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Newsletter / News 2022-02

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Where do you go to read the latest about new tropes?
What about old tropes with new names?
How can you find the best but least linked tropes out there?
Worry no more: Trope Report is here.

Trope Report is a monthly newsletter that intends to showcase works and tropes from all corners of this website. It also aims to keep the troper hivemind updated with pertinent trope changes and discussions.

February is upon us, and with it approaches Valentine's Day. As a way to celebrate the occasion, our friendly neighborhood mod GastonRabbit added a buttload of new relationship statuses. If you haven't already, go to your profile and check them out — there's a little something there for everyone.

With this new issue come some new behind-the-scenes changes. A lot of our contributors had been part of the team for a year already and the workload had been piling up on them, so we devised a new system. Before, each user was mostly confined to their own section, except for the occasional guest editor. Now, anyone is free to add to any section they want. This not only helps in speeding things along, but it also results in sections being more fleshed out, due to having more tropers contributing to them.

The issue also covers a large selection of tropes and works of old and new, some important improvements to both Image Pickin' and the Trope Repair Shop, and major changes to popular tropes such as Generic Doomsday Villain, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment and Mondegreen.

Here's to a good start to the Lunar New Year! As always, happy troping!

~FernandoLemon

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Tropes and Works

    Trope Spotlight 

Obscure Tropes

This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.
  • When we love people, we have the tendency to shower them in gifts and affection. One common gift people give their loved ones on TV is... a drawer?! Yes! The trope I Got You a Drawer is about giving your romantic partner a drawer of their own at your place, signifying not only that you're interested in a longer-term relationship, but also that you're symbolically opening up to them. It only has 25 wicks since being launched in 2013, but surely it appears in some romantic works we all watch this time of year, giving it some good opportunity for expansion.
  • For many, true love is something that's chaste, pure, and beautiful. For others, True Love Is a Kink, something to spice up their love lives or get their engines running (if you catch our drift). What is normally seen as romantic and "vanilla" is depicted and treated as something deviant and erotic, usually for humor. While launched back in December 26, 2018, this trope only has 35 wicks, and can benefit from some sweet, tender love and care.
  • Want to get lucky and/or enchanted for the Year of the Water Tiger? Mystical Jade will be for you. A precious stone of luxury and magic since the days of Imperial China, the potential is much, but the trope wicks are few. With only 34 wicks, it needs more wiki magic for amplification.
  • In and Out of Character is about players' out-of-universe chatter affecting their in-universe gameplay or otherwise getting commented upon by other characters. This trope is where DM of the Rings and Darths & Droids derive a lot of their humor. There are very few on-page examples despite a few dozen off-page references, and the narrow description might benefit from minor changes to be less about combat.

New Tropes

This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.
  • With Chinese Lunar New Year occurring on the first day of February this year, it's good to note the importance the moon has had in many cultures over the course of history. As many cultures have their own religions, it's no surprise that many of them have a God of the Moon. Lunar deities tend to be associated with cycles, darkness, water, madness, and mystery, with either fickle attitudes as consistent as the moon's phases or calm and serene yet distant demeanors like the moon's soft faraway glow. Very often, they serve as a contrast to the sun deities of their respective pantheon, with them often being siblings. Their relationship usually amounts to a fierce rivalry with a major feud that explains why a certain natural phenomenon relating to the sun or moon occurs. While an ancient trope dating back to Proto-Indo-European mythology and having many representations in fiction, this trope was just recently launched on December 20th.
  • Social cues and gestures can be easily misinterpreted, and flirting is no exception. Sometimes, someone's innocent actions will be Mistaken for Flirting by the people they're interacting with, leading to awkward misunderstandings. Through some choice words or certain gestures, a case of unintentional seduction can usually lead to wacky hijinx, though more serious consequences do happen occasionally. This trope launched on December 29, and tends to pop up in romantic comedies. Be careful not to accidentally make someone else your Valentine this February!

