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CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1251: Apr 6th 2025 at 4:14:08 PM

[up] And even the Slytherins intended as sympathetic are jerks.

Harry Potter may be a kids' series, but so is Avatar The Last Airbender, and the latter is far more nuanced.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
VapourSoulOS Herald of Lunar Tierce from You really expect me to know that? Since: Jun, 2017 Relationship Status: Abstaining
Herald of Lunar Tierce
#1252: Apr 7th 2025 at 1:47:56 AM

I don't mind when books try to have complex plots and multiple groups of characters doing their own thing, but for the love of god, there is a point where it feels like the writer is trying to do too much. Which is exactly my problem with Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked (and by extension all of Phase 2).

"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It's lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."-Skulduggery Pleasant
Allisterarch Water-Breathing Human from Ridiculous Procrastination zone (Striking Back) Relationship Status: love is a deadly lazer
#1253: Apr 7th 2025 at 5:04:32 AM

[up] Oh, I hard agree with that. This is the major reason why I really don't like crossovers and Shared Universes, especially because the focus will be inevitably given on the Creator's Pet rather than the characters/stories I might've been actually interested in.

(Also agree with everything said about Planet of Hats, Always Chaotic Evil etc., I just don't have anything new to say as I've ranted a lot about it in one of my old rants about lack of creativity in underwater settings.)

Easy-Mode Mockery is a gaming pet peeve. Even as someone who generally prefers hard mode, it's annoying because not everyone wants to play that way. What if someone finds difficult games stressful and wants a more casual experience, or they'd rather focus on the story? Or they have a physical and/or cognitive disability that means easy mode is the only way they can play?

Yes. YES. I am not a Hard Mode person at all and I'd always rather go for the story or just for fun, but I might go for Hard Mode if 1) I like the game enough, 2) normal mode gets old and I want a new challenge. Easy-Mode Mockery is... not the way to do it. If there's no easy mode at all, then... is it really hard to not just say there's a non-existent easy mode in first place?? Why is making fun of the player for falling for your False Advertising even okay??

And a lot of times, the mockery is just... sexist? Like, giving the Player Character a tutu or ballet shoes as "mockery" like... what's wrong with that? What if a player wants something like that as a cosmetic prize from Hard Mode because they like playing with a more feminine Dance Battler?

Funnily enough, I vaguely remember playing a bit of I Wanna Be the Guy as a pre-teen. At first, I thought the game closing and opening onto the Barbie site when clicking Easy (I always start Easy to decide if I like the game or not before spending more time with it, shocker) was just... me accidentally closing the game and opening the browser by accident. Although I figured out pretty fast there was no such thing as an Easy mode, I didn't think the game was coded to bring up the Barbie site at all (in fact I thought it might've been a corruption bug or something lol) because I... was a frequent visitor to that site and I might've even have had it as a my home page for a while (I grew up with the classic Barbie movies lol), although I don't remember if the page was immediately redirected to load in my native tongue or not. And the Normal mode just... wasn't odd at all to me. The silly music was on par with the course for your usual platformer, I didn't understand English at the time so I didn't know what "wuss" meant, and I actually preferred the Kid dressed like that, so I had no interest in Hard Mode at all. The whole "mockery" just backfired hard on me. Eventually I got bored and went on to platfomers I found waaaay more fun (Penguin Adventure: Path to Polar Bear Mountain my beloved).

If Aquaman is "Nobody's favorite superhero", then I am Odysseus. (They/Them) (Troper Wall)
CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1254: Apr 7th 2025 at 9:07:27 AM

Something I've ranted about in a few other threads: Cybernetics Eat Your Soul. If there's a good justification for it (eg. the implants are designed to keep the populace complacent), then I don't mind. But if it's a case of "someone gets a cybernetic limb, turns evil, and is no longer truly a person", it has some nasty ableist undertones. And it gets really confusing if there are also sympathetic robot characters in the same work.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#1255: Apr 7th 2025 at 9:51:06 AM

[up] One of the codifiers of the concept, Cyberpunk, actually gave a justification for it. Specifically, it's the result of nerve damage, body dysmorphia, and isolation from humanity brought on by replacing body parts with superpowered robot limbs. It could also be prevented almost entirely by therapy and having the operations done by a competent surgeon.


As for my personal thoughts on the trope. I have less of an issue with it if it's done with characters who willingly replace their appendages, rather than than those replacing lost limbs. The way I see it, if a cybernetic arm has built-in rocket launchers or allows you to bench press a truck, it isn't a prosthetic, it's a weapon, and should be treated as such.

Swordofknowledge Spreading literacy with book and blade from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Spreading literacy with book and blade
#1256: Apr 7th 2025 at 10:02:03 AM

[up] @ Kaiseror:

One of the codifiers of the concept, Cyberpunk, actually gave a justification for it.

