[Make-Your-Own Meme] Tropes and mediocrity, OR NOT

[justira]

Hey it's a post from that ridiculous/amazing/this is the worst idea/this is the best idea Make-Your-Own Meme "blog every day of November" thing! Original post/list of topics. Feel free to add more! LJ | DW. If something comes up in any of these posts that you'd like to hear more about, please feel free to just make it into its own topic! HERE GOES NOTHING. YOU (SORT OF) ASKED FOR IT.

stealth_noodle: tropes and/or clichés that you love so much you're willing to put up with aggressively mediocre works for their sake. (here)
(I promise I will do the other topic you submitted as well; I'm finding it easier to bump individual skipped topics to other days than moving the whole schedule around >.>)

OKAY SO of COURSE this is a SUPER HARD TOPIC for me! OF COURSE.

This one merited some really hard thinking. Like, you have no idea. I ALMOST WENT TO TVTROPES OVER THIS. THIS IS THE FATE YOU NEARLY CONDEMNED ME TO.

I kept agonizing: what do I love enough that I will read/watch/play/consume anything with that thing in it? And well. I think I knew the answer all along, I just didn't want to face it.

Because the answer is: NOTHING

This sounds like a cop-out and I was convinced of that at first, too. But bear with me >.>



I thought really hard about this. I kept running through a list of the favourite things I like seeing done and thinking about mediocre executions and, well. I realized that I am EXTREMELY picky.

Okay, I realized nothing of the sort; that is OLD NEWS. It's part of why I have such trouble with reccing (which I will get to in my reccing post). I'm not just picky. I am like AGGRESSIVELY picky. I JUDGE THINGS, OKAY? I judge things a LOT. And the complicated interactions in my head between "things I enjoy personally" and "things that are somewhat-universally well done and would probably be enjoyed by others" I will save for my post on reccing because I am here to talk about TROPES.

So tropes. Tropes are really interesting and I have wasted HOURS AND HOURS of my life on TVtropes (sidenote: which I somewhat regret because they are social justice fail over there) because I LOVE rolling all over the entries and seeing how the various tropes are enacted or averted or subverted or inverted or VERRRRBED.

And this gave me a clue: I don't seem to love any particular trope enough to tolerate mediocrity... but I DO really like seeing tropes subverted. I love subversions, aversions, inversions, and other trope play. I DO tolerate pretty mediocre executions just to see how these things are done, how the trope was played with.

... aha.

So I learned something about myself today.

Apparently, I do not care about the WHAT but the HOW. Thank you, stealth_noodle.

Looking back on, oh, everything, this should not actually be news for me. For example, I've always maintained that there is no idea so hopeless that sufficient skill couldn't make something worthwhile out of it. Anything can be written well. I've always had really eclectic tastes in everything, deeply not-caring about genre or subject or style as long as it was good.

I mean, honestly, few things annoy me MORE than a mediocre execution of a good idea. This is for example the problem I had with Demon's Lexicon, and with the Poison Study series. It frustrates me INCREDIBLY when I see ideas I could have liked buried under bad or bland execution. Both of the titles I just mentioned contained SO MANY THINGS I could have loved, except they were done so poorly-to-meh >(

So I don't know. This felt like such a cop-out at first, but the more I think about it, the more I want to believe that it's actually a legit and possibly interesting answer. There is no trope or cliché I love enough to pardon quality, because quality is what matters to me.


... though I do, of course, have tropes I tend to extra-enjoy! For example, I am definitely partial to the Badass Normal (see: Murphy from the Dresden Files; Sokka from Avatar:TLA; Batman and Green Arrow and Lex Luthor from DCU, and Tony Stark/Iron Man and Chase from Marvelverse; Riza Hawkeye and Olivier and Jean Havoc from FMA; Zorro and Sanji from One Piece — DANG I APPARENTLY REALLY ENJOY THIS TROPE).

