[[http://www.twitter.com/troacctid Follow me on Twitter]]

[[http://www.troacctid.blogspot.com Read my blog]]

[[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciation IPA pronunciation:]] /tɹoʊ.'æk.tɪd/

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Tropes I've launched]]

* ThirtyDayFreeTrial
* CueTheRain
* DifficultyByAcceleration
* DressedToPlunder
* {{Freemium}}
* TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin
* HealingCheckpoint
* JunkRare
* KingKongClimb
* {{Microtransactions}}
* NewLookSameGreatTaste
* RiddlingSphinx

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Works pages I've launched]]

* Webcomic/FiveColorControl
* Videogame/EightRealms
* VideoGame/AlienHallway
* Film/{{Clockstoppers}}
* Videogame/CriticalMass2011
* VideoGame/DLCQuest
* Literature/TheEyesOfKidMidas
* VideoGame/{{FlatOut}}
* VideoGame/GunsOfIcarus
* Westernanimation/HereComesTheGrump
* Creator/JagexGamesStudio[[note]]Technically a creator, not a work, but hell if I'm creating a whole new folder for it.[[/note]]
* MagicTheGatheringNovels:
** MagicTheGathering/AgentsOfArtifice
** MagicTheGathering/AlaraUnbroken
** MagicTheGathering/OdysseyCycle
** MagicTheGathering/ThePurifyingFire
** MagicTheGathering/RavnicaCycle
** MagicTheGathering/TestOfMetal
** MagicTheGathering/TimeSpiralCycle
* VideoGame/{{Mari0}}
* NarutoClashOfNinja
* Theatre/ThePajamaGame
* VideoGame/ProjectBlackout
* Videogame/SeriousSamTheRandomEncounter
* VideoGame/{{Slydris}}
* VideoGame/{{Soulcaster}}
* StarShardsChronicles
* VideoGame/SuperCrossfire
* VideoGame/SuperSmashLand
* Webcomic/TalesFromThePit
* VideoGame/TeamFortressArcade
* Videogame/TeslaTheWeatherMan

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Administrivia and Indexes I've written]]

* Administrivia/CreatorPageGuidelines
* FanWorks/FanWorks
** FanWorks.HarryPotter
** FanWorks.MagicTheGathering
** FanWorks.{{Pokemon}}
** FanWorks.SuperSmashBros
* Administrivia/HowToCreateAWorksPage
* IndieGala
* RuleOfPerception

[[/folder]]

[[folder:YKTTW drafts I'm currently sponsoring]]

None right now.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Works I've reviewed]]

* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Videogame&target_title=AndYetItMoves#5683 And Yet It Moves]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=Bastion#8694 Bastion]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Main&target_title=TheCountOfMonteCristo#2972 The Count of Monte Cristo]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=DefenseGridTheAwakening#6199 Defense Grid: The Awakening]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=DLCQuest#6740 DLC Quest]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Literature&target_title=Frankenstein#3035 Frankenstein]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=FTLFasterThanLight#8695 FTL: Faster Than Light]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=GuitarHero#2971 Guitar Hero: World Tour]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Series&target_title=Heroes#6255 Heroes (Volume 1)]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=Videogame&target_title=Portal#2730 Portal]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=Soulcaster#6176 Soulcaster]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=MeatBoy#5387 Super Meat Boy]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=VideoGame&target_title=VVVVVV#3017 VVVVVV]]
* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/reviews.php?target_group=MagicTheGathering&target_title=ZendikarInTheTeethOfAkoum#5543 Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum]]

I also wrote an {{Analysis}} page!

