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Cliches you can't stand

The Laurent said:
Here's one I totally understand why it became a thing, but.

Like, how everyone in science fiction always references the *exact* things the audiences likes. In order to make this sound as ridiculous as possible, imagine if someone in a Sci-Fi set in 2700 said, "This is just like that one episode of Interview With Monster Girls."

You'd whiplash so hard your head would fall off and then you'd be a Duhallan, and that's no way to get ahead, @Private Lee O'Malley. :V
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A cliche-I-can't-stand (or I can, but...) on Interview with Monster Girls, and a few other non-human manga I've seen- when they boil down the 'monster' attributes far enough that they're more 'humans with a quirk'.

The Duhallan and the Succubus are the only two of the Demis that have real major issues. Granted in the vampire's case that's due to the presence of being able to have blood bags, and her story isn't about dealing with any major problem, but drinking blood is about the only stand-out things to vamps in that world, they don't have much bloodlust, nor powers, nor that much in weaknesses.... the Yuki-Onna really doesn't have much other than a chill.

My Pathetic Vampire is another example, though it may be intending to play with the trope a bit I still feel it applies. Vampires that can go indefinitely without drinking blood and etc.. Though at least they're unaging.

They're still often cute or fun series, but I find that having the attributes so weak really waters things down, to the point where it really comes across 'here's a cute normal human with a metaphor for being slightly odd socially,' in comparison to Monster Musume or My Girlfriend is a T-rex or Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary that really give inhuman attributes to their characters and run with them.

People are afraid of Rachnera because she's a giant spider with pointy bits! The girls in Hitomi's class has problem with growing too fast because she's actually growing to beyond-human size! People are intimidated by Churio because she is a T-rex girl who growls at people! (If vaguely human size, she is still bigger than you and has claws and teeth!)
 
Q99 said:
A cliche-I-can't-stand (or I can, but...) on Interview with Monster Girls, and a few other non-human manga I've seen- when they boil down the 'monster' attributes far enough that they're more 'humans with a quirk'.

The Duhallan and the Succubus are the only two of the Demis that have real major issues. Granted in the vampire's case that's due to the presence of being able to have blood bags, and her story isn't about dealing with any major problem, but drinking blood is about the only stand-out things to vamps in that world, they don't have much bloodlust, nor powers, nor that much in weaknesses.... the Yuki-Onna really doesn't have much other than a chill.

My Pathetic Vampire is another example, though it may be intending to play with the trope a bit I still feel it applies. Vampires that can go indefinitely without drinking blood and etc.. Though at least they're unaging.

They're still often cute or fun series, but I find that having the attributes so weak really waters things down, to the point where it really comes across 'here's a cute normal human with a metaphor for being slightly odd socially,' in comparison to Monster Musume or My Girlfriend is a T-rex or Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary that really give inhuman attributes to their characters and run with them.

People are afraid of Rachnera because she's a giant spider with pointy bits! The girls in Hitomi's class has problem with growing too fast because she's actually growing to beyond-human size! People are intimidated by Churio because she is a T-rex girl who growls at people! (If vaguely human size, she is still bigger than you and has claws and teeth!)
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I dunno, at least with IWMG, I kinda like that laid back interpretation? Like in terms of how it plays out in the anime, at least. I admit I've never seen the three you mention, though wasn't Monster Musume something filled with elements of worldbuilding that were designed to facilitate...stuff? *coughs*
 
The Laurent said:
I dunno, at least with IWMG, I kinda like that laid back interpretation? Like in terms of how it plays out in the anime, at least.
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I've only read some of the manga, and, I can see potential appeal in 'ok, there's monsters in this world, but they're, like, really low-key and normal?', but I feel it does make a lot of conflicts too minor- or at least not very reliant on the characters being Demis.

