What the devil is this?

TV Tropes The TV Show is a web TV show created by tropers for tropers. It is currently in pre-production.

Who is responsible for this madness?

Creator credit goes to Pentadragon for the initial proposal in a "Things That Should Be Shows" thread back in March 2009. The idea was so popular that it got moved first to its own thread, then to its own forum. Things have died down quite a bit since then, but quite a few people still regularly contribute.

Sounds cool. How can I get involved?

If you just want to contribute ideas, all you need to do is post in the threads. Nevertheless, we do need voice actors, concept artists, writers and animators. We have a separate section below for ways to contribute.

Who's funding this project?

No one! Seriously, we're all volunteers here.

Don't even think about making a profit once we get the show produced, either—none of us want to run into the minefield of copyright law that's involved with making this more than an extremely long piece of Fan Fiction.

Where can I go to find updates?

Checking the forum, the main page, and this page should keep you relatively up to speed. If you want to be obsessive about minor changes, put every page in the TV Tropes The TV Show namespace on your watchlist.

Who can I contact for help?

Karalora is the current Big Dawg  ^*

^{executive producer}

and handles major policy decisions. Ironeye can answer almost all informational questions.

There are some area that are have a specific coordinator who will be able to answer questions. There are:

• Voice Acting—Some Sort Of Troper
• Original Score—arks

What's up with the committees?

In order to facilitate quick decisions, we moved from a consensus system to a committee system. Each topic is brought before the relevant committee, where all contributors are allowed to state their opinion. However, the topic is considered settled when the committee members reach consensus. In the event that no consensus is reached, either due to disagreement or the discussion stalling out, a committee member (typically the committee head—a glorified secretary) can call for a vote. The votes are totaled 48 hours later or when all committee members have voted (whichever comes first) with a plurality deciding the issue. There is also Big Dawg, who has the authority to make executive decisions in order to keep progress flowing smoothly. The current bureaucracy is:

• Big Dawg: Karalora
• The Over-Committee: this committee covers issues that affect the entire show, such as the cast size, animation style, episode length, etc. At this point the Over-Committee membership is pretty much fixed, though we may eventually add more members.
  • Karalora
  • Some Sort Of Troper
  • Ironeye
  • Bobby G
  • arks
• The Plot and Recurring Fictites Committee, which meets in the Plot thread. This committee is currently looking for more members.
  • Ironeye (Unofficial Committee Head)
  • Bobby G
• The Setting Committee, which deliberates in the Setting thread. It currently has no members.

Note that anyone can be nominated for a committee that is being formed or expanded. Voting will only be required in the even that too many candidates are nominated or someone objects to one of the nominees.

What is the premise of the show?

On 1 January 2013, holes appeared in the Fourth Wall separating Fiction from Reality. Fictional characters (fictites), objects, and places suddenly appeared in the real world. It was the greatest disaster that had ever befallen mankind. The show picks up fives months later and follows a team of vigilantes who travel around North America dealing with fictite problems that the remnant of the US military is stretched too thin to handle. After encountering the boy who becomes the seventh member of their team, they get caught up in a bigger conflict involving powerful fictional beings and a mysterious organization known as TV Tropes.

How does TV Tropes in the show related to the real TV Tropes?

The show takes place in an alternate universe where TV Tropes didn't form as we know it. Instead, Fast Eddie and Janitor recruited people from all over the world to deal with rogue fictites. The Database still exists in a secret location and is used by the tropers to tell them about the fictites they face. It is implied that there is a small army worth of normal people contributing to the Database in secret, but they are not the focus of the story.

How long is the TV show planned to run?

Our current best guess is eight volumes, each with approximately a dozen episodes.

How long is each episode?

The length varies from episode to episode, but our target is just under 10 minutes.

Are you actually going to film each episode?

No, the episodes will be animated. The sort of special effects we require would be far too difficult to pull off effectively with live actors. If a high-quality live version were ever made, it would probably be one of the most expensive shows ever produced.

What style of animation is being used?

Due to the limited staff, we have chosen an "animated comics" style. The low amount of animation required for such a style keeps the project in the realm of the possible.

What happened to all of the old forum threads?

There were some technical issues, so we had to start fresh.

What happened to all of the old characters?

After ten months on the project, it became clear that some people simply weren't contributing any more. (A few explicitly said as much, and we thank them for that.) Unfortunately, that left us with somewhere in the realm of 25 protagonists who regularly appeared in at least one season, most of them unfinished. Rather than try to figure out the tangled mess that would have occurred by keeping them and all of their subplots in place, we cut the cast down considerably. Most of the new main characters are the brainchildren of a current major contributor to the project, ensuring that it's easy to get help if any issues come up. All of the other character concepts are being kept just in case there is a point when they will logically fit in, but the plot is being written without any attempt to force the issue.

