Poll: The TvTropes Study Guide - Poll and Discussion

[AgentBJ09]

For this thread, I wanted to see how much love or hate there truly is for TvTropes, and hopefully get people more interested in checking out the site. (Yes, I'm aware of the ribbing over this site; that's not what this is for.)

As a challenge to everyone who wishes to post here, I ask that you pick out two things you truly enjoy among all media, which can be people(Spoony), Video Games(Deus Ex), Music(Alkaline Trio), TV(House), ect. Then once you have those two selections, go to TvTropes and find three Tropes related to each thing you picked and list them here, along with why you picked those tropes. These can be anything, so go nuts.

As an example, here are the ones I choose and why:

Media - TV - Mighty Morphing Power Rangers -

-Tropes-

- Cash Cow Franchise - I found this funny, even knowing it was true. And oh, TvTropes, by your statement you owe me 50 bucks; I never owned anything PR related. And I'll take cash, please.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome - This one just surprised me to no end. I got back into the show about eight months ago, but flipping through this page suddenly made me realize how much of the show, and how many of the listed events, I remembered even to this day.
- Uncanceled - This one made my jaw drop when I read it since I thought it was just the one attempt because of Turbo. The show has survived FIVE potential cancellations? That's both amazing and scary at the same time. Saban, Toei, I tip my hat to both of you.

Media - Comics - Sonic the Hedgehog -

-Tropes-

- Ascended Meme - YouTube, you are FAR worse than TvTropes by getting me to shed so many tears laughing at the meme Dr. Robotnik made famous: PINGAS!
- Breaking the Fourth Wall - Even to this day, I can remember several scenes where this happened across the numerous issues I own. The fact that this trope still pops up every so often just makes me grin.
- The Reason You Suck Speech - This one I found quite interesting, not just for the fact that the instances of this are so chilling, but because they're so awesome at the same time. First, Eggman berates Sonic by calling his squad nothing more than entertainment he freely offered, then Sonic firing back by saying that Eggman's fighting an eternally losing battle against him and others. Damn.

So, there you have it, folks. Those are my picks. What are yours?

------------

Now, before anyone sends me a nasty message about this, I would like to point you towards something that I feel best details why TvTropes is such an amazing site, and one of my biggest inspirations for why I made this thread.

As many of you are aware, Extra Credits has become a big name on the Escapist over the last few months, and like many of you, I love the show. Also, many of you know about Daniel and James's days on YouTube doing this stuff. So, with that, here is the episode they did which I think perfectly illustrates why TvTropes is the Web equivalent of Minecraft.

The episode titled "Videogames and Learning"​

​

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Personally, I think TV tropes is great. It helps some people understand a show and some of the great things behind it. It also presents itself informally, making it seem more like a leisurely conversation rather than read a wiki. I only have two problems with it.

A: Once you start looking, it can be hard to stop. It's been made worse by us having tabs now.

B: Reading too much of it could ruin your life. You would notice tropes rather than plot. That would be annoying and I know a few who do suffer from this. They joke about it, but it's annoying how they can trash everything because it has a trope. They even called them out on Movie night, by name.

Calumon: I think it's nice, but they really need to keep Jack off it. He forgot to eat last time. :S

 

[Nickolai77]

I've been on TV tropes but i'm not as exited about it as you are. I mean yeah it makes an interesting read but it's irksome to navigate your way around and to find what you want- i've visited it on a couple of occasions but never stayed for long.

 

[RatRace123]

There are two things that keep me up until 4 o clock in the morning.
Gaming marathons and looking up "just one more page" on TVTropes, even having combed through the databases on all my favorite Movies/games/shows I like to go back just on the hope that I might learn something more.

It actually has helped me in a creative structure as well, knowing a specific trope that'll fit in a story makes me more likely to implement it and implement it well.

Also yeah, the losing precious hours of life thing is also fun.

 

[4ending]

TV tropes is great. While there is far too much inside referencing, the fact that anyone can edit anything leads to a place where one can get loads of data and individual fans can and have posted their own interesting theories on stuff. It is the main place I go to figure out if there was a reference in a movie that I did not get.

 

[Link_to_Future]

I love that site...way too much.

I knew I had a problem when I started thinking of my own life in terms of tropes though. I called a friend out for telling me a Freudian excuse [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FreudianExcuse] simply because it was a lazy rationalization. I told him it ruined his backstory and made character development difficult.

So yeah, TV tropes made me a bad friend [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TvtropesWillRuinYourLife].

Or perhaps I was just a bad friend already and that site just gave me a new avenue to express it.

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

I waste a good amount of time on the site. I've scoured a good deal of it already so I don't spend as much time opening new tabs anymore, but I almost always go there after I watch a movie or start watching a new show.

