Cliches you can't stand

When you can fly through the power of anime punch magic, petty mortal concerns like "balance" or "muscle cramps" really cease to apply anymore.
 
Queshire said:
See, in my pet setting (that I swear I'll get around to actually writing a story in one of these days, honest) I have it where the local ki equivalent quickly outpaces the protection you'd get from armor created using mundane materials and through controlling the ki provides the grace required to make things like heels work in combat. Typically how well your particular ki flows through it is the most important aspect. Not only does it allow heels, but also all the other wildly impractical outfits you know and love from a JRPG.
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I think that's a good way to do it. Although it's not usually my cup of tea, esoteric power/magic systems giving a pass for wild and wacky outfits is fun.

Like if you need your body to be perfectly in tune and in harmony in order to fight at your maximum potential, the discipline and focus to control the flow of your body probably includes enough presence of mind to step correctly (and quickly) in combat stilettos.
 
Reveen said:
The problem with high heeled shoes is that they're shoes. If the heel is one some sort of self-supporting power boot or is an appendage built into cybernetic enhancements it's fine.

Just don't know what the hell the practical use would be. Raiden in Metal Gear has high heels for his cyborg body so he can wield a sword with his feet. So there's that.
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Bayonetta has guns for high heels she can actually shoot so there's that.
 
A Small Bird said:
Like if you need your body to be perfectly in tune and in harmony in order to fight at your maximum potential, the discipline and focus to control the flow of your body probably includes enough presence of mind to step correctly (and quickly) in combat stilettos.
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Sounds good actually. But still - being a fan of the "Kicking Ass in All Her Finery" trope, I wouldn't portray a howling action heroine fighting in heels - I don't know, maybe I should even find a psychologist and discuss it. I even write a scene where two girls start fighting in a restaurant (it makes sense) and both girls throw their shoes aside and continue the fight barefoot (more precisely, one is in pantyhose, and the other is in stockings, but that's not the point).... or rather, I will someday I'll write if I find inspiration.
 
Arden said:
It does make you look remarkably cool when you pull it off, in no small part because it's really quite difficult.
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I mean like. It's hard for sure. But they make heels specifically for dancing. Hell they make heels specifically for being an exotic dancer. If the heel is thick enough, not that tall, moved closer to the center of the foot or all of the above, there's barely any discomfort at all. A lot of vintage shoes (1920 and earlier) are way more comfortable than a modern stiletto for those exact reasons.
 
Arden said:
You can just say "stripper," you know. It's not like everyone doesn't know what it actually means. And yeah, but if you use those, then it's not impressive anymore.
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Dancing in pleasers is more comfortable but no less impressive than dancing in stilettos. Doing anything while a clear 3 inches of the ground is worth commending I'd say.
Edit: I guess i'm just trying to communicate that heels are not just one singular type of shoe, and like any other shoe there are heels meant for specific purposes. They are not some mystical torture item only femme people have a chance of reckoning with. They are clearly not practicality first but they're also not impossible to do shit in.
 
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Kingcrusader said:
You walked in stilettos? Did it hurt your feet?
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No! I mean that when I started the conversation I was only talking about stiletto heels, and not heels in general. Sorry for expressing myself incorrectly (although I rather put myself in an awkward position here).

Hologram Killer said:
I guess i'm just trying to communicate that heels are not just one singular type of shoe, and like any other shoe there are heels meant for specific purposes. They are not some mystical torture item only femme people have a chance of reckoning with. They are clearly not practicality first but they're also not impossible to do shit in.
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I did not say that! I am no longer 12 to say this. I note that the mentioned characters walk without any problems in heels before the fight starts...
 
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Its a little hard to parse but I generally hate when the protagonist of a story betrays others, side characters fine, but if its from their point of view hell no. I have no idea why I hate betrayal in fiction from point of view characters but I do (and betrayal here is a broad word).

Its why I dropped worm after accidently spoiling the fact Taylor switches sides to myself.
 
LunaMoth said:
Its a little hard to parse but I generally hate when the protagonist of a story betrays others, side characters fine, but if its from their point of view hell no. I have no idea why I hate betrayal in fiction from point of view characters but I do (and betrayal here is a broad word).

Its why I dropped worm after accidently spoiling the fact Taylor switches sides to myself.
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I can understand why some people are uncomfortable with main characters practicing deception (and I think betrayal tends to be at least partly about deception). People have a lot of reasons to dislike someone who betrays another's trust or is shown to be willingly manipulative, even if they're doing it to a bad guy. Especially if a character is deliberately playing up their trustworthiness.

I think we are predisposed to disliking people who have the capacity and will to lie to us and abuse our trust. And when it's a POV character, either we're filling the shoes of the character, or we're watching the 'good people' do things in 'bad faith'.
 
Also, nobody likes a traitor, not even people who make use of them. Trust and loyalty are things that people value highly for a reason. In a lot of ways, it's worse than open and forthright hostility.
 
I really really like betrayal because that shit is drama and is a perfect way to spice up an otherwise simple goodies vs baddies story. Like, I don't find stories about WH40K Space Marines all that interesting unless some of them are going to start flipping to chaos at some point. The Avitus betrayal from Dawn of War 2 a particularly delicious one.

As far as the actual morality of it is concerned it depends on the circumstances. Because if you have a character who was never really loyal in the first place then is it really betrayal, or just acting? That's a situation when my response can only be "fair enough". It's also interesting when you have a character who betrays others because of loyalty, where two separate loyalties a character holds conflict and one of them has to win out.

The ones I really can't stand, more so than any pure self interest backstab, is when they immediately turn around and try to justify or moralize it as for the greater good. Like the character who switches sides, fucks everyone else over, and then tries to propagandize about how everyone else should switch sides after.
 
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I might have said this before, and forgive me if I did, but it's the dysfunctional family/friends cliche.

I mean, it's just so exhausting and ridiculous to see how far people that are dysfunctional to even get away with half the shit they do, like holy shit, holy shit.
 
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