I know I'm easily sold on steampunk settings and their ilk, from magitek to cyberpunk to diesel punk to clock punk, or, hell, the related genre of slightly-fantastical historical fiction, like the Temeraire books or the Kushiel's Legacy series. I know I tend to pay particular attention to paternal dynamics in stories (I have daddy issues, okay), so a lot of tropes revolving around that sort of thing intrigue me.

I tend to enjoy the Affably Evil (Johnny Marcone and Nicodemus of Dresden Files; DOCTOR HORRIBLE; Xanatos of Gargoyles; Lex Luthor; Hannibal effing Lecter; Greed of FMA; LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS), and the Magnificent Bastard (XANATOS, THE END; but also Locke Lamora; possibly Dumbledore; and LOTS MORE SPOILERS). As a rule I love watching the Combat Pragmatist in action. I like Anti Heroes (and Anti Villains), though I think it's worth noting that both of those — hell, almost every trope I've listed so far — play around with expectations or other tropes. So this still feeds back into my conclusion that I like seeing tropes played with.

I like the Heroic Sociopath, too (OMFG RORSHACH of Watchmen; Deadpool; Max of Sam and Max (♥ stealth_noodle); Alucard of Hellsing; most of the versions of Batman that I like; Rocky from Lackadaisy Cats; Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; Martin Blank of Grosse Point Blanke; and probably Léon of Léon/The Professional if Martin Blank fits; possibly Gregory House; SHERLOCK EFFING HOLMES). I also tend to like True Chaotics (or the less excitingly named True Neutral), especially when they're the protagonist (again Deadpool; Mugen from Samurai Champloo; KINCAID FROM DRESDEN; Spider Jerusalem; GIR from Invader Zim; EFFING GARRETT from the Thief games; possibly Gregory House — FIGHT ME ON THIS, PLEASE — freaking SQUALL LEONHART, one of my favourite things in existence, starts out this way, though leaning way more towards True Neutral than True Chaotic; Antimony from Gunnerkrigg Court can join him in the neutral corner; Turkish and Mickey for opposing values of Neutral and Chaotic; THE EFFING GRAVEROBBER FROM REPO THE GENETIC OPERA; arguably Greed from FMA; I think Jack Sparrow qualifies, though he seems to teeter between this and Chaotic Good or sometimes even Chaotic Evil, though whatever he is he's definitely Chaotic and when you can't freaking tell an alignment I tend to count that as a good sign towards neutral/chaos status >.> APPARENTLY I REALLY LIKE THIS TOO)


... so yes there are apparently tropes I like.

Those were mostly character tropes, though. Let's do a few storyline tropes!

I will admit this straight off: I adore um. A thing I cannot name. Not romances. Not "falling in love" stories, per se/specifically; those just aren't the right terms. I tend to think of them as "get-together" stories: how two (or more) people get to be romantically and/or sexually involved with each other — or, hell, how characters become friends! OR ENEMIES! Basically I love watching relationships develop? So I do indulge a lot of tropes and clichés that fall under this.

I like Anybody Can Die plotlines. There's something deeply appealing about Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu and Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu (OH HARRY), especially when combined with the aforementioned freedom of mortality. I tend to enjoy Black and Grey Morality. I like stories that play around with sanity (Eternal Darkness) or are set in people's minds (Psychonauts, Inception), and possibly relatedly, I seem to have a predilection for Genius Loci (THE EFFING SHALEBRIDGE CRADLE FROM THE THIEF GAMES; the House of Leaves; Mount Ordeals of FFIV especially in that one AWESOME fic seventhe wrote me; LOTS OF SPOILERS). And look, we have descended back into settings instead of plotlines. I really think this means I'm not that attached to any particular plotlines besides get-together stuff?

(ETA: of course AFTER I post, I do manage to think of three more things! I love Friends Become Enemies, Enemies Become Friends, and The Debt of Honour =D )

BUT HEY.

I REALLY TRIED FOR YOU, stealth_noodle.

