I don't often give shout outs to other reviewers I like, but I thought I'd make an exception here for two reasons: the first is that most people likely wouldn't consider tvtropes.org a review site at all (considering it doesn't really give any value judgments on anything it covers), and the second is that I've been spending ungodly hours on it.

Basically, the format for any TV Tropes article is to give a short, usually hilarious description of a TV show or video game, and then to give a wiki-ized list of common tropes that occur within that video game or TV show. It's an addictive rabbit hole, tracing one idea to another, seeing how all your favourite shows and games have connections, and more importantly, seeing in action how ideas are transmitted with seemingly no self-consciousness from developers about how those tropes can systemize or or alter meaning into something unintended or at worst, dangerous or outright terrible.

Why do I call it a review site, then? Because looking through all the tropes that crop up in a game, and seeing whether they're damaging or merely hilarious, invites the reader to make a value judgment on their own. As well, the discussion of tropes – something that should be done far more often in all media – is something that rarely happens in reviewing of a more "normal" nature. TV Tropes is right on the cutting edge of something fantastic, and something that I'd love to see incorporated into a more fluid, writerly style. For now, though, TV Tropes is bar-none one of the best websites on the internet, period.

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