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Cliches you can't stand

The combined anime cliche of 'eat toast while running late' and 'head-first meeting' is probably not just uncreative, but dangerous.

Seriously, someone's bound to wind up choking to death before long. How many of these idiot male protagonists do you think really know the heimlich maneuver?
 
Marla said:
That was ancient swordsman's pride talking. Then Kaien got subsumed by the Hollow, and then killed by Rukia. Now where's your pride, old man?

That part really pissed me off when I read it years ago, half because culture dissonance half because that was fucking stupid considering leaving Kaien to fight alone a Hollow known to have eaten multiple shinigami is I'm absolutely sure a breach of mission protocol for highly dangerous Hollow extermination.

Of course, any interpretation of Ukitake's feelings on that matter is pretty much head-canon territory because he never brought those up again, not even post-Soul Society when Rukia went and apologized to the Shiba. For a supposedly amicable and 'father to his men' character that was really an incongruous moment because pretty sure Rukia did not need to go and personally apologized if Ukitake had went down and explained the situation to Kaien's family, then the whole Ganju's grudge towards Rukia during the SS arc won't be present at all. For a by the seat of your pants writing, that was one big ass plot hole he forgot to tie up properly, or just to show Ukitake being a product of a bygone era, and this part was Yamamoto's teaching showing through.
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Yea, it's actually kinda *interesting* in the 'it's a weird archaic culture,' way, but that angle gets largely dropped and the SS characters become increasingly modern-like over the course of the series.

tankdrop24 said:
The combined anime cliche of 'eat toast while running late' and 'head-first meeting' is probably not just uncreative, but dangerous.

Seriously, someone's bound to wind up choking to death before long. How many of these idiot male protagonists do you think really know the heimlich maneuver?
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That's the point, they inevitably trip!
 
Marla said:
That was ancient swordsman's pride talking. Then Kaien got subsumed by the Hollow, and then killed by Rukia. Now where's your pride, old man?

That part really pissed me off when I read it years ago, half because culture dissonance half because that was fucking stupid considering leaving Kaien to fight alone a Hollow known to have eaten multiple shinigami is I'm absolutely sure a breach of mission protocol for highly dangerous Hollow extermination.
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IIRC Kaien asked to fight him alone after refusing to wait for a team to be assembled to hunt down and kill the Hollow. Once he lost and got possessed Ukitake tried to intervene but his illness kicked in forcing Rukia to finish it instead of him.
 
Nobody said:
IIRC Kaien asked to fight him alone after refusing to wait for a team to be assembled to hunt down and kill the Hollow. Once he lost and got possessed Ukitake tried to intervene but his illness kicked in forcing Rukia to finish it instead of him.
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Ukitake and Rukia were with him - he asked for permission to fight alone, did, and then even disarmed Rukia wanted to jump in, Ukitake said no.
 
Q99 said:
Ukitake and Rukia were with him - he asked for permission to fight alone, did, and then even disarmed Rukia wanted to jump in, Ukitake said no.
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Kaien claimed that even unarmed he could win on his own by just using Kido.

With the powerlevels as they are er I mean rank he held he was probably right. :V
 
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Dark Lord Bob said:
I'm unsure what the right course of action is.
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Simple. Just write a story and make it good. Don't give a flying fuck about ethnic/minority representation unless it's inherently vital to your story. Or if you do make a ethnic/minority character, just write them into the story and don't think too much about identity politics or whatever contrived BS is out there right now. It is, after all, your story. If people want to read a story about a world of all black/asian people then they can go do that or take some writing courses and write their own damn story.

It's a bit blunt, but I find it just a bit grating that people are crying for representation so much. Do you really not identify with a character AT ALL if they aren't black or asian or gay? For example, I'm not white or Japanese, yet I can identify with characters of white and Japanese descent just fine in a story. Spider Man is still one of my favorite superheroes, and Captain America's character still strikes a chord with me when I watch his films. When I read Tamen de Gushi, a slice-of-life story about two high school girls that fall in love, I'm not thinking "gee I wish one of them was a dude, I would totally enjoy this story more if the characters were straight like I am. They shouldn't be chinese either, I don't identify with chinese people because I am not chinese."

