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Cliches you can't stand

Blaflaix said:
What I see a lot is the responses perfectly matching the plot.

The evil business competitor is a bigot.
The frenemy rival is loudly opposing is to cover up their similar feelings.
The friend is instantly helpful and supportive and never uses the wrong pronouns or terminology, even if they only learned about it 3rd hand through the rumor mill.
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Which is a bad habit and something I personally hate, yeah. "Bad Guy is bad, therefore, he represents everything I hate! Doesn't matter that his big agenda has nothing to do with that topic, he is Bad and therefore disagrees with me about everything!"

It's honestly just bad writing, ngl. More experienced writers don't do that, because they understand that even the villain of their story isn't automatically a cardboard cutout who represents everything that is Evil and Wrong. Decent people can be uninformed or irrationally wigged out by something for reasons they don't quite understand and can't articulate, too. That doesn't make them evil or hateful, it just means they're human.

If you think you're perfectly accepting, then try to think of every time in your life you've ever thought "man, what a creepy weirdo" without knowing anything about them except for a single thing and then imagine how many people might think the same thing about you for reasons that are probably just as arbitrary and biased.

...and then think of all the times you've seen someone be accepting of behaviour that actually shouldn't be accepted and the reasons why you think it's legitimately wrong. Sometimes, things really aren't clear-cut, because majority approval is nothing more than exactly that. This is why morality requires actual introspection and you never really know for sure that you're right. All I can say is, taking the time to actually question yourself really tends to give you some perspective.
 
Hmm.... well I'm not that familiar with too many stories that have coming out as a plot point, but there's a fair few stories, particularly webcomics, where LGBT people are just regular parts of society with no real drama associated with it.
 
Queshire said:
Hmm.... well I'm not that familiar with too many stories that have coming out as a plot point, but there's a fair few stories, particularly webcomics, where LGBT people are just regular parts of society with no real drama associated with it.
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Maybe this is just me, but personally speaking, I can think of very few stories where LGBT characters are just treated as a regular part of society, if that makes sense. Like, even if we are presented as "accepted as a matter of course," we're always massively overrepresented. I mean, as a matter of personal experience, I am well-acqainted with the fact that even people who are perfectly accepting of you aren't automatically completely indifferent to the idea of engaging in a same-sex relationship themselves - as they shouldn't be, mind you, because being not L, G or B is a completely valid thing for someone to be and it shouldn't be treated as weird or wrong anymore than we are. It's just not how most people work. We're a minority and that's a fact of life.

That rarely seems to be actually the case in works of fiction that claim to normalize LGBTetc. lifestyles, though. They tend to have this sense of "man, what if I could have everything I ever wanted, all the time?" wish fulfillment to them. What I personally want to see is more fics where, yeah, this one character is gay and that elderly librarian woman is Bi and maybe it comes up once in passing and then never again, because it doesn't matter to the plot at all, so why should it matter more than any other random character having a significant other that is never shown on screen?
 
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There was a soap opera here in Brazil called "Império" where the main antagonist became friends with an openly gay reporter and when he saw him being insulted by a homophobic secondary character (who wasn't a villain but just a guy with problems because his father had come out of the closet) he defended him because despite all his characteristics he wasn't homophobic. Which I thought was a cool scene.
 
Arden said:
Sometimes, people just don't really care that much who you're into and honestly? I kind of prefer it that way. Whenever someone gives me that mildly apathetic "yeah, okay, I guess" reaction, it feels a thousand times more genuine than any big, pompous "it's alright to be who you are!" virtue signaling declaration, because more than anything, it tells me that it sincerely doesn't even matter to them. And that, honestly, is a treasure, because it's what sexual orientation should be: fundamentally unimportant to anyone you're not currently sleeping with.
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Is that second reaction an actual thing that happens outside of teenagers?
From what I've seen with adults it's not really coming out but just mentioning their partner when the topic comes up. At which point the rest do a mental 'okay then' and the conversation moves on.
Might be a cultural difference, though.
 
Pidl said:
Is that second reaction an actual thing that happens outside of teenagers?
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Less so in reality than in fiction, but I'm probably a bit older than the average user on this site and big "coming out of the closet" moments were very much still a thing when I was a teen. So... tacitly yes, I guess? I mean, someone who had been in the closet for longer than I had been alive at the time (not that rare) would surely be surprising a lot of people with that reveal. Wishing for a "yeah whatevs" reaction instead has always stuck with me, I suppose.
 
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Arden said:
No. Did it sound like one? Sorry. I have a tendency to think out loud sometimes, even on the internet. The wish fulfilment angle of self-inserts tends to be controversial, so it came to mind. I was curious how you feel about it.
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I used to follow that one orange lantern one for a long time, but I haven't touched it in, oh, it'd have to be years now?

