The purpose of this page is to help queue all the specific tropers who want specific tropes taken to TRS. This is being done so that, when slots open up, tropers can be pinged to the meta thread (or their threads launched with their OP) on this list.
If you would like to add your thread to the queue, please add your username and the trope you want to take at the end of the list. (If you have multiple tropes, write them separately, with your username for both.) If you don't want to open a thread but would like to be notified when it opens, you can list your username beneath the trope to also be pinged.
NOTE: For most TRS threads, a wick check is required.
Queue:
- MaLady: Martial Arts Headband (Can launch without me, but ping me.)
- Mrph1: Comic Book Run (can be launched without me, but please ping me as well)
- El Rise: Katanas Are Just Better (Can launch without me with credit and my OP, please ping)
- The Mayor of Simpleton: Bury Your Art (can be launched without me with credit)
- supernintendo128: Every Helicopter Is a Huey (Launch without me but credit and ping me)
- MaLady: Cavalry of the Dead (wick check incomplete. Can launch without me, but ping me.)
- Orbiting: All Men Are Perverts (can launch without me)
- Adept: Lead Bassist, Lead Drummer and Lead Singer Plays Lead Guitar (wick check + OP — can launch without me)
- Also ping AudioSpeaks2
- Adept: Alice and Bob (wick check + OP — can launch without me)
- Zaperex: I Shall Return (Can launch without me)
- AlleyOop: Four Is Death (Can launch without me, but please credit & ping)
- Number 9 Robotic: Bad to the Bone (can launch without me, but please ping me)
- tremmor19: Hollywood Thin (can launch without me)
- The Mayor of Simpleton: Cartoon Whale (can be launched without me with credit)
- Yindee: Googling the New Acquaintance (launch without me, no ping)
- The Mayor of Simpleton: Sapient Cetaceans (can be launched without me with credit)
- The Mayor of Simpleton: Teaching Through Accident (can be launched without me with credit)
- randomtroper89: Aborted Declaration of Love (Wick Check)
- Number 9 Robotic: Third-Person Seductress (can be launched without me, credit and ping appreciated)
- Theriocephalus: A Mischief of Mice
- Uchuu Flamenco: Pædo Hunt
- Ayumi-chan: Cosplay (can launch without me)
- MaLady: Stellar Name (can launch without me)
- supernintendo128: My Art, My Memory (Can launch without me, but please credit & ping me)
- El Rise: Happily Married (Can launch without me with credit; ping me as well)
- supernintendo128: If You Call Before Midnight Tonight (Launch without me but ping and credit me)
- Dancou Maryuu: Prussian Kings (can launch without me but please ping and credit me)
- Berrenta: My Friends... and Zoidberg (can launch without me)
- Berrenta: For Your People, By Your People (can launch without me)
- Berrenta: My X Is AY (can launch without me)
- IronAnimation: Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop (can launch w/out me, but please credit me)
- AudioSpeaks2: Drag Queen (can launch without me but with credit. Also ping me please)
- Acebrock: Hair Intakes (Feel free to launch without me but give me credit and use my OP)
- War Jay 77: Washington D.C. Invasion
- Hello83433: Don't Make Me Destroy You
- Patar136: Set the World on Fire (Can launch without me but please give credit and ping.)
- Justa Username: Fighter, Mage, Thief
- Back Alley Guy: The Bartender (can launch without me with credit and ping)
- Miss Conduct: Overshadowed by Controversy (can be launched without me with credit, ping appreciated.)
- Admiral Akbar 1: Yellow Peril (can launch without me, but please ping + credit)
- SoyValdo7: Title: Requiem (Can launch without me but please, ping me)
- SoyValdo7: Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death (Can launch without me but please, ping me)
- Admiral Akbar 1: Big Secret (Can launch without me, please ping + credit)
- Asterlix: The Theorem of Narrow Interests (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Asterlix: The Great British Copper Capture (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Asterlix: Fiction Science (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Serilly: Xenofictional Literature (can launch without me, please ping)
- Miss Conduct: Unfortunate Ingredients (can be launched without me with credit, ping appreciated.)
- Ayumi-chan: Same Content, Different Rating (can launch without me)
- randomtroper89: Loser Son of Loser Dad (wick check)
- Eggy0: Damned by Faint Praise (can launch without me with credit, must ping and should use my OP; wick check)
- Theriocephalus: Real Life
- Asterlix: Loudspeaker Truck (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Also ping Coachpill
- War Jay 77: Minor Insult Meltdown
- Masterzora: Satiating Sandwich (can be launched without me, ping appreciated)
- Acebrock: The Chew Toy (Can be launched without me with credit and my OP)
- Acebrock: Spex (Can launch without me with credit and my OP)
- War Jay 77: Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry
- Tremmor19: Hartman Hips (Can launch without me). Intro and wick check located here: Sandbox.Tremmor 19
- Number 9 Robotic: Clueless Aesop (can be launched without me, but credit and ping appreciated)
- Graf von Tirol: Overdosed Tropes
- AudioSpeaks2: Newspaper Comics (Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- Azorius 24: The Commies Made Me Do It (Can be launched without me, please ping and use OP)
- Asterlix: Internet Mimic (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Asterlix: Spoiler Hound (Launch without me but please ping me, credit appreciated)
- Eievie and/or SoyValdo7: Enforced Trope (we were all involved in the discussion, anyone could lead the launch)
- Graf von Tirol: Long-Runners
- Jalpo 99: Green Aesop (Can launch without me with credit, and please ping me as well.)
- jandn2014: Barbaric Bully (Can be launched without me, as long as there is credit and a ping)
- StarSword: Works by Subject (Launch when ready and ping myself, Graf von Tirol, Asterlix)
- StarSword: Trans Equals Gay (Launch when ready and ping me)
- Maths Angelic Version: Antidote Effect (Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- Completely Normal Guy: Feed the Mole (Can be launched without me)
- Riolugirl: Old Dog (Wick Check) (Can be launched without me with credit; please ping as well)
- Laundry Pizza 03: Double Don't Know (Wick Check)
- Coachpill: Exactly What It Says on the Tin (can launch without me; please credit and ping)
- SoyValdo7: Idiosyncratic Mecha Storage (Can launch without me but please, ping me)
- tremmor19: Trial Balloon Question (can launch without me)
- Theriocephalus: Theory of Narrative Causality (wick check)
- Maths Angelic Version: One-Book Author (Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- Ferot_Dreadnaught: Obvious Crossover Method (Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- CaptainJJC:: Africa Is a Country (Feel free to launch without me but PLEASE credit and ping me so I can particpate when I am not busy)
- BeerBaron:: Chronically Killed Actor (Can launch without me, please ping me)
- Quanyails: Uncommon Time (Can launch without me with credit, please ping me)
- mathfreak231: Poe's Law (OP + wick check, can launch without me)
- Laundry Pizza 03: Exposition Victim (OP + wick check)
- Also ping Coachpill
- Laundry Pizza 03: Homophobia Index (OP + index check)
- mathfreak231: Awesomeness Meter (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- Gamerknowitall: Avoid the Dreaded G Rating (OP + wick check) (Can be launched without me with credit; please ping as well)
- Vehek: Selective Memory (Can launch without me)
- Laundry Pizza 03: Characterization Tags (can launch without me)
- Callmeamuffin: Country Matters (OP and wick check)
- Number 9 Robotic: Hospital Paradiso (can launch with ping without me)
- SoyValdo7: Maturity Is Serious Business (Can launch without me but please, ping me)
- SoyValdo7: Incest Subtext (Can launch without me but please, ping me. Please also credit Mariofan99)
- randomtroper89: Glorified Sperm Donor (Wick Check)
- Coachpill: Refuge in Audacity (wick check is here, also ping Master N)
- Theriocephalus: When Dimensions Collide + Reality Bleed
- Azorius 24: Very Punchable Man (Can be launched without me, please ping and use OP)
- Matthew L Mayfield: He Also Did (You're welcome to launch without me, just ping and credit me)
- Maths Angelic Version: Manufacturing Victims (OP + wick check. Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- Hello 83433: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
- animuacid: A Threesome Is Hot (can be launched without me, but please ping me)
- opal6561: Up to __ or More (Free launch)
- Laundry Pizza 03: Gender Flip (can launch without me)
- Maths Angelic Version: Dead Horse Genre (OP + wick check. Can be launched without me with credit; ping me as well)
- Laundry Pizza 03: Next Thing They Knew + One Thing Led to Another (OP + wick check)
- mathfreak231: Kneel Before Frodo (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- mathfreak231: Tan Lines (OP + wick check, can launch without me)
- mathfreak231: Happy Birthday to You! (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- kundoo: Scars Are Forever (Can be launched without me)
- Also ping Ferot_Dreadnaught
- JHD0919: She Is All Grown Up (Can launch without me, but please credit & ping me.)
- Love Bird: Ace Of Spades (can launch without me)
- Graf von Tirol: Classic Rock
- Love Bird: Out Giving Birth, Back in Two Minutes (can launch without me)
- Theriocephalus: Multiple Head Case
- Ferot_Dreadnaught: Just Eat Gilligan (Wick check complete, can be launched without me with credit, and please ping me as well)
- kundoo: Beauty Is Never Tarnished (Can be launched without me)
- Also ping Coachpill
- mathfreak231: Artificial Script (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- mathfreak231: Military Alphabet (OP + wick check, can launch without me)
- mathfreak231: "Uh-Oh" Eyes (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- MissConduct: 24-Hour Trope Clock (Can be launched without me)
- MissConduct: Amazing Freaking Grace (Can be launched without me)
- mathfreak231: Discard and Draw (OP + wick check, anyone can launch but ping me)
- War Jay 77: Not-So-Phony Psychic
- StarSword: Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale (launch when ready and ping me please)
- Stray_Editor: Revolvers Are Just Better (Can launch without me, but please credit & ping)
- PhantomDusclops92: Animeland
On hold:
- selkies: The Last Title (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: The Dreaded (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- Also ping Wyldchyld
- selkies: Ballad of X (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: Specs of Awesome (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: Cool Mask (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: Bouncer (Do not launch without me) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: Robotic Psychopath (Do not launch without me; OP is till a WIP) (On hold until the author returns)
- selkies: Medication Tampering (OP is still a WIP) (On hold until the author returns)
- Crossover-Enthusiast: Five-Finger Fillet (can be launched without me, but give credit. Sandbox here) (On hold until the author returns due to the lack of a prewritten OP)
- Darkpixie28: The One Who Wears Shoes (Can be launched without me with credit, but please ping me) (Needs a wick check)
- Mrph1: Canon Immigrant (can be launched without me, but please ping me as well) (on hold until the wick check is completed)
OPs
Please credit yourself as the writer of an OP if you post one. If you use someone else's OP, it is recommended that you credit the original writer of the OP, to avoid accidental plagiarism.
Put OPs in folders, please.
Category: Duplicate Trope
Googling the New Acquaintance and Internet Stalking, before I crosswicked them, were only a wick apiece above their respective Standing classification minimums. The former launched in 2012, while the latter launched in 2021. I am arguing that they're not functionally different enough to justify separation. Besides, lumping them into a singular trope would combine their mostly-not-overlapping examples. Mostly.
My wick check for everything other than Source/ pages is Googling The Wick Check.
Both tropes cite the same Garfunkel and Oates lyrics as an example:
Everybody does their Facebook research
It's how we get to know one another
To make sure that we don't get raped."
While GTNA is supposed to be solely about searching someone who's just been met for the first time, I can't gather from context that that's the case for all of them. A couple of the examples state that that's not the case, such as searching someone before they meet, or the person being searched not being a new acquaintance. While, granted, the IS examples tend to be far more stalkerish in nature, some may argue that any unsanctioned internet research into another's background could be categorized as stalking. If action is taken, I would merge both under the Internet Stalking name, as that's a widespread and recognizable term.
A sidebar to tackling Broken Aesop, some of the details I'll re-address here: Clueless Aesop and other Aesop tropes have been frequently misused and used as a front for complaining, which in turn is tied to what I believe are fundamental problems in how we perceive what an "aesop" is. This is being kept as a main page trope, despite the fact that it's inherently built around the analysis of analyzing a moral lesson behind a work (which is subjective interpretation) and then providing an explanation for why it's contradicted or flawed (which is also subjective interpretation). This has led to a lot of not only inappropriate editorializing and complaining, but also very low-effort analysis in general.
Something especially problematic with Clueless Aesop is the fact that based on its description, it's supposed to cover a very particular kind of failure in storytelling: when a work cannot possibly make its message work because of what the work itself is: the example is of a kid's show delivering a Drugs Are Bad moral, but becoming "clueless" as a direct result of the program being unable to adequately explain what "drugs" are due to content and age policies. This is not how most people have come to use it. Instead, a vast majority think the "clueless" part comes from the writing in general being bad and inadequate for any particular reason, and in turn, this has just turned into a front for complaining in the main page, or gratuitous potholing to signify "I think work has no idea what it's doing".
Additionally, much like Broken Aesop, there's a recurring problem of people bringing up an "aesop" purported to be the message of the work itself and a relevant problem, but not connecting the two and explaining why the former directly resulted in the latter. Usually this is because the "aesop" being gained to begin with is not an actual narrative lesson the story exists to try and preach, but rather just whatever implication the troper happened to think about and be critical of, and thus wanted to vent the problems they had about it in public. Sometimes it's not even that; it's just straight-up bad-faith ZCEs mocking the cynical implications they think the work is sharing without any attempt to explain it, like an even lower-effort form of Unfortunate Implications or pre-repair Family-Unfriendly Aesop.
My wick check for the trope is here, summary of the findings:
- (1/50) (2%) of examples describe the aesop, explain why it's "clueless", and why it's the result of self-bowdlerization or the nature of the work itself.
- (2/50) (4%) describe the aesop, explain why it's "clueless", but pins the flaws on poor writing in general.
- (3/50) (6%) describe the aesop and a relevant problem, but don't elaborate on the direct connection between the two.
- (10/50) (20%) describe a problem, but doesn't sufficiently explain the "intended" aesop (in turn, do nothing to explain what exactly is "clueless").
- (5/50) (10%) are complaints made based around things outside the work itself and/or in the metatext.
- (2/50) (4%) of examples have justifying edits and Conversation in the Main Page discussing why the aesop is not clueless.
- (4/50) (8%) are examples of narratively intentional Clueless Aesops (including in-universe discussion and spoofs).
- (14/50) (28%) are ZCEs that consist of derisive complaining of an aesop devoid of explanation.
- (4/50) (8%) ZCE that are written more neutrally, but still lack explanation.
- (5/50) (10%) are unclassified misuse, usually none of these are remotely "aesops" to begin with.
Yes, I could find only one example that fits the proper expectation of what the trope requests; the rest is a load of great misinterpretations. I think that if we want to avoid low-entry-level complaining and/or bad-faith analysis on the wiki from this trope, the standards of how we interpret what an "aesop" is on the site as a whole needs to be addressed.
By Mrph1Wick check WIP
Category: Needs Help
The trope ought to be relatively clear - a version of a brand new character, created for some sort of adaptation (e.g. a Canon Foreigner), is later introduced to the original work/continuity. However, it's muddled by references to mediums as well as continuity - is it supposed to be for Alternate Continuity characters who get added to the original continuity, or for characters originating from a different medium (e.g. an Expanded Universe of unclear canonicity) who get added to the original medium (and then become canon, if they aren't already)? With some big franchises (e.g. Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe) now bridging multiple mediums and declaring all of them to be canon and in the same continuity, those two definitions can now be very different things. This is hopefully not too hard to untangle, but goes a bit beyond Trope Description Improvement Drive's scope.Proposal
Focus on continuity rather than 'main' medium, as medium is increasingly interchangeable/irrelevant for some large franchises. If the character is introduced in an Alternate Continuity or an Expanded Universe of intentionally loose/unclear canonicity, they count as a Canon Immigrant as soon as they appear in something that's confirmed as canon to the original work's continuity - regardless of whether it's the original medium. If entire continuities get unambiguously joined together, that's Canon Welding, not this trope (but if a character gets used in the original before that happens, it still counts). A character introduced in an Expanded Universe that's explicitly canon does not count - again, the exception would be if they appear elsewhere before that canon declaration happens.It needs a clearer definition and possibly name to stop it from being People Sit on Chairs. It was a rare entry that actually had a one character alone wear shoes to communicate something about otherness. I'm also not sure if inversions are better placed with other barefoot tropes instead.
Martial Arts Headband Wick Check - Checked 100+ of almost 500 wicks.
Wick check: In progress (Sandbox)
Category: Misuse
Comic Book Run only has 19 wicks, and is largely used as an on-page index rather than trope examples on other pages.
As currently defined in its introduction, a 'Run' is:
- Apparently a subset of a Long Runner ("the fandom and the industry divide those long-runner series into smaller units: comic book runs")
- A period defined by the same creative team and, specifically, the same writer ("they are considered to last while the writer is still there")
- Explicitly not a Limited Series (a comic book Mini Series), as "Comic book runs are open-ended".