Just write what you want and who you want into your story that you feel is important to said story. You're here to tell your story after all, not to pander to people who are going to bitch and moan about your story not having enough representation. If an LGBT character is not inherently vital to your plot, it's not a big deal if you include them or not. Same goes with an asian character or black or other minority.

What pisses me off more than anything is when they throw in characters for the sake of diversity but then play them to the worst of their stereotypes. For example, what's the damn point of putting an asian guy into your story if you're just gonna make him the super nerdy computer smarts kid or the guy that screams really loud while doing kung-fu and backflips? The recent Bruce Lee movie starred some random white dude who saves a chinese girl from the triads and they hook up together--oh and there was Bruce Lee in there too. Wat?

The worst part about this is that while you worry about representation your story suffers for it. I read a story about a boy who's perfect life gets turned upside down because he finds out his dad is cheating on his mom. He meets the daughter of the woman his dad is cheating with, and they actually end up connecting and falling in love while helping each other through the ordeal. They both also happen to be white, but that doesn't actually matter because it's irrelevant to the story and the themes it is trying to convey. The story would not be made better if the characters were black, hispanic, or LGBT and to think so would be pretty petty and silly.

TLDR: Be more like Yoko Taro. Give less fucks about what people think and more fucks about writing a compelling story and improving your craft.
 
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I'll note the writers of Overwatch consciously decided to make a diverse cast, and credit that as playing a large part of what made their cast work and people so interested in them because a lot of character traits grew from that.

Don't shoehorn minorities if you don't know anything about them- like Kokurokoki said, don't put in an Asian person and only have them do kung fu- but writing as much diversity as you can often pays off.
 
Why is it that in a lot of fiction someone's ability to kick ass in combat and their ability to lead are intertwined?

You can be the most daring, charismatic, caring and overly competent leader in existence, but that doesn't = someone's ability to kick ass, and vice versa.
 
Nilay said:
Why is it that in a lot of fiction someone's ability to kick ass in combat and their ability to lead are intertwined?

You can be the most daring, charismatic, caring and overly competent leader in existence, but that doesn't = someone's ability to kick ass, and vice versa.
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I think it unfortunately comes down to most fictional leaders actually being pretty crappy leaders or the good leaders seeming pretty unimpressive compared to the guys actually doing things on screen so to speak. The ability to kick ass puts them on the same level as the rest of the cast and lets them play a part in what actually matters...the boss fights or the action scenes...rather than just setting these up. There is also the fact that good leaders arrange things for minimum effort and maximum results. They despise fair fights and wherever possible will avoid fights at a disadvantage but nobody likes it when the good guys just stroll through the story and fiction focuses on the moments when things go to shit or the game is rigged for maximum drama and then whoever's in charge needs to take control and taking control often involves punching or asskicking in many genres.
 
Kokurokoki said:
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Alternatively, actually understand why some people are asking for representation instead of mischaracterizing what they want as "crying" or wanting tokenism (yes, people asking for representation also hate tokenism, shocker I know). That would do wonders in not making you look like a jackass.
 
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all fictions said:
Alternatively, actually understand why some people are asking for representation instead of mischaracterizing what they want as "crying" or wanting tokenism. That would do wonders in not making you look like a jackass.
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No, you don't understand! When the cast turns out to be all straight and white, that's not prejudice at all, no matter how often it happens, that's just what's best for your story, and that's what matters most, after all! :V
 
Tokenisim is interesting, and not 100% terrible, because the 'token' and evolve into being more, both in the series and in general. Look at Major Carter, compare how she was written early in Stargate to how she became later on.

Yes, it's better to have fully fleshed out characters, but an inoffensive token is better than nothing, it opens the door.
 
Maybe when people stop shoehorning white people in literally every single leading role with no given reason why this character could only have ever been a white person we can talk about arbitrary representation.
 
all fictions said:
Alternatively, actually understand why some people are asking for representation instead of mischaracterizing what they want as "crying" or wanting tokenism. That would do wonders in not making you look like a jackass.
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The Laurent said:
No, you don't understand! When the cast turns out to be all straight and white, that's not prejudice at all, no matter how often it happens, that's just what's best for your story, and that's what matters most, after all! :V
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This. Representation matters, because it's a reflection of our culture. This here completely misses the point:

