Archive Binge: Difference between revisions

[[File:cortland archive.jpg|frame|[[Walkyverse|It's almost twenty years now.]] ]]

 

 

Picture the scene. You're just idly surfing the web. You find a webcomic and read the most recent one. You laugh. You decide to read the previous one. That's funny as well. You read a week's worth and laugh at all of them. You feel the urge well up inside you. It's time to go on... an Archive Binge.

Firefox extensions like [https://web.archive.org/web/20101205023812/https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4925/ Autopager] can help by automatically adding the next page as you scroll, so you don't have to click on links. For some of them, you need to be quite technically minded, though.

 

 

'''Archive Binge''' is common for first timers of [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|this wiki]], (and [[The Other Wiki|the other one]]) as ''[[Xkcd]]'' [http://xkcd.com/609/ has pointed out]. It is also an increasingly common phenomenon with regard to TV shows, now that it is possible to buy whole seasons of a [[Long Runner]] on DVD.

 

{{examples}}

* Newcomers to [[Anime]] often fall victim to this, due to the sheer amount of ([[Fan Sub|fansubbed]]) material readily available on the Internet. Note that Archive Binging makes reading long arcs easier, cutting down on [[Arc Fatigue]] and eliminating the need to wait a week for the next installment.

* Don't feel like (or can't) torrent? Uncomfortable with fansubs? The below mentioned [[Hulu]].com offers a RIDICULOUS amount of professionally subbed anime. And it has the entire series too. No downloading necessary. It even has a few dubs, though those are harder to get the rights to. Especially if the dub is still airing.

* While ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' hasn't been running as long as some famous DC or Marvel names, it's existed long enough to have nearly 240 main issues at the time of this writing, a Knuckles side-series that lasted into the 30s, an on-going ''Sonic Universe'' spinoff that is currently around issue 40, and numerous special graphic novels and miniseries.

* As a gift to fans, every issue of ''[[Elf Quest]]'' was put online for fans to read/re-read/discover/share. Which makes it quite easy to binge on the series.

 

 

== Fan Works ==

* The fan made game ''[[Heta Oni]]''. It starts out dull at first, but you'll get hooked by the suspense, especially when {{spoiler|Japan goes into the kitchen of the haunted house to investigate, only to hear strange sounds in the foyer and find that the three he came with -- Italy, Prussia, and Germany -- are all gone.}}

* ''[[The Mad Scientist Wars]]'' has been going on for over a year and a half now, and has managed a huge number of pages with several highly complicated plots, and character backgrounds, and running gags... not even *counting* the Lounge (where the creators talk), The mad sci Tales (short pieces to do with MSW), and... so on. To the point where a summary has been worked on.

* Gaedhal's "Queer Theories" has been going for almost a decade now.

** Netflix isn't all roses though. In "[http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-ways-binge-watching-will-ruin-television/ 4 Reasons 'Hemlock Grove' Is Television's Shitty Future]", [[Cracked.com|J. F. Sargent]] accuses Netflix and other Archive Binge outlets of encouraging TV writers to drop substance in favor of shallow entertainment with lame [[cliffhanger]] gags to addict viewers into watching one more episode. And there's no threat of mid-season cancellation to keep showrunners honest. ''[[Hemlock Grove]]'' is guilty.

* ''[[Farscape]]'' and other hyper-linear series are written in such a fashion that each episode builds and relies so much upon the events of previous episodes that missing even one can create a comprehension gap in the current goings on. ''Farscape'' is a perfect example of this as major story arcs in the last seasons come full circle and build upon references and character interactions made in the 1st and second seasons. For example: At the End of The Peacekeeper Wars, Chriton is {{spoiler|about to fire the Worm Hole Weapon}} and makes Scorpius {{spoiler|beg him up to, and including making him say "please", before he allows Scorpius to finally see the this fruition of all of his plans throughout the series}}. In an episode from a previous season, it is revealed that Scorpius {{spoiler|was conditioned by the Skarrans, to never beg for anything in general and specifically to never, ever say "please"}}. Without watching everything up to that point, the reference is completely lost and the true power and impact of the moment would not be comprehended by the viewer.

 

== Music ==

* When going through a language program similar to ''Rosetta Stone'' you may end up going through a whole language without getting any sleep for several nights, then forgetting most of it.

* The ''[http://www.customerssuck.com/board/ Customers Suck!]'' forums. Especially Gravekeeper's posts.

 

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Freedom Force]]'' likewise has a huge number of skins and models for pretty much every conceivable superhero and supervillain, as well as many other characters.

* Any video game with an in-game encyclopedia can turn into an Archive Binge. Notable examples include the codex section popular in ''[[BioWare]]'' games or vast selection of in-game literature of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' series. Many a gamer has found him/herself spending several hours reading about the game world's history instead of actually playing.

* The proliferation of ROMs available for older consoles, (SNES, Genesis, NES, N64, PSX, etc.) can allow a gamer to lose themselves in thousands of free games on a computer and now, most smartphones.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Its Walky]]'' (and its spinoffs) has been going on for 15 years, but is especially bad because it has a rather detailed plot.

* ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' will take days to read since it is often updated with 10-15 individual pages of actions every day, with only few breaks.