seems to me that works that overlap SBIG and SBIH are similar reactions on scale of the collective audience; interactive media doesn't seem special in this regard.

...I'm also wondering where something like Morbius fits, where the memetic "fandom" exists to deliberately blur the line by pretending a movie is So Bad, It's Good when it's actually So Bad Its Horrible or So Okay, It's Average (I don't know which, but neither does anyone else because nobody watched it).

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jul 9th 2022 at 9:38:54 AM