Kokurokoki said:
It's a bit blunt, but I find it just a bit grating that people are crying for representation so much. Do you really not identify with a character AT ALL if they aren't black or asian or gay? For example, I'm not white or Japanese, yet I can identify with characters of white and Japanese descent just fine in a story. Spider Man is still one of my favorite superheroes, and Captain America's character still strikes a chord with me when I watch his films. When I read Tamen de Gushi, a slice-of-life story about two high school girls that fall in love, I'm not thinking "gee I wish one of them was a dude, I would totally enjoy this story more if the characters were straight like I am. They shouldn't be chinese either, I don't identify with chinese people because I am not chinese."
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People want representation because the lack therefore in media empathizes the fact that minorities are not normal, that they deviate from the norm. In a vacuum this could be harmless, but nothing exists in a vacuum. The proper answer to 'Why include minorities in your story when it doesn't influence the story' is why not. Why not make characters black, why isn't every relationship same-sex if it doesn't influence the story? It's just chance after all. Why does it matter? Obviously it does.
 
You know, I once posed a sci-fi concept of a galactic Caliphate to a friend of mine. He asked, "Why is everyone in the 25th century Muslim?"

I countered, "Why not? Why is 99% of everyone in space fiction irreligious, agnostic or atheistic?"

Oh it's totally fine for Mass Effect characters to never bring up religion (barring the odd human or alien), but God forbid we actually make people religious, or -gasp-! Muslim. If Mass Effect doesn't want to explore religion, that's fine. But if I want Space Muslims with Space Meccas that's just too much!

Like people get confused why I'm so insisted on making Muslims a bigger representation instead of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Iranian or the like? The reason is simple: Muslims make up a substantial representation of humanity, and regardless what Muslim or non-Muslim country you come from, you can feel represented by the sheer fact Muslims are non-existent in most media. Religion first, culture second, is how I feel, you can make Muslims more normalised in media.

Compare Muslims in media to say, Australians. I bet you can name a fair few Australians in fiction, video games or movies or whatever. But Muslims? I really have to dig deep to find one in a video game.

I see this problem with how people view ME: Andromeda. The Anti-SJW crowd blame SJWs because "they triedto represent too many gays and trans people and that's why Andromeda sucks!"

No, Andromeda sucks because it was mismanaged. You can't fucking blame BioWare to want to include more people. Blaming BioWare on wanting to put a single trans character does not explain why it shipped the way it was. Stop trying to accuse games sucking because representation is evil durr.
 
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Hykal94 said:
You know, I once posed a sci-fi concept of a galactic Caliphate to a friend of mine. He asked, "Why is everyone in the 25th century Muslim?"

I countered, "Why not? Why is 99% of everyone in space fiction irreligious, agnostic or atheistic?"

Oh it's totally fine for Mass Effect characters to never bring up religion (barring the odd human or alien), but God forbid we actually make people religious, or -gasp-! Muslim. If Mass Effect doesn't want to explore religion, that's fine. But if I want Space Muslims with Space Meccas that's just too much!

Like people get confused why I'm so insisted on making Muslims a bigger representation instead of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Iranian or the like? The reason is simple: Muslims make up a substantial representation of humanity, and regardless what Muslim or non-Muslim country you come from, you can feel represented by the sheer fact Muslims are non-existent in most media. Religion first, culture second, is how I feel, you can make Muslims more normalised in media.

Compare Muslims in media to say, Australians. I bet you can name a fair few Australians in fiction, video games or movies or whatever. But Muslims? I really have to dig deep to find one in a video game.

I see this problem with how people view ME: Andromeda. The Anti-SJW crowd blame SJWs because "they triedto represent too many gays and trans people and that's why Andromeda sucks!"

No, Andromeda sucks because it was mismanaged. You can't fucking blame BioWare to want to include more people. Blaming BioWare on wanting to put a single trans character does not explain why it shipped the way it was. Stop trying to accuse games sucking because representation is evil durr.
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I would read about Space Muslim humanity. Mostly, when I see Space [Religion] Humanity, it's always evil (40k, Sword of the Stars), could be fun reading about the quirks that come from non-evil religion, like trying to pray towards Mecca while in space. Maybe a special sphere shaped room where floor turns so as to aim back towards Earth from anywhere in space. Or maybe Captain just turns the ship.
 