As a matter of principle I do believe that they can be done well, and even when not done well they can be useful in providing experience to amateur writers. That said, there are some inherent problems with SI stories. Even when the point isn't purposeful wish fulfilment or power fantasies I'm not sure if most people have the level of self reflection to portray themselves properly. With most SI's going into the setting with knowledge of the setting it is easy to have them be too.... hm, I'm not sure if competent is the right word, but I'm not sure what else fits.

Fanfics come with an inbuilt audience and the established setting & characters provides a ready toolbox for writers. I'd hardly be on this site if I wasn't fond of them, but on the whole I think writers have more of an opportunity to explore things with a bit more emotional distance between themselves and their characters than would be suggested by an SI.
 
Queshire said:
As a matter of principle I do believe that they can be done well, and even when not done well they can be useful in providing experience to amateur writers. That said, there are some inherent problems with SI stories. Even when the point isn't purposeful wish fulfilment or power fantasies I'm not sure if most people have the level of self reflection to portray themselves properly. With most SI's going into the setting with knowledge of the setting it is easy to have them be too.... hm, I'm not sure if competent is the right word, but I'm not sure what else fits.

Fanfics come with an inbuilt audience and the established setting & characters provides a ready toolbox for writers. I'd hardly be on this site if I wasn't fond of them, but on the whole I think writers have more of an opportunity to explore things with a bit more emotional distance between themselves and their characters than would be suggested by an SI.
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Yeah, that's fair enough. Thanks for explaining. I'm really into creative writing as a craft that you can basically learn how to do well or disastrously fail at, so I was curious how the whole notion of being fine with "getting everything you've ever wanted, all the time" as a world-building element applied to that for you. Most people would say it makes a story worse, since it's a satisfying (or at least emotionally pleasing) scenario for the writer, but not necessarily very narratively engaging for the audience, given that it tends to be based in very personal grievances and desires. Sorry that I didn't bring this across very well.
 
Arden said:
Yeah, that's fair enough. Thanks for explaining. I'm really into creative writing as a craft that you can basically learn how to do well or disastrously fail at, so I was curious how the whole notion of being fine with "getting everything you've ever wanted, all the time" as a world-building element applied to that for you. Most people would say it makes a story worse, since it's a satisfying (or at least emotionally pleasing) scenario for the writer, but not necessarily very narratively engaging for the audience, given that it tends to be based in very personal grievances and desires. Sorry that I didn't bring this across very well.
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Given the multiple creators doing it, I have to think there's clearly audience for which the 'basically everyone is LGBTQ+' setting aspect is plenty narratively engaging. Maybe that audience is niche, but that too is fine.
 
Arden said:
Yeah, that's fair enough. Thanks for explaining. I'm really into creative writing as a craft that you can basically learn how to do well or disastrously fail at, so I was curious how the whole notion of being fine with "getting everything you've ever wanted, all the time" as a world-building element applied to that for you. Most people would say it makes a story worse, since it's a satisfying (or at least emotionally pleasing) scenario for the writer, but not necessarily very narratively engaging for the audience, given that it tends to be based in very personal grievances and desires. Sorry that I didn't bring this across very well.
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Getting everything you've ever wanted is a seperate thing from trends in LGBT media which I think you would classify as getting everything you've ever wanted vibes. There's plenty of room for plot and world building even with the second.

Leif & Thorn is easily a basically everyone is LGBTQ+ setting. It's got a gay main character, plenty of other same sex attraction, nonbinary and trans characters, etc. Despite that and such normally light hearted elements as magical girls / boys, a race of borrower sized people and some people just growing wings for some reason it deals with some horribly dark shit.
 
Queshire said:
Leif & Thorn is easily a basically everyone is LGBTQ+ setting. It's got a gay main character, plenty of other same sex attraction, nonbinary and trans characters, etc. Despite that and such normally light hearted elements as magical girls / boys, a race of borrower sized people and some people just growing wings for some reason it deals with some horribly dark shit.
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I guess it's a matter of context. Some of the things I've read, they just gave me this impression that the writer simply hated the idea that there are people who they find attractive, but who they will also factually never have a chance with, so they just decided that in their story, people like that do not exist - and if they do, they don't deserve to be named characters. I mean, even in most LGBT-centric works of fiction, there's this acknowledgement that there's still a world outside of the context of the story, that some people just won't ever be into you, that nobody owes you otherwise and and that this is pretty much all there is to it. In works of the sort that I'm thinking of, however, this just never quite seems to actually be the case.

If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say that it's the same kind of feeling that harem fantasies tend to give me, you know what I mean? Nobody in a harem fantasy is ever just straight-up not okay with the idea of sharing their significant other with a bunch of other people, because the possibility of the protagonist simply not getting everything they want just isn't supposed to exist. Same vibe, basically. It all feels very passive-aggressive.
 