* Analysis/TheBookOfMormon

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Page images that I drew]]

* BetterThanSex

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Maxims of trope philosophy]]

Sandbox/MaximsOfTropePhilosophy

# '''A {{trope}} exists with or without us.''' It's defined by the way it's used in media, not by one guy in YKTTW. We can't make fiat changes to a recurring pattern in fiction; we only identify it and describe it as best we can.
# A good trope definition tells the reader something they already know.
# If we try to lock tropes into a rigorous structure with straight lines and hard edges, we're missing the forest for the trees. In reality, tropes don't conform to any arbitrary grid. They are [[TropesAreFlexible Flexible]]. Our definitions need to be flexible too.
# Rule Number Two of TV Tropes: ''be accessible and fun to read''. Rule Number Three: ''the wiki is for reaching the reader''. That means ''we'' want to match ''their'' expectations--not try to make them match ours.
# If we can remove unnecessary complication from a trope, we should. Bureaucracy is a barrier, and we want the readers to see as little of it as possible.
# The definition is derived from the examples, not the other way around. Our trope pages are describing something that already exists. Keep this in mind when analyzing a WickCheck.
# A trope's description is a ''description'' that (hopefully) ''includes'' the definition. Not everything in it is part of the trope's core definition. Exercise your judgement.
# When we describe a trope, sometimes we make a mistake and describe it wrong. In such cases, do not be [[http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1989/11/03 this guy.]]
# A useful heuristic for deciding whether a trope is defined too strictly: imagine the relaxed version already existed, and the current version were proposed in YKTTW. Would it be TheSameButMoreSpecific? If yes, it can probably loosen up. If the broader version is a trope in its own right, and [[RidiculouslySimilarTrope close enough]] to the narrower version that they can't coexist on the wiki, might as well be inclusive.


[[/folder]]

----
[[VisualPun http://static.mediatropes.info/pmwiki/pub/images/Cow%20Pi%2075x759427.bmp]]

Hi. My name is Jasmine, and I'm addicted to TVTropes.

TV Tropes is a wiki dedicated to cataloguing tropes, the patterns and conventions that appear in fiction. If stories are cakes, tropes are the milk, eggs, and flour, and TV Tropes wiki is a massive archive of cookbooks.

I don't remember how I first came across TV Tropes. I can't say what first hooked me on the taxonomy of narrative devices. Maybe it was [[http://xkcd.com/609/ this]] {{xkcd}} strip, making a joke about the danger of the TV Tropes WikiWalk, and I fell for the SchmuckBait. Or maybe it was the casual PotHole links left by careless (or possibly malevolent) members of the online forums I browsed regularly. Maybe I happened to stumble upon a trope page through a {{Google}} search. I don't remember. One way or another, I ended up here, and I've been stuck ever since.

Here at TVTropes, we have a saying: TVTropesWillRuinYourLife.

It may seem harmless, dissecting your favorite movies and TV shows and video games to study the parts that make up the whole. But sooner or later, the tropes infect you, and your trope-tainted eyes never see fiction in the same way again. The innocence is gone forever--all stories become a gnarled mass of cliches that you've [[SeenItAMillionTimes Seen A Million Times]]. What was once a delicious cake is now a lump of milk, eggs, and flour. And it gets worse: you can't let go. Hours of your life disappear, sucked into the all-consuming time Vortex [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Of Doom]] that is the TV Tropes Wiki. This is the fate of the Troper.

For me, it started out innocently. Just the occasional WikiWalk to take my mind off of whatever homework I happened to be avoiding at the time. I'd read a page about a trope and start scrolling through the examples. Inevitably, halfway down a page like EnemyMine (the one where the good guys team up with the bad guys to fight a greater enemy that threatens them both), I'd go "Oh hey, that's right! The {{Animorphs}} really ''did'' team up with their ArchNemesis Visser Three to escape from the VillainOfTheWeek in Book 36! I remember that!" And, in typical BrowserNarcotic fashion, I'd have opened a new tab for the ''{{Animorphs}}'' page (click), the ArchNemesis page (click), and the VillainOfTheWeek page (click) out of pure reflex. Naturally, halfway down VillainOfTheWeek, I'd get distracted by a ''PowerpuffGirls'' listing (click), and the whole process would repeat itself until I'd snap out of my trope-induced trance hours later, bleary-eyed and drooling, with a mysterious compulsion to re-read ''HuckleberryFinn''. Y'know, just the typical TV Tropes stuff. I told myself I could quit any time I liked.

It wasn't long before I began finding excuses to get lost in the digital labyrinth of Tropeland. I'd finish watching a movie and immediately hop onto TV Tropes to dig through its tropes. "Oh yeah, ''ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' really does have a cool VillainSong! (click)" "So ''GroundhogDay'' is the TropeNamer for the GroundhogDayLoop plot (the one where a character relives the same day over and over)? (click) Ha, that makes sense, huh? It was the TropeCodifier, after all."

TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary began to set in as tropes weaseled their way into my conversational lexicon. I would explain to my brother that all of the {{Plot Hole}}s in ''{{Glee}}'' could be easily HandWaved away by the LiteraryAgentHypothesis. I was pointing out {{Lampshade Hanging}}s and {{Subverted Trope}}s in the movie theater. ''I was slipping {{Egregious}} into my casual conversation.'' Still, I knew I could quit any time I liked.

Somewhere along the line, I metamorphosed into an editor. I think it was the {{FunOrb}} page that triggered it. I'm a veteran {{FunOrb}} player, you see, and when I came upon its article and saw it was a stub, well, it must have called out to the editor in me. When the editing haze finally lifted and I leaned back from the keyboard to admire my work, the page had roughly quadrupled in length. Now I was the one writing the cake recipes.

I became involved in the forums. Turns out the wiki has a whole forum called the TropeRepairShop where broken tropes with bad titles, poor descriptions, or misused examples can go to get fixed up, and all of a sudden I wasn't just editing tropes, I was arguing with other Tropers about ''how'' they needed to be edited. Then there was ImagePickin, where Tropers embark on a communal quest for the perfect image to represent a trope. Out of all the pictures of people pointing swords, which one is most worthy of illustrating SwordPointing? This is the sort of thing I was thinking about.

When I got tired of cleaning up broken tropes in the TropeRepairShop, I started hanging around the YouKnowThatThingWhere section, where new tropes are born, to catch the bad {{Snowclone}}s and the PeopleSittingOnChairs before they could reach the main site. It was lunacy. I must have been obsessed. But I was sure I could quit any time I liked.

Here at TVTropes, we have another saying: TVTropesWillEnhanceYourLife.

Yeah, knowledge of patterns and conventions can irreversibly change the way you look at fiction. Yeah, you start to see the proverbial wires and harness that are holding up the proverbial PeterPan. But just because I know the Fairy Dust is ordinary glitter doesn't mean I can't think happy thoughts and [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Clap My Hands If I Believe]]. Some people say rainbows lose their beauty once you start MeasuringTheMarigolds and learn how they work...but if you know the physics behind the phenomenon, you'll know when to look for a rainbow, which side of the sky to check, and how to find the second rainbow. The magic's not gone; it's just different and, in many ways, richer.

Yeah, it's easy to get lost in a WikiWalk, following blue links like [[SesameStreet Cookie Monster]] follows an Oreo truck. But there's an upside to all that wasted time: all the combing through examples of tropes like NintendoHard (the one where a video game is frustratingly difficult) and BetterThanABareBulb (the one where a story is constantly pointing out all its own cliches) exposes Tropers to all kinds of works they might otherwise never have experienced. TV Tropes introduced me to the absurdly difficult PlatformGame IWannaBeTheGuy; the dark and edgy animated cartoon {{Gargoyles}}; the original RolePlayingGame, FinalFantasy; ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, a website with comedic video reviews of bad movies; the epic fantasy {{Webcomic}}s OrderOfTheStick and EightBitTheater; TheAngryVideoGameNerd, who swears at bad video games in online videos; and let's not forget the {{Discworld}} series, some of the best literature I've ever read. Seriously, Terry Pratchett is the bomb.

Yeah, it might confuse people when I start dropping words like {{Narm}} and {{Tsundere}}, but tropes like these are the grease that helps the concept slide into my head in the first place. I didn't even know the meaning of the word "[[LaconicWiki Laconic]]" before I came to TV Tropes, and I definitely understand {{Irony}} better.

Yeah, it sounds pretty nerdy to hang around on the forums debating the TropeRenamingGuidelines, but working with other members of an online community to build a consensus on an issue has taught me a lot about humility and cooperation. I might suggest what I think is the Greatest Image Ever, and when it goes to a vote, it'll get shot down. And that's okay, because the wiki isn't about me--if the consensus is against me, I'm ready to bow down.

My name is Jasmine, and I'm addicted to TV Tropes.

I can quit any time I like, I swear.

But in the meantime, I have a craving for some cake.