I admit I've never seen the three you mention, though wasn't Monster Musume something filled with elements of worldbuilding that were designed to facilitate...stuff? *coughs*
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Monster Musume has a lot of worldbuilding for a variety of purposes (that included but not *limited* to that). Things like stories and buildings needing to be modified, clothing for different species, different species having different levels of prejudice. On another forum I was in a discussion on how the first nonhuman ('liminal') popstar group in the first episode is all humanoid-animal girls with cute ears and such (plus a minotaur), very easy to accept, and we were speculating how the less-likely-to-be-accepted liminal species likely got introduced in a bit later such as lamia, the aforementioned spider woman, and similar. Like, there's a fair amount of thought into how the species works and it shows. Heck, even that (1) there used to be a masquerade, (2) it was lowered somehow, (3) at some point a treated for cultural exchange was pushed through, (4) it was really rushed so they're still working a lot of kinks in the rules out as it over-emphasizes mutual safety to the point of causing problems by letter-of-the-law, and (5) thus the government assigns people to monitor the exchange-student-esque hosting situations and etc..

Which part of is why it has a fair sized following despite being a rather cheesecakey harem series. It feels like a world where this is a major part of the world and stuff logically flows for the most part.

Interviews with Demi-Humans, the world is pretty much exactly the same and it's a fun waffy series with likable characters, sure, but as-of where I've gotten there doesn't seem to be much worldbuilding consequences to the existence of Demis. Maybe I just haven't gotten to more meaty stuff, but it's pretty lightweight setting-wise.

(Another one with more obvious nonhumanness: A Centaur's Life. World's full of nonhumans, in fact no conventional humans as we'd call them, but a variety of subspecies who occasionally talk about their features, where racial interaction and prejudice is a major factor, etc.).
 
Q99 said:
A cliche-I-can't-stand (or I can, but...) on Interview with Monster Girls, and a few other non-human manga I've seen- when they boil down the 'monster' attributes far enough that they're more 'humans with a quirk'.

The Duhallan and the Succubus are the only two of the Demis that have real major issues. Granted in the vampire's case that's due to the presence of being able to have blood bags, and her story isn't about dealing with any major problem, but drinking blood is about the only stand-out things to vamps in that world, they don't have much bloodlust, nor powers, nor that much in weaknesses.... the Yuki-Onna really doesn't have much other than a chill.

My Pathetic Vampire is another example, though it may be intending to play with the trope a bit I still feel it applies. Vampires that can go indefinitely without drinking blood and etc.. Though at least they're unaging.

They're still often cute or fun series, but I find that having the attributes so weak really waters things down, to the point where it really comes across 'here's a cute normal human with a metaphor for being slightly odd socially,' in comparison to Monster Musume or My Girlfriend is a T-rex or Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary that really give inhuman attributes to their characters and run with them.

People are afraid of Rachnera because she's a giant spider with pointy bits! The girls in Hitomi's class has problem with growing too fast because she's actually growing to beyond-human size! People are intimidated by Churio because she is a T-rex girl who growls at people! (If vaguely human size, she is still bigger than you and has claws and teeth!)
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It's because they're different kinds of metaphors. Monster Musume is basically about The Other (be it immigrants, race, etc) while Interviews tends to use the Monstergirls as stand ins for our own issues. Like the Succubus teacher is about social anxiety and self worth.
 
Yeah I have to admit it does feel like the whole "they're monsters" thing is cheapened when it doesn't really amount to much. Sure, it can work if you're trying to get across that they're still people like you and me, but plenty of cultures around the world result in people with massively different views and it doesn't automatically mean they're lesser or greater than others. Likewise there are disabled people who have to put up with a lot but they're still just as human as anyone else. You could give monster characters major struggles they have to overcome or something we might not easily understand.
 
Mutton said:
It's because they're different kinds of metaphors. Monster Musume is basically about The Other (be it immigrants, race, etc) while Interviews tends to use the Monstergirls as stand ins for our own issues. Like the Succubus teacher is about social anxiety and self worth.
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Yea, quite. And I can understand that for what it is (and Nurse Hitomi also does monster-abilities-as-metaphors, more blatantly in fact), but even so, I kinda feels it softballs most of the things. Playing it up more can still be a metaphor, but if the Demis are too low-key, then that lowers the amount of conflict of the issues, y'know?

