goshdarnspam | TV TROPES TIME!

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TV TROPES TIME!

TvTropes is a wiki dedicated to compiling and cataloging the various tropes, devices, and conventions present in various forms of fiction- including Livejournal roleplay. And it's been quite a while since we had a meme devoted to said website! So it's time for:

The TvTropes Meme

The rules are:

1)Click on the above link. Prepare to have your time wasted.
2)Post here with your characters or a Trope.
3)People respond with applicable Tropes or examples from C&C, or you give your own! You can list tropes applicable to game history, or simply link a relevant series/character page. Or, a thread for C&C Tropes might have a comment titled Crowning Moment of Awesome, C&C Edition, and examples of awesomeness from the game would be given.
4)I'm updating C&C's trope page, so let me know what you think belongs on there! I'm only doing tropes for the game itself and its events: since C&C has a constantly-shifting roster of over a hundred characters, trying to do tropes for individual character traits would surely lead to madness.
5)Everybody has fun and feels good! See this tag for past examples of how this thing works.

Questions?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

THAT IS INDEED AN INTERESTING POINT and one I've given some thought to! Because any creative community bubbling into existence has at LEAST an equal influence on the individuals that compose said community just as much as a lone creator would -- and that implies that our own "creator breakdowns" influences our portrayal. Furthermore, as there are often multiple interpretations of a single character in various games played by different creators, there's an incredible shift of emphasis from the character to the creative interpretation. And since creative interpretations inevitably differ, the power is located unto the individual playing that character.

It's a fascinating thing.

Edited 2011-05-15 19:53 (UTC)

I don't think this is entirely without precedent -- what about adaptations, or even more so, media that by their very nature don't have one "originating" version, like theater? Different directors can create entirely disparate meanings for the same play without changing a single word of the script. For example, pretty much any work of Shakespeare's has had this going on.

But that's ignoring the bulk of my point: the difference between adaptation and a continuum of creative works within a community is the sense of ongoing, especially in an environment that allows for multiple interpretations simultaneously. As opposed to a text with continuum isolation, like a novel -- the emphasis here is the community that has no definable, definitive end.

Perhaps an analogous precedent, if you will, is more in line with oral literature and the legacy of continuing myths. A form of storytelling that was dependent on a community environment. Even then, the parallel is uneven -- the difference between oral and written literature deserve a discussion of its own.

Yeah, if nothing else, LJ RP presumes that everyone who plays a particular character or from a particular fandom has access to a widely acknowledged source work, even if their interpretations of that source all diverge, whereas oral traditions are a slightly more orderly literary equivalent of Telephone.

It is a fascinating process!

PLUS ONE FOR THEATER. I would actually play all the theater characters in the world, if it gave me more opportunities to watch each actor breathe life into the same character. Then again, livejournal has the added bonuses of turning all the 'actors' into writers, so words and attitudes can shift much more dramatically.

(Of course, I know at least television shows are often written by different writers per episode, but LJ is still a delicious medium for this.)

Ah, but how much of an actor's interpretation is their own, and how much is the director's?

Another major difference between that analogy and lj rp is that the player has complete domain over their own influences. What texts they use, what personal experiences they draw from, what crit they listen to. A director has a far more expansive and unavoidable influence over and actor.

Ooh, yes! See, that is an excellent point. My theater experience is limited to reading plays and acting for in-class projects, so the directing aspect completely slipped my mind. We're also editor free. OUR PSYCHES ARE UNCONTROLLED AND ON THE LOOSE. (Thankfully, for me, this never leads to any awkward dear_mun posts.)

ALSO, to combine two comments into one, if I ever saw another Katurian, I would have a small heart attack and then PM the player to gush and exchange line interpretations. They would be so frightened of me...

lMASLDMLAMO Nai why are you so adorable? WHAT IS YOUR SECRET? I've been actor, playwright and director before so I know all the delights of being a control freak. YOUR PLAYTHINGS MUST CONFORM TO YOUR ~*~VISION~*~

They would, but in the most flattering of ways. Because you are Naiturian.