So. There you have it. Nothing excuses "meh" execution for me — in fact, mediocre executions infuriate me apparently! — but there ARE plenty of tropes I like!

Shit guys, should I make a list of the canons/fandoms I've mentioned in this entry? This feels like it needs a list. Does it need a LIST?

ETA: List has been requested!



Mentioned Works
Avatar: The Last Airbender
DCU - Batman
DCU - Green Arrow
DCU/DCAU/Smallville for Lex Luthor
Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Dresden Files
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy VIII
Fullmetal Alchemist
Gargoyles
Gentleman Bastard (The Lies of Locke Lamora, etc.)
Grosse Point Blank
Gunnerkrigg Court
Harry Potter
House, M.D.
House of Leaves
Inception
Invader ZIM
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Lackadaisy Cats
Léon/The Professional
Psychonauts
Marvel - Deadpool (ALSO CABLE AND DEADPOOL)
Marvel - Iron Man
Marvel - Runaways
One Piece
Pirates of the Caribbean
Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs for Hannibal Lecter
REPO! The Genetic Opera
Sam and Max
Samurai Champloo
Sherlock Holmes
Snatch
Thief
Transmetropolitan
Watchmen


Works I Wanted to Mention But Couldn't Because of Spoilers
(some spoilery works were mentioned in other contexts)
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy XII
Kushiel's Legacy
Planescape: Torment
Trigun
Vorkosigan Saga

Comments

[renay]

That's like the cruelest form of name-dropping. *suffers*

[justira]

I have already told you all about it, I think =d

This is when my mind takes this huge derail on the benefits and pitfalls of omitting names like I did up there. On the one hand, it seems coy. On the other hand, I'm just... I don't know. Not comfortable discussing a fanwork "behind someone's back", as it were, without coming to them directly to air my grievances/give feedback/provide crit. Which, cards on the table, I have not in this case because well. Honestly, for one, the crit list would be overwhelming (again, for ME: lots of people seem to enjoy it); and for another I just do not have the freaking energy lately.

But on the third hand:
(a) why CAN'T I discuss fanwork in my journal the same way I discuss professional/original/someone-fill-in-this-blank work? I know there's an element of fearing to harsh the squee, but I harsh creator squee plenty in other contexts, and/or the squee of fans of said work — is it combining the two roles that bothers me? What kind of a community do I feel this is, anyway, if I can't talk about the work in it? I have now confused myself.

(b) but speaking of communities, how do I expect creative growth — or at least work that's more to my taste, which is not synonymous, haha — unless I like, say something? You know? Like that talk we keep having about how can we expect fic to improve if we never leave feedback, etc.


I am SO coherent right now.

[renay]

...you have? Then we're both A+ coherent today!

I get the "behind your back" thing. I've been here before. If I leave the author critical feedback, I'm being a meanie. If I talk about the story on my journal, with my friends, I'm being a meanie backstabber. There's really no way to win. Although I have seen reccers get away with this, and some people on delicious will talk about what they like/didn't like -- it's not all criticism, it's measured between both. I think a lot of that "rule" is aimed at not letting the author, who created something for free, come across surprise negativity about their work when they might not be looking for it? Which is different from vanity googling.

But then again, the culture we come from is the EXACT OPPOSITE of welcoming of any types of critic. If you shift into media culture, it actually seems more welcoming to the measured response I mentioned above? Rather than the "sit down, shut up" reactions you get in smaller fandoms where fanwork of any kind if harder to come by, and criticism might silence it.

Sometimes I think about my journey in writing. I wanted to get better, so I read a lot of good/bad work, and kept writing, and read some more, and kept writing. I didn't actually get better through feedback from strangers, I made friends in my fandoms and they taught me more skills that made me better. So I don't know if the "leaving feedback will help people improve" argument works. I never really GOT critical feedback from anyone who wasn't already a friend. There's an aspect of "want to improve" that has to come from the author, maybe?

*flails*