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What about old tropes with new names?
How can you find the best but least linked tropes out there?
Worry no more: Trope Report is here.
Trope Report is a monthly newsletter that intends to showcase works and tropes from all corners of this website. It also aims to keep the troper hivemind updated with pertinent trope changes and discussions.
Welcome to the 41st issue of Trope Report as we cover the month of May, a popular month for artists to draw merfolk
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This month, we are proud to announce an updated Forum Search tool, which should improve accuracy of searching for a thread using multiple keywords. The main search function will also ignore Forums, Discussions, TLP, Reviews, Liveblogs and Queries. The Trope Repair Shop has also brought changes to many major tropes such as The Cretaceous Is Always Doomed.
Happy troping!
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Tropes and Works
Trope Spotlight
Obscure Tropes
This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.- While most individuals gain their prized items via natural means or by chance, others have to strive very hard to obtain theirs, which can highlight how important these items truly are. Enter Literally Prized Possession, the trope that involves characters who work or worked hard to get their prized item, which usually also reflects who the characters are and what their motives are like. Despite the trope existing since 2017, the trope only has 24 wicks as of writing. It's standing, but needs more wicks. However, if you keep this trope standing, you could be able to obtain the medal you really want...
- We've all seen it before: Alice is in a rush because her infamously strict father is visiting for the day, and things need to be perfect. We learn that he's a nasty piece of work, someone to fear, and worry that Alice may be in trouble. Then we meet him, and... What's this? He's just making lame dad jokes and enjoying retirement? He's the Anti Climactic Parent, a trope for when a character's parent is built up to be scary and judgmental, but are actually much more reasonable than believed. With only 44 wicks at the time of writing, this trope could use a bit of a reputation boost as well.
- Waiting at your doorstep, whether it be for the mailman or your first third wheel, is basic human nature. Today, you'd be more likely to simply check your mailbox, so wouldn't it be so kind for the wheel to retrieve the mail for you as a show of excitement? Alas, the range of such courtesy is limited with the Matron Chaperone type of third wheel, whose namesake trope documents a character who watched for hordes of men who could lead the female love interest on like a hawk; even smaller gestures specific to the intended relationship such as mail retrieval were frowned upon. The spirit of this character type is willing, but its mere 44 wicks are weak...however, a horde of examples that you've seen in the flesh are very much welcomed.
New Tropes
This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.- Ah, spring, the month of new life — life that can't flourish if there's too much litter. We all know about the dangers of improperly disposed trash, but there's one particular type of litter that's a little less drastic. Glitter Litter is a trope all about the well-known annoyance that can come with using that sticky, messy, sparkly substance. Whether you're using it for your art project, playing with a glittery toy, or are setting up a glitter bomb, you know for sure that it'll get just about everywhere. Launched on April 8th, the glitter has only spread to 33 pages so far, so why not help the trope shine? Just remember to use and clean your glitter responsibly.
Work Spotlight
New Work Page Spotlight
This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.- Ys III: Wanderers from Ys is the third entry in the Ys series, released back in 1989. The story follows the series' protagonist Adol as he visits his traveling friend Dogi's town of Felghana, where they soon travel to its volcano to stop a prophesied monster from terrorizing the town. While gaining more traction for its Video Game Remake, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, the page wasn't for this game wasn't created until April 2024. As such, more edits and wicks to this page is much appreciated.
Older/Obscure Work Spotlight
This section is intended to highlight works that may no longer be in the zeitgeist — but that doesn't mean they're any less tropable.- March and April 2024 marked TV Tropes' 20th Anniversary, an anniversary often associated and gifted with china or porcelain. Although the majority of porcelain is cheap, some porcelain decorations or plates are priceless treasures, and are worthy to be shown on Antiques Roadshow, a British television programme involving the valuing of costly items, not just porcelain. Although the programme is currently ongoing, it's been on British airwaves since 1979, beginning from a 1977 documentary! It's the rare non-fiction work that has been discussed in a Trope Report issue so far, but the page for the work could use a little clean and expansion, with Real Life Troping in mind.
Works That Need a Page
This section takes a page from the List of Shows That Need Summary. It is intended to spotlight works that people have been talking about enough to link around the site, but don't have a page yet. If the work page link turns blue after this, then we know we've done our job!- This month is the Month of Mayhem, and thus what better work to promote than a several-year old video with less than a thousand views? The Stuff Place is a video dedicated to the advertisement of a vaguely-defined store and even more vaguely-defined annoucements... at least on the surface. At only around seven minutes of runtime, it would be pretty easy to more rigorously define a page for it.
