Yeah - TvTropes is a perfectly fun website if you don’t take it too seriously, and can even be a good reference, like, if you’re thinking “I like series that have time travel plots/a certain type of villain/a main character who has to deal with this particular kind of arc in them and want to check out a new one - I’ll hop over to the page for that kind of story and see if anything mentioned there sounds neat!” or you’re curious to see what kinds of patterns show up in media in a way that you might not have necessarily thought of before... but that’s... basically what tropes are: patterns that tend to show up in things people make because of whatever internal logic towards achieving certain goals. If you’re using TvTropes as something instructive, you’ve... got your writing process backwards, more likely than not.

It can help you avoid common mistakes using specific tropes, but that's about it. I wouldn't discount it as tool for writing, but its uses are limited.

I like to think that calling TV Tropes a tool for writing advice would be like calling Wikipedia a tool for research. It can be fun to read, and it can give you general knowledge on something you'd like to know more about, but using it as a something to center your work around is a really bad idea.

The most I've ever used TV Tropes for is like either trying to find specific things that use tropes for dumb selfish shenanigans, or in super rare cases to make a point. Like "Oh, this character is kind-of a ripoff of this other guy, there's basically nobody else on TV Tropes that has this same set of things attached." So not exactly good uses, but every now and then it's kind-of useful to just have something to point to to be like "Hey, this is a thing" or whatever. Probably the best thing I ever used it for was looking up characters who use instruments as weapons to try to get some ideas and I stumbled across some fun crazy scene from some kung-fu movie. I never made that character and I kind-of wasted my time, but at least that was fun to find.

For me personally, I never used it to write, however through reading it I do feel as though it has helped me to be more aware of plot devices and occurrences that happen in media. When I was relatively young and impressionable it helped me to think more critically about the things that I was watching, reading and generally consuming.

Yup.

mansion made out of brown bricks with minecrap

And also you need something more solid to keep them together or it's all going to fall apart at the slightest pressure

I want to say this is an error in thinking. The whole is merely the sum of the parts. But that's never how story telling works. TV tropes is the equivalent of individual cuts of meat denuded of the framework and connective tissue that once made thos discretes chunks into a complete organism.

You can also use it to beat someone to death.

Yeah, just remember that nothing is original. Everything has been done before, just got to make the best out of what YOU can do with your own tropes and concepts. Because comparisons will always exist, but if you really think about it, it's kind-of freeing to think about, isn't it? Because that means that any thoughts of 'this is too similar to X thing' are already irrelevant because so many other things have already done that idea. I dunno, that's just how I'd want to think about it.

Plus a lot of the most common tropes are just... basic storytelling conventions, like the steps in the Hero's Journey. It's like building a house--once you have the framework done, you can arrange and design it in your own unique way so that it's *your* house, not someone else's. That's how I like to look at it.

TVT is the sort of thing I wish I never found sometimes. Like you said, it's easy to get lost in its ideas. So I go on there and then realise why I left, then promise myself once again to leave. And then I forget when I wanna look something up.

I mean, I can't really hate tv tropes tbh because it seemed to always insist "tropes are tools." Like, not inherently bad or good, just conventions in a story. And the comprehensive lists of different media examples helped me figure out how a trope can be used in a way that I like, and in a way that I don't like. Like, it doesn't have to be a site that discourages creativity.

"good artists borrow. great artists steal" -quote stolen by picasso

i feel like it could be a nice one shot challenge

Yeah i feel the same way. I think it works fine as a sort of index for media. and i think its kinda dumb to give the website crap and blame it because of how some people use it in the wrong way.

I just use it to edit a bunch of stuff and add stuff I’ve seen.

But agreed. It’s more supplementary material than primary. There’s a ton of grammar and sentence structure mistakes in the pages.

@@mackielunkey2205 Mostly because they're not trying to be formal/professional (according to the main page) meaning they're letting "casuals" in and I think that in a way hurts the site a bit. Grammar aside, the trope examples should also be taken with a grain of salt. I took a walk through Trope Repair Shop the other day and most pages submitted there suffer from misuse and zero context. A more specific example, I was reading a character sheet once and most descriptions were wrong due to someone completely misinterpreting character actions. Also, the same character was tagged as "Younger Than They Look" because "you'd think they'd be 16 but they're _only_ 15" I'm like-

@@mackielunkey2205 damn, can grammar be bad sometimes...