TV: The Haruhi Suzumiya series
Tropes

And I Must Scream- I guess I'm pointing this one out because I'm the one who wrote it first. I also got myself to read that story a while ago. Chilling as hell. I put that one up because Yuki is my definite favorite character of any media ever, challenged only by Patchouli Knowledge in Touhou. (The fact that they're both purple haired is a coincidence. The fact that they're both bookworms is probably not.) The scenes that caught me the most in Endless Eight were the close-ups on Yuki showing her being down and making me really want to give her a hug (or for Kyon to do it. I'm a huge KyonxYuki fan too). Trope wasn't there, I had to point it out, I wrote it the way I wanted to.
Crowning Music of Awesome- Not on the page itself, but it's floating around somewhere. I spent way too much time listening to the various versions of Hare Hare Yukai, especially Kyon's and Kyonko's.
Fun Size- Because Haruhi-chan was a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

Video Games: Deathsmiles
Tropes

Bullet Hell- Because I saw it (the infamous Mushihime-sama Futari final boss video), became interested, and now I'm part of the ever growing legion of Touhou fans. Deathsmiles would count as my first CAVE shooter (I wanna try Mushihime-sama some day. Maybe when I get expendable income and MS Points. Can't stand my brother's massive pile of FPS games). Any Touhou fans on the Escapist can feel free to join the fan group here (shameless group advertising over)
Contemptible Cover- I put up the trope, long story ahead. My brother can't understand why I like bullet hell and thinks all of my Touhou games are basically the same thing (they are not, especially 12). Then I went and started putting Touhou characters as my desktop backgrounds. For the uninitiated, the cast is literally 99+% female. I spent a huge amount of time playing them over and over trying to 1CC them, which my dad sure as hell can't understand and will never stop bothering me about (which is the time my concentration fails and I make stupid mistakes that undermine the whole run). My brother kinda can, but realizes I spent almost as much time playing them as he did playing some RPGs. Then I went and bought Deathsmiles. Hello, stripperific, underage, elegant gothic lolitas. That probably did it, since he finally asked if I have some obsession with anime girls. To take someone else's words, "you gotta put on your best Haters Gonna Hate face when you buy this game." Probably a bit misquoted, but you get it. Also, you can't show the cover to your friends. Or your family. Or your pets or neighbors or co-workers.
Guide Dang It HOW THE HELL IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO REACH THE TRUE FINAL BOSS NORMALLY?!? No, just no.

 

[Engarde]

Oh tvtropes, devourer of hours. I do like it alot, hilarious stuff.

Though, as the trope says, TVtropes will ruin your life. I begin to do the trope recognizing thingy. Prepare to be dissasembled, media!

 

[Nouw]

Knowledge is Power. In this case, one last page is never enough.

Fortunately, I only go there when bored!

 

[WolfThomas]

B: Reading too much of it could ruin your life. You would notice tropes rather than plot. That would be annoying and I know a few who do suffer from this. They joke about it, but it's annoying how they can trash everything because it has a trope. They even called them out on Movie night, by name.

These people need to remember that Tropes are neither good or bad [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad]

 

[Robert632]

I love TV Tropes, Though I should probably stop talking about them with my brother i the room. Pisses him off so much.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Personally, I think TV tropes is great. It helps some people understand a show and some of the great things behind it. It also presents itself informally, making it seem more like a leisurely conversation rather than read a wiki. I only have two problems with it.

A: Once you start looking, it can be hard to stop. It's been made worse by us having tabs now.

B: Reading too much of it could ruin your life. You would notice tropes rather than plot. That would be annoying and I know a few who do suffer from this. They joke about it, but it's annoying how they can trash everything because it has a trope. They even called them out on Movie night, by name.

Calumon: I think it's nice, but they really need to keep Jack off it. He forgot to eat last time. :S

A - In some way, yes, that's true. But, like Daniel said in the video I linked, what you have with that situation is Tangential Learning. Self-education. You like something, you'll have an easy time learning it or things associated with it, and likely get pulled into more of the site in response. I don't see that as bad at all. However...

B - Given that every story, show, character, or idea today has at least one trope as part of it's creation, it's impossible for them to not have tropes at all. Even the earliest stories have tropes because they set the groundwork for modern tropes.

Kudamon: Calumon, are you aware that both you and I have tropes to our names on that site?

TV tropes is great. While there is far too much inside referencing, the fact that anyone can edit anything leads to a place where one can get loads of data and individual fans can and have posted their own interesting theories on stuff. It is the main place I go to figure out if there was a reference in a movie that I did not get.

That's another reason why I enjoy the site so much: The fact that, like Wikipedia, you can edit entries, but because the site is based on writing instead of straight facts, you can argue for or against the application of a trope to something.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I would, but I'm worried I wouldn't return.

