Shouldn't this be YMMV?: Running The Asylum

This is primarily an Audience Reaction Trope, and tends to be used a lot as a vent for Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch. It's also Pot Holed a lot when fans (especially comic book fans) want to complain about the creator who ruined their favorite work FOREVER.

It seems highly subjective... So, why isn't this in the YMMV section?

Probably because nobody thought to do it yet.

It seems a pretty clear-cut subjective trope.

As mentioned, there are objective factors to determine this. Even if someone doesn't watch a show, the things that turn that one off from watching are still there.

The subjective part is whether this is good or bad, not whether it's done. While many people have different Awesome Moments about what Spider-Man did, it would be hard to argue that "one more day" was not an instance of running the asylum.

What turns one person off from a show is subjective.

Huh. You know, that trope doesn't quite mean what I thought it meant. I thought it was strictly, "former fans are now on the creative team". Instead it's, "official works look like fanfiction, often as a result of fans being on the creative team"?

I think that ought to get re-worked. Otherwise yeah, "it's indistinguishable from fanfic" is subjective where "writers were former fans" isn't.

"What turns one person off from a show is subjective."

But that isn't the defining trait of this. It's there on the first sentence.

Do you mean the "indistinguishable from fanfiction" part? Because if so, that's precisely what's subjective.

As a sentence, it doesn't even make coherent sense.

edited 19th Dec '10 8:48:59 PM by KingZeal

Isn't "fans became writers" Promoted Fanboy?

edited 19th Dec '10 9:55:52 PM by helterskelter

Hmm, yeah. At least sort of. Although Promoted Fanboy could be said to identify the individual where Running the Asylum refers to the franchise.

"Official works read like fanfic" is a criticism I've seen leveled at plenty of works with only one author. The final Harry Potter book comes to mind. It is definitely a subjective criteria.

I think so too. It should be marked as such.

"Do you mean the "indistinguishable from fanfiction" part? Because if so, that's precisely what's subjective.

As a sentence, it doesn't even make coherent sense."

And yet many of us have understood what it means. I think you're just trying to get this labeled subjective as a form of Complaining About People Not Liking the Show.

Doesn't that just indirectly strengthen the argument for subjectivity? If he's Complaining About People Not Liking the Show, that suggests the trope is for... people not liking the show. Meaning it should be subjective. Besides, attacking someone's motives is just an ad hominem.

I think this trope could be objective, but "reads like fanfic" is a bad criteria in that regard. Most of the tropes mentioned that come about as a result of fans taking over, are cited all the time on works where no such thing ever happened. There are only a couple that seem uniquely linked to this phenomenon, like Armed with Canon.

edited 20th Dec '10 11:20:40 AM by Tyoria

No, not liking a show is a consequence, which only makes it a Pet-Peeve Trope. You can still like a show even when you think there is running the asylum. People who stuck with Enterprise to the fourth season would argue it was running, but in a good way.

My point is that there is running, even if you like it or dislike it. It would be the same as All Just a Dream being good or bad to some people, but it still happens in a show.

But Running the Asylum's definition depends on the fan believing that a work is exactly like fanfiction. That's not possible to do objectively.

It might be, but those familiar with fanfictions versus the original works can tell when they start to blur. Also, we can add positive criteria to the list on that page as a way to help tell when this works out right.

How do you objectively tell the difference between fanfiction and the original work?

You could add more positive criteria, but I'd advise cutting a lot more. Plenty of those things are simple degeneration which are not at all unique to Running the Asylum but can come up as a result of Seasonal Rot, Creator Breakdown, and whatnot. That's the problem here, that it comes to be a shorthand for "the reason it sucks now." Fan Myopia, Die for Our Ship, Armed with Canon are good examples. (You could add, say, Character Rerailment and Author's Saving Throw.) Canon Sue, Did Not Do The Research, Spotlight-Stealing Squad, The Scrappy, and Author Appeal are bad — and Darker and Edgier is pretty hard to distinguish from Cerebus Syndrome here.

Well applying Die for Our Ship to canon most certainly would be a case of making fanfiction into something official.

Except Die for Our Ship is also subjective.

No. If a fanfic writer screws with a relationship by hosing one side, that objectively happens. If it happens in canon, it objectively happens.

If you're basing how people feel about it, that's not actually part of the trope.

Check out the trope. It is subjective.

If I'm interpreting the first lines of description, as well as the Laconic, right, this trope is Promoted Fanboy causes Fanon to become Canon. At no point there is an argument for quality of the work. I mean come on, this even mentions Don Rosa! This is completely not YMMV. That the symptoms used to confirm it are mostly of the "complaining about thins I don't like" variety of subjective tropes makes no difference, it is still just reporting of symptoms. Those symptoms could as well apply to works not under Running the Asylum.

edited 20th Dec '10 11:56:44 PM by SilentReverence

Wait, wait, wait... Die for Our Ship is a fan thing. If it can happen in works written all by the same person, what the heck is the value of putting it on a page dedicated to the results of fans Running the Asylum? That means there's nothing about it which distinguishes its use in fanfic from its use in any kind of canon, when the trope is supposedly about glorified fanfic as opposed to regular canon.

It's like saying Action Girl can happen as a result of Running the Asylum. I mean, yeah, but so what?

edited 21st Dec '10 12:01:29 AM by Tyoria

That Die for Our Ship is going to be highly supportive evidence of Running the Asylum (provided you have something else backing it up, such as actual fanwork written by the current writer which holds the same view of the romantic triangle), whereas Action Girl isn't. But I'm not arguing that those symptoms are or not subjective (they are), I'm arguing that the symptoms being subjective doesn't make the trope itself subjective (it isn't).

If I'm interpreting the first lines of description, as well as the Laconic, right, this trope is Promoted Fanboy causes Fanon to become Canon.

That's pretty much the exact definition of Armed with Canon, though. Armed with Canon, for the most part, seems fairly objective. But Running the Asylum's many criteria are filled with subjective signs:

• Canon Sue
• Character Derailment
• Die for Our Ship
• Fan Myopia
• Possession Sue
• Writer characters as The Scrappy

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm fine with making this a more objective supertrope of Armed with Canon, Pandering to the Base, Flanderization, Dropped a Bridge on Him, and other objective tropes...but the entire trope has become a mess that is either a License To Whine or an excuse to make Take Thats.

I'm arguing that the symptoms being subjective doesn't make the trope itself subjective (it isn't).

See, that right there makes no sense to me.

edited 21st Dec '10 12:10:07 AM by KingZeal