Anyone object if I copy and paste entries from across three pages to reply to all of them at once? No?
I'm all for not calling them clowns. Clown made me want to see how a circus worked, spartans would make me think of fighting type stuff and I'd ignore it unless I was trying to figure out the military.
Well, you're saying "euphemisms" have to communicate some specific sort of domain information. "Clowns," "Spartans," "Cheeseheads" . . . it doesn't matter what it is, you'd know pretty quickly that the people using these words were hiding something. If you looked at "clowns," noticed people were talking funny about them, and nonetheless said "Whee! This has nothing to do with secrets that will kill me!" then you must not have played too many games that had secrets.
(By the way: in light of ambient concerns of hostility, one might conclude I am being aggressive with that last line. I do not intend so.)
You're overthinking this.
Perhaps. But isn't this the depth of thinking needed to address underlying assumptions?
TVTropes just describes literary, well, tropes. It's not even a joke site.
I'd feel a lot better if it really were a site about tropes. Just look at the descriptive text when that site shows up in Google search results: "The 'Main Dwarf Fortress' trope as used in popular culture, with a list of examples from all media." That sentence setup only makes sense for
actual tropes, like the "Five Man Band" or suchlike. As it is, the site serves as a wiki for anything related to books, movies, shows, and games whatsoever, where the entry content itself is a discussion page complete with fan debates. It could be downright educational if only it ran as intended.
By the way, if someone didn't want to be spoiled, wouldn't they avoid the forum in the first place?
Good advice. Unfortunately, you know how much help new players need. Fortunately, the wiki has spoiler warnings (without potentially-confusing euphemisms).
There's a lot of unnecessary hostility in this thread.
Agreed.
I think it is pretty tame compared to what the internet has to offer. Some strong opinions, yes, but this forum continues to be amazing in terms of self-control. The conversation is going places.
Doesn't the little opening cinematic show adamantium and demons in it anyways?
Sure, something like that. But are you saying that spoilers have been given away in the video, and therefore there's no concern? If so, go back to when you first watched it, and ask yourself what you saw. "Hmm, greyish rock. Hmm, bluish rock. Hmm, the dwarf saw something scary. I wonder what it was. Alright, let's play this thing."
A useful but non-spoilery phrase for the HFS is handy to have because spoiler tags draw unnecessary attention and break the flow of a topic. Clowns is a common choice due to being grandfathered in, not because it's considered funny or witty. Tradition is weighty. Still, for those who are bothered, I've heard and used variants of "Slade Plains" on occasion, and I've seen its inhabitants referred to with sobriquets that are both suitably ominous and suitably mysterious, things like "Those Below." Also, plain ol' "HFS" always works.
I agree: people can come up with creative ways to write, and readers who know about the spoilers will understand.
--Rexfelum
