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Cliches you can't stand

At this point, I would do very lewd things in exchange for a TV show about some IA agent bringing in all these Cowboy Cop "police brutality all day, every day" bastards.
 
VolantRedX said:
Don't most character get called Lone Wolves? I don't often see some describe themselves that way.
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There was the long-running series of gamebooks with a character named exactly that, too.

Admittedly Lone Wolf names himself that as a sort of "last of his order" thing, and he's entirely willing to accept help, so he might not fit the concept.
 
Admittedly that was how they did succession to leadership in the mage circles, there was also the whole matter of honor preventing said leader from ending the war even after it became clear that the leader of the Adept Guild had actually secretly orchestrated the start of the second war after he went loco.
 
Alane1 said:
Admittedly that was how they did succession to leadership in the mage circles, there was also the whole matter of honor preventing said leader from ending the war even after it became clear that the leader of the Adept Guild had actually secretly orchestrated the start of the second war after he went loco.
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All of this is true. None of it detracts from the inherent amusement factor of how a woman still on the Repubic's payroll and having never formally renounced her oaths to the aforementioned Adept's Guild gets accepted as commander of the invading fleet (atop the First Among The Mage Circles part) after beating the last one down despite not even knowing the language.
 
Desire for revenge consuming otherwise decent people.
Yes, it happens, yes, it is bad to get obsessed about getting even (or donuts), i don't care.
While disproportionate revenge is bad, and getting justice through legal system is hugely preferrable (when it applies), i hate the message that we should just forgive and forget, which these stories more often than not end up delivering, intentionally or not.
 
Valmond said:
Desire for revenge consuming otherwise decent people.
Yes, it happens, yes, it is bad to get obsessed about getting even (or donuts), i don't care.
While disproportionate revenge is bad, and getting justice through legal system is hugely preferrable (when it applies), i hate the message that we should just forgive and forget, which these stories more often than not end up delivering, intentionally or not.
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Also the message that you must fully forgive and forget, no matter what. Or that you have the right to show up at somebody's doorstep and then have your apology accepted.
 
Designated Abuse Target, aka Meg Griffin. Just... ugh.

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Also, I am certainly among the most Problematic SVers, but even I have a problem with many media's treatment of sex, unless it is explicitly pornographic in nature - and sometimes even if it is.

Especially if they excuse themselves, or defended by, saying that it is 'historically accurate' (I loathe that) and/or 'realistic'.
 
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Thread tax: Humans Are Average.

I don't even expect creators and writers to come up with really creative traits, just make them like the Elves or Dwarves and that would be instantly better.
 
Terra Novan said:
Thread tax: Humans Are Average.

I don't even expect creators and writers to come up with really creative traits, just make them like the Elves or Dwarves and that would be instantly better.
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You know a type of story I wish were more popular?

"Humans were the ancient civilization."

Stories were the humans are just a thing of the past and they left behind their ruins and so the new races marvel in wonder (and tons of confusion) about the human culture and what they created.
 
Terra Novan said:
Thread tax: Humans Are Average.

I don't even expect creators and writers to come up with really creative traits, just make them like the Elves or Dwarves and that would be instantly better.
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Humans are space orcs is a meme for a reason.
I think the issue comes from it being easy to describe other species "like human, but for X", so as you populate your setting, humans end up as the average.
I'm tired of every fantasy race or species having a single culture, and then humans having like dozens (depending on the size of the setting).
Also, monocultures in general.
 
Astaroh-M said:
You know a type of story I wish were more popular?

"Humans were the ancient civilization."

Stories were the humans are just a thing of the past and they left behind their ruins and so the new races marvel in wonder (and tons of confusion) about the human culture and what they created.
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Read Prophet. The old issues were made in the 90s by Rob Liefeld but the revival in 2012 can be read just is, starting from issue 21.
 
Nowadays I'm slowly getting to the point of "Humans in fantasy" period. I've started making settings where humans just straight up aren't a thing at the very least.
 