Why isn't the Eighth Wall a major plot element any more?

Quite simply, it turned the story into a mess. The entire show had to be structured around it being the focus of the finale, forcing the major villains to be stuck in a Thirty Xanatos Pileup for the plot to make sense at all, but that only lead to a Continuity Lockout for all but perhaps three people. It really says something when over 2/3 of the plot either took place off-screen or had to involve the villains explaining it to each other because it only tangentially involved the two dozen protagonists that were taking up over 3/4 of the screen time.

What happened to Tybalt? He was my favorite villain!

He is being replaced with a character that serves a similar plot function. Why?

• He was extremely difficult to write for—problematic for the most prominent villain in the story.
• His existence making any sense depended on the Eighth Wall being a big deal.
• The Nine Lives haven't mattered for months.
• The character design was only superficially related to the Tybalt character that he was supposed to be.

The plans for his replacement involve an insane human who got Implausible Fencing Powers and now thinks he is Tybalt, so the character still looks to be the most entertaining villain.

What is the Fourth Wall?

The Fourth Wall is the barrier that separates the events of a story from the audience experiencing those events. In the TV Tropes The TV Show universe, the Fourth Wall is an actual barrier that no one ever knew existed. At the time the show begins, numerous holes have appeared in the Fourth Wall, allowing passage from Reality into Fiction.

What is the Eighth Wall?

The Eighth Wall is the barrier that separates Reality from Imagination. The ideas that lie beyond that Wall range from incredibly powerful (Pride, Darkness, Life, etc.) to very weak (what I think of when I imagine what I last had for dinner). If these "essences" were able to enter Reality in great number, it would be a very bad thing. It is speculated that if someone were able to harness the power released from this Wall collapsing, they would become a god-like being with the ability to warp Reality, Fiction, and Imagination to their will. Fortunately for the characters, the Eighth Wall is just a setting detail and not relevant to the story at hand.

What is the Convergence?

The Convergence is the catastrophic appearance of numerous holes in the Fourth Wall on 1 Jan. 2013. People call this C-Day. While more holes have appeared since then, these are fairly rare. The visual appearance of the Convergence is that of a polarized pane of glass shattering and revealing the fictional characters behind it.

How do these holes work?

Each hole corresponds to a particular range (space and time) in a fictional work and another range (place and time) in Reality. In both cases, the "ends" are referred to as rifts and appear to be holes from whichever direction they are viewed. In Reality, the holes appear to go to nowhere, while in Fiction, the holes allow viewing from within the corresponding rift in Reality. Each rift in Fiction corresponds to one rift in Reality, while a rift in Reality can correspond to multiple rifts in Fiction.

What happens when someone enters a rift on the Reality side?

If the person is from Fiction, they are sent back to the story where they belong.

If the person is from Reality, they are sent to a random fictional place. This does include appearing underwater, in the path of a bullet, etc, so this is generally not advised. Note that this is not truly random—you are more likely to show up in a time and place that is connected to your location somehow (set at your location, filmed at your location, written by someone born nearby, etc.).

What's up with all of the powers that characters have?

The Convergence granted a single superpower to each living being on Earth. Most of these will never even be noticed (the ability to understand sea slugs, for example), so a significant portion of the population is effective powerless, and only a minority have "useful" abilities.

How does time travel work in the show?

Time travel to back before the Convergence actually sends you over the Fourth Wall into Fiction. Time travel after the Convergence either functions locally (ex:one town is stuck in a Groundhog Day Loop while the rest of the world moves on) or is a Stable Time Loop. Time travel is not an important plot element.

Why does [fictite] appear at [place]?

Each ficitite has several locations that they could be drawn to when they crossed (or were pulled across) the Fourth Wall, all based on how connected the fictite is to a particular location. Examples of places a fictite can be draw to:

• The birthplace of the creator
• A location where the fictite appeared in the source fiction (if the source fiction featured real locations)
• A location that inspired a location where the fictite appeared in the source fiction (more likely if the source fiction did not feature real locations)
• A location where a scene with the fictite was filmed

Why doesn't [fictite] appear?

Chances are, no one thought of including it or no one came up with anything to do if it did in fact appear. Alternatively, it could violate policy (see the next question).

Why can't [fictite] appear?

There are a few possible reasons:

• The fictite is too powerful—fictites are right out if they can warp reality, can grant wishes, can grant immortality (though not if they themselves are immortal), or are explicitly gods
• The fictite violates the mythological/religious figures rules
• Another version of that fictite is already appearing

Why is there a limit on the power of fictites that appear in the show?