This is good, the one thing you’re missing is “Yes, no, absolutely”

Also: "its the x thing of..."

comment down below

@@Monica-br8pi BELOW DEEZ NUTS

"Just for context..."

I think another thing that helps Archer is that whenever someone says something sexist/homophic/ableist/racist, they're always framed as being the one who's wrong and other characters will react accordingly; and that does a good job of conveying that the character, not the show, is saying those things. Like, when Mallory says something horrible it really comes across as "old lady expressing her outdated views" and not "writers who actually believe those things".

its all about context and framing. it's the difference between something dark and something light. recently, i was reading a webcomic where the main character gets raped while blackout drunk. as someone who has been raped by a partner, i had no actual problem with it. what i had an issue with was how the author framed the act. it was supposed to frame the rapist as the love interest and his act as an act of love. if it had been framed as: this guy was supposed to be the love interest but takes advantage of a girl who cannot consent and rapes her so he is no longer the love interest, but a villain - i would have been fine. but no. upon this confession(he does say that they slept together and the MC repeatedly says she has no recollection of it), the MC blushes and comes to the idea that he truly loves her. that is just an incredibly disrespectful and disgusting sentiment because the author is choosing to romanticize rape. in contrast, in another webcomic, the MC is raped. she was completely sober, but frozen with fear and couldn't fight back. but the rapist is framed as just that, a rapist. he automatically becomes the villain, the author makes sure the audience knows this is not romantic or cute or sweet. it is creepy and disgusting. that's thr difference. you can make ableist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist jokes as long as the punchline isn't taking a shot at the marginalized group and instead drawing attention to how they want to be seen. i saw something that said "gallows humor is fine as long as the one making the joke is on the gallows. cause if you're using gallows humor and you're not being hung, you're just part of the execution." aka you can totally make inappropriate jokes, as long as you're not making it in a way that is genuinely offensive. there's a difference between saying "a lesbian second date is renting a u-haul and adopting a cat together" and "all lesbians secretly want to screw a guy but are too ugly to get one".

Pierce Hawthorne and Britta Perry from Community are also a good example. the context of the show is that both these characters are wrong. they are bigoted and wrong and the other characters are constantly bringing it to attention and framing it as a problem, one that nearly ruins their friendship with the rest of the group multiple times.

Yeah that's gonna have to be a no for me dog. Some people just don't want you to joke about raping children's corpses no matter the circumstances. Funny is so subjective that the least offensive sarcastic jokes will still receive the same backlash the more offensive ones get, because people who dislike sarcasm tend to think it's intrinsically insensitive, demanding and mean for the sake of mean. You can't get over that wall with a well structured joke, because the structure is just where meaning goes to place itself in view. Otherwise humanity's masterpieces like Lysistrata or Madame Bovary would have no detractors, and yet they are out there.

​@@BygoneT Nah, of course, true and fair, there aren't absolutes, and like you said, what's funny is subjective, everyone has their own thresholds and hard lines and that should be acknowledged respectfully, etc. - still, I don't think it was meant as an absolute and I agree in a general way accordingly. While a well-structured joke won't get over those kinds of walls, no, it will still guide more people to... finding something funny in its context/how it's presented/etc. and feel less like it's just slamming the audience with shocking/offensive/angering content.

That is the most accurate thing I've ever heard, holy shit.

Not surprising given that if there are two men that community worships, they're Doug Walker and Joss Whedon.

@@SirBlackReeds Why the fuck do they idolize those two again?

@@Nai-qk4vp it was the early days on internet when Doug was a frontrunner for internet reviewers and Whedon could do no wrong

@@kostajovanovic3711 Whedon could do no wrong? Maybe I was too young or didn't know but I don't rememer Joss Whedon being worshipped outside of Tv Tropes.

It was weirdly meta when you referred to TMA, a podcast only 1 person that I know of other than me listens to.