I was wondering if someone would mention Cyberpunk when this was being discussed. I will say that while I definitely agree that they did an extremely good job at exploring the concept and explaining the reasons behind cyber-psychosis, I'm still somewhat unsatisfied with the idea that this complex mixture of mental and physical conditions just boils down to someone turning into a rampaging murderous lunatic.

I wish there had been more cases of people breaking down in other ways besides just going on homicidal rampages. There still could have been plenty of those, but I'd want to see a variety of other outcomes—-people mutilating their flesh-and-blood limbs due to thinking that they are foreign bodies and the mechanical ones are the "real" ones, lapsing into complete catatonia, etc.

I don't know. I'm agreeing with you by the way, I'm just saying that it felt largely incomplete.

Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#1257: Apr 7th 2025 at 10:43:01 AM

One example comes to mind, but the character was already an evil bastard anyway and getting a robot arm just made him more badass, lol tongue

I do agree though that if getting the cyber parts are what causes the evil... it's kind of uncomfortable at best and ableist at worst, since it assumes that having any "inhuman" parts makes you inherently less of a human and, thus, evil

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 7th 2025 at 1:43:20 PM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1258: Apr 7th 2025 at 11:12:38 AM

[up][up][up]Hence why I don't mind it if there's a good reason. I was in a cyberpunk RP once where implants only caused issues if someone had loads of them, because they'd overtax the brain. Or if they were unlucky enough to get a bad doctor.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#1259: Apr 7th 2025 at 12:31:43 PM

It doesn't seem to occur to most cyberpunk writers that the group whose humanity they're questioning/debating (amputees) actually exists right now

~*bleh*~
CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1260: Apr 7th 2025 at 1:47:30 PM

One of the problems with anti-transhumanism is that disability accommodations are inherently transhumanist.

Also @Swordofknowledge: I agree that even in the cases where it's justified, the negative effects could be more varied. The idea that "mentally unstable = violent" is problematic in itself.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#1261: Apr 7th 2025 at 2:26:18 PM

To be clear, I don't think they're debating the humanity of amputees, but cyborgs. Or at least, that's the intention. They likely don't think that ordinary prosthetics makes you evil; it's advanced cybernetics. (Obviously in reality the definition of "cyborg" is broad enough to technically include people with glasses, let alone prosthetics, but fiction focuses on the robotic stuff.) Obviously there's still unfortunate implications, but it's meant to be "being part robot makes you evil". So I think this is just a case of writers just not really thinking through the implications of what they're writing.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 7th 2025 at 5:28:21 AM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#1262: Apr 7th 2025 at 2:49:58 PM

[up] I remember a discussion similar to this on the Politics in Media thread a while back. Someone pointed out that in stories that use cybernetics, they only seem to do Cybernetics Eat Your Soul with characters who willingly replace their biological parts, but not ones who actually need a prosthesis.

Edited by Kaiseror on Apr 7th 2025 at 4:50:09 AM

Florien The They who said it from statistically, slightly right behind you. Since: Aug, 2019
The They who said it
#1263: Apr 8th 2025 at 1:21:56 AM

Which is, of course, still extremely stupid, but now it's stupid for different reasons (why are prosthetics for the disabled magically exempt from turning you evil and dangerous when enhancing yourself otherwise isn't? The line between "enhancing but like, for no reason" and "fixing a disability" is blurrier than anyone likes and probably shouldn't be considered a line at all. If I want to have better vision and get robot eyes, why does it matter whether my vision is bad or good before I get them?)

Generally there's a sort of "humans and machines are fundamentally different things" attitude there too, which I'm sure is its own trope or group of tropes, and one that is also grating and ridiculous.

Edited by Florien on Apr 8th 2025 at 1:23:09 AM

CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1264: Apr 8th 2025 at 1:36:39 AM

Yeah, by that bizarre logic, sapient robots wouldn't be people. And some real life amputees do have advanced prosthetics, meaning poorly-done uses of the trope are telling them "you're part machine, therefore you're less of a person".

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
CrownlessMimic N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe from The City (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
N Corp. E.G.O::Contempt, Awe
#1265: Apr 8th 2025 at 2:31:39 AM

In Project Moon's works (as revealed in Library of Ruina) Cybernetics Eat Your Soul is only the case in the City if you get stuck with cheap prosthetics, as seen with the early enemies in the Brotherhood of Iron who still suffer things like stuttering as well as hunger and the need for sleep despite their new bodies not needing them anymore. Better ones like those seen Gaze Office and Cane Office's Nemo don't have that problem on top of all the other bells and whistles. The same really goes for any other augmentations be they tattoos or even better equipment. It's a setting split between people who have things and people who don't.