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Valmond said:
Humans are space orcs is a meme for a reason.
I think the issue comes from it being easy to describe other species "like human, but for X", so as you populate your setting, humans end up as the average.
I'm tired of every fantasy race or species having a single culture, and then humans having like dozens (depending on the size of the setting).
Also, monocultures in general.
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I should probably note that the supposed source of a lot of those tropes, D&D actually has multiple nations/culture for the elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc... as well as the humans. Including both subraces and actual separate nations with varying (sometimes wildly varying) cultural systems and customs. A Dwarf from Thorbardin is nothing like a Dwarf from Zakhar, who in turn has little in common with a Dwarf from Taladas, despite this all being the same campaign setting and "Subrace"
 
Any time the villains are going around preaching something like Equalism.

Its blatantly an attempt to use scary socialist stand-ins as the villian, which always ends up betraying an complete lack of understanding of what socialism is, only slightly better than 'socialism is when the government does stuff'.

Also, it's kind of shitty to suggest the reason that 'socialist' countries were so terrible was because they genuinely wanted to make people more equal, and not the fact that they killed people, or had mutated into oppressive oligarchies.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Any time the villains are going around preaching something like Equalism.

Its blatantly an attempt to use scary socialist stand-ins as the villian, which always ends up betraying an complete lack of understanding of what socialism is, only slightly better than 'socialism is when the government does stuff'.

Also, it's kind of shitty to suggest the reason that 'socialist' countries were so terrible was because they genuinely wanted to make people more equal, and not the fact that they killed people, or had mutated into oppressive oligarchies.
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Do you mean the Avatar:LOK thing?
 
tankdrop24 said:
Also, it's kind of shitty to suggest the reason that 'socialist' countries were so terrible was because they genuinely wanted to make people more equal, and not the fact that they killed people, or had mutated into oppressive oligarchies.
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In fairness, LoK made it quite clear how transparently hollow at best (not to mention doomed to mutate into a hellhole) the whole 'Bending Is The Root Of Oppression' thing was... although the amount of fans going "Amon Did Nothing Wrong" disturbed me a great deal.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Any time the villains are going around preaching something like Equalism.

Its blatantly an attempt to use scary socialist stand-ins as the villian, which always ends up betraying an complete lack of understanding of what socialism is, only slightly better than 'socialism is when the government does stuff'.

Also, it's kind of shitty to suggest the reason that 'socialist' countries were so terrible was because they genuinely wanted to make people more equal, and not the fact that they killed people, or had mutated into oppressive oligarchies.
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Egalitarianism though is something that socialism doesn't have a sole claim on though given it was something liberalism was pushing centuries before socialism was even a thing though so its not just a socialism is scary thing regardless of what you might think of it.
 
tankdrop24 said:
Any time the villains are going around preaching something like Equalism.

Its blatantly an attempt to use scary socialist stand-ins as the villian, which always ends up betraying an complete lack of understanding of what socialism is, only slightly better than 'socialism is when the government does stuff'.

Also, it's kind of shitty to suggest the reason that 'socialist' countries were so terrible was because they genuinely wanted to make people more equal, and not the fact that they killed people, or had mutated into oppressive oligarchies.
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I think typically speaking in fiction, the issue isn't "equalism bad", but either that "equalism is a really great way for an opportunist who may or may not actually believe in it to gain power", or that "revolutionary leaders often don't care that revolutions often hurt more people than incrementalist progress". I have seem very few stories that go "actually wanting equality is bad", but it's not as if people who believe that don't write fiction, I suppose.
 
Kei said:
I think typically speaking in fiction, the issue isn't "equalism bad", but either that "equalism is a really great way for an opportunist who may or may not actually believe in it to gain power", or that "revolutionary leaders often don't care that revolutions often hurt more people than incrementalist progress". I have seem very few stories that go "actually wanting equality is bad", but it's not as if people who believe that don't write fiction, I suppose.
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Yeah but the issue is that "people who want radical change can be opportunists" is used as a blanket defense of the status quo while the opportunism of the people doing incremental change that props it up goes unmentioned.
 
Nyvis said:
Yeah but the issue is that "people who want radical change can be opportunists" is used as a blanket defense of the status quo while the opportunism of the people doing incremental change that props it up goes unmentioned.
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I mean, while I was writing the above post, I was also thinking about how the starter villains for some of these works are often some random corrupt noble, so... ^_^;
 
Kei said:
I mean, while I was writing the above post, I was also thinking about how the starter villains for some of these works are often some random corrupt noble, so... ^_^;
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That's more reaction outright than the good guy incrementalists (who usually solve none of the structural issues reactionaries rely on).
 
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