Arden said:
I guess it's a matter of context. Some of the things I've read, they just gave me this impression that the writer simply hated the idea that there are people who they find attractive, but who they will also factually never have a chance with, so they just decided that in their story, people like that do not exist - and if they do, they don't deserve to be named characters. I mean, even in most LGBT-centric works of fiction, there's this acknowledgement that there's still a world outside of the context of the story, that some people just won't ever be into you, that nobody owes you otherwise and and that this is pretty much all there is to it. In works of the sort that I'm thinking of, however, this just never quite seems to actually be the case.

If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say that it's the same kind of feeling that harem fantasies tend to give me, you know what I mean? Nobody in a harem fantasy is ever just straight-up not okay with the idea of sharing their significant other with a bunch of other people, because the possibility of the protagonist simply not getting everything they want just isn't supposed to exist. Same vibe, basically. It all feels very passive-aggressive.
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I mean, at least part of it is that they only have so many words to work with. Hard to justify the space used with writing a character not okay with harems when you're writing a harem story.

EDIT: After all, how many straight characters really get turned down when that's not part of their whole schtick or if getting turned down isn't a plot to itself?
 
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Queshire said:
I mean, at least part of it is that they only have so many words to work with. Hard to justify the space used with writing a character not okay with harems when you're writing a harem story.

EDIT: After all, how many straight characters really get turned down when that's not part of their whole schtick or if getting turned down isn't a plot to itself?
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Sure, it's just that I still wouldn't really call it good writing, if you can see where I'm coming from. The big problem most people have with that kind of story is exactly that the whole thing is really just a vehicle to satisfy the fantasy, regardless of how little sense it makes for nothing to ever get in the way of it. I mean, I certainly wouldn't ever expect the pizza delivery guy in a porn flick to actually say "sorry, but I'd really rather get paid in cash, if you don't mind," but the sheer hamfistedness of that kind of writing is pretty much exactly why people make fun of them.
 
Arden said:
Nobody in a harem fantasy is ever just straight-up not okay with the idea of sharing their significant other with a bunch of other people, because the possibility of the protagonist simply not getting everything they want just isn't supposed to exist.
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You sure? There are quite a few where that is one of the main reasons it keeps spinning its wheels and the protagonist never makes a final decision. Because actually getting with one of them means the others will be heartbroken. A lot of harem shows are very much more of a competition than a polycule.
 
Axslashel said:
You sure? There are quite a few where that is one of the main reasons it keeps spinning its wheels and the protagonist never makes a final decision. Because actually getting with one of them means the others will be heartbroken. A lot of harem shows are very much more of a competition than a polycule.
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On the other hand, the competition isn't a deal-killer.
Every "option" in that case remains an option, and they don't say "your inability to make a decision is annoying and you have way too much baggage for me. I'm out."

Nothing the MC does can make them unavailable, except pick one, and they often refuse to accept even that. (to keep the wheels spinning.)
Which kinda brings it back to the original point, nobody is out of reach for the MC.
 
Since it came up.

I hate when a character is made to be from a minority group to justify everything they do. As in the story itself uses that to justify them committing acts like genocide.

Like I get you're a minority. But stop using it to excuse away all of this crap.
 
foamy said:
Dang skippy.
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A major caveat is in Ranma 1/2, there is clearly and consistently a True Couple, namely Ranma and Akane, and this has been blatantly laid out since the first(-ish) chapter.

The series just drags on not because the other potential candidates have a chance, but because they will not take no for an answer. Also Ranma is a teenager steeped in fairly toxic (yet not uncommon) mindsets due to his father's influence, so sometimes he claims to reject Akane too, despite clearly also liking her.

Since this is a comedy and an excuse for increasingly bizarre "martial arts" competitions, this is largely an excuse for Wacky Hijinks. And a lot of the series plotlines are less "a new heretofore unrecognized fiancee appears", and far more "a new martial arts challenger seeking the title of strongest appears".

Ranma has made decisions about his alleged harem (such as it is), either in his words ("I don't like any of you") or his actions ("I only like Akane"). So he's innocent of at least the accusation of being indecisive.
 
Adloquium said:
Ranma has made decisions about his alleged harem (such as it is), either in his words ("I don't like any of you") or his actions ("I only like Akane"). So he's innocent of at least the accusation of being indecisive.
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They're more a recurring cast of assorted stalkers than love interests, which is really the opposite of a harem, when you think about it.
 
Adloquium said:
Ranma has made decisions about his alleged harem (such as it is), either in his words ("I don't like any of you") or his actions ("I only like Akane"). So he's innocent of at least the accusation of being indecisive.
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Unwanted harem shows are also very common and in no way disqualifies it from being a harem show. Neither does one love interest clearly being the only possible winner and all other options being doomed stop it from being one.
 
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