Like, example from the second volume of the manga-
The Yuki-Onna needs to deal with the social worries of maybe hurting people from her cold or people being put off... but she's not in any actual danger of hurting people, so the worry is one that can be solved entirely with a conversation. Not a conversation about learning to be brave or learning to control herself and not lash out, but simply a conversation explaining, 'nah, you were never in any danger of hurting someone'.

So as a metaphor for someone afraid they'll hurt others, it's too softball because it's not like she had to come to terms with anything, whereas if she actually could cause a painful chill then I think the metaphor would be stronger.

In short, the problem wasn't her ice girl nature at all, it was a normal growing up mistake... and that it happened to be about her iceness is effectively incidental save for making it easier to resolve due to the fact her cold can't cause significant effects, rather than being a reflection of the problem in a metaphorical fashion. Her coldness primarily makes her an icepack for friends, makes her more likely to need to rest from heat, and her problems in the volume end up being about realizing she doesn't have a problem she thought she did, stemming from assumption, not her cold.

Lightweight isn't all bad for some characters to have, heck I still buy and read these stories and have fun, and I don't need or want it to hit, say, 6 or 7 out of 10 on the drama meter... but most of the time it rests comfortably at 1 or 2 since the student's Demi-ness isn't enough to cause conflict- unlike the Succubus teacher, who *is* an example of doing it well, since her Demi status defines a lot about her and makes her work around it to live as she wants- it's basically a real disability she is living with and managing, and a few more characters like that would make the situation more, to me, engaging.

Make the inhuman stuff a bit more there, and it'd still be a pretty lightweight fun series, but I'd appreciate there being more weight to the non-humanness of the students as something other than a cute-point and raise the drama level to a 3 or 4. I think it'd strength the metaphor too.
 
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Q99 said:
Yea, quite. And I can understand that for what it is (and Nurse Hitomi also does monster-abilities-as-metaphors, more blatantly in fact), but even so, I kinda feels it softballs most of the things. Playing it up more can still be a metaphor, but if the Demis are too low-key, then that lowers the amount of conflict of the issues, y'know?

Like, example from the second volume of the manga-
The Yuki-Onna needs to deal with the social worries of maybe hurting people from her cold or people being put off... but she's not in any actual danger of hurting people, so the worry is one that can be solved entirely with a conversation. Not a conversation about learning to be brave or learning to control herself and not lash out, but simply a conversation explaining, 'nah, you were never in any danger of hurting someone'.

So as a metaphor for someone afraid they'll hurt others, it's too softball because it's not like she had to come to terms with anything, whereas if she actually could cause a painful chill then I think the metaphor would be stronger.

In short, the problem wasn't her ice girl nature at all, it was a normal growing up mistake... and that it happened to be about her iceness is effectively incidental save for making it easier to resolve due to the fact her cold can't cause significant effects, rather than being a reflection of the problem in a metaphorical fashion. Her coldness primarily makes her an icepack for friends, makes her more likely to need to rest from heat, and her problems in the volume end up being about realizing she doesn't have a problem she thought she did, stemming from assumption, not her cold.

Lightweight isn't all bad for some characters to have, heck I still buy and read these stories and have fun, and I don't need or want it to hit, say, 6 or 7 out of 10 on the drama meter... but most of the time it rests comfortably at 1 or 2 since the student's Demi-ness isn't enough to cause conflict- unlike the Succubus teacher, who *is* an example of doing it well, since her Demi status defines a lot about her and makes her work around it to live as she wants- it's basically a real disability she is living with and managing, and a few more characters like that would make the situation more, to me, engaging.

Make the inhuman stuff a bit more there, and it'd still be a pretty lightweight fun series, but I'd appreciate there being more weight to the non-humanness of the students as something other than a cute-point and raise the drama level to a 3 or 4. I think it'd strength the metaphor too.
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I don't disagree they could go a bit more, but I think part of the point that it's getting across is that most of these issues are in our head. They're only real in so much that we believe them to be real and act that way. Plus by keeping it so low key you end up able to go a lot further with the jokes without encountering any weird fridge logic.
 