@@starsndips it has a thriving tumblr fandom

Yeaaaaah. That comes through in your audio. I don't think I've ever heard you this angry on the channel before? Not exactly angry. But like frustrated maybe. Whatever emotion, this show made you feel a lot of it.

Sandstorm!

@@DarkExcalibur42 the emotion was Hurting

it's true but you shouldn't say it

Why not just google it and find an actual website or community dedicated to your fetish as opposed to hoping you stumble across something cool through literal thousands of examples? I understand the excitement of wanting to search for something new, with many possibilities at your fingertips, but it doesn’t sound very convenient

No, not really? Some tropes that are about certain fetishes being shown in media have the list of media that does it replaced with "no examples, please." instead

You are correct

@@vintheguy Well, it used to be a place to look up media with your fetish. They've cleaned things up, for better and worse, after they lost advertising from Google. It lead to a bunch of pages getting cut, articles getting rewritten, and certain tropes having their examples pruned.

Unless you provide a service people need to survive, l think you're good.

"all the subtlety of a drive-by shooting" That was savage! Thank you for that, it gave me a solid laugh.

*from us to you* haha TVTropes may have burned you out man

Great

Yup.

This is genuinely great to know! Thank you for sharing!

Quite honestly I've read so many neat primers on real word historical subjects via those Useful Notes pages.

Damn they weren't lying That event Can my moral horizon

I feel like a Complete Monster

They looks lije a hate sink

I always saw the site as being the equivalent of cliff notes.

It's all about how you use the trope. I if you shove it in everywhere, it becomes a cliche.

To be honest, yeah, on TvTropes/among people who take TvTropes too seriously, I’ve seen both that - people getting the impression that tropes being in a work is bad, even though the site itself does mention that tropes =/= bad, and so /absolutely everything/ has to be done ironically or with some kind of a twist - and people talking/writing like you can just check off a list of tropes in a story and call it a day instead of just writing organically, looking back, and going “...Oh! These characters kinda fit these sorts of archetypes!” - e.x. writing a story and actively going “I want this to be like my favorite anime, so the love interest has to be a Tsundere and their best friends have to be a goofy pair of Those Two Guys. Bam! Just as good a set of characters as my favorite anime.”

@@donaddams8825 100%

I find it odd that people feel that way. Because I’ve always just seen TV Tropes as an extremely neutral sounding archive on what happens in which media

The way I see it, TvTropes often point out common mistakes done while using certain tropes. And these mistakes are real, unless you do it knowingly because it fits your story. Since tropes are just basic blocks of writing, misusing them will screw up your story, but doing them right isn't any guarantee your story will be good. Since their negative impact is more obvious than their positive impact, it's easy to view them as negative, even if it's false.

Just ask Johnny2071 a user notorious for his vendetta against F Is For Family.

honestly, I get it, After Hours is like the only possible way TVTropes-style content could be made into a good, watchable show. In that instead of just portraying the tropes straight and occasionally mentioning them, it’s discussing them, mixing them up, and invoking them in a humorous way. Not to mention the ensemble cast of assorted neurotic and horrible characters torturing each other ends up feeling less like a gross power fantasy and more like Always Sunny. See also the episode that ends with the revelation that they’re all in a Sartrean hell. This is us, in a thing! Does this have raisins? I’m allergic to raisins.

Which ones?

which ones, will?

which one?!

Can't wait for Death Grips to get their own TV Tropes entry.

@@Monica-br8pi They probably have a mention somewhere in the music section.

@@Monica-br8pi i think i remember actually coming across a tvtropes entry for DG a few years ago, not sure if it's still on the site tho

I had to stop watching the clips you were showing because they make me uncomfortable for some reason.

True

Saaaaame!!!!!! I hate that website and I wish more people would see it for the garbage that it is.

@@jessicamartin1160 I love the concept of the site. The execution is just way too flawed.

It was noted that it was a fan catalogue of things that happened in Buffy and 2000s fanbase-available media. That explains all of the artifacts of TvTropes and the attitudes around it, and the fact that it started with Buffy explains the weird idea that they thought they could trope stuff with attitude as opposed to objectively.

I’d watch that.

Agreed!

Oh, I love autodale. I second this!