Non-English Work Spotlight
The wiki may be in English, but that doesn't mean non-English media are any less important! This section focuses on works that may have a language barrier to deal with — but are worth it if you do.- Be With You, fully titled Be With You — Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu (I'm coming right now, to be with you), is a drama film based on Yoshikazu Okada's eponymous novel and is directed by Nobuhiro Doi. It explores the life of Takumi Aio, a widow who deals with anxiety and depression while setting a good example for his son Yuji, in the first year following his wife Mio's passing. After they encounter and bring back home a likeness of her in the forest, Takumi retraces her lost memories of the Twice Shy nature both of them expressed for many years prior to falling in love, with Yuji finding Mio's carefully hidden diary and looking for lost pieces of the puzzle. Sympathetic and well-rounded characters, along with an incredible cast, should grant this work many crosswicks to come.
Creator Page Spotlight
Works would be nothing without the people who make them. This section highlights authors, artists, actors, musicians, and everyone else responsible for trope creation and proliferation.- Sui Ishida is a mangaka best known for his work on Tokyo Ghoul and Choujin X as well as the romance visual novel/rhythm game hybrid Jack Jeanne. His work gained notoriety among anime and manga fans both for his stunning artwork and his bleak stories (especially in Tokyo Ghoul). With his creator page being fairly new, its time to give more love by listing tropes associated with his work and giving it more crosswicks.
Image of the Month
This section brings you the best selections of the past month from Image Pickin'.
This issue's featured image comes from Pokémon Sleep, and illustrates Idle Game.
This issue's featured image comes from Pokémon Sleep, and illustrates Idle Game.
2002 saw the release of a game called Progress Quest. Intended as a parody of Role-Playing Games, this game featured no player interaction outside of a character creation screen, after which the game would just play itself. The absurdity of this concept did not immediately lead to imitators; the genre would instead be popularized by titles such as Candy box!, A Dark Room and Cookie Clicker, which feature more traditional elements such as resource management, clear goals and other ways to directly impact the game. And thus, the "idle" genre was born.
But Pokémon Sleep is quite unlike those games for several reasons, not the least of which being that it's an entry by a mainstream studio in an otherwise fairly niche genre. But the relevant part here is that Pokémon Sleep is a mobile game that's "played" by actually sleeping through it—the game tracks player data and rewards good sleeping habits. And these rewards come in the form of visits from sleeping Pokémon, in a lush and cutesy art style, with a vibrant color palette similar to that of Pokémon Café Mix. With those facts in its favor, would it be fair to call this pic's win a Sleeper Hit?
Projects and Discussions
Forumwatch
Hey guys! Welcome back to Forumwatch! In this section, we'll be telling you about what's going on in the forums — interesting discussions that may be going on in Wiki Talk, some fun forum games, or lively debates going on in On-Topic Conversations, you name it!
- If you've ever been in the Forum Games forum, you might have heard of a voting game known as Elimination Game, Mk. II, which has been played through more than 70 rounds. But have you heard of the spin-off, Character Uplift Game? It's a forum game where you vote up entries by awarding them votes, instead of voting them out by taking away their points, until one entry achieves 50 points and wins the round. The game was only resurrected this month after being vacant in November of the previous year, and is only on it's first round as of writing, but it still is a great game to play.
Trope/Article Changelog
This section covers renames, removals, redefinitions, hard-splits, merges, and wick cleaning. We'll try to keep you alerted to any major changes to the site, including perpetual projects and Wiki Talk decisions that you may have missed, but if you want to be a part of the process that affects so much of our wiki, then head over to the Trope Repair Shop on the left-hand side of the forum.
- Char Clone has been disambiguated, as it was often misused for characters who share some tropes with Char Aznable, rather than being complete Expies, a problem that has previously plagued tropes such as Darkseid Duplicate and Darth Vader Clone. TRS thread here.
- The Cretaceous Is Always Doomed has been split into The Day the Dinosaurs Died and Law of Time Travel Coincidences, due to inconsistent use. The old location has been disambiguated. TRS thread here.
- Dramatic Dangling has been cut as it was not thriving. The concept of dangling clothing has been yarded. TRS thread here.