Mutton said:
I don't disagree they could go a bit more, but I think part of the point that it's getting across is that most of these issues are in our head. They're only real in so much that we believe them to be real and act that way. Plus by keeping it so low key you end up able to go a lot further with the jokes without encountering any weird fridge logic.
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Well, to go a bit more on the vol 2 example:
Her ice isn't a metaphor for accidentally hurting people and then learning that it's simply her emotions and if she trusts herself to have control that she won't hurt people.

Her ice is a red-herring that makes her assume the above.

Also, you said that you haven't read the other monster titles? That may be part of it- some of the best stuff is following the fridge-logic and then making it work.

(I haven't run into IWMG running the jokes as far as the others do, for that matter, but as I said, I'm early in it)

And IWMG does have it's moments, as mentioned the Succubus is good, the Dullahan actually *does* have a detached head, and the characters are fun, but it really feels like it could be pretty much the same manga sans the monsterness pretty darn easily, and a fun one at that (if one, granted, less likely to be noticed by us over here!).

I'm pretty sure I've looked at- and then set down- worse offenders to be sure, and it has the characters to fall back on (vampire girl's still fun, etc.), I'm not trying to rag on the series specifically, just that it's a trope where every time I run into it, I feel that the story, even the metaphors, usually would benefit from going up a notch or two, even if they don't have to go full on. If a character's species is being used as a metaphor, it needs to have enough real-life consequences that the differences can stand the metaphor up, and it's not just perceptions of the effectively-human species propping it up.
 
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"Take Thats"; that is, when, for example, the characters in a vampire novel stand around going "we don't bloody sparkle." I'm guilty of poking a little fun at pop culture myself, but most of the time, it just makes the author seem petty and jealous, like they're whining "Stephanie Meyer writes crap! Why can't you all see that and spend your money on my much better vampire story?" Especially since more often than not, the work in which the "Take That" appears is usually just another pile of schlock, just of a slightly different flavor than what it's criticizing.
 
DezoPenguin said:
"Take Thats"; that is, when, for example, the characters in a vampire novel stand around going "we don't bloody sparkle." I'm guilty of poking a little fun at pop culture myself, but most of the time, it just makes the author seem petty and jealous, like they're whining "Stephanie Meyer writes crap! Why can't you all see that and spend your money on my much better vampire story?" Especially since more often than not, the work in which the "Take That" appears is usually just another pile of schlock, just of a slightly different flavor than what it's criticizing.
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Yes!

For me, one of the big flaws of BioShock (and to some extent Burial At Sea) was how much it seemed to pride itself on being built around a Take That against Atlas Shrugged. (Likewise, Atlas Shrugged seems to be worse due to being a Take That against communism and its close relatives.)
 
Q99 said:
A cliche-I-can't-stand (or I can, but...) on Interview with Monster Girls, and a few other non-human manga I've seen- when they boil down the 'monster' attributes far enough that they're more 'humans with a quirk'.

The Duhallan and the Succubus are the only two of the Demis that have real major issues. Granted in the vampire's case that's due to the presence of being able to have blood bags, and her story isn't about dealing with any major problem, but drinking blood is about the only stand-out things to vamps in that world, they don't have much bloodlust, nor powers, nor that much in weaknesses.... the Yuki-Onna really doesn't have much other than a chill.
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That's the charm about it though. The story is analogous to people living with special or debilitating medical conditions. Some of them aren't as serious and only cause mild complications, whereas others can greatly destroy an individual's ability to live a fulfilling life.

The Laurent said:
I admit I've never seen the three you mention, though wasn't Monster Musume something filled with elements of worldbuilding that were designed to facilitate...stuff?
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Monster Musume, when it's not being fansevicey, actually has very interesting worldbuilding. There's a short arc when they travel to a monster convention and the girls look at all the new products designed for the interspecies exchange program in order to help the various monster people adjust to the human world. It's really cool because you see things like Centorea noting how inconvenient it is to walk around barefoot all the time and contemplates buying centaur shoes so that she doesn't dirty the house, or how they have prosthetics for harpies that allow them to have hands in order to grip cups, pencils, and other things that require human hands. It's really fascinating, but unfortunately Monster Musume's gimmick is that it's an ecchi manga and so most of the time we get tits and ass shoved into our faces.
 