The comics currently listed on the page don't consistently follow any of those rules.
Additionally, we don't have a clear minimum definition of a 'run' - some writers will join a series for a single short arc, or to bridge the gap between other creative teams, but that seems to fail the "open-ended" element, even if it's within a longer series.
Preferred solution
Get consensus on the eligibility rules, making them prominent and unambiguous in the description. Page cleanup to cut misuse once agreement on eligibility is reached.Category: Misuse
Another weapon trope to deal with.
Katanas Are Just Better is when the katana is portrayed as superior to other weapons. Like other weapon tropes, it quickly devolved into "a katana is used / present". A wick check is conducted to gauge the severity of misuse and sinkholes. Here are the results:
- Correct: 2/60 (3.33%)
- Misuse: 28/60 (46.67%)
- ZCE: 9/60 (15%)
- Sinkhole: 21/60 (35%)
Solutions (open to other options):
- Rename + put a note in the trope description saying "character has katana" is incorrect.
- New trope (Gratuitous Katana?)
- Cut / Disambig + Yard
Category: Needs Help
Courtesy link to the original TLP draft
.
The problem: Bury Your Art is a very new Trivia item, having been created in 2022 as a result of the Old Shame TRS. The item is specifically about when a creator attempts to suppress something they made due to Creator Backlash. Per the description:
However, what if they can't live with it? It's one thing to publicly dismiss your work, but if one can go out of their way to act like it never existed, then it could be like it never happened. This is where Bury Your Art comes into play.
...
Note: Please keep in mind that this isn't just any work that happens to be out of print or not easily available. There needs to be external factors, usually statements from the creator that they are trying to suppress the work, to count as an example.
The TLP draft's Laconic, however, implies both a creator and a company can count—something not backed up by the description:
Despite this, this Trivia item, most likely due to its vague name, is attracting misuse for any art that a creator tried to bury, including art buried for reasons other than Creator Backlash, art buried by a corporation or creator's estate, and so on. As early as last year, I noticed misuse building up, and I wanted to do a wick check, but decided to wait a year to see if the misuse got worse.
I started a Trope Talk thread about the subject, and was being informed that a corporation burying the art may not count.
Per Morgan Wick:
Per Noaqiyeum:
A little under a year later, I eventually did the check.
Wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:
- 19/50 wicks were correctly used (with the creator burying art due to Creator Backlash), or 38%
- 9/50 wicks concerned a creator burying art for reasons other than Creator Backlash, or 18%
- 6/50 wicks didn't say why a creator buried the art, or 12%,
- 9/50 wicks were of a corporation or a creator's estate burying the art, or 18%,
- 1/50 wicks were of other use, or 2%,
- 5/50 wicks were zero-context examples or unclear, or 10%, and
- 1/50 wicks were unclassifialble, or 2%
Totaling correct and incorrect use together, that's
- 19/50 wicks correct, or 38%, and
- 30/50 wicks incorrect, or 60%
Analysis: There was a lot of correct use, which is good—that rules out a cut or disambiguation. However, 30/50 wicks being incorrect is still really bad. I noticed there were two big categories of misuse. The first were creators burying art for reasons other than Creator Backlash (with reasons including as a protest against a bigoted creator, backlash from the audience rather than the creator, controversy, and other reasons). The second were corporations or creator's estates burying the art, rather than the creator. There is a not insignificant chance some of this misuse was due to sloppy Old Shame wick cleanup, but I know for a fact some of the misuse dates back to the TLP draft, with some misused examples appearing in the comments of the draft.
Possible solutions: I've got two.
- One possible solution would be to expand the definition to explicitly include corporations burying art, along with creators burying art for non-backlash reasons. I am in favor of this solution, although to what we would expand it to would require discussion.
- If not that, we could rename this trope to make it clearer that it's about the art being buried due to backlash. Backlash Induced Creator Suppression (based on the original name in TLP), maybe?
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
(by supernintendo128)
Category: Duplicate Trope
Issue: At first glance it seems like another "stock object depiction" trope, but it's actually a trope for when Hueys are used in situations where they shouldn't be, which heavily overlaps with Artistic License – Military. Like other tropes of this nature, it turned into simply "A Huey is used" even when it makes sense for a Huey to be used. It's not doing well either as it only has 62 wicks and 10 on-page examples.
Wick Check: The majority of examples are either misuse or zero-context. I think the reason for this is the vague criteria as to what constitutes as "inappropriate usage" (i.e. the work takes place after the Vietnam War and countries that have never flown Hueys are using them). In addition, sometimes people will use the trope to list off different models of helicopters presented in the work, even though the trope page says not to do that. View the detailed wick check here.
To Summarize:
- Correct: 17/56
- Aversions: 6/56
- Justified/Intentional Depictions: 6/56
- General Misuse: 6/56
- ZCE: 13/56
- Potholes: 6/56
- Unsure: 2/56
If we only factor in the 17 correct examples, then this page is starving.
Proposed Solution: Just cut it and move any applicable examples to Artistic License – Military or Just Plane Wrong.
(This is a thread for both All Men Are Perverts and All Women Are Lustful)
All Men Are Perverts and All Women Are Lustful are supposed to describe a work portraying men/women as being obsessed with sex by default, with All Women Are Lustful's description pointing out that an individual character being sex-obsessed is misuse (with Really Gets Around being said to be the generic promiscuity trope). In practice, both tropes are mostly being used for exactly that, describing individual characters who are perverted rather than large groups or talking about how a work portrays that gender as a whole. On the other hand, both tropes are also listed as Tropes in Aggregate, implying that it's the amount of works with perverted male/female characters that is notable, not how the work itself treats them.
Wick check is here; the results are:
All Men Are Perverts (60 wicks checked):
- All (or the vast majority) of men are perverted: 25%
- Individual men are perverted: 37%
- Other misuse: 10%
- ZCEs and unclear potholes: 28%
All Women Are Lustful (50 wicks checked):
- All (or the vast majority) of women are perverted: 22%
- Individual women are perverted: 40%
- Other misuse: 10%
- ZCEs and unclear potholes: 28%
All Women Are Prudes is also listed on Tropes in Aggregate, and all three were added seemingly unilaterally, making me dubious if any of them actually belong there. Nonetheless, they're there and that muddies the waters as to what the tropes are.
Personally, I think All Men Are Perverts and All Women Are Lustful should be removed from Tropes in Aggregate, as 'work has a perverted character' really doesn't seem notable in any way unless its called out as being expected for their gender. I'm not sure what to do to stop further misuse, as the names both seem pretty clear that they're about more than individual characters. If we want to keep them as tropes in aggregate, the definitions will need to be changed to fit that.
Category: Unclear Description/Ambiguous Name
I Shall Return's Example as a Thesis description makes it difficult to ascertain how exactly the trope is defined. The first line of the description states that "There is a moment where a hero, such as a soldier of an elite commando force, barely escapes a high security headquarters with the help of fellow prisoners who have risked everything to help him escape, and now have to be left behind."The laconic says "The hero must leave the people who helped him in peril, but vows to come back and save them."
Both suggest that the character they promise to come back for is someone who helped them escape from captivity/peril. However, literally none of the wicks checked match that rather narrow definition.
Interpreting it more loosely as 'a character must leave someone behind, but promises to return for them', there's still a lot of misuse where the trope is used for any instance of 'character promises to return', with no escape or rescue involved, likely due to the vague name.
Wick Check
A wick check was conducted here:- 0/50 (0%): A character must leave behind the people who had helped them escape, but promises to return for them.
- 9/50 (18%): Character promises to return for someone, but there's no mention that person helped them to escape.
- 27/50 wicks (54%): Character tells someone they'll return or meet again someday for whatever reason, no mention of any escape/rescue.
- 6/50 (12%): Other/unclear.
- 8/50 (16%): ZCE.
None of the wicks checked included the strict definition of the trope where the character they promised to come back for helped them to escape. Over half the wicks also misuse the trope by using it for any type of promised return, likely due to the trope's name.
Suggestions
The description and laconic should be rewritten, defining it as a character who promises to return and rescue someone, without the requirement of that person helping that character to escape. The trope should also be renamed to something more specific.Category: Lots of Historical Misuse, Needs Cleanup
Short-Term Cleanup Thread on the matter (at least until it gets bumped off), and a more detailed Sandbox with the wick check.I made a thread about it earlier but it died before it could get unlocked. Anyway, while the page description for Four Is Death makes it clear that it is only meant to be used for examples where the "four" association is fairly significant, there's still a great deal of misuse of it for any instance of four being associated with various possibly coincidental negative things (either to themselves or their enemies), or former examples of what is now known as Elite Four. As there are currently 1922 wicks it's a lot of wicks to comb through manually to check for misuse. So I was hoping to get some help on that.
And possibly make some changes to the trope description to cut down on future misuse.
Category: Duplicate Trope
Based on the trope's description, Bad to the Bone feels especially redundant with Standard Snippet — examples of well-known songs that appear during "appropriate" times, and Standard Snippet both came out a year before Bad to the Bone and sees more usage. The only degree of specificity I could find is if Bad to the Bone is meant to describe songs that are lyrically appropriate for whatever film/TV show/media context they're applied to, but in my wick check, I could find zero examples that properly write it as such or use the trope "correctly". A vast majority simply say "a song was used here" without providing any attempt to connect the lyrics/tone/anything to what media it's appropriate for. Not only that, a not-insubstantial amount of wicks are directly referring to the trope namer (George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone"), and there's also a somewhat embarrassing amount of entries that misinterpret the trope entirely and think it's referring to literal bones.
Wick check here, and here's a summary of my findings:
- (27/50, 54%) Examples list a song name but no other descriptive context of the song or the scene.
- (14/50, 28%) Simply referring to the trope namer/using the name as a stock phrase.
- (5/50, 10%) Assumes the trope is about literal bones.
- (3/50, 6%) ZCE.
- (1/50, 2%) Other misuse.
So, yeah, not looking good. I suspect Standard Snippet itself suffers from a similar form of widespread misuse of not giving enough context to the song or media it's they're in to describe why the connections are relevant, as well as tripping on There Is No Such Thing as Notability, but for now, Bad to the Bone seems like a hard cut because there are no "correct" uses to salvage with a merge.
Really no clear definition of what this trope even is.
According to the description its: "the media's tendency to present women far skinnier than the average person as attractive, healthy and average/normal."
Actually im kind of uncomfortable with that description anyway— since its pretty much saying that women significantly skinnier than average are NOT attractive and healthy. Then it goes on to talk about shoulder width and rib cage depth, which, again, are not healthy OR unhealthy, theyre neutral genetic traits. Its also unclear if "giant breasts" is part of the requirement, or just noting that they are also unusually common in hollywood.
There could be a trope in "average women in movies are far skinnier than the real life average" or "every (attractive) female character in this show is very slender", but if there is, it sure isn't present in these examples. Maybe 2/50 fit that description
The laconic says its when underweight is presented as average, which, again, might be a trope, but is totally not what the rest of the page talks about.
So, what are the examples about, then?
(paste folders from Sandbox.Hollyw Oodt Hin)
Category: Not Tropeworthy
Courtesy link to the TLP draft.
The problem: Cartoon Whale is defined as when a whale is drawn in an unrealistic or cartoony way. Instead of describing how this is noteworthy or tropeworthy, the description is a long list of the different ways whales are drawn:
In cartoons, however, whales are usually drawn as blue/gray square-headed toothy creatures with wide mouths, halfway between a sperm whale and a baleen whale. And, of course, they will have a very noticeable blowhole, more often that not shooting a veritable water fountain from their back. Sperm whales in Real Life have the square heads you often see on cartoon whales, but their eyes aren't so close to their mouth like the baleen whale, their blowhole is located on the left side of the snout instead of the top of the head, and they have narrow jaws with small lower jaws and lack upper teeth.
As part of the "Stock Animal" tropes discussion, it was noted that this trope, along with other "Cartoon X" or "Stock X" tropes, have a tendency to attract non-noteworthy and zero-context examples. Directly quoting the relevant part of War Jay 77's OP:
and Cartoon Monkey have been controversial as of late for boiling down to "work portrays a simplified animal".Here are the specific issues I myself have noticed:
- A trend of ZCE examples, of the "is this" variety. It's not enough to just say an animal is stock if their appearance isn't elaborated on.
- A lack of noteworthy examples. Stock Food Depictions managed to get through, but it was because the examples placed were played with or used commonly in the works. Meanwhile, before a very recent cleanup attempt, many examples on Stock Cartoon Animal Depictions were just things like "this work has an animal that looks like this".
I mentioned that I had added an example to the page of the Vineyard Vines whale mascot
◊, but was having trouble adding context to the example since there wasn't a lot I could describe. Recently, I was thinking about this discussion, and I decided to do a wick check to determine if there was a problem.
Wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:
- 1/39 wicks, or 2.56%, were written in a noteworthy way with proper context,
- 27/39 wicks, or 69.23%, were just descriptions of how cartoon whales were drawn, with little to no differences from other cartoon whales,
- 2/39 wicks, or 5.13%, were zero-context,
- 3/39 wicks, or 7.69%, were unclear or other misuse, and
- 6/39 wicks, or 15.38%, were unclassifiable.
Totaled together, that's
- 1/39 wicks, or 2.56%, correctly used, with context, and noteworthy, and
- 32/39 wicks, or 82.05%, non-noteworthy, zero-context, or misused.
Analysis: Just one example was written in a noteworthy(ish) way, describing how the apperances of the whales contrasts with the relatively realistic portrayals of whales in the rest of the movie. The rest of the examples either were misuse, zero-context, or, the vast majority of which, just descriptions of what the whales look like with little to no actual mention of why that is noteworthy or different from other portrayals. This confirms suspicions that this trope is attracting such examples.
Possible solution: With these results, I recommend cutting. I don't see much that can be sent to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard, and I really don't think Cartoon Whale is something that's worth keeping.
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
Category: Misused
Courtesy link to the original TLP draft.
The problem: Sapient Cetaceans is a trope about dolphins and whales that are as intelligent as humans, or can do intelligent things typically only humans could do. Per the description:
Sapient cetaceans may demonstrate obvious sentience because of genetic engineering or magical phlebotinum, or human-level intelligence and the skills to prove it may just be natural traits of cetaceans in the setting.
However, this trope was suspected of being misused for any anthropomorphic dolphin, rather than dolphins being smarter than other animals. Per Lymantria's comment:
While the description doesn't necessarily back this up, I was intrigued, and (without checking the description) I decided to do a wick check to see if there were problems.
Wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:
- 12/50 wicks, or 24%, were correctly used (with the cetaceans being as or nearly as smart as humans),
- 3/50 wicks, or 6%, were just an anthropomorphic cetacean or a cetacean not necessarily as smart as humans,
- 15/50 wicks, or 30%, were of dolphin-like alien races,
- 2/50 wicks, or 4%, were of other misuse,
- 15/50 wicks, or 30%, were zero-context or unclear, and
- 3/50 wicks, or 6%, were unclassifiable.
Totaled together, that's
- 12/50 wicks, or 24%, correct, and
- 35/50 wicks, or 70%, incorrect.
Analysis: As I alluded to earlier, what I thought would show up in the wick check (misuse for any anthropomorphic whale) did not materialize. What did materialize, however (as pointed out by nrjxll) were examples of dolphin- and whale-like alien races, which would be misuse under the current animal-specific definition. There were also a ton of zero-context examples.
Possible solutions: Alright, here's what I've got:
- We could split off dolphin- and whale-like alien races into a new trope. While nrjxll expressed disapproval of such an idea, I think a Cetacean People or Cetacean Aliens trope might still be a valid concept on its own. GastonRabbit additionally noted a Missing Supertrope case since the trope is being used for anthropomorphic cetaceans or a cetacean race—that's what this could also be or be worked into.
- Failing that, we could rename Sapient Cetaceans to make it clearer that dolphins and whales specifically are the smart ones, and not alien races or as a part of other animals. Something like Cetaceans Are Smart? Cetaceans Are Smarter? I don't know.
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
Category: Not Thriving
The problem: Teaching Through Accident is a trope about "when a game encourages the player to make a certain specific "mistake" that might illuminate something for them." A valid concept, but unfortunately it has gained just 6 wicks since 2013, and with crosswicking would have around 19 (including indexes and so on)—putting it in "Starvation" territory per Wick. While there was a TLP draft for this trope, it appears no crosswicking was done after launch—hence the lack of wicks.
Possible solution: Since this is (IMO) a valid trope, sent back to the TLP or, failing that, the Trope Idea Salvage Yard.
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
Aborted Declaration of Love is supposed to be about when a character has a last chance to confess their love for a character, but doesn't go through with it, due to the fact that the character confessed to will not be able to return the confessor's feelings. Reason can include the confessor is about to die, the confessed to person being in a relationship with another person, or the two will be separated with no indication that they will ever reunite.