    Work Spotlight 

New Work Page Spotlight

This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.
  • If you want to celebrate Valentine's Day with a Romantic Comedy, They Came Together, starring Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd, may be worth a watch. This film came out in 2014 and parodies numerous rom-com tropes, but only received a work page this past January. While the main page has many tropes listed, it still needs crosswicking, and may potentially warrant Trivia and YMMV sections to discuss its production and (mixed) reception.
  • The Haunted Mansion: Frights of Fancy is a graphic novel written by Sina Grace and drawn by Egle Bartolini and Nicoletta Baldari. Sydney Campbell is a spirit whose goal is improving the mansion's scary atmosphere by the 50th anniversary of The Haunted Mansion to earn her keep, even if the ghost of the bride Constance Hatchaway is going to make it as difficult as possible. This spooky, yet colorful comic could likely use more tropes...
  • The browser game Wordle has TAKEN the web by STORM in the past MONTH. You GUESS a five-letter word DAILY, and are encouraged to SHARE the results on social MEDIA. The work page is still YOUNG, as it was made on January 17, and NEEDS more information. Be sure to VISIT the page if you wish to add a TROPE!
  • In the mood for a character-driven New Weird dramedy? Check out Find Us Alive, an ongoing podcast set in the SCP Foundation universe about a site that's dragged into a Pocket Dimension with all its employees still inside. Full of euphorically action-packed battles against the site's anomalous effects, mystery about the secrets hidden in the site and the past, compelling character drama, and even a little romance, this podcast is definitely worth checking out. Its work page is newly created despite the podcast running since 2019, and would benefit from some wiki magic, especially a Characters page.

Older/Obscure Work Spotlight

This section is intended to highlight works that may no longer be in the zeitgeist — but that doesn't mean they're any less tropable.
  • After Eden is a Graphic Novel by Filipino comic book artist Arnold Arre, published in 2002 and revised in 2016. A tale of childhood friends who, having drifted apart and become bored of the never-ending routine of work and hanging out with friends, found themselves back together by wacky chance of divine intervention. After getting reacquainted through talks of coffee, work, adult life, Sesame Street and toothpaste commercials, they quickly fall in love in the middle of a thunderstorm. Their friends, however, are not too keen on their relationship hogging them from their friendships, and they plan to break them up to get back to the routine. Not to mention, there are supernatural elements that have been determining the fate of lovers like them since the days of Adam and Eve. Can this couple's newfound romance bear fruit in these circumstances? A recommended Valentine's Day read, it needs wiki magic in regards to the 2016 revision.
  • Crusader of Centy is an Action-Adventure game developed by Nextech and published by Atlus in 1994. You play as a boy (named Corona by default) who receives a sword on his 14th birthday and ventures out to fight monsters, but soon discovers there's more to them than meets the eye. During gameplay, Corona can fight enemies with his sword at close range or throw it. He can also equip two animals for combat assistance and puzzle-solving. The game's main shining points are its unique gameplay mechanics and interesting plot (even if it stumbles sometimes).
  • Playing with Fire is an Adobe Flash series of Bomberman-style games released throughout the 2000s by Gamearcade. You play as a boy who has to put dynamite on the ground to blow his opponents up while making sure the same doesn't happen to him. As pieces of the arena get destroyed, you find power-ups, like shoes to make you run faster, or more dynamite that can be placed at once. You can play against one, two, or three computer opponents, or have another player join you on the same keyboard. It's one of the coolest early Flash games and is a blast, whether alone or with someone else.

