Needs Help: Corpsing

To-do list:

• As Corpsing is now Trivia, examples that aren't acknowledged in the work need to be moved to works' Trivia pages. Inline wicks can stay, and In-Universe examples are still allowed, but need to be marked as in-universe to prevent the example from saying it needs to be moved to the Trivia tab. Namespaces that have been cleaned are listed on Corpsing Wick Cleaning.

Corpsing is a trope describing instances where an actor or voice actor unintentionally breaks character via a fit of laughter. This usually occurs at some off-screen absurdity but could also be their own flub or weird dialogue. Despite being listed in Main, it's also used a lot in Trivia, Characters (despite it not being a Character trope), and Creator. A Trope Talk thread concluded that the trope should be moved to the Trivia namespace.
A wick check was done to see if there is significant usage of in-universe corpsing as well as any examples that actually fall under Throw It In! (Corpsing that is intentionally kept in the final product). The wick check findings are summarized below:

• 22/50 Correct Usage or 44%
• 9/50 In-Universe Corpsing or 18%
• 6/50 Actually Throw It In! or 12%
• 2/50 ZCE or 4%
• 11/50 Uncertain or 22%
  

I think this should be fairly easy to deal with. The main "trope" should be moved to the trivia namespace, as concluded by the other thread, and any Throw It In! wicks should be moved to that trope. There isn't really a ZCE issue, so I imagine most of the discussion will be determining the scope of Corpsing per the large "Uncertain" category (i.e. do we include live shows? How about Let's Plays?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 4th 2022 at 6:03:18 AM

Opening

~Hello83433, ir looks like the OP does not mesh up with the thread reason. "Really a Useful Note" is for tropes that you think are better off as Useful Notes.

I'll adjust to "Needs Help".

Oh thank you for that Berrenta .

As I said in the other thread, examples of "character that is supposed to be dead laughs/breathes" is covered by The Living Dead and Corpsing only exists as a relationship between the script and the final product, so I agree with a move to Trivia.

Moving it to Trivia sounds good.

Move to Trivia

move to trivia. also re: lets plays and the like, they should not be included unless there is a skit or some other planned segment going on. Corpsing is for when you need to stay in character and stick to script and can't. if no one is portraying a character then it shouldn't count.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Although they didn't make up a large portion of the check, is there enough to do something about the in-universe Corpsing examples? Since it's in-universe, it wouldn't fall under trivia/ then.

If Corpsing is moved to trivia/ then an appropriate In-Universe example would be a performance where they break character. Those examples could stay with the In-Universe markup.

Trivia.

I've thought "In-Universe" refered to Cant Hold Laughter, if we don't have that it can be yarded.

Move to Trivia

If something's being done about Corpsing soon, it seems like an apt time to question how many of the wick check examples marked as "correct usage" really are correct.

I've seen so many examples of some character "clearly trying not to laugh" (could this be mistaken for another emotion?) or "biting their tongue" (how can you tell this? Jaw clenching?), or having the slightest twitch of their mouth upward (meaningless).

Unless the character is The Stoic or there is behind-the-scenes confirmation, these kinds of examples make it sound like no character is even allowed to smile for two seconds unless the script says they can.

Some things you mention can fit into Nervous Tics and Not So Stoic. Regardless, characters (especially non-live-action) witholding laugh isn't Corpsing, which is an acting production term.

The bloopers are definitely correct, but I agree that the examples checked do not generally provide a way to distinguish "character trying not to laugh" and "actor trying not to laugh". The Film.Sixteen Candles example tells us there was an off-screen influence, but it doesn't say anything to lead us to believe that the characters couldn't find the speech itself funny.

Trivialise it.

Agree with moving to Trivia. Amusing for fans to know, but not really a storytelling trope.

Do you know if we can call this crowner early? Since it's 34-nil.

We could if we wanted to but the day is half over so I don't see a reason to not wait the full 3 days. There's no rush either way.

I'd think it's a safe bet, but I'm in no position to push it. Gaston can discuss this internally as usual if needed.

I only bring up waiving the Three-Day Rule with the other mods for pages with only a small amount of wicks (double digits or smaller); I came up with the idea because those pages' wicks can be cleared in a matter of seconds compared to the three days a thread usually has to be open. This page has 2675 wicks, so waiving the Three-Day Rule is off the table.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2022 at 7:47:43 AM

Got it.