Unfortunately a good deal of the wicks of the character abort their declaration with no indication that they will get no other chance, more often then not it is a mere speedbump on the road to the declaration of love. This falls under the the trope False Start, however that trope also includes instances of Interrupted Declaration of Love and Moment Killer.
Cannot Spit It Out is similar but is about a character can not open up about their feelings rather then a specific instance of them being unable to open up, and it can be about other things a character can not spit out other then love.
This Wick Check has 68% Aborted Declaration with no indication of not getting another chance, 14% zero context examples, 10% "speak now or forever hold your peace" examples, and 6% instances of Interrupted Declaration of Love, and 2% other example.
Short version: Is this not just a video game-specific version of Ms. Fanservice?
Longer version: A while back I brought up Third-Person Seductress on Image Pickin' due to the page image at the time being Just a Face and a Caption of Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, and in several attempts to find better, more illustrative examples of the trope, we repeatedly ran into problems of not being able to find illustrations that actually said more than "the player character is an attractive woman," missing out on the implied idea behind the trope that the character was made with the specific intent by developers to give the (presumably heterosexual male player) something sexy to play as with the driving philosophy being "Sex Sells". However, someone pointed out that that's just a Distinction Without a Difference, and those in the thread agreed.
I understand the specific implication of what the Third-Person Seductress trope is getting at, but the problem is that when compared to something like Ms. Fanservice, there's a very specific bar to clear in saying this character was not just for the sake of providing fanservice, but to fulfill this very direct assertion of "the game was going to show the back end of a character for hour upon hour, then it may as well be the back end of a pretty girl." That's not only treading into "The Same, but More Specific", but that's a bar that none of the wicks I checked cleared — all of them avoid explaining that qualifier and just use it synonymously with Ms. Fanservice.
- (0/50, 0%) Examples explaining that the attractive female player character was made the way she is for male titillation
- (17/50, 34%) Example is just "an attractive female player character" (and many are ZCEs/lack description)
- (12/50, 24%) Descriptive potholes used in other entries (many for Ms. Fanservice)
- (6/50, 12%) Other forms of misuse
- (15/50, 30%) Other ZCEs
It's not looking great. Even regarding Tomb Raider being the most famous use of the philosophy, the wicks I found regarding to the game don't actually provide developer context, and frankly, this is such a heavy burden to require for the trope that I'm wondering if there are actual examples that do it straight. If they are, this still feels like being Too Rare to Trope on its own. Easy merge into Ms. Fanservice for me.
A trope with serious focus issues, in that it has some evident trouble deciding what it wants to be outside of a general catalogue of every instance in which a mouse or mouselike character is evil, rude, annoying, or inconvenient. Out of 69 on-page examples, the spread is as such:
- Mice as villains: 17/69 = 24.6%
- Mice as jerks: 8/69 = 11.6%
- Mice as thieves: 15/69 = 21.7%
- Mice as pranksters: 10/69 = 14.5%
- Mice as game enemies: 10/69 = 14.5%
- Other mice: 9/69 = 13%
There are only 21 crosswicks, of which one is to the laconic, one is to Image Source, and four lack any context whatsoever, but they show the same erratic spread of content ranging from "ledge-patrolling game enemies" to "mischievous pranksters" to "heroic rogues" to "vicious, heartless murderers".
The most obvious solution would be to ditch the moral aspect entirely to focus on mice being portrayed as wily pranksters and food thieves, which are collectively the most consistent thread in the pile. We would then need to decide whether that is worth keeping as its own page or whether it should be merged with Resourceful Rodent.
Category: Misused/Unclear Description
The problem: Concerns were raised in this Trope Talk thread about Pædo Hunt's description being too ambiguous about what the trope even is about. The trope is about villains who are pedophiles, but the unclear description has lead to the trope being misused in different ways that have nothing to do with the current definition.
Wick Check: Link here. These are the results:
- Current definition of a villain who is a pedophile: 32% (16/50)
- General paranoia/hysteria towards pedophilia: 10% (5/50)
- Literally hunting actual pedophiles: 10% (5/50)
- Characters wrongfully accused of being pedophiles: 6% (3/50)
- Characters who are pedophiles but not villains: 6% (3/50)
- Potholes for any kind of mention of pedophilia: 10% (5/50)
- IRL troping: 6% (3/50)
- ZCEs or unclear context: 22% (11/50)
That's:
- 32% Current definition
- 68% Misuse
Cosplay is a trope about well... cosplay. This resulted in me wondering if this trope is tropeworthy.
Here are the results from the wick check:
- Character cosplaying with some context - (2/50)
- Just a character cosplaying - (20/50)
- Other (ZCE, pothole, misuse etc.) - (28/50)
As you can see, most of the wicks are pothole or references to cosplay. Subsequently, I saw misuse of the trope (in that characters just dress up in flashy costumes, not fictional characters).
Possible Solutions:
- Retool the trope into a Useful Notes page about cosplay and cosplay culture.
- Yard any potential concepts (like Company Cross Cosplay).
That Stellar Theme Naming redirect is more tropeworthy though.
(by supernintendo128)
Category: Not Thriving
Issue: This trope is starving with 17 wicks and 225 in-bound links. It dates back to 2011.
Wick Check: There are 17 wicks, two of which come from Administrivia (Pages Needing Wicks and Tropes Needing TRS), another two come from Indexes, and one of which coming from Trope Report Ideas. I only found two ZCEs (The Petriculture Cycle and Dead Again).
Proposed Solution: Cut and yard.
Category:Needs help
Note: The creator of Happily Married Wick Check, Walk In Shadows, left the wiki before finishing the wick check.
Happily Married is defined as two characters having a successful marriage. A wick check is conducted for Happily Married to gauge ZCE severity. The results are as follows.
- 8.65% (9/104) of wicks are of correct usage.
- 6.73% (7/104) of wicks are examples that mention the married couple being happy, but not "how happy".
- 18.27% (19/104) of wicks are examples that mention the characters being married, but no context on whether their marriage is successful.
- 2.88% (3/104) of wicks are examples that show the characters being happy together / care for each other, but no context on their marital status.
- 29.81% (31/104) of wicks are examples that don't have enough context on marital status and how the characters' relationship is like.
- 3.85% (4/104) of wicks are examples with context that do not fit the definition (i.e., misuse).
- 29.81% (31/104) of wicks are potholes.
(by supernintendo128)
Category: Not Thriving/Really a Useful Note
Issue: This trope has only 21 wicks and no on-page examples. It reads more like a list of FOMO ad practices than an actual trope page. As a trope, it overlaps with But Wait, There's More!.
Wick Check: Of the 21 wicks, only 6 of them are actually on any work pages, two of which are ZCEs (Vince Offer and Have I Got A Book for You!, the latter page since deleted) and one of which being a Sinkhole (Hug the Sun).
Proposed Solution: Recategorize as a Useful Note.
Category: Needs Rename
Issue: I feel like the page could use a rename as it also includes the three Kaisers of Germany (who were Kings of Prussia ex officio), since to many, the German Kaisers are more well-known than the previous kings of Prussia (Frederick the Great notwithstanding).
Proposed Solutions:
I feel like the title should simply be changed to reflect the fact that it includes the German Kaisers – say, "Prussian Kings and German Kaisers," or "Prussian and German Monarchs."
Another possibility would be to broaden the page to make it about Hohenzollern monarchs (e.g. "The House of Hohenzollern") – akin to the pages on previous British monarchs (I've been meaning to give the Prussian Kings page a sprucing-up to make their formatting more akin to those pages anyway). However, making the page about the Hohenzollerns leaves it open to expansion – for the sake of completeness – to include the Kaisers' relations in the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen who ruled Romania. That would be doable, since the number of Prussian kings isn't as long as say, the number of English Plantagenet monarchs (unless you also include the dukes of Prussia and Electors of Brandenburg who preceded the Kingdom) and Romania only had four kings, and precedent was established with The House of Hanover's page, which includes the last few kings of Hanover after the British and Hanoverian monarchies diverged in 1837.
This is another case in which a dialog trope becomes a misuse magnet. In My Friends... and Zoidberg, someone addresses a group followed by a person of that group that's often spurned. When checking wicks with help from other tropers, a lot of use is either out-of-universe or involves someone who is not even part of the group.
Of the 66 wicks, including one that's split between categories:
- Correct use: 15.5/66 = 23.5%
- Not In-Universe: 9/66 = 13.6%
- Misuse that fits elsewherenote : 17.5/66 = 26.5%
- ZCE or shoehorns: 24/66 = 36.4%
While I would suggest declaring this as In-Universe Examples Only, that alone won't be enough as we learned before. So, a clearer name would be in order; maybe Singled Out Gag?
Launched in 2011, For Your People, By Your People has amassed only 19 wicks, including one redirect, which would normally put in starving range. However, as it's indexed as an Advertising Trope, the threshold is in its favor.
Tropes Needing TRS did note a very short description and the on-page examples being just a list of quotes. Since whether or not the trope is thriving is not the focus now, a wick check is in order to see if the issues appear across the wiki.
- Some context given, or played with:
- Series.MADTV 1995: Parodied in a sketch. It spoofed Grey's Anatomy, and at one point Dr. Gregory House from House shows up to provide a new pair of eyes on the medical case they are struggling with. He argues with Dr. Grey, and she calls him a sexist pig as she says that Grey's Anatomy is "a show written for women by women". House counters with saying that he finds her hot and points out that he has an erection, and says that House is a "a show written by men for women who like abusive men".
- Undertale.Tropes C To F: Parodied with the Spider Bake Sale, which offers baked goods made "by spiders, for spiders, of spiders!"
- Just a quote or pothole:
- Fanfic.Oversaturated World: From Group Precipitation: Adventure Capitalism:"the Infinite Carousel. Of Rarities, by Rarities, for everyone."
- GirlGenius.Tropes F To J (re: Fantastic Racism): There is much prejudice against Constructs of all 11 varieties, and also against the Jägers. In the case of the Jägers, the prejudice is understandable (they're awesome Blood Knight troops of the most dangerous conquerors around, and without The Kid with the Leash they're bad news). But not in Mechanicsburg. There it's "by monsters, for monsters".
- VideoGame.Sonic Exe The Disaster 2 D Remake: The game was made for the people of Exe Empire, by Exe Empire (team).The game made in association with the Exe Empire Discord community.
- WebVideo.Echo Chamber: Quote pothole
- Webcomic.Dominic Deegan: From the strip of December 18, 2019: Dream Poetry: Volume Five: Poems of, for, and from the dreamscape
- Website.TV Tropes: By fans, for fans.
- The TV Tropes webseries Echo Chamber states in its credit roll that it is "Created for Tropers, by Tropers."
- Wrestling.Juggalo Championship Wrestling: As said after the battle royal one Vol. 1, "For Juggalos, by Juggalos."
- YMMV.Roommates (re: Pandering to the Base): This is a fandom comic created by a fan for fans (mostly fangirls, some things are done For Science! this comic For Meta! and For SQUEE!). Thank goodness Ashe knows where (s)he can give in (like adding cameo's from Sherlock to Loki) and the fandom is a highly devoted (and analytical) one.
- Other:
- Epiphora: Supertrope relationship
- For Xs By Xs: Redirect
- Of the People: "No relation to"
- TrochaicTetrameter.Tropes: JFF list
- Not being checked due to being indices:
So, judging by the wicks, we have another trope that falls prey to the trap that has claimed many Stock Phrase tropes. I'm considering cutting this.
Launched in 2020, My X Is AY only has 7 wicks, putting it in wick-starved territory. Its status as a Stock Phrase is not helping.
We can yard the "My other X is a Y" idea, as it's possible to make parodies of that phrase. Everything else can probably be cut.
During a wick cleaning project, I came across Drag Queen. Reading the trope description, it reads very much like Useful Note and skimming the on-page examples, it feels like it's only used to mean "Character is a drag queen" which is pretty chairsy. It was brought up in the All-Purpose Policy TRS thread
that I should probably do a wick check for it to see if any other tropes could be identified or if it really was my hypothesis of "Character is a drag queen" and "Drag Queen used as a Useful Note". So I did.Here were the results:
- Character is a drag queen/king (I) - 38%
- Overlaps with Crossdresser and its supertropes (II) - 8%
- ZCE and Unclear use/pothole (III) - 12%
- Reads/Used like a Useful Note (IV) - 34%
- Some combination of the above (V) - 6%
- Unsortable (VI) - 2%
Analysis
So yeah, my hypothesis was proven correct.38% of the wicks is just "Character is a drag queen" while 34% just kinda utilizes Drag Queen like a Useful Note.Solution:
- Turn the page into a Useful Note
- There is also an index of certain drag queen creators, which I think can certainly be useful to keep.
- Cut all on-page examples and wicks that use it as a trope because "Character is a drag queen" is chiars.
Category: Not Tropeworthy
Another problematic appearance trope. The description offers multiple possible meanings of said trope, but almost all usage, according to the Hair Intakes Wick Check, is basically character has these, often with the addition of something like them looking like cat ears. Nothing explaining what sort of meaning or significance they have, if any.
My proposal is to redirect it to Anime Hair due to the chairsy usage and number of inbounds.
The Description says the trope is when instead of 1 bad cop, all the cops are bad. That is how it distinguishes it from Dirty Cop.
The Laconic says it is "Cops are a combination of corrupt assholes and useless idiots."
The actual examples seem to a vague mix of specific dumb or asshole cops, corrupt precincts, and worlds where "All Cops Are Bad" is the rule.
The name is very confusing, as it seems like it's related to Good Cop/Bad Cop. Or at least a *specific* cop character trait. Rather than an element of their worldbuilding. It should at least be plural if it's specifically about groups of police being dirty cops. People adding examples seem to assume it just means cops are stupid/bad in the story. It also seems to want to include examples of Police Are Useless.
I am not sure how it is supposed to be distinguished from The Bad Guys Are Cops. Which also seems to be very vague.
I *think* (?) the tropes are trying to be some combination of:
Villain Cop : A villain who is a cop.
Dirty Precinct : An entire police department of Dirty Cops
All Cops Are Bad : Stories where cops are universally portrayed negatively (includes Dirty Precinct)
Police in Pocket : When the police are in cahoots with the bad guys
Police Are Useless: police don't help to solve problems or make them worse
But in practice, both tropes are treated as just "bad cops are antagonists"
Out of 50 checked wicks:
- 5 refered to all cops
- 17 refered to (at minimum) a specific department
- 2 refered to a fraction of cops
- 3 refered to cop duo's of traits
- 16 refered to an individual cop
- 7 were unspecified
- 7 examples were exclusively incompetent cops
- 14 were exclusively bad cops
- 22 were some combination
- 7 were unspecified
I think this trope should be renamed to "Dirty Precinct" or "All Cops Are Bad". As that seems to be the most clearly distinguished intention of the trope. I prefer "All Cops Are Bad" as it covers the "Dirty Precinct" examples while including the settings that don't involve a specific Precinct.
The Bad Guys Are Cops also needs work as it shares the same problems as this trope. But that should be easier to discuss once this trope is clarified.
Category: Misuse
Comparing the laconics on the indexes for this trope v. the actual trope description, I became concerned that the trope was being used in a broader fashion than it's definition required. The definition of the trope boils down to the following:
- A situation between two people is heading in a direction that makes a fight imminent
- Between the two individuals, one is definitively stronger or has an obvious advantage over the other
- The stronger person wishes to avoid the oncoming fight and attempts to prevent it by issuing the statement that any ensuing fight will result in their opponent losing. Badly.
The index laconics paint a broader picture:
- Anger Tropes: I don't want to do this, but because you made me angry, I will!
- A Reluctant Index: I don't want to hurt you, but if you force a fight, I will.
- Threatening Tropes: I'm warning you! I don't want to have to do this, but if you don't stop what you're doing, I'll have to hurt you!
All of these are missing the imbalance between opponents in the ensuing fight. In fact, they're all structured as dialogue. The Anger Tropes laconic presumes that the one who wishes to avoid a fight be angered into doing so, but that's not a requirement for the trope. It also doesn't make it clear that a fight is ensuing, suffering from the "this" version of ZCEs.
I completed a wick check which showed a disconcerting amount of incorrect usage.
- 6% correctly used the trope
- 36% lacked an obvious power imbalance between opponents
- 10% gave the threat either during or after the fight
- 12% had no impending fight
- 4% had a third party issue the warning
- 18% were PCEs or ZCEs
- 14% were potholes.
Combining the misuse, that's 62% misuse. I'm not certain that the additional requirement of a power imbalance is actually necessary to this concept being tropeworthy. I think the core aspect of this trope is the threat itself. The point being that one character is still more than willing to get rid of their opponent if it comes to that, but because of their relationship, the other character is being given a chance instead of directly heading into adversity. Several of the example I've sorted under "No power imbalance" also do not have an ensuing fight. Instead the alternative is usually killing them without a fight (e.g. shooting them in the head).