Kokurokoki said:
That's the charm about it though. The story is analogous to people living with special or debilitating medical conditions. Some of them aren't as serious and only cause mild complications, whereas others can greatly destroy an individual's ability to live a fulfilling life.
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Yeah, that's actually something that I appreciate about it. The succubus has real issues that require her to make major, negative life-altering choices. The dullahan has some minor problems that she needs to accommodate, and some social issues stemming from the highly visible nature of her condition. The yuki-onna's issues are not so much about her condition but about how she deals, psychologically, with the fact that she has her condition. And the vampire pretty much is completely well-adapted with few problems physically or socially. The fact that not every demi-human condition is created equal makes it much better as a metaphor for dealing with various real life conditions.
 
DezoPenguin said:
Yeah, that's actually something that I appreciate about it. The succubus has real issues that require her to make major, negative life-altering choices. The dullahan has some minor problems that she needs to accommodate, and some social issues stemming from the highly visible nature of her condition. The yuki-onna's issues are not so much about her condition but about how she deals, psychologically, with the fact that she has her condition. And the vampire pretty much is completely well-adapted with few problems physically or socially. The fact that not every demi-human condition is created equal makes it much better as a metaphor for dealing with various real life conditions.
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Agree 100%. It would have been so easy to just do a cliche "OMG THEY ALL SUFFER ALL THE TIME AND ARE OSTRACIZED!!", but that would not really be representative of real life and--in my opinion--would be disingenuous in representing the population of people living with medical conditions in all walks of life. Hikari could be representative of people who have to deal with the less severe cases of diabetes, whereas people like Satou almost seem to be analogous to people in real life who suffer from uncontrollable orgasms but instead is flip-flopped such that she tends to cause it to others rather than affecting herself. Despite this, Satou and other succubi would end up suffering from the similar romantic, relationship, and intimacy problems that RL people with uncontrollable orgasms do. (I can't remember the condition, but from what research I remember doing on it awhile back it's pretty damn terrible for the afflicted)
 
DezoPenguin said:
"Take Thats"; that is, when, for example, the characters in a vampire novel stand around going "we don't bloody sparkle." I'm guilty of poking a little fun at pop culture myself, but most of the time, it just makes the author seem petty and jealous, like they're whining "Stephanie Meyer writes crap! Why can't you all see that and spend your money on my much better vampire story?" Especially since more often than not, the work in which the "Take That" appears is usually just another pile of schlock, just of a slightly different flavor than what it's criticizing.
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It's that more often bit that makes all the difference, though. There are loads of great stories which are reactions to other stories, but the best of them make their point such that even if you weren't aware of the other story, they still stand on their own. One great example is Terry Pratchett's Moist von Lipwig, whose tales are both entertaining tales of con-artistry, thoughtful examinations of the same, and chock-full of tiny moments and references to Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series (which is an unapologetic and sadly not-very-thoughtful set of stories also about a trickster con-artist.)
 
Kokurokoki said:
That's the charm about it though. The story is analogous to people living with special or debilitating medical conditions. Some of them aren't as serious and only cause mild complications, whereas others can greatly destroy an individual's ability to live a fulfilling life.
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True, but it'd help if all the girls didn't fall so far on the light side of things.

Like, tune up the vampire's need for blood a bit, make it so that she has to remember her schedule for blood bags carefully, and make it an analogy for taking medicine, maybe. And the yukionna's ice being stronger so while it's not *really* dangerous it's at least something she needs to be conscious of for other's sake beyond just their reaction to her.

It's an enjoyable, quite readable series, but I do think upping the dial just a little would help without altering the core of the story. Or at least, help for *me*, this is a preference thing.
 
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