Works That Need a Page

This section takes a page from the List of Shows That Need Summary. It is intended to spotlight works that people have been talking about enough to link around the site, but don't have a page yet. If the work page link turns blue after this, then we know we've done our job!
  • The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra is a music project led by... well, Blake Robinson. Most of the Synthetic Orchestra's works consist of remixes of video game soundtracks, done in a style truly befitting of an orchestra. This has extended to doing actual soundtrack work, such as for the games Lost in Random and The Stanley Parable. Most fitting for this month, however, is mention of Robinson's original musical works, such as the immensely popular "Unhealthy Obsession", a song about at least one very one-sided relationship with over four million views on YouTube. Despite the project's popularity, it hasn't been given the loving gesture of a page.
  • What happens when a comedian decides to take a vacation during his gap year... and brings his decidedly more traditional father along? Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father is a comedic travel documentary Netflix series about exactly that. With five seasons, albeit two of those seasons having only two episodes, the series has plenty of tropable moments — something that not all travel series can hope for. So, in the spirit of familial love, why not give this series a page?
  • Kikuo is a Japanese musician who is very prominent in the Vocaloid scene, often utilizing Hatsune Miku in his works. His songs are characterized by experimental, lush, and dynamic electronic and pop compositions mixed with lyrics that range from morbid and horrific to tragic and depressing, touching upon hard topics like loneliness, abuse, and death. He received a large surge in popularity circa 2020, with one of his songs, "Aishite Aishite Aishite", receiving over 48 million views on YouTube! Despite this, he, like many other Vocaloid-related producers, doesn't have a page on this site yet.
  • Ludvig Strigeus is a Swedish programmer. His résumé includes creating OpenTTD (an open-source remake of Transport Tycoon Deluxe), μTorrent (one of the most popular file-sharing clients meant to take some load off the server) and ScummVM (a program for running old Adventure Games and RPGs in modern devices), as well as helping with the development of Spotify (the world's largest music streaming service). Despite the immense popularity of this software, he himself has flown under the radar, and doesn't have a page on the wiki yet.

Non-English Work Spotlight

The wiki may be in English, but that doesn't mean non-English media are any less important! This section focuses on works that may have a language barrier to deal with — but are worth it if you do.
  • Super Real Mahjong is an H-Game series by Seta Corporation released only in Japan. You play Mahjong with a few girls. Win and you may get to see them undress in an anime sequence, though the nudity is usually censored in the console versions. The gameplay is otherwise very standard with no items to shake things up, as indicated by the title, though some games have additional mechanics like filling a heart meter to battle a secret opponent. It's worth checking out for the lovely girls, well-animated scenes by Ryo Tanaka, and 1980s/1990s anime atmosphere alone, and now that there's a six-in-one collection on Nintendo Switch and Windows DVD, it's more accessible than ever.
  • The Art of War is a treatise by Italian author Niccolò Machiavelli. The format is a Socratic dialogue between lord Fabrizio Colonna and young Florentine nobles. He explains what kind of methods should be used for raising an army and what to do on the battlefield, while the others listen and sometimes bring up topics or ask for clariification. Large amounts of it are outdated in the modern war scene, but it's perfect for historians who want to know more about military history and strategy.
  • All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. is a Platform Game released only in Japan. It's basically Super Mario Bros., but it has some changes taken from Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, characters meant to resemble Japanese celebrities, and some other tweaks to make the game fresh. It warrants another playthrough of this classic platformer with the mustachioed plumber, and who knows, maybe you'll find a celebrity you like as well.

Creator Page Spotlight

Works would be nothing without the people who make them. This section highlights authors, artists, actors, musicians, and everyone else responsible for trope creation and proliferation.
  • Melissa Hutchison is an American voice actress primarily known for her work in video games. She is best known for playing Clementine in Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, but has also voiced characters in other games, such as Quinn in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, 9-Volt in the WarioWare games and Turing in Read Only Memories. Despite receiving rave reviews for her performance as Clementine, her other work has flown under the radar and, as such, her page has a rather low wick count.
  • Ryan North is a Canadian author. His most popular work is Dinosaur Comics, a comedy webcomic about dinosaurs where every strip features the exact same visuals, with only the dialogue changing. However, he's also worked on a large number of other works, including as the writer of the first thirty-five issues of the Adventure Time comics, as one of the editors of Machine of Death — a sci-fi anthology about a machine that can predict how people die with complete accuracy — and, most recently, as the writer of Lost in Random.

    Image of the Month 
This section brings you the best selections of the past month from Image Pickin.
This issue's featured image comes from Magic: The Gathering, and illustrates Creepy Doll.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mtgdolls.png
A child's porcelain doll went missing one night, as did a pair of kitchen shears and the town magistrate.

Old dolls sure are creepy, aren't they? They rank right up there with snakes, spiders, clowns, ghosts and Arizona as one of the most commonly feared things in media.

Okay, so we have a trope with a mediocre image◊, it happens; time to propose a different pic at the Image Pickin' forums. But what's better than making a thread with a suggestion at the ready? Making a thread with twenty suggestions, that's what! Threads with a ton of pics, especially for a trope as common as this one, can have surprisingly effective results. Not only does the number of images guarantee at least one will work, but the rest can be used to make a pretty kickass Image Links page.