Considering the amount of misuse, I think it's fair to expand this trope to any instance the phrase is used to avoid a confrontation of some sorts (either a fight or just straight up shooting someone), removing the power imbalance requirement. This solves the largest category of misuse. I'm less certain on what to do with the remaining categories. I could see including usage where someone who does not wish to kill their opponent tries to get them to surrender when its obvious the fight is lost and possibly usage where there is no impending fight but the circumstances make it obvious the two characters are now on opposing sides and a confrontation in the future is possible.
Category: Misuse
Fighter, Mage, Thief is a trope suffering from multiple issues, rampant with Zero Context Examples and Misuse. While Three Approach System was created as a supertrope to help cut down on misuse last time it was sent to the Trope Repair Shop, issues go beyond the placement of games with Three Approach Systems that do not fit the Fighter, Mage, Thief dynamic.
Wick Check Results: (click here for the wick check)
- Number of examples that fit the description: 1/50 (2%)
- Number of examples that don't fit the description but fit the vibe: 10/50 (20%)
- Number of problematic examples: 39/50 (78%)
Problems:
- Description clashing with non-game examples: The description is clearly designed for gameplay in mind but looking at the page alone shows there are numerous non-gameplay examples.
- Leaning more into the Power Trio than Three Approach System: This trope was written in mind of the Three Approach System (despite being made before the Three Approach System page funny enough) but even in games people fit examples of a Power Trio that fit the three archetypes even if the gameplay system is not a Three Approach System. The fact this is listed in the Power Trio index does not help.
- Common Character Classes, Three Approach System and some of TAS's subtropes are underexposed: The number of wicks for Common Character Classes and Three Approach System are in the 30s, meanwhile Fighter, Mage, Thief is a kilowicked at over 1200. FMT visibility will make less aware tropers gravitate towards this for class systems or gameplay roles due to lack of awareness of more appropriate tropes.
- Misunderstanding what the "Thief" in Fighter, Mage, Thief means: Usually when a trio doesn't fit, this is because the attempt at a "Thief" does not fit, due thinking that the Thief is basically just the "third class" to Fighter and Mage rather than tied to a "finesse" role. I honestly blame the trope's unclear name for this as it is clear that Fighter equates "strength" and Mage equates "sorcery", what Thief means isn't going to be clear to those unfamiliar with older RPGs (it's more common to see "Rogues" rather than "Thieves" in modern RPGs).
- Being an old trope means Zero Context Examples are inevitable: It's an old trope, ZCEs are going to inevitably show up simply due to how long its been around.
There is a pattern for Fighter, Mage, Thief to be a trope as seen in games like Ultima, Dragon Age and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning so I would not recommend cutting this trope. However, I do propose solutions how to fix this trope.
Proposed Solutions:
- Rename Fighter, Mage, Thief: As long as the "Thief" is used for the title, misuse is going to be inevitable, a clearer name will cut down on misuse with the original name becoming a disambiguation page. (Strength Sorcery Finesse may work, a similar line is already used in the trope itself!)
- Facilitate for Power Trio: This can be done in two ways.
- Soft Split Fighter, Mage, Thief into two different types, with "Power Trio" type and "Three Approach Type". This seems to be how the trope is used nowadays and Tropes Are Flexible, plus if FMT is renamed, we will avoid the issue deciding the name of a new Power Trio trope but as we have a whole thread about soft split issues, this could cause unnecessary navigation issues that soft split tropes have faced.
- Create a new Power Trio trope that fits three characters with this role. This does keep the Fighter, Mage, Thief trope to its gameplay roots and avoid potential issues of a soft split but may cause trouble of finding separate names for the two tropes that evoke their trope meaning.
- Soft Split Fighter, Mage, Thief into two different types, with "Power Trio" type and "Three Approach Type". This seems to be how the trope is used nowadays and Tropes Are Flexible, plus if FMT is renamed, we will avoid the issue deciding the name of a new Power Trio trope but as we have a whole thread about soft split issues
- Increase the visibility of Common Character Classes, Three Approach System and TAS's subtropes: Making these tropes more visible will help cut down on misuse as people stop trying to pigeon hole entries on Fighter, Mage, Thief due to not picking up on more suitable tropes. Moving the examples that better fit these will help along with linking them on the disambiguation page of Fighter, Mage, Thief's namespace after renaming.
Category: Not tropeworthy
The Bartender seems to either be defined as 'Bartender gives life advice' or just plain 'Bartenders exist', which is obviously not tropeworthy. The laconic page doesn't help much, as it simply states "The person who serves drinks and sound life advice to bar patrons". I did a wick check showing that 32 of the 50 wicks checked are about bartenders existing, 12 are Zero Context Examples and only one of them is about a bartender giving life advice. I would suggest cutting the trope and yarding tropable concepts, but a retool to the 'life advice giving bartender' definition might also be an idea.
(working on completely redoing the wick check (Overshadowed By Controversy Wick Check))
Overshadowed by Controversy is one of those YMMV tropes that's starting to become a problem child. As a trope that's all about controversy and drama, it was inevitable to happen. I have # primary concerns:
1. It's attracting people using the trope to push their beliefs on others. It's starting to remind me of Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped that I championed the removal of a few years back. That trope had the problem of being mostly comprised of "This work is good and everyone should agree with its morals", and OBC is starting to become "This work is bad because of a problematic element/the creator's out-of-work life and should be boycotted".
2. It attracts ROCEJ violations. Outside TV Tropes, one of the quickest ways to become OBC is to make any political statement. For instance, if you go on Twitter right now, you can find dozens of people harassing creators and threatening to boycott their work for supporting either side of the Israel-Palestine conflict right now. In theory, once the six-month embargo lifts, we're going to be bombarded with many OBC entries complaining that a famous creator supported Israel/Palestine and using the OBC example as a soapbox to proselytize about their side of the conflict and violate ROCEJ. We have until April until that embargo lifts and hoo boy am I not looking forward to that cleanup. Discussing real-world sex crimes may be also violating ROCEJ. The Real Life creators page in particular is basically a list of people who have committed crimes.
3. It might have a bit of a scope problem. In practice, media controversies can have many scales. Some do overshadow the entire work to most people, but there are lots of smaller controversies that alienate one demographic, for instancenote , but the examples are often written as if this derails any and all conversations about them (or at least it should), even when it doesn't.
4. It's getting misused a lot, and I think that's because OBC has an admonishing stigma that other tropes don't, so it's being used when someone wants to shame a work/creator even when other tropes are more valid. On the wick check alone, I found OBC examples that were better fits for Audience-Alienating Premise, Creator Breakdown, Critical Dissonance, Distanced from Current Events, Fandom Rivalry, Screwed by the Network, Troubled Production, and Worst News Judgement Ever. Looking through recents on the cleanup, there's also been OBC misapplication for tropes like Broken Base, Dear Negative Reader, and They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
(and coincidentally, three of the examples I considered a correct use of the trope were potholes in examples for other tropes that were themselves misuse of their respective tropes, namely Best Known for the Fanservice, Harsher in Hindsight, and Seasonal Rot.)
- Correct use (legitimate controversy, on-mission) (10/50)
- No longer "overshadows" a work, or never did, just drama importation (15/50)
- Off-mission (celeb gossip/drama, stealth complaining, using OBC when other tropes are more appropriate, etc.) (14/50)
- ZC Es, unclear, and other (11/50)
In the real world, many controversies fade over time. But, on TV Tropes, people don't tend to delete their old OBC entries when the controversy dies, only the cleanup thread does, mostly. People are still talking about this controversy because you won't shut up about it.
Suggestion: My vote would be for turning it into an index. There's already a gigantic block of comparable tropes, so we certainly couldnote .
- Not mutually exclusive with the above would be making it Flame Bait a la
Unfortunate Implications.
Category: Needs Help
In a recent TLP thread on Fu Manchu expies, the question was raised about significant overlap with Yellow Peril. And looking at the description of the trope, it's something of a mess. The earliest archived versions indicate it as a pretty straightforward list of Fu Manchu expies/parodies/etc. But over the last 15 years, its scope has bloated into anything involving villainous Asians (usually stereotyped), or historical periods of anti-Asian xenophobia.
Wick Check:The findings of the wick check can be found here. To summarize:
- Describing the character Fu Manchu: 4%
- Fu Manchu expies, parodies, and knockoffs: 6%
- Stereotypical or offensive Asian villains: 14%
- Asian villains in general: 30%
- Historical anti-Asian xenophobia: 10%
- Stereotypical Asians, not necessarily villains: 6%
- Other, potholes, or ZCEs: 30%
Suggestions:
- Rewrite the description of Yellow Peril to focus more on the historical context rather than any particular character
- Add an index to the Yellow Peril page to list common traits of stereotypical Asian villains of the era (Yellowface, Inscrutable Oriental, Asian Speekee Engrish, etc.)
- Split off a "copies of Fu Manchu" trope, and maybe a "copies of Ming the Merciless" trope as well
Category: Not Thriving
Title: Requiem is when a work uses the word "Requiem" in its title to signal that the story will be sad, dark, and anguished. A character's death is also likely to happen. A first glance at the examples listed on the trope page shows that most are Zero-Context Example. A wick check was conducted to assess the damage (Sandbox.The Wick Check Requiem). Here are the results:
Percentages (27/27):
- Valid = 33.33%
- ZCE = 25.93%
- Misuse = 3.70%
- Sandboxes = 18.52%
- Non-tropes and Potholes = 18.52%
Analysis:
The sample is minuscule, with 33.33% adhering to the trope definition, 25.93% merely noting that the work has the word "requiem" in the title, and one example where it was misused for a Yu-Gi-Oh! card name rather than the title of a work. The rest are non-trope related wicks and a few potholes in other tropes. If we cleaned up all the ZCE and misuse examples, we would end up with an estimated 19 wicks (and only 9 wicks will be instance when the trope is actually used), which would leave this trope starving.
It is very concerning that even with a clear and short definition, this trope hasn't accumulated more wicks in its 11 years of existence. I mean, two of its most recent wicks were in Sandbox.TRS Queue (when I added it to the list of tropes to be sent to the TRS) and Sandbox.The Wick Check Requiem (when I did the wick check for the trope).
Suggestion:
- Cut it.
- Disambiguated. Not entirely sure with which tropes, but the ones that come to mind would be Bittersweet Ending, Downer Ending, Tear Jerker and Foreshadowing.
- Any other suggestions are welcome.
Category: Not a Trope
Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death is about how certain horror movies tend to use a lot of "scary" words in the title to allude to the extremely graphic scenes they contain. The more "scary" words, the better. Since the trope encompasses only the title of a work, a typical example consists only of the trope name, as it is impossible to cite any additional context beyond what is immediately apparent, giving the wrong impression that the example is a Zero-Context Example. A wick check was conducted to determine the state of the trope and how it is used (Sandbox.Gory Deadly Overkill Wick Check Of Fatal Death). Here are the results.
Percentages (50/50):
- "Make no sense" titles = 16%
- "Redundantly scary" titles = 4%
- "Long and awkward" titles = 8%
- "Bloody and Campy" titles = 20%
- "Just campy" titles = 14%
- In Universe Parodies = 6%
- Non-tropes and Potholes = 32%
Analysis:
The examples are inconsistent and fall into several groups. 16% are nonsensical titles with at least one "scary" word, 4% have two or more "scary" words and are as close to what describes both the main page and the image on it, 8% are Long Title examples, 20% contain only the word "blood", and 14% have effectively nothing different from other typical horror movie titles not listed in this trope. The rest is made up of In-Universe examples, potholes, and non-trope wicks.
As I mentioned in the trope talk, I had a hard time figuring out which titles count for this trope, as well as determining what separates this example from typical horror movie titles not included here. And then MorganWick mentioned that the original YKTTW (link here) also has these problems and, I quote them "effectively admitted that many of the works listed would be difficult to verify."
The main page separates the examples between parody and non-parody, but since both groups tend to use over-the-top titles, it is impossible to tell them apart. Picking an example at random could result in a movie on the level of The Human Centipede, a horror comedy, a typical B horror movie, or not even a horror movie at all. As the wick check shows, some of the examples come from things like John Woo movies (Bullet in the Head), first-person shooters (Turbo Overkill), or professional wrestling (FMW).
The truth is that this trope doesn't really provide any valuable information or useful details about a movie other than the fact that the name is funny, which I suspect was the original reason this trope was created.
Suggestion:
- Make it a Just for Fun page. After all, the original draft of this trope is just a list of movies with funny titles that don't even have a page on TV Tropes.
- Disambiguate the trope with Intentionally Awkward Title, Department of Redundancy Department and Word Salad Title
- Cut the trope.
- Other suggestions are welcome.
Category: Ambiguous Name
According to the page definition Big Secret is supposed to be about someone in a mystery or crime story who has a Dark Secret that they're hesitant to reveal, thus making them seem like a suspect—only for it to be completely unrelated to the crime and just serve as a Red Herring. However, its incredibly vague name means that it regularly gets confused for tropes like Dark Secret and Plot-Driving Secret, and it is incredibly hard to search for as well—I've seen several different TLP drafts that overlap with Big Secret's scope, because they're completely unaware such a trope exists with this name.
Per the Wick Check:
- Properly used per the page definition: 24%
- Misuse (should be Dark Secret): 34%
- Misuse (should be Plot-Driving Secret): 10%
- Misuse (other): 6%
- Potholes and ZCEs: 26%
Suggestions:
- Hold a crowner to determine a new name (Red Herring Secret, Misleading Secret, Incriminating Alibi, etc.)
- Split the Big Secret namespace into a disambig page to Dark Secret, Plot-Driving Secret, and the renamed Big Secret trope
Category: Not a Trope
Per the trope's laconic: The narrower your search is, the harder it is to find something good. The description rambles on how this tenet of Sturgeon's Law often applies to Fan Works and porn, which is true but very much an Audience Reaction and the examples reflect that.
Analysis
- 1/3 (or 33%): In-Universe. A character is rewarded very poorly for his story because it doesn't interest many people. Listed on the trope's page.
- 2/3 (or 66%): Out-of-universe remarks along the lines of, "This troper is surprised that such an obscure pairing/work has fanfics". Not listed on the trope's page.
Furthermore, the original sponsor questions whether this concept ought to have examples because they'd amount to Troper Tales. The nail in the coffin is that this so-called trope is not thriving, what with having 17 wicks since its creation in 2009.
Suggested Solutions
- All tropers in this Trope Talk thread are inclined to cut it since it's off-mission for this wiki.
- It could be reworked into something like "character has an obscure/niche interest that fails to appeal to the majority". This also requires turning it into an In-Universe Examples Only page.
Category: Not Thriving
This trope is about an unarmed police officer encountering an armed criminal. Unlike their American counterparts, British coppers aren't normally issued fireweapons. So, when they encounter an armed criminal, they are in trouble. This is often a point exploited in British media.
I think it's an alright concept, especially since it can apply to other countries' media —Peru and some other South American countries only issue small-caliber pistols in very extreme circumstances. The problem is that the trope has been left to gather dust to the point that even after cross-wicking, it only has 25 wicks. For me, the cause is its name being too long and non-indicative. The weird formatting of its description doesn't help matters either.
Proposed Solution
Renaming it to something that reflects its concept better and giving it exposure in the newsletter.
Category: Not Thriving
This is a Non-Fiction trope when Real Life science is used to examine fictional works, which is a legit concept. However, since 2008 and after cross-wicking, it has only garnered 16 wicks, with 4 of them being "needs help" pages.
There are two causes. First, much like Advertising Tropes, there's simply a lack of work pages where this one could be linked back to. Secondly, one-third of the examples —i.e., 8 out of 22— examine several works of fiction at once and either it's genres or the example doesn't mention any specific work. This makes it hard to cross-wick them to any existing work page.
I'd also like to add that it doesn't feel entirely right to put examples of this trope on the referenced work pages, at least not the main ones. As it's something done externally to the fictional universe of the work, I think it fits more the trivia tab's scope. They'd only belong to the main pages of non-fiction works doing this. So I can't support marking it as trivia either.
Finally, the description is very condescending, as it concludes this is Fan Wank gone wrong.
I don't think it should be cut but we definitely need to do something about it.
Rework proposal sandbox: Xenofiction Works
Category: Misuse
Despite the low wick count at 23, Unfortunate Ingredients is actually not Starving - it's an advertising trope, which have a lower requirement. That said, it might just be the trope I've seen with the highest percentage of misuse per the total number of wicks. The trope is meant to be "ingredients in products are renamed when they become controversial (mostly for being unhealthy)" but in practice, almost the only places that use that definition are indexes listing the trope. The Unfortunate Ingredients Wick Check found exactly one correct use of the trope in the wild. The trope's sparse usage in the wild is almost exclusively "ingredients that are unhealthy". To split off the misuse into its own trope would leave two starving tropes. As it's a tiny trope from 2009, it could probably be cut.
