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Piterpicher (Series 2)
2020-11-07 10:09:15

Honestly, trope indexes usually don't have a short description of what the trope is for (that's what the laconic is for, usually). I'd say the thing's there for flavor mostly. Admittedly I think getting offended by what appears to be satire seems to be a weak reason for removal, the concern that it can make the tropes seem bad seems somewhat understandable. I lean towards keeping it how it is.

Edited by Piterpicher Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods Of Incremental)
Zuxtron (On A Trope Odyssey)
2020-11-07 10:16:33

I don't think that it's automatically bad to have descriptions next to tropes on indexes, but it is kinda awkward when those description use nasty slurs. I wouldn't mind at least changing those, or even having all of them rewritten to not be from a first-person perspective.

Lermis Since: Nov, 2018
2020-11-07 10:29:13

Honestly, I really like the way it's written now. It's more fun.

Space Battles Dot Com fanworks (now oficial) index in my Sandbox.
rjd1922 Since: May, 2013
mightymewtron Since: Oct, 2012
2020-11-07 12:43:13

I don't mind the first-person perspective, but the slurs might be piling it on a bit too thick. If nothing else, we could language that's still derogatory but not as harsh. Like, we could easily rewrite Unsettling Gender-Reveal as "The pretty girl I was flirting with is really some kind of gay freak in drag?!" and Prom Is for Straight Kids as "Only hetero couples can attend prom, not you homos!" (still derogatory but not as incendiary as the F word) and it gets the point across. Given what happened with the old names for the Double Standard Rape pages, it's not bad to keep an eye out for things that could be misconstrued.

Edited by mightymewtron I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
rjd1922 Since: May, 2013
2020-11-07 14:10:45

^I agree with those rewrites. Oddly enough, Transgender Fetishization is written from the perspective of a sexualized trans person rather than someone who fetishizes trans people.

Keet cleanup
mightymewtron Since: Oct, 2012
2020-11-07 14:19:46

Yeah, I find it odd how some of the tropes are written from the perspective of the victimized as opposed to the bigot. It's a bit of an inconsistent reading.

I did swap in my rewrites to get rid of the harsher slurs, if that's okay.

Edited by mightymewtron I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
BlackMageJ Since: Jun, 2017
2020-11-08 02:31:03

Maybe add quote marks around each example to mark it more clearly as something a character might say, rather than 'the site' saying those things.

WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2020-11-08 12:00:19

Even then, the page is still very inconsistent. At least one of the descriptions isn't even speaking as a character.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Lermis Since: Nov, 2018
2020-11-08 12:57:22

^ Maybe later additions? A while back I spotted a similar problem with the Body Horror index, and did my best to make the descriptions consistent (I went with the funny ones, which was the majority), but my success was... Limited.

Edited by Lermis Space Battles Dot Com fanworks (now oficial) index in my Sandbox.
Bisected8 MOD (Primordial Chaos)
2020-11-08 13:46:54

NGL, I'm not a fan of the Transgender Fetishisation entry because of the way it describes the speaker's gender as "preferred" and potholes to Attractive Bent-Gender.

Ironically making it hit in the way that the entry immediately above it (for Trans Tribulations) was intended to.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
mightymewtron Since: Oct, 2012
2020-11-08 13:54:52

I still like the self-demonstration but it is kind of awkwardly organized. I wonder if re-organizing or even soft-splitting the index could help with the weird tone? Some tropes are about being a bigot, and some tropes are about being the victim of bigotry, and that leads to the weird shifts in tone and perspective.

I'll try to rewrite Transgender Fetishization since it doesn't actually describe the trope anyway (it's not just "trans person is good-looking").

Edited by mightymewtron I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2020-11-08 13:56:32

Yeah, we need to at least make it consistently written.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Reymma Since: Feb, 2015
2020-11-08 17:43:27

On the matter of the Body Horror index, I rewrote a few entries (and made the format more even) to be clearer, but it might still need to be brought more towards describing a trope than trying to make a joke about it.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
Lermis Since: Nov, 2018
2020-11-10 04:58:21

^ Most of the trope names are pretty descriptive on their own right. Like Creepy Long Fingers; It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Space Battles Dot Com fanworks (now oficial) index in my Sandbox.
RoundRobin Since: Jun, 2018
2020-11-11 05:33:04

^^ I don't know, I kinda like the current descriptions. The jokes make it easier to browse through the entire list, whereas a bland description would make a read-through mind-numbingly boring. Besides, it adheres to the Clear, Concise, Witty rule, so I see no reason to change it.

Edited by RoundRobin - Fly, robin, fly! - ...I'm trying!
SeptimusHeap MOD (Edited uphill both ways)
2020-11-13 00:16:14

Frankly, my impression is that short descriptions in indexes tend to lead to controversy. But it might not be a correct impression.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Lermis Since: Nov, 2018
2020-11-13 01:12:19

I don't know about controversy, but if they're not uniform they can lead to problems. Once I had to delete every single description from the Classic mythology Trope Namer index, because it was the only of the trope namer indexes that had descriptions, and they were basically the troper showing off his mythology knowledge.

Space Battles Dot Com fanworks (now oficial) index in my Sandbox.
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