There are two reasons.

First, the story breaks if Reality Warpers appear. Why should we care about saving Grosse Tête from a hydra if the Scarlet Witch could turn everyone into trees if she felt like it? The plot would soon become all about the reality warpers, which we definitely don't want.

Second, the Fourth Wall is stable enough that beings beyond a certain power level can't come over into Reality. Yes, this is just us Hand Waving it away so we don't run into the previous problem.

What are these mythological/religious figures rules?

The problem with mythological and religious figures is that the source material for these characters purports to be true. By declaring such characters fictional, we run into all sorts of problems. Fortunately, we do have three ways around this:

• Use a distinct fictional depiction of the character. Thus, UsedCarSalesman!Hades from Disney's animated Hercules movie is fair game.
• Use a creature that appears so often in fantasy works (most likely games, though others are possible) that a generic version of the creature can be Hand Waved as being from that source fiction. This obviously doesn't work for "unique" characters like Merlin or Jesus, but is just fine for a hydra.
• Make an amalgam character from multiple (fictional) depictions. This only works if the individual depictions are distinct enough that it's clear there is no "true" depiction. Merlin passes; Jesus doesn't.

Why can't there be multiple versions of the same character?

In most cases, this is horribly redundant and only adds the gimmick of multiple versions. The moment there's a second Daniel Jackson, everyone's going to be wondering why there aren't a dozen different Bowsers running around, and it will only go downhill from there. If anything, the fictite merging guidelines are more inclusive than exclusive—in extreme cases, two characters will be merged because one inspired the other.

Why doesn't [fictite] act/look like they do in canon?

Crossing the Fourth Wall does change things a bit so that they better fit in Reality. The Fourth Wall (and the beings beyond) do locally screw with the laws of physics as we know them, but the characters are not perfect representations of how they appear in fiction. This gives us the freedom to not obsess over the precise design of the Millennium Falcon (which changed from film to film anyway) or what David Xanatos prefers for breakfast. We will try to stick to the canonical depiction as well as we can, but it does give us the freedom to change minor things if they don't fit.

In some cases, the character has suffered from more than a minor tweak, in which case the characters will probably point out that things were altered by the crossing. We do try to avoid this unless we can come up with a good reason for it, though.

Do the fictites realize that they are fictional?

In general, they do not, at least not when they first cross into Reality, though this doesn't stop them from finding out afterward. The default for a character appearance is that they believe they are still real, just (maybe) in a different world.

There are a few exceptions: fictites who break the Fourth Wall in their source fiction. For example, Deadpool is quite aware of the Fourth Wall, and thus adapts well to being in Reality when he appears in the show.

Why are there so many villains and fictional creatures? Where are all the heroes?

There are two reasons for this. The first is that there is really no good way to regularly team up the main characters with fictional heroes without one group overshadowing the other.

There's also an in-universe reason: aside from people being caught when rifts form (like on C-Day), beings that come across will either consciously choose to cross or be too dumb to realize what they're doing. Your average hero won't abandon his story because he's too busy trying to save his own world. Up the Real Rabbit Hole and All The Myriad Ways are in full effect here. Aragorn's not going to abandon Middle Earth to Sauron in order to explore our world.

Thus, a majority of the fictites are:

• Creatures who blundered into a rift (the hydra, the velociraptors)
• Villains who could do better in a new world without the pesky heroes getting in the way (Lex Luthor)...or who just don't care (the Weird Sisters)
  • The heroes chasing those villains.
• Ambiguously heroic characters who care more about escaping than anything else (Illidan, Rincewind)

We prefer character whose crossing can be justified, though others are allowed. If the crossing cannot be justified, the next best thing is to describe what they have been up to since C-Day (starting with how they survived the first week if they appeared in one of the high-devastation areas). In very limited cases, there will be characters who involuntarily came through a more recent rift. Setting that up is a method of last resort if we have a character we really want to use and we can't justify its appearance through either voluntary crossing or C-Day. This is reserved for characters that are plot-important, though there may be exceptions.

Can I add an original character to the show?

At this point, we are no long accepting submissions for original characters. We're having a hard enough time dealing with the ones we already have and recently cut about half the protagonists from the main cast because they were effectively dead weight.

What about a character from some of my original work?

No. In addition to having the problems of original characters, they also can't be heavily altered to fit the show.

Can I at least suggest a fictite that I didn't create?

By all means do so! Head over to our forum to make any suggestions. If you are just suggesting the fictite as a Monster of the Week, simply add it to the Monster Of The Week Bin.

If your suggestion becomes popular in a thread, feel free to add it to the Proposed Recurring Fictites page.

What should I do if I have an idea for a specific episode?