Category: Actually Trivia
Same Content, Different Rating is when, according to it's laconic page, "A new installment or a re-release has a different rating with little change in content". Despite it tackling background information, it is not labeled as a trivia trope. Additionally, 38 of the (currently 190) wicks are on Trivia pages.
I was told that it doesn't need a wick check, so I am asking for a move to Trivia.
Loser Son of Loser Dad is about unfair perception, before the son even does anything he is compared to his father. To many examples are of the son actually taking after his father which belongs under In the Blood. According to the wick check 56% are unfairly perceived as losers, 30% are actually losers, 8% are ZCE.
Category: Misuse
Damned by Faint Praise defines itself as pointing out that something is bad via praise that exposes its flaws. I quote, "To damn something with faint praise is to point out that something is mediocre or worse by praising it in ways that make its weaknesses clear". However, a great number of examples and other pages linking to it do not seem to think this is what it is and instead interpret it in a number of ways, most commonly a comment (praise or not) that is just odd, evasive and/or towards something that is merely disliked but not actually bad, in any case not even pointing out the flaws (someone, in fact, thought it covered Half-Baked Niceness when I had the latter in TLP, despite that one being about straight up badly done compliments which is different from damning by faint praise). Other times there is a distinct lack of context where the example doesn't actually explain how the trope fits, and there is also a handful of sinkholing involved; it seems as though the trope is a Pothole Magnet, given that some of the potholes are stuff like adjectives and single words.
Not helping are the laconic and Playing With pages; the former claims it is about praising minor aspects (the main makes no explicit mention of minor aspects) and the latter's straight example implies the trope is about being evasive. In addition, it opens with an Example as a Thesis which gives me more concern about the misuse, especially since it was used as an argument as to why this trope supposedly fits for bad compliments.
The title is also an idiom, which online dictionaries describe as praising something you dislike in a way that shows this dislike. Though this makes perfect sense, the trope itself doesn't use this definition as described above but some of the misuse does, so I have concerns that the title may be a misuse magnet on top of everything else.
A comprehensive analysis and wick check can be seen here. As a quick rundown:
- It shows that less than 20% of the 100 wick sample matches the description.
- Over half of the total consists of misuse and various sinkholes.
- The rest is misc stuff like ZCE and murky examples.
Finally, there is the YKTTW draft (before YKTTW became TLP). Based on the draft's contents and comments, the trope has already suffered from misuse before it was even launched; examples were added that are eerily similar to the misuse today, primarily being comments that don't actually point out any flaws or provide meaningful context, despite the description largely having remained unchanged. The oldest Wayback archive also shows it was indeed launched like this, compounding the idea that it had problems from the beginning. Given this, chances are that the misuse is rooted due to there already having been on-page misuse to begin with, not helped by conflicting descriptions of the trope by other pages and even its laconic and Playing With subpage, so just a clean-up might not be enough.
Proposal: Redefine the trope to make it clear what it is and what an entry needs to qualify, maybe also rename due to the idiom if the current definition is kept (since the idiom is different from the trope). Alternatively, axe/disambig the page and yard the concept if all else fails. However I'm not overly familiar with how tropes can be dealt with, so these aren't ironclad ideas.
Pursuant to this ATT, where it was suggested that this be brough here.
A bit of an odd one; this is less so an issue of misuse as it is one of this being in the wrong namespace. Specifically, it's in Main/ but should be in in Just for Fun/ .
So, Real Life has this gimmick that it talks about real life as if it were a sort of cross between a videogame and a sort of serialized fiction, and words its examples based on that. People are "players" or "characters", large areas such as countries are "servers", varying lengths of time and/or long events such as wars or civilizations are "seasons" or "expansions", God/deities are "the writer", "the writers" or "the devs", and so on and so forth. It's a fun concept, but it definitely isn't something that goes under Main/ — it's not a trope, obviously. I move that both it and its subpages be moved to the Just for Fun/ namespace.
Additionally, there has been a problem with people pasting over unmodified examples from trope pages' real-life sections, so I think we should codify a few basic rules here:
- One, examples should be written with the gimmick in mind to be allowed here.
- Two, I think this could be lax regarding the "storytelling" and "impossible in real life" sections of no-real-life tropes, since, again, this isn't strictly talking about real life per se but about real life if it were in fact a work of fiction.
Category: Misuse
Mounting loudspeakers on trucks is not a trope-worthy concept. The content of such announcements and the timing of their apparition, however, can have storytelling significance. This trope purports itself as being the specific case when a passing vehicle makes a very loud noise to indicate awkwardness. The description notes that it's more prevalent in Japanese Media. Unfortunately, the wicks nor the on-page examples reflect this definition.
Wick Check
- Correct usage: 0/17 or 0%
- Not enough context: 2/17 or 11.76%
- Zero-context: 3/17 or 17.65%
- Misuse: 0/17 or 0%
- Indexes and misc.: 12/17 or 70.59%
It should be noted that, of 16 on-page examples, only 1 is a correct usage of the trope; with the others ranging from zero-context to blatant misuse that can be summed up as "truck with loudspeakers appears".
The nail in the coffin is that the trope is starving, having amounted to 17 wicks since its creation in 2007.
Proposed Solution
Cut and send it back to the TLP so it can gather legit examples. Also, move the current examples and wicks to more appropiate tropes.
Category: Not Tropeworthy
The problem: Satiating Sandwich's trope description is somewhat unclear, but reads as just "there are sandwiches" and the entry on Baked Index seems to agree. The laconic entry, on the other hand, is "Sandwiches being a universal Trademark Favorite Food." This is backed up by the entries on Food Tropes ("A character likes sandwiches.") and Food as Characterization ("Love of sandwiches as a distinguishing character trait.")
Besides the confusion over what the trope actually is, neither is actually tropeworthy. "Sandwiches exist" is People Sit on Chairs and "sandwiches as Trademark Favorite Food" is The Same, but More Specific. A wick check finds a handful of types of usage:
- Trademark Favorite Food: 16/59 = ~27.12%
- Someone makes sandwiches: 8/59 = ~13.56%
- Large or filling sandwiches: 3/59 = ~5.08%
- Delicious sandwiches: 7/59 = ~11.86%
- Sandwiches exist: 15/59 = ~25.42%
- Other, unknown, and/or ZCE: 10/59 = ~16.95%
Moreover, 11 of the 16 Trademark Favorite Food wicks are about just 2 different characters.
There may be a salvageable trope in there, but I don't see it.
Category: Misused
The Chew Toy is basically a character who constantly suffers for the amusement of the audience, making it technically a subtrope of Butt-Monkey. However, the examples are mostly about a character who constantly suffers (if it's not used as a sinkhole), as shown in my Chew Toy Wick Check. Of the 69 wicks checked, 30 were talking about a character suffering without noting whether it was meant to entertain the audience, another 9 were about a character suffering in a way that was noted not to be played for laughs, and one was basically a player reaction. There were also examples that may have qualified with more context, ZC Es, and other messiness. There were only ten I thought qualified under its current name. Yes, only a little over one in seven.
My solution to this headache is to rename the trope and make it YMMV, to better make it distinct from Butt-Monkey, and because of the question of whether creators meant for a character's suffering to be humorous, also noting that The Woobie and its subtropes are YMMV despite it being obvious when a creator is trying to create a woobie. I don't have any names in mind, but I'm sure we can come up with something.
Category: Not Thriving
Spex is a trope that has been around since 2012, but has attracted seven wicks. Six if you exclude Administrivia.Pages Needing Wicks. One of the worst cases of a page not thriving I've ever seen.
My proposal is simple: Turn it into an index for Spex type plays. If there aren't enough such pages for an index, just cut it.
Category: Needs Help
The problem with Newspaper Comics is simple. Per here and here, there has been confusion over this media category. The main page is "Newspaper Comics" while Comic Strips is a redirect. However, even ignoring how comic strips can now be distributed digitally, see Garfield and Foxtrot, even before The Internet comic strips could also be published in Magazines. Because of this, it makes way more sense for the main page/trope name to be Comic Strips while Newspaper Comics should be a redirect instead.
I also believe that Comic Strips should very much be the official Media Category for it.
The Problem: Duplicate Trope
An oldie but not exactly a goodie, this trope appears to be a duplicate, or at least a The Same, but More Specific version of I Have Your Wife — the trope description even claims that it essentially is I Have Your Wife "only more versatile".
The key point of difference seems to be a reference to the character specifically turning traitor as a result of a loved one being threatened, and that they're usually a woman, but the description for I Have Your Wife seems to quite comfortably cover betrayal, and it's a far more prevalent trope, while The Commies Made Me Do It has less than 100 wicks and a rather cumbersome and confusing title (only a handful of the examples involve actual Commies).
In any case, there seems to be little reason to keep it around. In any case, the wick check revealed that a full 37/60 examples (62%) could fall under I Have Your Wife, while 20/60 (33%) were potholes, ZCE or misuse.
Potential solutions:
- Move applicable examples to I Have Your Wife, while cutting or redirecting the page.
- Alternatively, make it more specifically about coercion prompting betrayal.
Category: Actually an Audience Reaction
The trope's laconic defines it as "Someone online who mimics the talking/typing style of a celebrity." I think it's evident how such a concept is an audience reaction instead of an actual trope. Fans often mimic their preferred celebrity's lingo; other people end up doing the same through Pop-Cultural Osmosis if the celeb is mainstream enough.
Issues
- It's not listed as a YMMV page.
- It's not thriving at all, especially since it's from 2008, counting with 19 meager wicks.
- Its description (plus a few on-page examples) has a very disdainful tone on top of being only three lines long.
- Its example section is a mess; we need to reevaluate how to even sort the examples since most of them are from forums.
Analysis
- Indexes, "needs help" and misc. pages: 8/19 or 42.1%
- Refers to Real Life fans: 5/19 or 26.3%
- In-Universe cases: 5/19 or 26.3%note
- Creator acknowledges their fans do it: 1/19 or 5.3%
Suggested solutions
- The wick check indicates that, while there's no misuse, people use the trope equally for in-universe situations and to refer to real-life people. This supports a case for turning it into an Audience Reaction with an in-universe soft-split section.
- Turn it into an In-Universe Examples Only trope, then update the description to reflect that.
- In either case, fix the description so it has a neutral tone.
- Although the wick check doesn't indicate anything of the sort, there's no reason why this shouldn't include fans copying a non-internet celeb's speech patterns as well. It ought to help with the wick count at the very least.
Category: Actually an Audience Reaction
The trope refers to people actively hunting down spoilers for a piece of media, which is a behavior displayed by fans/haters that is totally independent of the work itself. Unfortunately, it's rarely used that way. And it only has 18 wicks total, on top of that.
Analysis
- Indexes, "needs help" and misc. pages: 6/18 or 33.3%
- Refers to Real Life people: 2/18 or 11.1%
- In-wiki usage (e.g., blue-linked in spoiler warnings): 5/18 or 27.8%
- Used in conjunction with other Audience Reactions (often self-referential) : 5/18 or 27.8%
Proposed solutions
- I believe noting spoiler-hounding behavior is within this wiki's scope, so I don't support getting rid of it entirely but instead yarding it due to the staggering misuse and lack of wicks.
- Turn it into an In-Universe Examples Only trope.
Enforced Trope is miscategorized. It's not a Playing With variation — it's not a way an author might twist a trope around. It is behind-the-scenes information about why a trope is present in a work. It's in the same category as Write Who You Know; it's not the same category as Invoked Trope.
Analysis
Issues
- 44% of examples are misused.
- The definition is very broad, to the point where virtually anything could be called an Enforced Trope.
- It is structurally Trivia and not Playing With due to it's relationship to out-of-universe.
Proposed solutions
- Turn it into a Trivia trope.
- Clarify the definition.
- Rename to create discontinuity and discourage people from using its old form. (Perhaps "Imposed Trope", or "Enforced Element"?)
Category: Not Tropeworthy
The way that I see it, what this amounts to is "work has been continuing for at least a decade", which looks to be more like a Trivia entry than a trope. In no way does the length of time that work is ongoing advance any story in a meaningful manner, so it is more fitting that it gets repurposed as Trivia. I am also not convinced that using that as an index would be feasible, given that there'd be quite a bit of fiction that fit this category, and compared to anything relating to production and time of release is not a particularly useful reference. It also seems to be one of the culprits of index bloat, where there would be more indices to a work than the hard cap (30) recognizes, and makes some indices appear glitchy. While we're at it, we may as well throw in Short-Runners having the same issue except "work did not last long".
Category: Misused
I was initally going to send this to TRS sooner, but waited until the TRS thread for An Aesop was called before sending this in, as it is yet another problematic trope about aesops related to that. A Green Aesop is basically "Moral lessons, but for the environment" and the examples listed doesn't seem to be on the right page according to what I found. You might think that this would be a ZCE magnet where people would shoehorn in the "Lesson of the Day" Speech by their own original findings on it, similar to how An Aesop was prior to being made def-only. I didn't find enough wicks where it would be a problematic concern.
Instead, most of the issues I found stem from not people sinkholing moral lessons in without context, but from people confusing it for other tropes. The problem that I see is that Green Aesop from a glance looks to be about "Let's save the environment! There are people that care for it!" from the description. While that may be the case for enviornmental characterization tropes, an environmental character does not equal a environmental lesson. Here's what the wick check found.
Summary of Green Aesop Wick Check
- 12/50 were the correct usage of a work having a moral lesson about the environment. (24%)
- 5/50 were works that have a theme about the environment but doesn't have a moral lesson mentioned or explained with context. (10%)
- 13/50 were works that has a character protecting/wanting to protect the environment. (26%)
- 6/50 were just "Eco-friendly stuff exists." (12%)
- 6/50 were zero-context examples. (12%)
- 3/50 had other cases of misuse. (6%)
- 2/50 contained misuse in several categories (4%)
- 3/50 were unclassifiable (6%)
So... There is a bit of correct usage here, which rules out a YMMV move or a disambiguation. A low wick count for ZCEs where the moral lesson was shoehorned in is a promising sign. I was going to check for complaining as well as seen in some of the more subjective Aesop tropes, but thankfully found none. From what I ultimately found, it is showing signs of being confused with other environmental tropes such as Green Thumb and Nature Lover. Most of this comes from characters that have a personality towards loving the environment and wanting to protect it, which isn't the scope of Green Aesop. Other forms of misuse comes from it being used for whenever any case of greenery appears in a work, which is chairs and not in any form a moral lesson about the environment. I think that the problem here is that there isn't a trope for evo-friendly mechanics or objects in general. Solar Punk is the closest to that which I found, but it doesn't delve much into common elements of renewable resources that are commonplace in the genre. I have a few proposals on hand, but this could be a bit tricky to tackle.
Possible Suggestions
- Rewrite the description to explicitly mention that it must be solely focused on moral lessons about the environment and not for instances of environmental themes simply existing.
- Rename the trope and broaden the definition to include common notable examples of greenery being featured in a work, however remove mentions of a character having environmental themes to them as that is already covered by environmental characterization tropes such as Green Thumb, Nature Hero, and Forest Ranger.
- If renamed, split off a new trope for environmental lessons similar to what was suggested in the An Aesop TRS thread.
I can accept other solutions not listed.
Category: Ambiguous Name
Barbaric Bully is supposed to be about the stereotypical cartoon bully: big, ugly, stupid, and Obviously Evil. However, its name is very similar to Bully Brutality, which is about highly harmful and possibly fatal bully violence. While the two can certainly overlap, Barbaric Bully is often used to simply describe bully violence.
A wick check, done here, gave these results:
- Correct - 4/50, or 8%
- Bully Brutality and other bully violence - 20/50, or 40%
- ZCEs and other contextless mentions - 26/50, or 52%
A vast majority of the examples were misuse or outright ZCEs, showing that this trope's title has caused a large amount of confusion.
Solution?: This one likely just needs a rename, given that's the core of its issues. I was thinking of something among the lines of Big Dumb Bully, Big, Brainless Bully, or Big Brutish Bully, though we can discuss potential titles further.
Category: Needs Help
The index Works by Subject was ostensibly created in order to house existing indices of works with significant commonalities in subject matter and themes. These indices were previously listed on Genres; however, the argument was made that many, such as Queer Media and Asian-American Media, did not actually meet the definition of a Genre.Since then, as discussed in this Wiki Talk thread, a number of indexes went through the Trope Launch Pad whose definitions can largely be boiled down to "work prominently includes 'x' eponymous thing in it", which has a couple of problems:
- It contributes to Index Bloat on the wiki, i.e. overly long blocks of indices that could potentially cause the page's indexing to break altogether.
