Is this tropeworthy/Chairs?

Got it. Thanks Synch.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 30th 2023 at 12:01:27 PM

I heard Cat Smile was considered chairs, is that true ?

There's an active wick check on it and it's on 'Tropes needing TRS'. The entry: "Another ZCE-laden appearance trope. While the description does describe some character traits, most examples are just "character makes a :3 face"."

I personally find the concept tropeworthy on the same way Puppy-Dog Eyes or Slasher Smile is, it's a visual cue that indicates a character's temperament at a particular moment, or even their personality if they do it a lot.

But it wouldn't surprise me to find out most of the examples are lacking in context though, I imagine a lot of them go "This is x default expression" or "X does this a lot".

Edited by BlackMage43 on Jul 1st 2023 at 10:44:11 AM

It's supposedly not "someone makes this expression;" it's "someone does this face to indicate their playful/mischievous nature." Thus characterizing the character as a mischievous one and all examples need to point out this, even if it's redundant/obvious.

Is Perpetual Frowner chairs then? Many examples are "X is always frowning," which we can get from the trope title. But nope, Perpetual Frowner isn't chairs because it describes the character and lets us know that they wear a particular expression that reflects their personality all the time.

I think all facial expression tropes suffer from being ZCE magnets for the same reasons, regardless of whether they're tropeworthy or not.

Well, they also suffer from the same "too simple title" issue, where the trope is technically described but only to the point where people think the expression itself is the important thing.

i think another thing is that a Cat Smile doesn't always indicate a playful or mischievous character, it could be the standard expression of a Cat Girl or other cat-like creature regardless of personality, and sometimes it's just used for Rule of Cute. Perpetual Frowner pretty clearly indicates the character's personality (someone who never smiles is usually gloomy or stoic), but the same doesn't apply to a cat smile, i think

The Cat Smile is restricted to being an indicator of a playful nature. If it's also to show cuteness, I don't think it's this trope. That's just not noteworthy.

Cuteness and playfulness often go hand in hand and the description for Cat Smile mentions that the manga version of the trope is more likely to be played up for cuteness.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 2nd 2023 at 8:52:00 AM

Cat Smile is different from something like Perpetual Frowner since it's an exaggerated expression that's not possible for humans to do (maybe with a lot of effort, but nobody does it naturally), which is why it's a Manga Effects subtrope. It's a visual effect similar to something like Color Failure, Sweat Drop, or Bishie Sparkle.

That's another argument to keep the trope/that the trope isn't chairs.

Maybe we could do a wick check if we haven't already and see if it's being used too broadly, then maybe narrow it down to something like Wry Cat Smile?

Okay then, Mischievous Cat Smile.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 2nd 2023 at 6:43:46 AM

A wick check has already been done, I think.

More like it's in process because it's not finished yet (10/50 wicks checked only). Although it's obvious how it'll turn out, but if there's a bunch of correct examples, then it can be salvaged somehow.

But IDK how adding "wry" would improve the trope; that's different from "mischievous/playful."

It's hard to do something about "Deliberate but meaningless character design choices" examples with no knowledge of what the author had in mind.

Edited by Amonimus on Jul 2nd 2023 at 10:45:35 PM

Yeah, that's something that came up a lot in this discussion here, where once we agreed that broadness alone is not inherently chairsy, we got into the discussion of appearance tropes and whether or not incidental usages could be tropeworthy.

Is there anything else to Panthera Awesome besides "big cats exist"?

Rule of Cool. Big cats aren't just there, but treated as exceptionally cool and symbols of speed and power.

to be clear my earlier post was speaking about like, the off-wiki definition of a cat smile, and kind of a musing on whether our definition of it is too specific to just have the name "Cat Smile". i agree something like Playful Cat Smile or Mischievous Cat Smile would help. we also have Mischievous Body Language now

Power Cord Tail seems Too Rare to Trope because it doesn't has too many examples.

that's a TRS issue as the basic idea isn't chairs so it's not really an issue for this thread (this is not to say there isn't anything wrong with the concept or the execution). It having 23 wicks while being 6 years old would qualify it for a starving thread.

eta: i feel like a different thread brought this trope up before with the idea of expanding it to be something like "Plug And Play Being". could be misremembering though

Edited by amathieu13 on Jul 3rd 2023 at 11:29:24 AM

That's true. I don't remember which thread but it did happen.

Actually, it was brought up on this thread a few weeks ago by the same user here.

We already established that that the trope has issues so a trip to the TRS seems warranted.

Sandbox.Power Cord Tail Wick Check if anyone wants to give it a go.

With Panthera Awesome I understand that's the intention but the page doesn't make that clear and a lot of the examples are context-less "a big cat appears in this work".

oh my god, I even commented the same thing then too [1]. welp! at least I wasn't mistaken

Edited by amathieu13 on Jul 3rd 2023 at 12:24:44 PM