Meta-Concepts

Taking a step back and looking at how we look at things.

Tropes:

• Accentuate the Negative: Focusing mainly on the negative aspects with little to no acknowledgement of the merits of the work being reviewed.
• Actor-Inspired Element
• Actor-Shared Background
• Allegory
• Applicability
• Archetype
• Ascended Meme: A meme is made officially canon by the work it is derived from.
• Camp
• Central Theme
• Cliché
• The Climax
• The Coconut Effect
• Competence Porn: A fictional work revolving around characters working together to solve an issue, highlighting cleverness and effort.
• Conceit
• Conflict
  • Rising Conflict
• Constrained Writing
• Constructive Criticism
• Continuity Drift
• Couch Gag
• Could Have Been Messy
• Cyclic National Fascination: A new fad rises in popularity and then falls. Rinse and repeat.
• Death of the Author
• Decompressed Comic
• Demonization
• Dénouement
• Defictionalization: A fictional object is made real.
• Derivative Differentiation
• Détournement
• Diegetic Switch
• Diegetic Visual Effects
• Different in Every Episode
• Direct Line to the Author
• Dramatization
• Drinking the Kool-Aid
• Dueling Dubs
• Dueling Products
• Dueling Works: Two works with similar premises are released at around the same time.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil
• Escapism
• Escapist Character
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Audiences find symbolism in a work where there wasn't any intended.
• Everyone Is Satan in Hell: A work receives unfounded accusations of featuring morally objectionable content.
• Fair for Its Day
• Falsely Advertised Accuracy
• Fan Disillusionment
• Fandom Rivalry: The fandoms of two different works do not get along well.
• Female Gaze: Arousing female audiences by focusing the camera on the male anatomy.
• Ficton
• Finagle's Law
• Flawless Token: A character belonging to a minority gets special treatment and has better things happen to them than the other characters.
• Fleeting Demographic Rule
• Follow the Leader: Works ape whatever work has been proven successful.
• Fountain of Memes: A character who tends to create memes.
• Formula with a Twist
• Fun for Some
• Fusion
• Garnishing the Story
• Gateway Series
• Gaze
• Generation Xerox: The children are carbon copies of their parents.
• Genre Blindness
• Genre Popularizer
• Genre Relaunch
• Genre Shift
• Gimmick
• Homegrown Hero
• How Unscientific!
• I Just Want to Be Badass
• I Just Want to Have Friends
• Inciting Incident
• Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Inferred Holocaust: The work glosses over the fact that certain actions and events in the story have most likely resulted in countless deaths.
• Inverse Law of Utility and Lethality
• It Was His Sled: A plot twist is so famous that even people who haven't seen the work are aware of it.
• Kayfabe
• Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: A work references something obscure and acknowledges that not many people are familiar with it.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you don't watch a series from the beginning, you'll get spoilers on what happened in the earlier episodes.
• Late to the Punchline: Not understanding the joke until a bit later.
• Law of Conservation of Detail
• Layout of a Season
• Left the Background Music On
• Life Imitates Art
• Literary Agent Hypothesis
• Local Reference
• "London, England" Syndrome
• Long-Runner Tech Marches On: A series lasting a long time updates the technology used the same way real life technology is advancing.
• Male Gaze: Arousing male audiences by focusing the camera on women's breasts or butts.
• Meme Acknowledgment
• Memetic Mutation
• Men Act, Women Are
• Men Are Generic, Women Are Special
• Meta
• Meta Casting
• Meta Twist
• Metagame
• Milestone Celebration: A work that celebrates the franchise's anniversary.
• Minimalism
• Modular Franchise
• Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness
• Narrative Filigree
• Nerdgasm
• No Canon for the Wicked
• Old Guard Versus New Blood
• Oneshot Revisionism
• Out of Character
• Out-of-Genre Experience
• Pastiche
• Perverse Sexual Lust: Sexual attraction to a fictional character.
• Playing with a Trope
• Popcultural Osmosis
• Popularity Polynomial
• Postmodernism
• Post-Somethingism
• Prop
• Propp's Functions of Folktales
• Public Medium Ignorance
• Radio Song
• Reaching Through the Fourth Wall
• Realism
• Reality Subtext
• Reality Is Unrealistic: There are certain aspects of the real world that are stranger than what is established in fiction.
• Redubbing
• Replay Mode: A feature to replay elements of a video game (bosses, Cutscenes, mini-games, or even whole levels/chapters), and thus rewind or revisit the tropes that occur within them.
• Retroactive Legacy
• Romanticism
• Romanticism Versus Enlightenment
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse
• Satire/Parody/Pastiche
• Satire and Switch
• Schematized Prop
• Season Fluidity
• Self-Plagiarism: Stealing material from your own work.
• Sliding Scale of Like Reality Unless Noted
• Spiritual Antithesis
• Squee
• Starring a Star as a Star
• Strictly Formula: Every episode of the series basically has the same plot.
• Stripperific: Character wears a very revealing outfit.
• Sturgeon's Law
• Surrealism
• Technology Marches On: An old work features use of technology that is now out of date.
• Television Is Trying to Kill Us: An index of tropes that one should not attempt in real life or assume is the case in real life because doing so can have serious consequences.
• Trauma Button
• Trope
• Trope Breaker
• Trope Codifier
• Trope Makers
• [Trope Name]
• Trope Telegraphing
• True Art Is Incomprehensible
• Two-Act Structure
• Unbuilt Trope
• Unintentional Period Piece: A work doesn't age well due to excessive references to the time period where the work was made.
• Ur-Example
• The Utterly and Completely Definitive Guide to Cool
• Watsonian versus Doylist
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief
• Wish-Fulfillment