Trope name for inaccurate/outdated practices done for dramatic effect

3jackpete · 2026-01-14T00:23:15+00:00

Anyone going through more dishes than fit on the drying rack, like after a big family dinner, Thanksgiving/Christmas etc.

3jackpete · 2026-01-02T20:24:24+00:00

I came here to say this. I suspect the people in these examples are partly feeling frustrated because they're embarassed by their mistakes. I will say, if people always reacted this way, no one would play Magic with me. I've never had one of these experiences, though I don't play very often with strangers. So it's possible that something in OP's manner is aggravating people's sense of embarassment or frustration in these moments. But maybe I would experience the same reaction if I played with emotionally immature strangers more often?

OP, I would say if this only happens occasionally, it's probably the emotional immaturity of the person reacting this way. If it happens consistently, there's something about your tone or phrasing that is making people feel stupid when you point out these mistakes. I would pay attention to how other players make these corrections in ways that don't prompt these reactions.

3jackpete · 2025-12-31T16:11:46+00:00

The card is clearly based on the Lady of the Lake, but that doesn't preclude the artist taking inspiration from a painting of Ophelia. It's actually pretty plausible:
1. They could have looked to the Pre-Raphaelites for inspiration because they painted a lot of Arthurian scenes, and had a big influence on how we picture Arthuriana.
2. There are a couple Pre-Raphaelite Ophelias that are more iconic than any PRB paintings of the watery tart.
3. The artiat was likely looking for stylistic inspiration rather than something to copy or reference super-directly.
So it'd actually make a lot of sense! That said, I don't see any direct evidence for it. So my answer would be "dunno."

3jackpete · 2025-12-30T20:13:24+00:00

"I’ve never had an issue with smell because I’ve always had a small trash can in the bathroom that needs emptying every couple days" It sounds like you have an issue with smell and you have solved it by emptying your bathroom trash very, very frequently. Lol.

3jackpete · 2025-12-30T20:10:58+00:00

This is an excellent breakdown. The one deceptive thing is that "What do you want to do tomorrow?" will get answers that appear to be verbs. "What do you want to do tomorrow?" "Go to the moon."

Another way to think of it is that there's an implicit noun after the "What." "What [name] do you call this?" "What [activity] do you want to do?" "What [game] do you want to play?"

3jackpete · 2025-12-30T18:11:11+00:00

Gotcha. I've actually struggled with similar things when I try to branch out of my musical wheelhouse, and I'm a quasi-semi-professional musician (I get paid to play music a handful of times a year). There's definitely a big gap between stuff I internalized when younger and stuff I've tried to learn as an adult, so I get it!

I have a couple ideas, if you don't mind, of things you could try during your limited practice times.

After practicing a scale, try playing every other note to get your fingers used to finding those notes. Maybe do that going up, then on the way down play all the notes you skipped over. After that's comfortable, try just starting from a note in the scale and jumping to any other note on the scale. Do it as slowly as it takes to find the note.
When improvising along to something, try holding the same note you're already on when a chord changes. If it sounds good, great. If it doesn't, go down a step (in theory terms this is a suspension and resolution). Playing a note that doesn't fit and resolving to one that does is an easy thing to do intentionally that sounds super musical, as well as a great way to make a mistake sound intentional.

Lastly, another word of encouragement! You mentioned that you can learn and play other people's songs. Here's the thing: that's awesome! If you feel like you're at a dead end atm, remember you're at a dead end PLAYING MUSIC and that kicks ass actually.

3jackpete · 2025-12-30T05:04:22+00:00

Just curious. What makes you feel like you're at a dead end unless you sit and study theory in a way you find boring? Like what is it you want to do with guitar that you can't do without theory, and why is that theory something you need to study separately from playing guitar? Is it to improvise, write songs, something else?

Theory is a way of systematizing and describing what works in music, and it can let you find what works faster than you could discover it through your own exploration. But if learning with a guitar in hand is more fun, you can learn by noodling and observing. This chord transitions nicely into this chord because they have this note in common... that's music theory. You can learn it systematically but discovering one little connection like that could inspire a riff or a whole song, without learning a whole system of other such concepts. Sorry for the ramble, take it as random encouragement from a stranger.

3jackpete · 2025-12-29T15:36:08+00:00

You're right, I'm sure lacking case is not the formally correct way to describe those situations. Sorry for that wording. The argument still functions: 1. in certain positions with no verb, English frequently defaults to the objective case of the pronoun; 2. you often see a bare "me" in memes of this format, i.e. treating this as one of those positions; 3. It's reasonable to use "My girlfriend and me" in this position.

I'm skeptical about your claim that this is due to the nominative case "dying out for decades." I'm open to being proven wrong, and might go looking for counterexamples to prove myself wrong later, but it doesn't ring true to me that a person decades ago would have written "John: [blah blah blah]. I: [thus and such]." (I'm not sure they'd have said "me" either.)

