TvTropes Meme

[aletheiafelinea]

Look, I did a meme and it didn’t even take half a year a month! Also, I think it should be obvious you should take this title for a warning. I’m not accepting any suits for whatever much of your lives you’re gonna lose entering this. :>

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Sure, I'll take some prompts :)

I'm with you on disliking soulmates as a trope, but for a different reason. I can enjoy stories where the protagonists meet under different circumstances (high school AUs and the like), and it's the trope itself (rather than what it forces the plot to be, although I think you're right about that) which bothers me. Because if it's a romance focused fic, then what's the point if they're soulmates? where's the tension? And if it's not romance focused, then what does it even matter?

Wholeheartedly agreed on intercontinuity crossovers (although I do also like fusions), and have similar thoughts on the reset button (including your exceptions).

[ikel89]

Joining here with a dislike for soulmate fic, and similar caveat that I don't like but for a different reason than our host here :) Closer to yours, actually -- what's the tension? And I am a bit pro-choice to just buy into "you are magically meant to be, like everyone else is magically meant to be" like dude. Who died and made you god.

[aletheiafelinea]

Ah, yes, you reminded me another reason (as I said, investigation is still on) - my dislike for determinism! Also, as far as I'm concerned, relationships - romantic or not - are developed, not discovered. We actually talked about it once with Her Hamsterness, in the very same context of soulmate trope.

This said, I think romantic tropes generally work on assumption that both parties actually are into it, which is why so many of them would be cringey in reality (surprise proposal in front of a random but applauding audience and with a hired music band, for one *shudders*). We ask "what if?", when there's no room for what ifs. Like highway traffic that looks perfectly smooth and works efficiently, as long as no one tries to go undercurrent. I suppose many people likes the trope for the very same reasons we don't. Like liking/disliking of exploding cars and non-aerodynamic-dragons.¯\_(ツ)_

[aletheiafelinea]

# Dying Curse
# breaking the fourth wall
# Even Evil Has Standards
# and apparently this is a trope, so how could I not bring it to you XD

(I'm replying both to you and Ikel together, up there.)

[hamsterwoman]

# Dying Curse -- I guess. That is, I like it as a purely rhetorical device, along the lines of punchy last words (but it doesn't have to be a curse for me to like it). As an actual thing with magical properties, I don't like it very much, because it seems to be mostly a cheat to dissuade other characters from killing the people in possession of such power.

# breaking the fourth wall -- fuck yes! This is actually very timely because 1) that's 85% of the fun of Deadpool to me and 2) the Terra Ignota books I'm currently reading do this very well, and to increasingly bizarre degrees (the narrator starts out addressing the reader in normal Englightenment Lit fashion; by book 3 the reader is having conversations with the narrator and the disembodied metaphorical spirit of Thomas Hobbes. Or something...) I find I especially love this when when it turns out that the reader the narrator/characters are addressing through the fourth wall are different in some major way than the audience they THINK they're addressing. Basically, when it's done

[aletheiafelinea]

# breaking the fourth wall -- fuck yes!
Huh, you're more enthusiastic than me. :) I like it, but to me it's one of things that's easy to overdo. I don't think it could make the main merit of the plot to me. Though, as always, the obligatory "depends on realization".

team up with "the good guys" to oppose the worse threat
Yes, love it too!

I can honestly say I've never encountered this trope other than with Butters
Of course I immediately went to check the 'Literature' section, and I nodded seeing Butters listed as first, "Good, there's justice in the world after all". XD

[hamsterwoman]

but to me it's one of things that's easy to overdo

I started out with a milder version of "yes", thinking that, but as I went over the examples listed in the TV Tropes page, I found that I had enjoyed all of them I recognized. So I guess I like it more than I thought I did!

Also, while I do think in theory it's easy to overdo, I feel like the works that usually attempt it -- at least in the categories I'm familiar with -- tend to do a pretty good job of it.

Do you have cases where the fourth wall breaking didn't work for you? I'm curious if I truly have more tolerance for it or just haven't run across it not being done well.

[aletheiafelinea]

I think I once mentioned to you that book, "Gniazdo światów" (Nest of Worlds) by Marek Huberath, that makes the reader choose the ending, but I hated it not because the trope, but for the whole gloomy, tedious, boring rest leading to it, so I don't think it counts...

No particular example comes to my mind, but I don't like when it's too obnoxious and in your face, "Hey, you! Yes, you, what are you staring at?!". I don't care much also about ones that do it every other second, making it their main concept, that feels sort of lazy.

I like when it's more subtle and unexpected. In 200th episode of SPN, which was basically one big fat crazy meta, Jensen Ackles ends one scene looking suddenly straight into the camera, which - so they say - was unplanned, but they kept it. It's great because he doesn't need to say anything and you still know what he means, even though at the same time you don't know which he that is - is it in or out of character? Fits for both. :)