- There is concern that many of these indices are essentially an end run around the Trope Repair Shop's ongoing cleanup of tropes on what was formerly Everything's Better With Indexes (now Garnishing the Story).
Largely prompted by a Troper Critical Mass on the since-discarded TLP for Ursine Fiction, the thread previously voted to impose a moratorium on new Works About "X" Indexes. We have previously removed Samurai Stories and Shark Storiesnote as redundant to existing tropes, and there is a lot of agreement to do the same to the entire "Animal Fiction" category; however, we have since agreed to create a thread to deal with the entirety of Works by Subject in one swoop.
Options proposed in Wiki Talk:
- Cull redundant or otherwise unnecessary Works by Subject indexes, cutting or merging them into other indexes (as we did with Samurai Stories and Shark Stories)
- Merge Works by Subject into Genres (not mutually exclusive with cleanup of unnecessary indices).
Category: Unclear Description
As discussed on Trope Talk, Trans Equals Gay is ostensibly supposed to be about confusion between the definitions of gender nonconformance and homosexuality, particularly the misconception that gay people "really" want to be the other sex.The description meanders quite a bit and confuses things with the use of gaming language like "leveled up". The Trans Equals Gay Wick Check shows a plurality of incorrect use in the wicks:
- Correct Use (38/60, 63%)
- Misuse (11/60, 18%)
- Partial/Zero Context (4/60, 7%)
- Sinkhole (2/60, 3%)
- Unclear (5/60, 8%)
Proposed solution:
There's enough correct use that I actually think the trope concept is salvageable, and there's less than 250 wicks so cleaning it is probably good enough. But the description needs to be rewritten from scratch.Category: Unclear Description
Antidote Effect has a particularly long Example as a Thesis that obscures what the trope is about — notably, even the summaries on indexes, the Laconic and the Playing With pages disagree with each other about the definition.It seems to be about extremely situational items, but the description also makes a point that the antidote is extremely situational and sees little use because it is outclassed, which attracts examples about items that are simply outclassed. It's unclear if it's supposed to be an Audience Reaction about player behaviors ("players keep a highly situational item around just in case...") or not ("this item is highly situational"). Also, it suffers from a non-indicative "X Effect" name that suggests it means "something works as an antidote" (which the trope is indeed misused as), and even those who have read the definition are prone to thinking the trope is restricted to healing items even though other types of items can also be outclassed or overly situational.
Antidote Effect Wick Check results:
- Players keep an item with a very narrow use case because of that use case (3/72, 4.2%)
- An item is too situational or specific to be useful (5/72, 6.9%)
- A situational item that can still be legitimately useful (3/72, 4.2%)
- An outclassed/redundant item (12/72, 16.7%)
- Other useless items / useless items in general (20/72, 27.8%)
- Just examples of Anti-Debuff / Antidotes exist (13/72, 18.1%)
- Other misuse / Unclassifiable / ZCE (16/72, 22.2%)
Proposed solution:
- Merge with Useless Useful Spell (which mentions outclassed or overly situational spells, so why not also items?). The specific type of Useless Useful Item described by Antidote Effect doesn't seem to warrant its own trope.
- Possibly make Useless Useful Spell YMMV (its super-trope Underused Game Mechanic is already YMMV).
- Yard "Players keep an item with a very narrow use case because of that use case".
- Notes for the dewicking:
- Move the "A situational item that can still be legitimately useful" examples to Not Completely Useless
- Move the Anti-Debuff examples to that trope.
Category: Needs Help
According to its definition, Feed the Mole seems like it's trying to be two tropes at once. The page itself describes these two different definitions as follows:
- Someone in the group thinks there's a mole but doesn't know who it is, so they devise a Secret Test by picking out individuals and giving each one different information. The idea is that the loyal members will keep it to themselves, whereas the mole will pass it on to their boss on the other side. By watching what the boss does, the one who started the test can then gauge which information the boss heard and therefore deduce who the mole is. Feeding different stories to different suspects is a classic way to determine which, if any of them, is the mole.
Alternatively, or additionally, seeing which of your enemies reacts as if in possession of a piece of false information determines which of them is the mole's boss, if that is unknown. - Someone in the group knows who the mole is but hasn't exposed them yet (if they ever will). They simply arrange matters so that the mole ends up passing on bogus information to whomever they work for. The information is always to the other side's detriment. Perhaps it's useless or designed to throw them off the scent. Perhaps they'll act on it, in which case they may get caught in a trap or be led to their deaths. Perhaps, if they're getting more than one report, the information confuses them and thus buys the group some time as their enemies (it's usually an enemy) try to work out which of their contradictory reports are true and which aren't.
Valid and accurate information that nevertheless causes useful reactions is another route, one that tends to prolong the usefulness of the mole.
While these two descriptions both involve moles and giving them information, they (at least in my opinion) seem to fill two different narrative roles, with the former being a way to end a mole hunt plotline, and the latter being a way to use the presence of a mole to start a different plotline.
I brought this up in Trope Talk previously, and the only objection I got was that splitting could cause confusion in cases where both versions occur. As such, when I did a wick check, I made sure to make note of those situations, as well as each of the two definitions on their own.
And what did that wick check show?
- 24 of 50 wicks referred to feeding bad information to a known mole.
- 11 of 50 wicks referred to the Secret Test to identify an unknown mole.
- Only one wick referred to both. Notably, this was a Just For Fun page, so it isn't even a work using these two concepts together. It's us.
- 12 of 50 examples didn't have enough context. Of note in this category is a few examples that mention keeping a known mole around but don't say anything about feeding them false information.
- The last two wicks were misuse.
Basically, we have two seperate concepts that don't seem to be used together much if at all.
As for what to do, I'm proposing a split. Use the name Feed the Mole to refer exclusively to feeding information you want your enemies to know to a known mole, and make a new trope (perhaps called Bait The Mole) to refer to the other definition. Alternatively, because we apparently don't have a trope for mole hunts in general, so we could instead merge Bait The Mole into a larger Mole Hunt trope.
Category: Not Tropeworthy
As stated in the wick check, the trope description amounts to "old dogs exist in fiction" with no real narrative meaning. I initially hypothesised uncovering a mass of Zero Context Examples but instead found that, while half of the wicks explained how the trope applied to some degree, the majority only explained that a dog was old. To be more specific:
- 8 of the 50 wicks (16%) were meaningful use — that is, they actively connected the dog's age to characterisation or plot events.
- 17 of the 50 wicks (34%) provided no meaning other than "this dog is old" — in other words, they were old dogs sitting on chairs.
- 8 of the 50 wicks (16%) were Zero Context Examples.
- 3 of the 50 wicks (6%) were unclear use — as far as I could tell, at least.
- 6 of the 50 wicks (12%) were potholes, half of them contextless.
- 8 of the 50 wicks (16%) were other uses or problems — the main page, two indexes, a contextless link, a case of Speculative Troping, a Just for Fun page, an Image Source page, and an example that went off on an irrelevant tangent.
Proposed Solution
To mitigate the high volume of Chairs usage, I would suggest tightening the scope of the trope to something meaningful. Two ideas were proposed in the Chairs thread — a loyal old dog who waits for their owner to the very end or dies at their grave, or an old dog who isn't as active as they used to be and is reduced to loafing around (with room to include other animals). A rename may also be in order.
Category: Duplicate Trope
Double Don't Know is just Repeated for Emphasis for "I don't know" (which isn't a tropeworthy StockPhrase by itself) — in other words, it's The Same, but More Specific. Suggest merge and cut.
Wick check results:
- Repeated for Emphasis for "I don't know": 28/47 (60%)
- Just "I don't know" twice: 3/47 (6%)
- Other misuse: 1/47 (2%)
- ZCE: 4/47 (9%)
- N/A: 11/47 (23%)
Category: Misused
Guess who's back, back again? E-W-I-blah-blah's back, tell a friend.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin is somewhat of a literal "word around the street" on this site. In the figurative sense, most people have heard of it being a Pothole Magnet, and in the past 8 months alone it's gained around 1500 wicks, going by this comment (which I'll bring up a bit later in this post). More literally, however...pretty much every word in the English language has been potholed—or sinkholed—to this trope at some point, even if not individually. Pothole Magnet defines it in more basic terms than the laconic/description/indices do—that being when something's name or title is completely self-descriptive (emphasis mine)...but even there, the trope is potholed to the first four words of the description. Efforts to clean up the definition as a whole in the past have been similarly counterintuitive; a now-closed clean-up thread made a lot of good progress, but a lot of concerns over the more specific things that count as Exactly What It Says on the Tin got ignored due to the thread not being discussed much beforehand, and only a couple of moderators working at a time, since there were other very busy clean-ups going on. The definition I've seen pointed to most often, though, in part because it was added to the trope's description way back when to combat misuse, is:
- That next door neighbor you never talk to? Tell her the title and see if she can give a one sentence description of the plot. If not, then the title is NOT Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
The thread puts an equal amount of emphasis on this part. It also mentioned the ways it's often misused:
- If it's one of those super-long Victorian-style titles, change the wick to point at the subtrope, In Which a Trope Is Described.
If it fits on Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!, move it there.
If it's not about the titling trope, it's a sinkhole. Get rid of it.
I've found way more incorrect use than just this, but sinkholes were the ones I was the most familiar with. I wanted to go into the wick check with a clear mind (no expectations too high or too low), and for the most part I did. This is what I've gotten (big thanks to eroock for collecting the wicks):
- 8/156 (5.1%) examples were used correctly, in the strict sense of a plot-all-there-in-the-title
- 39/156 (25%) examples were merely an object or some sort of Applied Phlebotinum being labeled descriptively
- 14/156 (9%) examples were sinkholes that had nothing to do with much of anything
- 12/156 (7.7%) examples were just heavy generalizations that weren't specific enough about the plot
- 6/156 (3.8%) examples were things that were only self-descriptive in context
- 3/156 (1.9%) examples were inside jokes that weren't even that self-descriptive in context
- 6/156 (3.8%) examples were really just Shaped Like Itself due to the name having gimmicky circular reasoning
- 3/156 (1.9%) examples were ZCE
- 8/156 (5.1%) examples fit Meaningful Name better
- 10/156 (7.7%) examples fit Names to Run Away from Really Fast better
- 3/156 (1.9%) examples admitted something wasn't actually that self-descriptive
- 16/156 (10.3%) examples weren't self-descriptive period
- 24/156 (15.4%) were some other kind of misuse
- 4/156 (2.6%) were a combination of things
This trope, unsurprisingly, is in atrocious shape. 5% of examples being correct is actually better than I expected, but that's compounded by a) that not being a high bar in the first place and b) people on the thread being unsure about what I assumed were correct examples. This comment mentioned the Dog with a Blog and Big Ass Spider! examples as being technically incorrect, because the originally-written example insinuated the former series only really had the dog setup so that Growing the Beard would be easier (better fitting Dancing Bear), while the example of the latter as originally written didn't mention how the big-ass spider materialized into the plot. I omitted these concerns because they involve both who and what the plot is about, even if they don't necessarily get into specifics (IIRC the dog having a blog was always the key part of the show because all of one episode's events were blogged, even though it got less focus over time), but to me this is a definite sign that the trope has decayed so much that it's essentially lost all meaning. amathieu13's comment that I brought up earlier more specifically reflects on how there's a difference between songs/song titles being Shaped Like Itself and the title alone being ridiculously specific, which is reflected in the wick check. I kind of interpret this as the opposite of the more basic People Sit on Chairs nature the trope's had for awhile; i.e. the trope only has meaning if the difference itself is meaningful, rather than the trope having meaning but decaying into several smaller things that may or may not include said difference, which is definitely a concept I at least think should be yarded if there's an outline of that approach ("One title is immediately palpable because of how broadly it's invoked a la Refuge in Audacity"? There could also be a trope contrasting that with regular self-descriptive titles in-universe). More obviously, the trope has become chairs due to how arbitrarily things get labeled—not just Applied Phlebotinum or random objects, but tropes themselves, posts, troper names, etc.
Solution: At this point, I think we should give this the Completely Missing The Point and Heroic Sociopath treatment and split the trope, while disambiguating the old name. IDK whether we'd need a bulletin, though it will be a massive undertaking if/when it happens. The wick check alone was more stressful than I expected.Rather than splitting this into two tropes, however, I actually have three ideas (names obviously tentative):
- In-Universe Examples Only trope where a title of a work that's still Growing the Beard right as it reaches its peak in popularity has less and less people treating it like a Dancing Bear. (Skyrocketing Salvaged Story of Specificity)?
- Trope involving mundane titles being cited as better material for brainwashing/mind-controlling people, with a soft-split for "jokingly or otherwise" (Low-Ranking Titular Coercer)?
- Trope involving the original definition of Exactly What It Says on the Tin restricted solely to director's cut re-titles, with a timecap (don't have any name suggestions at the moment). Don't know whether this would count as subjective, though we'll cross that bridge eventually.
Category: Not Thriving
Idiosyncratic Mecha Storage is currently starving as it only has 20 wicks. According to TLP, the trope was proposed on May 29, 2011 and abandoned in June of that year. Apparently, it was full of ZCE. Seven years later, it was adopted, cleaned up, tweaked a bit, and then it was launched the moment it hit five hats. It was then unlaunched but was relaunched shortly after, where it has remained for the past six years.
So, with all that's happened, it's not surprising that the description of the trope isn't very good. It is supposed to be about mechas that kneel or curl up into a ball for ease storage. However, some of the examples, along with the image on the page, describe a mecha being transported or stored without it performing any apparent movement. Probably because the original idea is so rare, it is easier to describe averted and downplayed examples in which mechas are simply stored. Which shifts the problem to the other end, when the trope is now so broad that it covers any time a mecha is left standing.
Suggestion:
- Cut it.
- Disambig. The ones that come to mind are Sleep-Mode Size, Retractable Weapon, and Transforming Mecha.
- Any other suggestions are welcome.
The laconic just describes it as "Testing the result of a legitimate question by disguising it as a hypothetical question" (not required to be a new discovery, not required to be something about their identity). The page image is of someone asking about "hypothetically" activating a glowing rune.
My suggestion: this restriction is unnesesary to the concept of asking a "hypothetical" question to get an idea of people's reactions. Should just be expanded to cover all examples of this type
Wick check: other than a few ZCEs, the examples otherwise seem to be in good shape. The main misuse is just "questions other than personal identity"
- Fully correct: newly discovered secret about their identity (1/50)
- Hiding part of their identity, but not a new discovery about themself (10/50)
- Asking a "hypothetical" question about something other than their personal identity (25/50)
- ZCE/ potholes/ index links (14/50)
Prompted by discussion in this TLP draft.
Theory of Narrative Causality is supposed to refer to situations where "tropes exist as fundamental laws of nature" — that is, some kind of force or agency causes tropes and narrative concentions to be actively propagated and enforced in-universe. In practice, however, a signficant chunk of the examples on- and off-page use it to refer to essentially any situations where some metafictional thing happens, a trope is particularly notable to the audience, and/or someone notices or manipulates some in-universe thing or group without narrative thinking or metafiction being part of the equation.
The issue seems to stem from a combination of the title, which favors a reference to a specific work over conciseness, and the description, which contradicts itself over whether it's supposed to be "an in-universe force causes tropes to happen" or "fictional worlds work essentially like ours and the story just follows interesting events".
Verdict is that this trope has a very confused and unclear sense of self due to a title that favors referencing a work over clarity, a confusing description, and unfocused examples. Suggest a clearer name, a description rewrite, and example pruning.
Category: Misused/Actually Trivia
The description of One-Book Author makes a point that an author creates one extremely popular work in a field and then never returns to that field. However, the vast majority of examples in the wick check used the trope as the name suggests — someone creates one work (regardless of whether it was popular) in a field and never returns to it. I suggest just redefining it to that, which would also save us the trouble of figuring out exactly what "extremely popular" means, a requirement that mostly serves to make the trope overly narrow anyway.Also, One-Book Author is for some reason categorized in Main despite being about external circumstances tied to a work, not the work itself. There are indeed plenty of examples on Trivia pages already. (However, if the "extremely popular" aspect is retained, it would need to be made YMMV because it's about reception.) Oh, and it should probably get the No Recent Examples, Please! treatment.
One Book Author Wick Check results:
- A creator who only released one work that was popular (4/50), 8%
- A creator who only released (or participated in) one work that was unpopular or had no mention of its popularity (34/50, 68%)
- Other misuse (3/50, 6%)
- ZCE and other unclassifiable stuff (9/50, 18%)
Proposed solution: Drop the "extremely popular" requirement from the definition and make it Trivia
Category: Actually YMMV
Obvious Crossover Method is under Tropes Needing TRS due to being non-YMMV but most examples being under YMMV pages, used as YMMV, and crossing over with the YMMV Fanfic Fuel or Fandom-Specific Plot.