Post it in a thread. If it gets positive buzz, add it to our Episode Idea Bin.

Where should I go for character information for my submissions?

Check out our How To Write Season 1 page for general information. It is currently under construction, but you can take a look at the Character Holding Bin for anything that cannot be found there. Pages relevant to a particular type of contribution can be found in the answers below.

Can I be a writer for the show?

Certainly. Just post on the forum to let us know that you are interested.

Can I submit concept art for the show?

Concept art would be much appreciated. Head over to our Concept Art Descriptions  ^*

^{current under construction}

for information specific to the visual design of the characters. If the character does not appear there, the general resources are your next best bet. When your concept art is ready, feel free to post it in the forum.

Can I submit music for the show?

Yes. If you would like to compose for the show, arks is your contact.

Can be an animator for the show?

Yes. We do not currently have an animation director, but it would be great if you could post in the forum to let us know you are interested.

Can I voice a character in the show?

Sure. Our voice acting resources are a bit out of date, but you can head over to our page for The Cast—it shows all of the parts that have already been cast, as well as those that are still open. Some Sort Of Troper is our voice acting director, so he is the person to contact if you have any questions.

Can I design equipment and buildings for the show?

Yes. While we do not need such services for the pilot episode, they will be invaluable in the future.

Do you have plans for any official spinoffs or sequels?

We have no plans at this time. If the original production team ever decides to produce in-canon material with focus on a different set of characters, we will give plenty of warning so you can prepare a character for Round 2.

Can I write a TV Tropes The TV Show Fan Fic?

Certainly, so long as you make it quite clear that it is fan fiction, not canon.

Can I write a TV Tropes The TV Show spinoff on my own?

Short version: No.

Long version: Yes, but it still has to go through the vetting process that the episodes go through. It will also be checked for beneficial contribution to canon, overuse of Spotlight-Stealing Squad, and most definitely for a Mary Sue lead.

Don't even bother writing up a proposal if it will cover the events of the show from the perspective of a minor character. We really don't need a rehash of the events of the show that tells how a secondary character was actually more important that they seemed—if they really are going to be important in canon, it will appear on the show. On the other hand, covering material not seen in canon will get a much more favorable response. Every character is "off-screen" for a minimum of five months after the Convergence, and some are unaccounted for until over two years after C-Day, allowing backstory to be a good place to contribute.

What kind of stuff can I suggest adding to the show that is not likely to be Jossed?

Things that don't contradict established canon? Oh, you wanted a serious answer? Alright.

Things that will only appear in a single episode are less likely to be rejected than things that would span multiple episodes. Avoiding Fridge Logic helps—familiarize yourself with the abilities of the cast to determine what sort of things they can and can't easily deal with. Things that would only impact a single scene are likely to be approved.

Why can't the mechanics of the universe work [way]?

We chose the mechanics for specific reasons, almost never because it was cooler that way. If your main argument for the change is that it would be cooler the new way, realize that the change is likely to be rejected.

Why is the focus on American and Canadian protagonists working against characters from English-language fiction?

The majority of the contributors are from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. With a few exceptions, the contributors aren't familiar with fiction from other countries (other than Japan, of course). If you think you can do justice to Chilean culture and Argentinian fiction, you are welcome to propose material for South America. If you don't know a thing about the fiction of Lesotho, you're in no position to complain about it not being featured on the show.

What happened to Memetic Badasses like Chuck Norris?

Nothing. Characters (fictional or otherwise) have their powers based on Canon, not speculation or jokes. (Seriously, why would we take away the ability for Chuck Norris to cure cancer with his tears? Because some people think of him as just a normal human?)

Why doesn't the show have Negative Continuity? We would have a lot more freedom to incorporate ideas that way.

Right around the time we started taking this seriously, all we had was a premise, several plot points, and a list of characters mentioned in the discussion of those plot points. From Day 1, this show has been plot-focused, and we aren't going to throw out all of our continuity (both plot and character development) to allow for an unusual episode concept.

A lot of the events on the show seem ambiguous as presented. Is there some Word Of God that can clear it all up?

Quite a few questions on the show are left ambiguous because the characters themselves would be unable to find the "correct" answer. In all of these cases, Word Of God should have an answer, but other interpretations should be considered reasonably valid—"canon" for this show is what is shown on-screen.

So, once you have finished the entire show, pick whichever explanation is your favorite, but we aware that it may be officially Jossed in a spin-off if it contradicts the Word Of God for the intentions of the writers.

Who speaks the Word Of God for the show?

Ironeye is the lead story writer, so anything marked as Word Of God is typically one of his statements. Nevertheless, the most "official" Word Of God comes from Kara.