I really like TvTropes. I can be very fun to just browse the website when you have some free time. The only problem is is that it can quickly becoming addicting [http://www.xkcd.com/609/]. You start seeing tropes everywhere [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]. Plus you begin to think like an article of TvTropes [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheTetrisEffect] and begin to use the names of tropes [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary] to explain what you're talking about. Hell, experienced Troperes probably read those links in a different fashion then the rest of the sentence (I know I do). And even if there aren't any links you begin to ... agh! Crap nearly got [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesOfLegend] lost [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlsoSprachZarathustra] there [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w] for [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Leitmotif] a second. See what I mean? It can be pretty fun [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SugarWiki/TvTropesWillEnhanceYourLife] though to read through them all though. It's like an entertaining Wiki [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Wikipedia]pedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page] that can lead you to many [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WikiWalk] an interesting page. Just watch your time on it, because if you don't you'll lose precious time [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/TVTropesRuinedYourLife] on it that you could have used on something else. And beware of too much tabbing [http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/soomanypagesssss2.jpg]...

Now if you'll excuse me I have some tabs that need attending...

Warning: Reading TvTropes may cause the reader to lose several hours of productive time doing so. If you experience reading secessions lasting longer than 4 hours contact your doctor immediately. Readers should not read TvTropes when opperating heavy machinery.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I love that site and I'm beginning to think my love for that site has caused my normal productive life to suffer. Yeah, I should be replying to that email, but it can wait. And who needs to eat right?

 

[Ridley the Violator]

Your request sounds too hard so I'm just going to post my opinion instead.

I like that site but I also hate it. On the one hand, it's a great place to learn about writing. On the other hand, most of the effort seems to go into cataloging tropes for Anime, not for Literature or Movies. Find a trope, and open the Literature section. Then open the Anime section. There is often a difference in size.

Furthermore I've seen people who spent hours on that site start to morph into Anime fans without actually watching Anime. I guess its okay that its kind of an otaku website, but the fact that it seems to convert people disturbs me. Besides that the community has some annoying habits; you'll see Your Mileage May Vary Trope linked in every other reply to a Trope example.

My final complaint is that the Tropertales and Crowning Moments of Awesome sections of the site are almost unbearable to read, at least for me.

tl;dr Its a good site but not perfect.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Your request sounds too hard so I'm just going to post my opinion instead.

I like that site but I also hate it. On the one hand, it's a great place to learn about writing. On the other hand, most of the effort seems to go into cataloging tropes for Anime, not for Literature or Movies. Find a trope, and open the Literature section. Then open the Anime section. There is often a difference in size.

There is a reason for that, and it's why I'm not as much a fan of anime as most other people are.

The fact is Japanese anime has a very long history of using oft repeated situations and characters, likely due the style of Japanese writing being very straightforward as opposed to American/European literature, where writers want to try something new as often as possible. I've seen it in manga, video games, and regular television from Japan as well, and while they can be entertaining, this is why you see so many stereotypes in media from Japan.

While there are shows that stand out and break tradition, Digimon Adventure and Comic Party being my two favorite examples, in my opinion, the reason why there are so many more tropes for anime is because Japanese literature and storytelling has more status quoes and set styles than we English speakers do.

 

[badgersprite]

Any page that is overly dominated by fan dumb or fan wank, I can't stand. I also can't stand troper tales, the awful fanfic recommendations, which is almost invariably self-promotion of a terrible story the author is blind to the flaws of, or subjective pages like Narm (really, when you have people listing examples of intentional comedy in Narm, then someone there is an idiot). Some parts of the community really suck, and there are an overabundance of idiots who keep bringing up totally unrelated tropes as an excuse to gush over or bash one particular character. There is some serious stanning and cray-cray up in there.

So, in summary, I like the site, and like being able to check it out, but the community is enough to give me an embolism.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

I love TvTropes, and my favorite page is the one for Deadpool. That's because it's actually written BY Deadpool http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deadpool

 

[Link_to_Future]

Any page that is overly dominated by fan dumb or fan wank, I can't stand. I also can't stand troper tales, the awful fanfic recommendations, which is almost invariably self-promotion of a terrible story the author is blind to the flaws of, or subjective pages like Narm (really, when you have people listing examples of intentional comedy in Narm, then someone there is an idiot). Some parts of the community really suck, and there are an overabundance of idiots who keep bringing up totally unrelated tropes as an excuse to gush over or bash one particular character. There is some serious stanning and cray-cray up in there.

So, in summary, I like the site, and like being able to check it out, but the community is enough to give me an embolism.

Oh, if you want some real fun, try reading some of the Nightmare Fuel entries. It quickly becomes apparent that most Tropers are afraid of their own shadows.

I find that if you just stay away from the subjective pages then it's far more entertaining.

(I mean seriously, anyone who can find high octane nightmare fuel [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighOctaneNightmareFuel] in relation to Order of the Stick [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderOfTheStick] needs to watch the news for about five minutes. No joke...)