- Fanart At First Sight is being cut, as it kept receiving examples of "Character gets a lot of fanart" without further context, along with the actual definition of "a character/work already attracting fanart before the actual release of the piece of media" being seen as non-tropeworthy. TRS thread here.
- Girl Powered has been merged to Gender-Restricted Ability as it was determined to be The Same, but More Specific to the latter trope. TRS thread here.
- Nice to the Waiter has been renamed to How They Treat The Help to emphasize the scope, which covers mean characters in addition to nice ones. TRS thread here.
- Zoom has been made into a Definition-Only Page, as it's a camera movement term and thus omnipresent in nature. TRS thread here.
Pages Needing Help
This section highlights articles indexed on the Pages Needing Wiki Magic policy page and sub-pages. Such articles are, at best, under-performing and below wiki standards. At worst, these pages are in violation of the wiki's rules against stubs. If you're an editor, try checking out some of these under-performing trope and work articles to see what improvements you can make to the page.
- May's birthday is David Ajala, a British actor known for his roles in Star Trek: Discovery, Supergirl (2015), and Mass Effect: Andromeda. With someone that covers a wide range of roles, his description could use a bit of an expansion from a single sentence. Tropes regarding his roles are also welcome.
- Kazohinia is a novel by Hungarain author Sándor Szathmári and written as a sequel to Gulliver's Travels. It is intended as a commentary to society and a promotion of Marxism. However, that is the only things that the description can tell us. Giving the page more tropes is also appreciated.
- Musical Slapstick Montage is a common trope in web videos and other comedy genres. Despite this, the page is massively lacking in both examples and wicks, and could use more context as well.
Project Spotlight
Looking for a project to dedicate some time to, but not comfortable jumping into large threads? Here are some smaller projects, or more recent discussions, in need of a few more hands.
- Fandom Rivalry sees a bit of misuse, from one-sided rivalries to the occasional complaining. If you want to help, stop by the Fandom Rivalry cleanup thread.
- Creepypastas have been confusingly troped as a genre page and a work page on this wiki. If you want to help clear out any misuse, please visit the dedicated thread.
- The Twilight Saga is infamous for its massive hatedom, which existed in large numbers when the books and films were initially popular. The intensity of the discourse surrounding the books lead to quite a mess on the pages, and so a cleanup now exists to sift through the rubble. Together, we can make these pages sparkle just like the vampires within.
Know the Contributors
- FernandoLemon writes for Work Spotlight and Image of the Month.
- War Jay 77 wrote for Trope Spotlight and Pages Needing Help this month.
- gjjones writes for the Project Spotlight section. He also frequently spends his time working on projects whenever they are necessary, cleaning up wiki entries and participating in the ATT and Trope Repair Shop threads.
- Indescribable entity plakythebirb writes for Works That Need A Page.
- callmeamuffin wrote for this month's Obscure Tropes and Old/Obscure Works Spotlight sections, as well as the Forumwatch section.
- Berrenta has contributed to Pages Needing Help, the Changelog, and Projects. She also took the plunge to give us the intro!
- Ayumi-chan contributed the Page spotlight and Pages Needing Help.
- Coachpill wrote for Trope Spotlight and Work Spotlight this month. May is also his birth month.
- alnair20aug93 made the page image, with Sugar-Tan, Trope-Tan, and Darth-Tan Making a Splash in the upcoming summer heat.
- Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.
- Cardboard Bot used to draw art for Trope Report and designed the mascot, along with the default image.
- Trope Reporter (real name womp womp womp womp, womp womp womp von womp) is the mascot for Trope Report whose likeness was s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶s̶e̶a̶s̶ ̶s̶c̶a̶n̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶p̶i̶x̶e̶l̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶p̶i̶x̶e̶l̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶i̶n̶f̶r̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶h̶o̶c̶k̶e̶y̶ ̶p̶a̶d̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶f̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶p̶u̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶i̶b̶u̶t̶e̶d̶ quite the headbang-inspiring record producer for this edition's sound engineering booth and—woops, we destroyed it again. Don't let him find out, DON'T LET HIM FIND OUT—
This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by Nook's Cranny. If you're looking for furniture, tools, medicine, seeds or writing paper, just stop on by, hm? For questions regarding debt, please refer to our partner Nook's Homes. Yes, yes, that modest loan of 1,200,000 Bells isn't going to pay itself, after all!
Interested in becoming a contributor, or have suggestions for works or tropes to feature? Pop by the thread and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)
and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)