Ohhh please that'd be great! I love autodale but I do have many flaws with it and I wonder if I'm alone in them

that'd be great! I'd defo watch that

@Andrew comments Yea but some people still do stupid stuff like making this show.

I can't use tv tropes, I feel like it poisons everything I draw from it. Like giving HIV infected blood infusions to my already ill writing.

Nice way to call out mauler, quartering, g&g and critical drinker!

I liked Captain Marvel and didn’t get why people were so irrationally mad about it.

@@genericname8727 its the misogyny. there's so many of male characters like Carol and no one bats an eye. but the second a woman does the same thing, its a terrible piece of media.

Bold of you to assume they were trying to be ironic when they picked that name.

So simply disliking a shitty movie suddenly means you don't have a personality? Wow. Thanks for making me feel like a demon for DAAAAAAARRRRRRRRING to hate shitty movies. IS NOBODY ALLOWED TO HATE ANYTHING OR HAVE A NEGATIVE OPINION ANYMORE?!?!?!?!?! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST JUST LET US HATE THINGS!!!!!!!!

I don't even think they're consistent with that. Then again, it's not like the people running ads on their sites are consistent, either, so it balances out... or something

So you enjoy it because it's a potential lolcow farm? Isn't that ironically loving it?

I have the same mindset: keep tropes in mind but don't let them drive your stories.

????????????????????????? I don't even want to try to understand that bottom paragraph........................

FOR THE TRILLIONTH TIME, NOBODY, LITERALLY *NOBODY* FOAMS AT THE MOUTH WHEN THEY SEE A TRANS FEMALE NON-WHITE CHARACTER. WHERE ARE YOU PSYCHOTIC SJWS GETTING THIS BULLSHIT FROM?!?! IT DOESN'T EXIST!!!! YOU CRAZY MORONS ARE TRYING TO STIR UP CONTROVERSY FROM NOTHING. YOU'RE MAKING UP PEOPLE IN YOUR MINDS TO GET MAD AT TO MAKE YOURSELF SEEM SUPERIOR. STOP TRYING TO MAKE US ANTI SJWS LOOK BAD, BECAUSE WE ARE MORE SANE, RATIONAL AND REASONABLE THAN YOU SJWS WILL EVER BE.

god you're so right

Wow there. Let's not say things we can't take back. But this does sound about as bad as 'To Boldly flee.'

By that i mean ones like the Lily orchard video, vore writing advice, heads of sierra blanca, this, etc.

They aren't

"Echo Chamber" applies to all groups. And there are reasons to consider it bad without "A Guy from the rival faction used it"

Wait, wait WHAT? This is literally my reaction at the moment.

thank you I am

Same here, she seems like a girl I'd like to meet. Platonically, of course!

Agreed that it can be good for inspiration, but there are far too many instances of people thinking that it is a guide for how to make a story instead of being a categorized list of storytelling, well, tropes that is framed in a casual easy to understand manner. Sure, reading it can help you compartmentalize ideas but ya really shouldn't try and squeeze whatever trope ya happen to read that day into your work.

Don't even use it for inspiration. Actually consume and analyze media, without a phronema that compels you to categorize literary patterns with kitschy labels that mean less than nothing outside of that community.

I have followers on an in character twitter account who don't even know about my literary works lol

How the hell did you get perma-banned from TV Tropes?

@@henrygalley2831 "Ownership issues". As in, I took offense to the page on my own fanfic being smeared.

@@briancorvello3620 Doesn't surprise me. You go against the worthless mods and they ban you. Pathetic!

I still can't believe that hypocritical jackass (AnoBakaDesu) is getting away with a behavior like this. Arguing with him, stirring some trouble, is why I quit working on Tv Tropes. The community is just toxic.

If you are looking for some juicy info, you can browse there. But looking for editing... you better rethink again. The community there is full of toxic people. I argued with someone over an entry for Cecilia Schariac... and I've decided to never edit again.

Also this show is a great case study on why tropes should be used as tools and not a main premise.

Don't even joke about it.

Seriously?

@@Normaschthewanderer Yeah. You may not believe this, but it's the truth.

because they're in cahoots!