Obvious Crossover Method Wick Check results:
- Non-YMMV in source material: (5/54, 9.3%)
- Non-YMMV in fan material: (12/54, 22.3%)
- YMMV (26/54, 48.1%)
- YMMV under non-YMMV (5/54, 9.3%)
- ZCE/unclear/either/other (6/54, 11.1%)
A majority of examples (31/54, 57.4%) are YMMV, while 7/54 (31.6%) are non-YMMV and 6/54, (11.1%) are unclear/either.
Possible solutions:
- Make Obvious Crossover Method YMMV. (Might be redundant with Fanfic Fuel or Fandom-Specific Plot.)
- Create "Crossover Catalyst" for non-YMMV examples. (Might be redundant with Interdimensional Travel Device or Crossover.)
Category: Ambiguous name
The name of the trope doesn't fully convey it's definition. I created the page almost 5 years ago and I am just now realizing the potential for misuse the name can entail.
The trope is basically when a work simplifies the entirety of Africa into one, singular country and culture, as evidence of lack of research, racism or racial ignorance, xenophobia, etc.
The name conveys none of this. It is my fault which is why I would like to fix it.
Possible solutions:
- Rename. Since I am prone to long bouts of inactiviety in the wiki, when the thread starts, please let everyone know my suggestion to rename it The Country of "Africa", I find it witty and also conveys the point more.
- Any one else's idea besides renaming, since it'll create work to re-alphabetize everything.
Category: Actually Trivia
As a trope that applies to the actors, not the characters they portray in a work, it should be classified as Trivia. It is very similar to, if not an offshoot of, Typecasting which is Trivia.
I created a Trope Talk thread to discuss, but it didn't get much traction. (No disagreement, at least.) I feel it's pretty clear-cut however and just got missed being classified as Trivia at launch.
Possible solution:
- Make it Trivia
Category: Not Tropeworthy/Really a Useful Note
The description for Uncommon Time incredibly bloated and serves more as a Useful Note on how time signatures work in music. At no point does the description indicate how uncommon time signatures play a narrative role. The majority of examples on the page consist of just a piece of music and the time signature it's in.
Wick check:
- "This exists in song X": 40/50
- Pothole: 3/50
- ZCE: 1/50
- Uncommon time signatures are used to make music hard to follow (e.g. as a difficult track in a rhythm game or as a chaotic character's Leitmotif): 6/50
Proposed solution:
- Extract tropable examples to trope(s) with clearer definitions (e.g. uncommon time signatures being used to represent something disorderly or highly complex).
- Cut the remaining examples or move them to a Media Notes page under Music.
Category: Ambiguous Name / Not Thriving
Selective Memory is a video game trope about the player not having access to information the characters should already know. According to both tropes' archived page discussions (former, latter), it was originally split from Gameplay-Guided Amnesia, which is a form of Gameplay and Story Segregation. The difference being Gameplay-Guided Amnesia has an In-Universe lack of memories and/or provides exposition for the player's benefit. Outside this site, a selective memory refers to only partially remembering things (possibly deliberately), and despite the warning on the page not to confuse the trope with Self-Serving Memory, it often gets used as such. Alternatively, it gets used for forgetting events in general.
- 7 correct out of 46 (15%)
- 20 self-serving/twisted (44%)
- 8 amnesia or omissions (17%)
- 4 unsorted misuse (9%)
- 7 indices/related tropes (15%)
Possible solutions: Maybe disambiguate, check if the non-self-serving entries are covered under other tropes, determine whether this is tropeworthy.
Category: Not Tropeworthy
Characterization Tags is a mixture of an Administrivia page (about the policy regarding their use) and a Fan Speak term. There are no on-page examples, but at the same time there are several examples and potholes off-page. Most wicks, however, are in commented-out notes about the site policy against using Characterization Tags. Additionally, Fanfic Header redirects here despite being a different concept — going by the wicks, it seems to be a label similar to Content Warnings and Opening Narration about what kind of fanfic a work is.
Wick check here. Of the 136 wicks:
- 68 (50.0%) are commented-out tags
- 23 (16.9%) are potholes in characterization tags
- 21 (15.4%) are references to the concept
- 13 (9.6%) are pages that list an example for Characterization Tags
- 11 (8.1%) are index listings or anything else
I'd suggest splitting Characterization Tags into a Definition-Only Fan Speak term and an Administrivia page (probably titled Administrivia.No Characterization Tags), and figuring out where to redirect or disambiguate Fanfic Header.
Just going to be blunt right off the bat: this trope's title is bad.
"Hospital Paradiso" is — according to its laconic description and main description — a scenario when a character is given the opportunity to transfer to a dream version of their job, but refuses as it would be a breach of integrity to do so. I have no idea how to ascertain that from the title, and as far as I can tell, nobody has a clue where it even came from. It's a Time Immemorial trope where I can't find any background on who came up with the trope name and why, I couldn't find any uses of the term "Hospital Paradiso" anywhere on Google except this wiki and mirror wikis, so it appears to be something that was just made up.
It's in my opinion that the vague name is why the trope has less than 50 wicks despite its age, and it's more verifiably resulted in lots of misuse, primarily with people assuming that the trope is about a literal hospital (usually in a complimentary way, probably by conflating "Paradiso" with "paradise") and not a character/story beat. Even indexes seem confused as to whether it's about literal hospitals and the characterization thereof (Hospital Tropes) or if it's a story scenario (Medical Drama).
Wick check here. Summary:
- (Mostly) Correct: 10/38 (26%)
- Misuse (misinterprets the trope title and thinks it's about a literal hospital): 17/38 (45%)
- Misuse (other): 4/38 (11%)
- ZCE 7/38 (18%)
Suggestion: Rename or yard. I think there is a valid trope concept in here somewhere and can think of an example not listed anywherenote , but as is, it's got a confusing name that doesn't communicate whether it's setting or a story trope.
Category: Not Tropeworthy
According to the original TLP draft, Maturity Is Serious Business was designed to be used in Troper Tales, and since Troper Tales was removed, the article was left in a not so good state with only 28 wicks, no on-page examples, and a rather vague description. This was originally brought up in an ATT post a couple of years ago and eventually ended up in the TRS, but was rejected for lack of Wick Check. To prevent this from happening again, here is a Wick Check:
Percentages (30/30):
- Non-trope: 40%
- Character development: 23.33%
- Unclear: 16.66%
- Work is taken very seriously : 10%
- The work is too silly: 10%
I'll be quick, only 3 wicks were correctly placed on the YMMV subpage. The general use of the article is about characters changing and maturing In-Universe. In another work, Character Development. While the idea that people like works that take themselves seriously more because it makes them more "mature" has its merits, it definitely doesn't work in its current state.
Suggestion:
- As mentioned here. merging Maturity Is Serious Business with Comedy Ghetto.
- Other suggestions are welcome.
Not distinct. The two have notionally different identities — "Person/being from one world goes to another and retains its abilities" and "gradual, slow overlaying of one reality with another" — but in practice are both consistently used as "One reality is partly or wholly overwritten by another or two realities wholly or partly merge." WDC's theoretical identity is also already covered by Dimensional Traveler and isn't reflected by its name, and RB has other focus and ZCE issues; in practice, it also treats "elements of one time period are overlaid onto another" as being within its scope, which is All of Time at Once.
I propose that they should be simply merged with the de facto definition as the de jure one. When Dimensions Collide has the broader name, since both groups already cover sudden/abrupt/violent mergers, so that should probably be the target one. Misuse can mostly be filed under All of Time at Once and Dimensional Traveler. Alternatively, Reality Bleed, which has the worst focus issue and the vaguer name, can be disambiguated.
The wick check is here. 50 wicks were checked internally for both tropes, plus 60 inbounds for WDC and 50 for RB.
WDC internal:
- Travelers from another world who retain their native abilities: 8/50 = 16%
- One world overwrites or fuses with another: 28/50 = 56%
- The first case causes or heralds the second: 12/50 = 24%
- Other: 2/50 = 4%
WDC crosswicks:
- Merger of geography/pyhisics: 35/60 = 58.3%
- Invasion/movement of individuals: 9/60 = 15%
- Other: 5/60 = 8.3%
- ZCE/unclear: 11/60 = 18.3%
RB internal:
- Sudden/violent merger of worlds: 9/50 = 18%
- Gradual fusion/crossing between worlds: 15/50 = 30%
- Gradual fusion/crossing between time periods: 12/50 = 24%
- Other: 1/50 = 2%
- ZCE: 13/50 = 26%
RB crosswicks:
- Merger of worlds: 17/50 = 34%
- People move between worlds: 4/50 = 8%
- Merger of time periods: 2/50 = 4%
- Refugee from TV Land: 8/50 = 16%
- Reality Warper: 3/50 = 6%
- Other: 3/50 = 6%
- ZCE: 13/50 = 26%
The Problem: Needs Help.
To borrow an extremely apt expression from Theriocephalus, this looks like another case of "several tropes in a trench coat".
Based on the questionably-written description, it appears to refer to a character that's so unpleasant they only exist to (deservingly) get clobbered by The Hero, combining elements of Asshole Victim, Mugging the Monster, Karmic Butt-Monkey, and just plain old Jerkass, as well as the Stock Phrase of a Smug Snake-esque character being described as "very punchable". I am doubtful as to whether it's distinct enough to be a trope in its own right. This is seemingly confirmed by the wick check, which is, to be blunt, all over the place:
- Only 15/50 examples (30%) appeared to match the description, of an asshole who exists only to get clouted by the protagonist.
- 14/50 examples (28%) involved characters who are described as "punchable" and/or get punched a lot.
- 4/50 examples (8%) seemed to be Karmic Butt Monkeys, unpleasant characters who repeatedly suffer misfortune.
- 2/50 examples (4%) involved this trope listed alongside Bit Part Bad Guys, and another 2/50 described unpleasant characters with no elaboration.
- 3/50 examples (6%) appeared to be examples of other tropes (The Goomba, Asshole Victim and Laser-Guided Karma)
- And 10/50 (20%) were ZCEs or indeterminate potholes.
Potential solutions:
- Cut and disambiguate.
- Keep and clean up, perhaps renaming?
- Create a trope for "punchable" characters, though this seems very chairsy.
Category: Misused
A while back, Mariofan99 created this thread, highlighting the fact that some of the examples of Incest Subtext don't really seem to be intentional, and are used more as an Audience Reaction than as an objective trope. A wick check was performed to determine if this was the case, here are the results (Incest Subtext Wick Check):
Percentages (50/50):
- Seemingly Intentional = 30%
- Seemingly Unintentional = 24%
- ZCE = 28%
- Unclear = 6%
- Non-tropes and others = 6%
Analysis:
So, a large part of the sample is made up of seemingly unintended examples, ZCE and some examples that I wasn't sure if they counted or not, a problem that was brought up during the discussion in the thread. I think the big contributing factor to this is that, in general, people tend to expect family relationships to be more affectionate and close than friendships. Depending on the culture, things like holding hands in public, cuddling and even kissing on the mouth are perfectly normal between family members. So the typical scenario that creators may use to point out that friends are more than just friends doesn't work the same in this case.
Now, in the case of the examples that are intentional, well, as someone mentioned in the thread "[they] aren't really subtext at all, they're just, regular text." Some of the examples are: Characters with a clear feeling for a sibling, but who never commit actual sexual incest (something that overlaps with Big Brother Attraction), characters who display incestuous tendencies to illustrate their twisted and sick minds, and characters who use incest as a joke or who are unwittingly part of an incestuous joke. I think this is because, although incest is still very taboo for the general public, it is also a relatively common fetish. So creators prefer to avoid any suggestion of it in their works, and those that do employ it, do so in a very clear and In-Universe way.
Suggestion:
- As suggested here. Merge the trope with Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading.
- Other suggestions are welcome.
Glorified Sperm Donor is a rather complainy trope, at least what is supposed to be is. The idea is that an uninvolved father returns to his family and is accepted by said family, thus the works glorifies someone who is basically a sperm donor. Most examples ignore the returning and being accepted part, the father's involvement with the mother being little better then a sperm donation.
60% of examples are Disappeared Dad, 12% are Chosen Conception Partner, 8% are ZCE, 6% don't fit any category, and 4% refer to literal Sperm Donors.
Category: Misused
Now here's a fun one...
Another time immemorial trope, but one unique in that had the unfortunate consequence of being created three weeks before the trope it's often compared to (naturally also immemorial), Refuge in Audacity suffers from a pretty bad case of identity issues. Right off the bat, one of the major issues that I came across is that people are interpreting "refuge" and "audacity" as "unbelievable" and "extraordinary" respectively; in other words, something that's not just hard to believe, but outright defies some sort of laws written down somewhere, if not reality. There was an older TRS thread where someone thoughtfully pointed out that in a lot of these cases, "there's no 'refuge'. It's just audacious," using a pothole on Warhammer 40,000 as an example (I'm guessing the one that talks about how dark the game is). It's easy to dismiss the trope as essentially just being "50% Nightmare Fuel lite, 50% Crosses the Line Twice Lite", which is why I think there haven't been any restrictions to using it to describe a whole universe; I don't know for certain if this is just because people assume that that's enough to qualify the trope being "in-universe", or if it's something completely different, but a wick check started by Master N saw a huge scattering of categories:
- 22/90 (24.4%) of examples were correct, i.e. "character does something so bafflingly against what should be acceptable that nobody knows how to react"
- 25/90 (27.8%) were just Crosses the Line Twice
- 16/90 (17.8%) were about outlandish schemes that had some kind of a setup, but either weren't "audacious" or had no "refuge"
- 24/90 (26.7%) were misc.
- 3/90 (3.3%) were ZCE
Most of the bolded comments I made followed a pattern of self-reference—many, but not all of the "just Crosses the Line Twice" entries pointed to whether the scene in question was meant to be awful, but amusing in a Cringe Comedy sense, so it's easy to see some first-hand and second-hand shame/embarrassment that make it like Refuge in Audacity, but remove the "audacious" part specifically because those are the reactions. The more low-key kind of "extraordinary" (that) is probably the most broad type, but there's some Nightmare Fuel thrown in there too. I'm wondering if these overlap with a meta-concept of some sort like The Coconut Effect, but I don't want things to be too confusing.
While I'm a splitter at heart, I think this trope involves one of the rare cases where I want to stay away from splitting entirely...is what I would say if splitting didn't allow us to keep the original name. Whether that helps narrow down the options for what to do with this is another thing, but the fact that it's being used as "Nightmare Fuel/Crosses the Line Twice Lite" shows that it has a lot of the same issues Intended Audience Reaction tropes like Hate Sink have had, so the most confusion probably lies in whether this is getting confused for an Intended Audience Reaction or Crosses the Line Twice, the latter of which technically isn't an Audience Reaction at all.
Solutions:
- Trope Transplant—create a new trope about Cringe Comedy that involves both first-hand and second-hand (an audience in-universe randomly gathering around) embarrassment that uses Refuge in Audacity, while renaming the original concept.
- Disambiguate Refuge in Audacity, and TLP a new trope about the same original idea with some restrictions (defying society's standards rather than those of individuals?)
- Redirect Refuge in Audacity to Bavarian Fire Drill, which already has a lot of overlap, and yard a more narrow "anything that goes baffingly against what's acceptable being shown first, then nobody knowing how to react being shown via an Aside Glance or the like second" idea
- Turn into a meta-concept, while moving misused examples to either Crosses the Line Twice or The Coconut Effect, depending on whether the butt of the joke recognizes it as a "soft" version of an older, even more offensive joke (i.e. The Aristocrats)
Other ideas are always welcome. None of these are ones I can really say I'm confident in, so I'm happy to hear whatever most people agree is workable.
Problem: Ambiguous name/duplicate trope
He Also Did is a Trivia entry where a creator does a work that's way outside their niche. But it has evolved into examples where creators does other works without regard to the niche or even other career fields (which may be worth a Trivia entry in-and-of-itself). I have found two problems with the trope.
Problem number one is its name. It's one of those vague names that doesn't even hint to what the trope is about. "He Also Did"... what exactly? What did he do? It doesn't even suggest that he did something out of left field.
Problem number two is the existence of Creator's Oddball, of which the definition is the work is much different from the Creator's usual output. It's basically a duplicate trope, since it involves a work that's different from its niche. The minor difference seems that He Also Did focuses on the Creator, while Creator's Oddball focuses on the work itself. Yet, if you think about it, only one is pretty much needed. Examples can be emphasized easier on either trope.
My wick check on this has shown me how badly misused it is. Out of 50 examples:
- 9 were correctly used
- 26 examples were about creators also doing this work without regard over whether it's outside the niche
- 9 examples is creator having another career
- 6 examples are Zero-Context, uncertain or others
Most of these examples are in the second category. Which as you can imagine is quite chairsy as it's not worth noting people doing these other works as a trivia entry. That's info for Creator pages, such as Filmography, Bibliography, Discography, etc.
