User blog:DB511611/DB talks about clichés and tropes: Insanity Cliché

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song

And I'll try not to sing out of key

Todays lesson is about tropes and clichés and how to be original

Take a seat on DB's lap and if you have any complaints, please yell them in my ear, my hearing ain't what it used to be sonny.

For those of you who are primordal chimpanzees missing a chunk of brain, allow me to explain

A cliché is a overused concept, opinion or phrase that is overused and is often considered unoriginal and shows lack of thought

a cliché however, is not always a bad thing, if you use it right

But most of the time, people use clichés all the time lazily or out of habit

tropes are similar, and don't quote me on the definiton, but I consider tropes to be more of an overused repeated characteristic

One thing that has clichés all the time, are backstories

Alot of backstories get used over and over with a similar theme, a kid whomst's parents get killed or die, or just a tragic backstory in general

Alot of people think that a tragic backstory makes a character special or unique and insanity is a very popular theme I see around here in RP, I mean figures, this is a Five Frights At Fried Rice RP wiki

There are billions of characters who are psychopaths and have generic tragic backstories

Insanity does not need to be your theme, but if it is, I think it should be consistent and have a build up, insanity is used all the time for characters, but alot of those times its never actually that insane

Insane is a vague term for some reason, it can mean wild, awesome or it can mean creepy, loony, mischievous or dangerous

But when we get to the meat and bones of it, insanity is a mental illness that is one of the worst things you can experience, psychopathy is also a vague term and both insanity and psychopathy are almost never represented that well at all

Theres alot of good psychogical thrillers that really get into the mind of people, and they are never really blatant, its a gradually process, psychopaths don't really just go around willynilly all "im so insane i killed me paront wen 6", they are deeply troubled mentally, however everyone is different, some people may subtly have troubling mental problems and some people are just wild as fuck and bite peoples throats out like its normal, also you can't use my throat biting idea, its my edgy oc characteristic now

I like psychological horror which is why I dislike seeing the insanity trope everywhere used so much

Theres different kinds of mental ailment and your character doesn't have to be a specific kind, thats not what I'm saying

But when your character just acts dark and insane just over and over for no reason..

it always comes off as cliché and dare I say....E D G Y?

And don't tell me it makes sense because they got ptsd from a cucumber at age 3 or some shit, I'm not gonna accept an edgy backstory as an excuse for your weird insane character

insanity is just overused all the time now for some reason, because its supposedly a fun trope to do and easy to do

But none of the people who use insane or psychopathic characters here ever really gone deep into the mind at all, its usually really blatant and bland and not very unique, and sometimes even inconsistent

But as I said, clichés are not bad if you use them right, one good example is putting a new unique spin on an existing cliché

and I don't mean some random twist like "oh he burned his parents's house down at age 5 but his parents were actually werewolves", nah nah nah, its gotta be a spin on the entire thing, a complete unqiue perspective on a overused idea that delves into something about maybe or an interesting point or criticism on it

Now lets get one straight, psychopathic characters have been done before, even psychopathic kids, hell, I've seen enough horror movies to know that psychopathic children are a trope now, even Micheal Myers started out as a kid who killed his parents at a young age,

you can do that cliché if you want, its not like I could be fucked to get out of my pile of garbage and tell you otherwise

But is that all your focus is going to be? That hes a psychopath?

Alot of the time I see that, when the character is indeed a psychopath, thats it

Thats the character, original oc young killer timmy, he burned his orphanage down at 5, because he has no parents geddit, that means he has a unique bad childhood and thats all the character is

When it comes to wanting a unique character, you can use almost any tropes or cliché you want, and you can still attempt to make the character unqiue and consistsent

If the character is cookiecutter and does nothing but do the one characteristic you gave him, you need to start from scratch

We ain't cooking sweets with Grandma Almonds here, we are trying to make a character that doesn't follow a three step personality as if it were a robot

Step 1. Be psychopath Step 2. Insert drama where act psychopathic and others are affected, step 3. Story arc where character guilt trips and feels bad about self

To you, this sounds like a good character and will do enough to affect the story, cut, print, check out for the day, go home, and have a nice celebration drink for your hard work on a character

But hold up, better pour out your chocolate milk there Little Johnny, that character is utter r u b b i s h

Thats been done over and over, pls

Now lets talk about realism

You can have an unrealistic character, sure

You can have an unrealistic behaving character, sure sure

But insanity is a very real thing mind you, your character could act more realistically mentally troubled

Now you can definitely have an unrealisitcally insane comedic character, its definitely been done before, with your fuckin' pinkie pie creepypasta tropes

But you should start from somewhere

If you want to make something unrealistic you should start from somewhere realistic, this is true with everything really

But if you potray an insane character really inconsistently or unrealistically, people may question you and not take it that seriously, and maybe thats your goal, but a 6 year old carrying a knife and smiling alot, now thats where I start shaking my head in real life, what is this anime shite, cmon man

"It doesn't need to be realisitc" is something I hear alot

Or read, I guess

And this is true, but why can't it be realistic, why can't you make it realistic

I see alot of people who make insane characters that they want to be likeable too, so they give them a tragic backstory and make them all sad and guilttrippy

But theres more ways to make an insane character or even a bad person in general, likeable, without the cliché of guilt trip tragic character who gets loved by everyone for being so sad

Psychopaths have always usually been traditionally villains in most media, but not always

If I were to make an insane character that is also supposed to be likeable, I would make it someone who is gradually losing it on a subtle level, and he doesn't want to tell anyone, but eventually he is forced into a situation where he must act irrationally against someone, but he isn't really in control of it instead of blatant "AAaUgH iM..T-t-TurNinG in-iNsaNe AgAiN, woAAhAh" insanity

Just think about what you would really do in that situation if you had a decaying mental state

An edgy generic backstory of something bad happening when they were a child has been done before, and the character comes across as a child acting edgy because they think its cool rather than an insane child

I probably made a bunch of contradictions in this and random blurts of nonsense, but whatever lol, I don't care enough

So you can go into the comments and either point me out for being wrong and act offended or agree with me and give me praise

Either way, I still win

And if someone points out how I said inconsistent alot but never explained it, I mean people who act insane one minute then just do something out of the ordinary, like a person who kills someone then tries to befriend someone else, maybe thats part of the insanity and they think its unique, idk, gnight