That being said, all prosthetics in the City are intentionally inhuman looking and people are still generally suspicious of people with them due to the Head of the World's rigid, specific views on humanity and has been acknowledged as such by the series given how they're stringent on anything considered non-human being unwelcome in the City. N Corp is especially guilty of this given how they heavily value the human experience and to that end despise the ideas of prosthetics since they see pain as being integral to one's humanity. A specific branch of them believes in it so much to exterminate prosthetic users on sight since they believe such people willingly renounced their personhood... and the story spares no expense at calling them murderous hypocrites be it their reaction to someone losing a limb is to simply embrace the pain in the moment to allowing their members to undergo E.G.O Corrosion and transform into literal monsters.

I would elaborate more but the point is to voice my appreciation for how Project Moon went about it rather than just resorting to "Mmmmm, cybernetics bad and technology scary".

Oh, I hard agree with that. This is the major reason why I really don't like crossovers and Shared Universes, especially because the focus will be inevitably given on the Creator's Pet rather than the characters/stories I might've been actually interested in.

My thoughts immediately went to Batman when it came to that. And I say that as someone who did grow up with the franchise through shows and movies. It's been talked at length but it's simply the truth of it, I feel. Like, compare the content Batman gets versus the Green Lantern lately, for instance.


Since I'm here, I'll throw another topic into the ring: The Seven Deadly Sins. More specifically, how shallow the sins are generally used and I feel like that's something that is never really talked about, just accepted. Lust and Gluttony I feel are probably the most egregious examples of this since I feel most examples can be summed up as "is lustful and/or inspires lust" and "is fat and/or loves food and eating". I'm not necessarily asking for a complete deep dive into their depictions, just something more creative and less... pedestrian, I guess.

Edited by CrownlessMimic on Apr 8th 2025 at 3:06:56 AM

Be awed. Or be awestruck. This is the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
RLH4 Cool Loser from Midgard Since: Sep, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Cool Loser
#1266: Apr 8th 2025 at 8:31:24 PM

[up] For a more modern take on gluttony you could switch the overconsumption from food to focus on drug addiction. Good Omens has an interesting modern take on Famine (as in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse), who, rather than destroying crops, instead focuses on starving people by creating new insane diet trends so that they starve themselves to death, and Gluttony could work as a similar sort of manipulator working to create ever more dangerous and addictive drugs, though I suppose he could also just keep the food aspect and be the CEO of a food megacorp, since Obesity is one of the leading health risks nowadays. The Dresdend Files also has the White Court vampires, Emotion Eaters who consume lust, be in control of large portions of the porn industry, working to slowly lower human inhibitions and make people think of each other as less human and more like sex objects.

Clown To Clown Handshake Initiating...
CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1267: Apr 9th 2025 at 1:56:13 AM

Lust in particular is annoying because it's always sexual lust. Yes, sexy villains are popular, but lust is about more than that. It's excessive desire for something immaterial, which can be power, victory, etc.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
Nukeli Since: Aug, 2018
#1268: Apr 9th 2025 at 3:38:58 AM

I'm unclear on what's the operative difference between lust and greed in the seven deadly sins

~*bleh*~
VapourSoulOS Herald of Lunar Tierce from You really expect me to know that? Since: Jun, 2017 Relationship Status: Abstaining
Herald of Lunar Tierce
#1269: Apr 9th 2025 at 4:42:48 AM

[up] From what I can tell, Greed is almost always about financial goods, wanting more money and fancy things and never being satisfied. Lust, I assume is less about manipulating people sexually and more about perverted individuals sinking to increasingly depraved depths to satiate an ever growing libido.

"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It's lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."-Skulduggery Pleasant
Kaiseror Since: Jul, 2016
#1270: Apr 9th 2025 at 5:12:50 AM

[up] One manga I've been reading Make the Exorcist Fall in Love, actually had an interesting take on greed. Mammon, the demon lord of greed, not gains power from the expected gathering and holding of wealth, but also from discrimination and inequality. According to him, equality is antithetical to greed, and he opposes things like women's rights and racial equality.

As for me personally, I'm annoyed that whenever they use the sin of Wrath, it's pretty much always just some big, angry guy. Especially since, if I remember right, the original definition of wrath was a "desire for harm", and didn't really mention rage specifically.

Kiefen MINE! from Germany Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: It's not my fault I'm not popular!
MINE!
#1271: Apr 9th 2025 at 5:18:35 AM

[up][up] In addition to this Greed is opposed by Generosity so it is also defined by a general Me First / Fuck You Got Mine attitude towards material possessions.

Lust has a predatory connotation were you treat the other as "prey" or a "conquest" rather than a partner in the way that Love fosters.