YES, I REMEMBER THAT YOU HAVE LEGIT ACTING CRED. Let me reach for it and never let go. :'c

NAI I WILL HOLD ONTO YOU EVEN IN FREEZING ATLANTIC WATERS

I AM JACK'S FOND, YET HILARIOUSlY ABSURD REFERENCE TO THE NINETIES

wait

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enigmaestro.livejournal.com - 2011-05-15 22:01 (UTC) - Expand

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improvesmorale - 2011-05-15 22:07 (UTC) - Expand

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enigmaestro.livejournal.com - 2011-05-18 02:03 (UTC) - Expand

What about the mods, in a moderated community? The influence isn't nearly comparable to a stage director's or a comics editor's, but on the other hand a mod team can shut down an individual take on a character entirely -- at least, entirely within the domain of that community's narrative -- by rejecting an application.

Eh, I think you're mixing two different platforms here, mostly because you're working under the assumption that the application is an accurate reflection of the playing interpretation, which is not always necessarily the case.

An application is an isolated text that doesn't undergo interactive character development, which is what makes ljrp different. The argument here is based around the fact of the active narrative serving as a communal effort that is constantly evolving, which is what makes it so fascinating. Like an improv group with continuity that didn't end.

Right, but I don't think it's irrelevant to point out that the gateway into that communal effort (holy mixed metaphors, Batman) is, in fact, gated.

Only in the same way that a book, or a play, is published. It's a tangential argument because that solely remarks upon the inception and not the means of production -- if a work is discrete (a novel, or even a series or novels, or a movie) or not (i.e. ongoing without forseeable conclusion, like comics or roleplay).

Yeah, TV shows are complicated -- you have the showrunner, the creative mind (usually a writer?) behind the narrative arc of the show; the writers who script specific episodes; the directors of those individual episodes; the producers ... honestly, the same goes for movies, too, except you don't have a showrunner and the official "auteur" of the finished work is generally considered the director.

Actually, this is relevant to comics, too, because the influence of the editors is often very difficult to extricate from the choices of the writers and artists.

This is why I always get extra excited to see people playing the same characters as me, as rarely as it happens. It's so fascinating to see how others choose to break down the character interpretation, which personality traits they focus on, how they plot, etc etc. As much as I want my writing to be PURE and PERFECT, I know that there will always be parts of me that influence the direction I take.

Yes! And on that vein, one wonders why individuals choose to emphasis and emulate particular traits, etc. Another reason why, especially in this environment, I think one cannot divorce the creator from the interpretation -- that additional text is absolutely necessary.

THOUGH HONESTLY yours is the only Katurian I've seen around. Might as well call him Katurnai.

You guys you have no idea how much it pleases me to see a Death of the Author discussion going on in my meme.

All out of love.

Out of love, and also because discussing Death of the Author, especially in relation to comics, is my catnip.

I might have written a hundred page thesis on some of these ideas, it's a touch nostalgic.

And somewhat traumatic since THAT was the time my pc died for good and I converted solely to mac! just thinking of it sends me into panic attacks

OH NOES I would have asked to read your thesis otherwise I am sorry that must have sucked majorly.

I wrote one of my honors papers (we didn't have theses) on footnotes as an avenue for historically revisionist imperialism in Last of the Mohicans, but I can't even remember what the other one was about... Something about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I think.

I COULD ALWAYS... REQUEST IT... FROM MY UNIVERSITY LIBRARY basically i hate how often Dells explode :c It didn't even really explode though, that would have been at least different. It just. Shut off. And never woke up.

I can't remember my immediate reaction but I vaguely recall running out into the street...

That sounds intriguing! AND ALSO GAWAIN I somehow associate you with that... maybe you've mentioned it before? Or time is in fact moving backwards and we've had this discussion in the future.