Solutions
- Merge He Also Did with Creator's Oddball, since the name for that illustrates the trope better, despite the latter being more recent (the first was made in 2009, the latter in 2015). Cut or make He Also Did a disambig page.
- And maybe if careers outside the creator's known field is worth a Trivia entry, make one in TLP?
Category: Misused
The Hunter Becomes the Hunted is supposed to be about a situation where Character A, who has been hunting Character B, suddenly finds their roles reversed as Character B hunts Character A. The description also mentions the trope having roots in the Greek myth of Actaeon. However, this myth does not fall under the strict definition of the trope, instead it involves a third party, rather than the initial victim(s), hunting the hunter. Actaeon is a hunter who pisses off a god (either Artemis or Zeus) and because of that, ends up hunted and devoured by his own hounds (possibly while transformed into a deer). So, I began wondering if the examples followed a similar pattern. I initially went to the trope description improvement thread but later realized that, if the definition actually did need expanding, that that would need TRS so I did a wick check and here we are.
Results of the wick check show a more varied usage than on-page examples. While a majority of examples use the stricter definition, 30% use the broader definition and 18% are ZCEs. Some research into how the term is used offsite also points towards the broader definition of any instance where the hunter's role is suddenly turned into prey, whether that be through a complete role reversal or a third-party intervening.
Proposed Solution:
- Broaden the definition to include the third-party usage, bringing our definition more in-line with how the phrase is used offsite as well
- Clean up the ZCEs.
Category: Duplicate Trope / Unclear Definition.
The main problem with A Threesome Is Hot (ATiH) is that its description is very similar to its supposed sister trope, Three-Way Sex (3WS). Both talk about threesomes used to spice up a work and about the Double Standard in which the MFF (male-female-female) variant is more common than MMF. ATiH's is messier , with a long tangent on the bisexuality of the same-sex participants in the threesomes that reads like an Analysis page. In the end, the scope of the trope is unclear, unlike the similarly named Girl on Girl Is Hot and Guy on Guy Is Hot which restrict the definition to In-Universe reactions only. This makes me think that A Threesome Is Hot is a snowclone of Girl on Girl Is Hot created one year later.
Wick check
I've conducted a wick check to see how much do ATiH and 3WS overlap. Here are the results.For A Threesome is Hot:- 14% (7/50): A threesome happens and the reactions and emotions associated, usually negative, are noted.
- 40% (20/50): Potholes and examples that just indicate a threesome happened.
- 2% (1/50): Threesome fantasies.
- 12% (6/50): Invoking or bringing up threesomes.
- 4% (2/50): One True Threesome shipping done In-Universe.
- 28% (14/50): Miscellaneous ZCEs, sinkholes and uses.
- 16,1% (9/56): A threesome happens and the reactions and emotions associated, usually negative, are noted.
- 44,6% (25/56): Potholes and examples that just indicate a threesome happened.
- 26,8% (15/56): Invoking or bringing up threesomes.
- 12,5% (7/56): Miscellaneous ZCEs, sinkholes and uses.
Possible solutions
- Move all examples of just threesomes to Three-Way Sex while A Threesome Is Hot is rewritten and renamed to only include fantasies, wishes, proposals...
- Move the current description of ATiH to an Analysis page for 3WS.
- Alternatively, merge ATiH and 3WS.
Category: Not tropeworthy
Up to __ or More is not a trope at all, but an Advertising Stock Phrase like So Yeah and Weve Got Ourselves A Blank were. It was declared definition-only years ago by a troper without a formal discussion and has been previously sent to the Trope Repair Shop and declined twice simply for being definition only.
Wick check
There are a whopping 6 wicks on the entire wiki.- 50% (3/6): Index pages (Advertising Tropes, Mistruth in Marketing, and Weasel Words)
- 16.67% (1/6): Administrivia.Definition Only Pages
- 16.67% (1/6): ImageSource.Xkcd
- 16.67% (1/6): This very page
Possible solution
Bring out the snipper.Category: Ambiguous Name
Gender Flip is where an adaptation changes the gender of a character, but it is heavily misused for other Gender-Blending Tropes, often Gender-Inverted Trope. Obviously, the name is unclear, as it does not clearly refer to adaptations, or even to characters.
Results from the Gender Flip Wick Check (95 wicks):
- Misuse: 34/95 (36%)
- Correct use: 51/95 (54%)
- Not enough context: 10/95 (11%)
Category: Not tropeworthy
I know it’s an old trope with over 10K inbounds, but it’s chairs. I mean, the laconic page is straight up Captain Obvious: “The visual aftermath of severe wounds is permanent.” In real life it usually is. I understand that it's different in fiction, and this trope is supposed to be a subversion of expectation of any injury to be forgotten by the next episode, but it's not how it's used. The wick check is going to show that this trope is commonly used for “this character has a scar”. At best it’s the scar version of the Distinguishing Mark, but the latter already includes scars: its trope image even depicts Harry Potter, whose Distinguishing Mark is a scar.
I did use a separate folder for the examples that make some reference to the permanency or longevity of the scars, but imo even they are not substantial enough and still boil down to “a character has a scar”.
Most examples that are not “this character has a scar” are already covered by other existing tropes.
Though there’s an interesting idea about scars from lethal injuries still being there after the resurrection. It might be worth yarding.
There are also a couple examples of characters having permanent scars even though the setting allows healing and regeneration. What distinguishes it from Keeping the Handicap is that no explanation for retaining the scars is given.
Wick Check 55 wicks have been checked:
- A character has a scar - 38.18%
- Some reference to the permanency of the scar is made - 10.9%
- Scars are left unhealed with no explanation - 3.64%
- A scar is still there after the resurrection - 3.64%
- Examples that fit other tropes - 23.64%
- ZCE and unclear - 20%
Possible solutions:
- Disambiguate it between Distinguishing Mark, A Scar to Remember, Wound That Will Not Heal, Covered with Scars, Tattoo Conceals Scars, Clothing-Concealed Injury, Keeping the Handicap and maybe other scar tropes.
- However there is something to this trope because a lot of works only have lasting scars when they are relevant to the plot. Maybe it would make sense to rewrite it so it stressed the contrast between the normal practice of avoiding scars and the instances when they are kept for narrative reasons. Ferot_Dreadnaught suggested something like "Symbolically Permanent Scars" or "Dramatic Scaring"
Category: Duplicate trope
Ace Of Spades is meant to be "Ace of Spades is a bad omen", but among the only 22 non-index examples of the trope, the wick check found 10 of those to be redundant with Playing Card Motifs. Given that the trope is struggling so much and has been for so long, I wonder if "Ace of Spades is a bad omen" might be too rare to trope, and should be disambiguated (there's already a request for an Ace Of Spades disambig page anyway, for a fanfic, a book, the Motorhead album, and a video game).
Category: Really a useful note
The problem with the term "classic rock" is the nebulous nature of the term, which makes its use as an index flawed. The various genres that make up classic rock are already well-represented in their respective genre pages, and as it stands the page should be changed into a MediaNotes/ entry that goes over the concept of classic rock and how it evolved, initially from the mid-60s to the 70s and by some definitions stretching to the 80s and 90s.
Category: Duplicate Trope, Unclear description:
I did a wick check at Out Checking Wicks Back In Two Minutes and found Out Giving Birth, Back in Two Minutes is being used for a lot of different childbirth related concepts - Offscreen birth, unnaturally short labor (which is redundant with Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!), being the opposite of Screaming Birth (which is likely because the first line of the description says it is), unnaturally brief post-partum recovery periods, unnaturally painless births, and general Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way subtropes. The entire "unrealistic/stylized childbirth" section may need some trimming, possibly merging OGBBITM into Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!.
Category: Misuse, unclear name
The trope is theoretically supposed to refer to situations where a character has multiple heads, each of which has their own personality and will. However, it typically gets used to refer to any situation where polychephaly is present, without usually referencing whether distinct personalities do or do not exist. There is a trend on the main page to also mention cases where each had has some distinct power or ability (e.g., sharp sense or breath weapon); the wick check does not mention this.
My proposal is to do the following:
- Come up with a new name that's clearer and less ambiguous, and move the description and relevant examples there.
- Split off a trope for the "one head, one power" trope.
- Possibly create a Useful Notes page for polycephaly.
- And disambiguate this page.
Categories: Actually YMMV, Unclear Description, Duplicate Trope
Two Trope Talk threads have raised issues with Just Eat Gilligan.
First, the description states it is about characters that cause such problems that it's a wonder why others don't get rid of them thus solving the issue which fits the Trope Namer. But current use is about any possible solution to the conflict the cast are idiots for not considering. The description was apparently originally in-line with current use, but was subject to a bunch of edits resulting in its current state.
JEG should be investigated for Trope-Namer Syndrome, if the current description is redundant with The Millstone, and if the current use is too similar to Idiot Plot or What an Idiot! which were made Flame Bait for their issues.
Second, the concept seems like it should be YMMV. Almost all examples are about audiences noticing fixes the work fails to acknowledge and used as complaints. Intentional/self-aware examples may fit other tropes better.
Third, there's also been examples about villains ignoring ways they could beat the heroes, which seems misuse as villain actions cause/escalate conflict rather than fix it. There's also been examples misused as ignoring in-universe reasons why the solution wouldn't be viable. These raise questions about what the scope of JEG should be.
Conclusion: A majority (60%) are about ignoring any possible fix, not just ignoring characters causing problems. 52% are used as YMMV while nearly all intentional uses fit other tropes. 7/50 (14%) are the Trope Namer or references to them, only 3/50 do so in a way that's valid/not redundant with other tropes. Very few (6%) are about villains ignoring ways to win which prior cleanups deemed misuse as creates not solves the conflict and is covered by Villain Ball and others.
Proposed fixes:
- Make YMMV as a majority are audience reaction/complaints and intentional examples almost always fit other tropes.
- Consider Disambiguate or make Flame Bait as use not covered by other tropes may be redundant with Idiot Plot or What an Idiot!
- Cover all ignored solutions as most are not just ignoring characters causing problems/changes suggesting such were unilateral.
- Rename as Trope-Namer Syndrome led to the above unilateral changes and many references to the Trope Namer are suspect in validity.
- Disallow villain examples as they would further not resolve the conflict and fit other tropes.
Category: Needs help
Here’s the Trope Talk discussion postBeauty Is Never Tarnished is about the way women’s appearance is portrayed in fiction. To quote the description: “where death-defying stunts leave men visibly bruised and bloody, the women are oddly put-together.”So, it’s not just a character’s appearance remaining improbably perfect; it’s an Aggregate Trope (though it’s not listed there) describing the difference in the way media treats men and women.
However, it’s very rarely used as such. First, it’s a magnet for aversions. Second, examples that are not aversions, tend to apply the trope to a female character without any contrast with male characters. Third, quite a significant number of examples are about male characters, with no indication of it being unusual for men specifically.
Wick Check
51 wicks have been checked. 2 wicks had 2 entries each, so the total number of examples is 53
- Aversions: 23/53 (43.40%)
- Female character, but it’s not shown in contrast with male characters: 16/53 (30.19%)
- Male character: 5/53 (9.43%)
- The contrast between male and female characters is shown: 3/53 (5.66%)
- Other: 6/53 (11.32%)
Possible solutions:
- Change the description to better fit the way the trope is used: a character’s (of any gender) appearance stays improbably immaculate no matter what they’ve been through.
- Keep the description and clean up the misuse. In that case, I think, the trope should be renamed, so people had a better understanding of what it’s about.
- Do both
- Either way, I believe, aversions have to go. This trope is not ubiquitous enough to warrant listing aversions.
By: Miss Conduct
Category: Really Just For Fun
24-Hour Trope Clock looks like an index, but it's written and organized more like a Useful Notes page, explaining what happens at each time of day like we need it explained to us how afternoon works. Some times of the day have no tropes at all. A lot of the dusk and night tropes overlap with (or could go into) Darkness and Shadows Tropes. If it's an index, it should be less wordy, and we do not need a Useful Notes on the day-night cycle because it's something literally everyone has first-hand experience with. There were suggestions it be moved to Just for Fun. I could also see a less wordy rework into something like "Clock Tropes" as a pure index.
By: Miss Conduct
Category: Duplicate Trope
Amazing Freaking Wick Check
My concern is that Amazing Freaking Grace is basically "Amazing Grace" exists, which might be redundant with Standard Snippet. For what it's worth I've also never liked the name - it comes across a little complain-y in a way we don't like to use in trope names anymore ("Amazing Freaking Grace again!") The Wick Check found:
- 11/50 (22%) wicks were specifically Amazing Grace being played at funerals (often a specific reference to Spock's funeral at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
- 8/20 (16%) wicks were related to death/mourning, but not specifically being played at a funeral/at church
- 6/50 (12%) wicks were the opposite, related to Amazing Grace being heard at church/in a Christian context but not at a funeral
- 19/50 (38%) wicks were just "this character sings Amazing Grace" or "Amazing Grace plays in this movie" or other ZCE's.
- 3/50 (6%) wicks were using the trope as an impromptu page for the song itself (since the song doesn't have any actual page to itself)
- 2/50 (4%) wicks were mentioning that the work could have played Amazing Grace but chose to do something else instead
- 1/50 (1%) was just using the trope pothole to make an incredibly lame pun ("Amazing Freaking Quads")
A rework, focusing on its frequent occurrence in funerals, may work ("Amazing Grace Means Funeral"). An expansion into "Stock Hymn" to cover other commonly heard hymns like "Ave Maria" or "Blessed Be The Ties That Bind" may also be an option, although that may still be chairs-y. Music.Amazing Grace may also be worthwhile, if someone's interested in making it, to serve as the song's actual work page.
Needs help
As a trope, Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale is fine and has no significant evidence of misuse. However, the trope page is currently organized as a Soft Split between multiple subpages covering different scaling problems (Distance, Time, Mass, Energy, Velocity, and "Units"—i.e. "other"), each of which is essentially organized as a subtrope in its own right.It has been observed in two different Ask The Tropers threads that this is confusing and not up to current wiki standards, and therefore we would like to break it up into formal subtropes. I would suggest that the current "Units" example list become the main page, with the others being indexed above the example section.
By: Stray_Editor
Category: Misused
Click me for Wick Check
After Drop The Hammer and An Axe To Grind, we got another weapon wielding tropes to scrap.
Back when I post image pickin' post for this trope, I also remember how Drop The Hammer and An Axe To Grind were cut due to being mostly used as PSOC, so I went to wick check how badly this trope were misused.
According to laconic page, this trope is about revolver being more effective than other guns. However, like the two tropes I've mentioned, many tropers were missed the definition and lots of examples were simply "That character using revolver" or "There's revolver in this story/game" without saying how they're better than most gun or other weapon.
So once again, I did a wick check for it. Here's what I found.
- Correct Use (Revolver is stronger than other guns) - 12/54 22.2%
- PSOC (Character using revolver, revolver exists) - 32/54 59.2%
- ZCE - 3/54 5.5%
- Other misuse - 7/54 12.9%
Solution:
Disambiguate the trope like DTH and ATG. As many wicks were mostly PSOC.
Add a "Works must have more gun used than just revolver" criteria due to misuse of "Character using revolver".
She Is All Grown Up is when a character acknowledges a friend of theirs (usually a Childhood Friend) has grown up to look nice. Unfortunately, the requirement of there being an In-Universe Acknowledgement is often ignored, leading to many examples simply describing a character that has grown up. I conducted a wick check to see how much misuse there was, and here are the results:
- 14/60 were correct
- 26/60 were misuse
- 11/60 were gushing
- 6/60 were ZCE
- 3/60 were other/misc
I recommend the trope is renamed to make it clearer that the acknowledgement is required.
I arrived on the page some days ago by doing random clicking, and I immediately noticed two things: Not only there aren't many on-page examples (the folder with most examples is the one for Western Animation with 5), but like one third of them are ZCE. After a few hours of sleep I went on to do a wick check, and even that was kinda hard to do since it doesn't have even 100 wicks in total. But after a few days I managed to check 50 wicks as per usual and the result is:
- 18 wicks (36%) are valid examples: they all either present a vision of Japan based on pop culture stereotypes or discuss such representations.
- 2 wicks (4%) feel like misuses to me: one has a character assuming that all Japanese peoples know Godzilla as if he was a real creature, the other mentions a Show Within the Show that is an over the top parody of shonen anime.
- 28 wicks (56%) are Zero Context Examples: most of them are just "Japan or Japan-like place is represented like this", others have even less context, two are just the name of the trope and nothing else, three pothole the trope under mentions of Japan or Tokyo...
- 2 wicks (4%) are a bit iffy and don't know if are valid or not: one mentions a character watching anime to do research on Japan, while the other just potholes the name of the trope in the middle of one example and, while lacking context if taken by itself, many other tropes on the same page describe the same scene with more context.
In any case, the trope is clearly not thriving and there are a lot of ZCE. What can we do to fix it?