The pic has everything that any good image should have. It's simple, it illustrates the trope in a way that's easy to understand, and it has a beautiful art style (courtesy of Matthew Stewart). Freaky but cool, it was not only the standout of the thread, but also an easy pick for the Image of the Month.

Projects and Discussions

    Forumwatch 
Hey guys! Welcome back to Forumwatch! In this section, we'll be telling you about what's going on in the forums — interesting discussions that may be going on in Wiki Talk, some fun forum games, or lively debates going on in On-Topic Conversations, you name it!
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus just came out, and it's awesome. It's unlike any Pokémon game that came before, and for the better too. What, you want a thread? Fine, here's a link to the Pokémon Legends: Arceus thread or something. You can discuss the game there with others who are also hopefully big fans of it. Just try not to get spoiled and have fun!
  • February is the anniversary of YIAY (short for Yesterday, I Asked You), a YouTube show by Jacksfilms which mixes his classic brand of comedy with Audience Participation. The format is simple: he asks his fans a question, and then compiles the funniest answers into a video. It's since been adapted into a Twitch show, a board game and a live stage show; so naturally, we had to make our own version. The YIAY thread is a fan-favorite among the Forum Games, where one troper posts a prompt, and everyone else tries to out-funny each other. Check it out and see if you are funny enough.
  • Trope-tan is receiving a sorely needed revamp after nearly 10 years, and suggestions are open for the updated design. Come on down to the Reviving Trope-tan thread and give your feedback on the future of TV Tropes' cutest ambassador!
  • The video game industry is complicated. Sure, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are the more obvious companies because they are the ones producing consoles, but there are many others who produce games for those consoles, some of which are... controversial, to say the least. However, it seems that Microsoft and Sony are purchasing more of these smaller companies, apparently in competition with each other. Who will win? Will Nintendo respond? Will Electronic Arts continue to sit back and watch? Follow this in The Video Game Industry thread!

    Trope/Article Changelog 
This section covers renames, removals, redefinitions, hard-splits, merges, and wick cleaning. We'll try to keep you alerted to any major changes to the site, including perpetual projects and Wiki Talk decisions that you may have missed, but if you want to be a part of the process that affects so much of our wiki, then head over to the Trope Repair Shop on the left-hand side of the forum.

    Pages Needing Help 
This section highlights articles indexed on the Pages Needing Wiki Magic policy page and sub-pages. Such articles are, at best, under-performing and below wiki standards. At worst, these pages are in violation of the wiki's rules against stubs. If you're an editor, try checking out some of these under-performing trope and work articles to see what improvements you can make to the page.
  • February's birthday is Charlie Heaton, whose Star-Making Role was in Stranger Things. Our article needs work because the description is fairly bare, containing only two sentences. The page image appears to be taken from a celebrity photographer rather than a professional headshot or promotional image. Their filmography section is well-done, but there's no tropes (or even trivia-tropes) included in this list. At the very least someone could write or crosswick the various Dawson Casting examples that Heaton qualifies for.
  • Alpha Gods was originally published a decade ago this month. However, due to our wiki's poor standards in 2012, the article was created by plagiarizing the description from another website, leaving out context from most of the examples, and barely any Crosswicking. On the bright side, there's a good number of indexes, the page image is high-quality, and the number of inbounds is pretty good (considering that we only have 11 wicks to the page). If you liked watching Marvel's Eternals, you will probably enjoy this series as well.
  • As for this month's trope, Love Can Make You Gonk is about cases where a character's appearance becomes highly distorted, to show their love (or more often, lust) at first sight has affected them physically. We already have a good description and image, but there's got to be more indexes this falls under, as well as more examples, when we have 22 wicks and only 12 on-page examples. This is the perfect month to find more people undergoing transformations due to suddenly falling in love.