Edit:

[up] Yes, Wrath is basically enjoying to destroy rather to make a genuine attempt to improve something. Intellectually it is like a Caustic Critic vs A constructive one, the former just uses criticism as a pretense to pan someone. Wrath can be justified when someone genuely wronged you, but if you just mindlessly destroy in retaliation you take away the opposing party's chance to improve themselves, hence why Temperance is opposed to Wrath.

Edited by Kiefen on Apr 9th 2025 at 2:27:33 PM

CalicoCaitSith Part Time Magical Girl Since: Jun, 2022 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
Part Time Magical Girl
#1272: Apr 9th 2025 at 5:50:45 AM

I'm unclear on what's the operative difference between lust and greed in the seven deadly sins
From what I understand, lust is excessive desire for immaterial things (which can include sexual gratification), whereas greed is excessive desire for material things. Both involve stepping on/manipulating others to gain such.

Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
MathsAngelicVersion Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music from Gensokyo Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music
#1273: Apr 10th 2025 at 6:36:57 AM

There's one type of story about grief that I really dislike.

It usually goes something like this: Alice is sad because Bob has died. Then she discovers a fantasy or sci-fi element (e.g. wishes or time travel) that could revive Bob... too bad the story has arbitrarily decided it shouldn't be used, and punishes Alice for daring to try it until she finally accepts that Bob has to die. It ends up feeling less like a message about moving on from grief, and more like the story saying "screw you for trying to save an innocent life in a way that is bad because I said so". Extra irritating if...

  1. There's an in-universe deity or Anthropomorphic Personification delivering a flimsy justification for why Bob's death was somehow necessary. No, they are not automatically right just because they happen to be powerful.
  2. Alice is framed as hubristic for trying to change something she realistically could change, or has good reason to believe she could change.
  3. The punishment feels like it comes out of nowhere. (Example: Alice can get away with using time travel for petty reasons, but trying to save Bob unleashes the Clock Roaches.)

As you may have guessed, I don't have a very high opinion of Life is Strange and Salem's backstory.

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Apr 10th 2025 at 4:01:33 PM

Swordofknowledge Spreading literacy with book and blade from I like it here... Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Spreading literacy with book and blade
#1274: Apr 10th 2025 at 6:42:58 AM

[up] @ Maths Angelic Version:

I have to confess that I am not familiar with Life is Strange and RWBY (I know about them but very little).

I think this is a complex topic; while I have not come across the exact type of story you mentioned, I have come across stories in which Alice can revive Bob, but the cost of doing such a thing is detrimental to the world or to a person or number of people. In other words, Alice must sacrifice the life/wellbeing of another person or hundreds if not thousands of people just for her selfish (but understandable and sympathetic) desire to see her loved one again.

At that point it becomes an ethical dilemma, and it runs headlong into how much you care for or just owe "other people" vs your own circle of close loved ones. I've seen it in stories that are completely based in the real world where to help one person, you must compromise the quality of life for another completely innocent person. Hell, I've seen it happen in real life.

Now in those stories I can understand why the narrative "punishes" Alice if she tries to move forward with reviving Bob. It is extremely uncomfortable to see innocents be the collateral damage for one person's heartfelt reunion no matter how much we may sympathize.

But if it just does so for the sake of drama and Bob could be brought back without any real harm, then I agree that kind of sucks.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Apr 10th 2025 at 6:44:49 AM

Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake. — Edgar Walllace
MathsAngelicVersion Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music from Gensokyo Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Ambassador of Eurogames and Touhou Music
#1275: Apr 10th 2025 at 7:00:04 AM

Interesting points.

The variations I dislike the most are the ones where the cost of bringing back Bob is unpredictable and arbitrary.note  Like a story where saving Bob with Time Travel randomly turns out to unleash a bunch of destructive Clock Roaches. Why do these things exist? Because the story says so.

It's a bit more palatable if the costs of reviving Bob can be reasonably foreseen, like if a revival ritual requires human sacrifices. And even then I tend to dislike it because of the underlying assumption that undoing Bob's untimely death is somehow bad — after all, the only way to accomplish it is tied to an evil ritual. And if Alice decides not to use the ritual, just write a grounded, straight-forward story about grief instead.

Admittedly I dislike "would you rather doom your loved one or a bunch of random people?" Sadistic Choices in general, but I find it harder to articulate why.


In the end, I think I dislike this kind of story because I'm disgusted by attempts to frame senseless deaths as somehow necessary. For a non-fantasy/sci-fi example: in "The Christmas Shoes", the protagonist meets a poor little boy with a dying mum and is like "neat, God sent that boy to teach me about the True Meaning of Christmas!"

Edited by MathsAngelicVersion on Apr 10th 2025 at 4:10:24 PM


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