DreamerGhost said:
I would read about Space Muslim humanity. Mostly, when I see Space [Religion] Humanity, it's always evil (40k, Sword of the Stars), could be fun reading about the quirks that come from non-evil religion, like trying to pray towards Mecca while in space. Maybe a special sphere shaped room where floor turns so as to aim back towards Earth from anywhere in space. Or maybe Captain just turns the ship.
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Man, Muslims argue every single Ramadhan about the position of the moon. Imams are gonna get into knife fights over the correct way to face Mecca lol
 
Hykal94 said:
You know, I once posed a sci-fi concept of a galactic Caliphate to a friend of mine. He asked, "Why is everyone in the 25th century Muslim?"

I countered, "Why not? Why is 99% of everyone in space fiction irreligious, agnostic or atheistic?"

Oh it's totally fine for Mass Effect characters to never bring up religion (barring the odd human or alien), but God forbid we actually make people religious, or -gasp-! Muslim. If Mass Effect doesn't want to explore religion, that's fine. But if I want Space Muslims with Space Meccas that's just too much!

Like people get confused why I'm so insisted on making Muslims a bigger representation instead of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Malaysian, Indonesian, Iranian or the like? The reason is simple: Muslims make up a substantial representation of humanity, and regardless what Muslim or non-Muslim country you come from, you can feel represented by the sheer fact Muslims are non-existent in most media. Religion first, culture second, is how I feel, you can make Muslims more normalised in media.

Compare Muslims in media to say, Australians. I bet you can name a fair few Australians in fiction, video games or movies or whatever. But Muslims? I really have to dig deep to find one in a video game.

I see this problem with how people view ME: Andromeda. The Anti-SJW crowd blame SJWs because "they triedto represent too many gays and trans people and that's why Andromeda sucks!"

No, Andromeda sucks because it was mismanaged. You can't fucking blame BioWare to want to include more people. Blaming BioWare on wanting to put a single trans character does not explain why it shipped the way it was. Stop trying to accuse games sucking because representation is evil durr.
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Wait hold on, isn't Mecca a singular place? How can you have more than one of them?
 
DreamerGhost said:
I would read about Space Muslim humanity. Mostly, when I see Space [Religion] Humanity, it's always evil (40k, Sword of the Stars), could be fun reading about the quirks that come from non-evil religion, like trying to pray towards Mecca while in space. Maybe a special sphere shaped room where floor turns so as to aim back towards Earth from anywhere in space. Or maybe Captain just turns the ship.
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You know, all this talk of religion reminds me of a thing that bothers me a bit in fiction. Namely, how monolithic fiction religions seem to be.

Come on, guys, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, all of them have had a bunch of splinters and breaks and people getting into knife fights over a minor interpretation of the text. If you have a space religion you bet your ass every few planets are going to have a different version of the Space Religion and most likely think that the guys two systems over are a bunch of wankers that completely miss the point!
 
Private Lee O'Malley said:
Wait hold on, isn't Mecca a singular place? How can you have more than one of them?
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It is my prediction, when humanity explore the stars, and if we haven't discovered FTL travel, each planet populated by Muslims would create their own Mecca, due to various reasons: a sense of identity, practicality, and so on. It's kinda hard to face Mecca when Mecca is on another planet.

This would lead, and this is only a theory, multiple planets with multiple Meccas. There will be debating, and arguments, and the headbutting, and all of this will lead to the heresy fun times that Islam dealt with in the 8th to the 10th century. It would lead to much theological conflict, until everyone calms the fuck down (like the Muslims in the middle 10th century did) until people just kinda accepts different schools exist.

This may surprise some people (and some Muslims) but Sunni Islam, as we know it today, with all the Hanbalis, Malikis, Shafiis, Hanifis schools didn't exist until sometime until the mid 11th century. The heresy mostly involve a lot of arguing, with certain clerical groups supporting sultans who follow their vision. It's nowhere as !FUN! as the Protestant Reformation and the wars that followed, but it's the closest thing Islam has to it. Sure there's the odd school like the Ahmadiyyas, but Islam isn't as varied as say, Christianity is.

OR nothing much will change, and more schools will pop up, merge, go extinct, with only the minimal shanking. Either way, I should totally write this down for a future story.
 
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