    Project Spotlight 
Looking for a project to dedicate some time to, but not comfortable jumping into large threads? Here are some smaller projects, or more recent discussions, in need of a few more hands.
  • Moment pages (such as Heartwarming Moments, Funny Moments, Moment of Awesome, Awesome Music, Tear Jerker and Nightmare Fuel) tend to attract low-quality images that are considered JAFAAC and/or don't convey the emotions they're supposed to emulate well. Because of this, they often filled up the Image Pickin' slots (in fact, at one point, they took up two thirds of the slots!) and once the pic was pulled, the thread would die slowly due to inactivity. The recently-opened Moments Image Cleanup Thread is meant to address issues with pictures on Moments pages. Is there a single bad image on a Moments page you want to see gone? Go there and it'll be placed on a crowner to be pulled eventually!
  • Formatting and other editing issues are unfortunately very common on the wiki, with many project threads existing to deal with them. But what happens when a page has formatting/editing problems that don't fit on any other project thread, or has so many at once that you don't know where to bring them? Look no further than the Formatting cleanup in general thread. It's a relatively new thread with not much activity, so any help is welcome!
  • The "Memetic" tropes, such as Memetic Mutation, Memetic Badass, Memetic Molester and Memetic Loser, are prone to causing some potential issues on YMMV pages. If you want to help out, or have found an incorrect example that you'd like to discuss, please drop by the Memetic X Cleanup thread.

    Know the Contributors 
  • Piterpicher is the head honcho of Older/Obscure Work Spotlight and Non-English Work Spotlight. Those are the kinds of works he's interested in, but he's primarily a gamer. While he definitely is interested in chicks, this year... chances are he's gonna be Coping on Valentine's Day. (Editor's note: he also made our snazzy new logo!)
  • crazysamaritan writes for the Pages Needing Help section, keeping an eye out for stubs and crosswicking.
  • FernandoLemon most commonly writes for Image of the Month and Work Spotlight, and can most commonly be found at the Image Pickin' forums. He's neither single nor taken, but rather gamer.
  • Satoshi Bakura writes for Forumwatch. Their passive nature and busy college schedule often leaves them watching pages and forums without actually participating unless their interest has been sufficiently piqued.
  • Mighty Mewtron writes for the New Work Page spotlight. She probably hasn't seen these works before coming across their pages, but she likes to be involved in the growth of the wiki. Beyond the Trope Report, she's most active in the forums, TLP, and the pages for whatever work she's obsessed with this month.
  • War Jay 77 contributed to the Trope Spotlight section this month. She is also the Herald of Projects: Long Term/Perpetual, and spends much of her time refreshing on the forums, ATT and TLP for new things to respond to. Even though she's in a committed relationship, she still prefers the term "Singles Awareness Day".
  • gjjones writes for the Project Spotlight section. He also frequently spends his time working on projects whenever they are necessary, cleaning up wiki entries and participating in the ATT and Trope Repair Shop threads.
  • 𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 writes for the Obscure Trope Spotlight and Changelog sections.
  • plakythebirb, the world's least famous single lovebird, usually writes for Works That Need a Page.
  • Excessive-Menace writes for the Obscure/New Tropes and the Works That Need a Page sections. They mainly spend their time lurking and editing the wiki, as well as participating in ATT and writing for the Trope Pantheons project. They would rather simp for fictional characters and binge on sweets than seek a romantic relationship.
  • The Mayor of Simpleton wrote for the Changelog and Projects Spotlight this edition. He mostly participates in the Project Threads, TRS, ATT, Trope and Wiki Talk, and occasionally Image Pickin'.
  • Cutegirl920fire is a pig gal who helps out with the Obscure Tropes and Works sections. While she tries her best to contribute to the Report and the wiki as a whole occasionally, she's usually busy with stuff such as simping for Marie-Antoinette, playing Fate/Grand Order, and working on her stories.
  • Alnair 20 Aug 93, who writes for the Obscure Works and Tropes sections, likes cats despite being born on the Year of the Rooster.
  • Palindromee attempts to use hir free time to cut natter, bad grammar, and ZCEs, but mostly just plays Control, listens to podcasts, and generally goofs off.
  • MacronNotes contributed to this month's Changelog section. She spends most of her time on TRS, Long/Short Term projects, and TLP. She is also the herald of the Wiki Talk section on the forums.
  • Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.
This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by Tony's Restaurant, home of the finest spaghetti speciale in town, and the place where anyone can find love and enchantment on this lovely bella notte.

Interested in becoming a contributor, or have suggestions for works or tropes to feature? Pop by the thread and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)

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