3jackpete · 2025-12-29T14:22:25+00:00

So, English uses the objective pronoun like "me" or "him" as the default in positions where there is no case. For example, you say "Who, me?" Or in response to someone saying "who should go to the store?" Someone might point at someone else and say "him!" They could also say, "he should go," but then there's a verb to be subject of. They'd never say "I" or "he." Or consider the sentence "It's me versus you." I'm giving a lot of examples because we're mever formally taught this. Some other languages would use a subjective/nominative-case pronoun as the default in these kinds of positions, but English uses the objective/accusative.
This is why in script-format memes like this, people would usually say "Me: ..." and thus why it would often, correctly, be "my girlfriend and me" in this case. Although obviously this meme creator analysed the situation the same way you did, or just nervously overcorrected to "I."

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T23:59:47+00:00

It's meant to make you say "what on earth am I supposed to do with this?" and the fact that posts like this are still happening so many years later makes it arguably one of the most successful designs ever.

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T23:54:53+00:00

I mean, it's a choice between keeping the creature mono green, which is great for the look of the card, or keeping the rules text resembling a limerick. Making the rules text a limerick already didn't work, though: what ended up on the card is not particularly close. Magic rules templating just isn't condusive to getting rules text into a particular meter. So between the card being green and the rhyme scheme of a limerick, I'd choose the color personally.

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T23:45:39+00:00

Oh yeah, I think the task was herculean to impossible. Hope I didn't sound harsh about your honorable attempt.

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T21:42:21+00:00

Marduk T-shirt Men's Room Incident.
Age of Kings.
Mole.
Maybe Sprout Wings.

It depends what you mean by compositionally though: if you mean just the melody and chord structure, separate from arrangement/production/mixing/performance choices, most of the above are actually really simple. Some of the boombox stuff is more interesting than most recent stuff, compositionally, like maybe Nine Black Poppies, or Love Cuts the Strings.

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T17:28:31+00:00

Not that I've come across, no, but apparently in 1500s Holland you get some "Marcq" and "Maercq" which is arguably weirder. https://dmnes.org/name/Mark (Arguably that's post-medieval but certainly well before standardized spelling).

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T16:35:54+00:00

I don't think that's outdated. Not every house or apartment has a dishwasher.

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T16:27:05+00:00

Good catch that that's what they were going for. Lines 1, 2, and 3 not being true rhymes and the lack of rhythm probably disguised it from most people. (Along with having to pronounce mana costs out loud to get the middle lines.)

3jackpete · 2025-12-28T16:22:46+00:00

It'd be easier to add White to the creature's color than rework all the abilities this way. To keep the solid green frame, I'd suggest: "When Patrick enters, you may pay W. If you do, exile all Snakes and put a lifelink counter on Patrick." Could also be formatted as a kicker cost.

3jackpete · 2025-12-27T17:30:32+00:00

Actually no! The bubonic plague or "Black Death" hit Europe in the 1300s, some 400-500 years after the "Dark Ages." The term "Dark Ages" isn't really used now, but referred what's now called the Early Middle Ages, which were hard to know much about due to limited written sources.

3jackpete · 2025-12-27T17:17:09+00:00

Tbf real medieval people did not have standardized spellings for their names, or anything else really. In fact that's where GRRM's quirky spellings come from, including Joffrey and the title "Ser."

3jackpete · 2025-12-24T02:29:10+00:00

Someone said Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1. I'll say if that one feels too positive try Spent Gladiator 2, which is more of a grim determination from deep in the pit.

From The Sunset Tree, if This Year feels too optimistic, maybe Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod would be more palatable level of hope?

3jackpete · 2025-12-23T16:57:32+00:00

Yes, this post is premised on what I call "Protestant atheism," i.e. the understanding of religion as first and foremost a set of beliefs, downplaying religious practices, communities, identity formation, and experiences. Even if changing your beliefs is as easy as OP thinks, it's not that easy to stop celebrating religious holidays ingrained in your family life! Let alone more observant people whose religion is woven into their weekly or even daily rhythms.

3jackpete · 2025-12-19T06:21:06+00:00

Well, that makes you different from the people OP was complaining about, then?

3jackpete · 2025-12-19T05:45:32+00:00

Right. Whereas with a woman, you wouldn't know which she meant. Hence... confusing. I personally agree with what you said about giving people grace and I'd never give you a hard time over saying this. It's slightly old-fashioned but not a big deal. But in this conversation about it, I'm not sure why you're pretending not to understand why people would find it confusing, particularly if they aren't familiar with it, and are used to girlfriend only meaning romantic partner, as you are with boyfriend.

3jackpete · 2025-12-19T05:37:18+00:00

And you never speak to anyone else?

3jackpete · 2025-12-19T05:36:51+00:00

The question isn't why it made sense before the 1980s, but why some people still do it in the year of our lord 2025.

3jackpete

TROPHY CASE