Awful name: New Crowner 10/24/11: Dropped A Bridget On Him

This trope isn't about transsexuals. I can imagine it involving them, but the examples I've seen are all basically Dude Looks Like a Lady Played for Laughs.

If you want to broaden the trope to include more than just cross-dressers, how about Gender Mixup Surprise.

Is Shock Inducing Gender Blender offensive to transexuals too? Or is that one just too long?

First line of the trope: "Just because the transsexual character, wholesome Crossdresser or victim of gender bending has worked things out doesn't mean everyone else has."

It's not broadening. It's all ready the trope. Triple apparently just missed it.

edited 21st Aug '11 1:54:34 PM by shimaspawn

ok, then Gender Mixup Surprise should work fine.

Too long and too narrow by what Shima said.

Merely pointing out that all possible names seem to be getting shot down for flimsy reasons.

Okay, yes, I said the trope can involve them. What I mean is that the description seems to allow for the transsexual case out of Tropes Are Flexible courtesy (how often does that scenario actually happen in fiction?), but arguing against a title on that basis is a bit much. It's because Tropes Are Flexible that we can have a trope with "crossdressing" in the title and acknowledge that it can also happen with transsexuals without saying that transsexuals are crossdressers.

Anyway, just for the record, I find the inbounds on this impressive in both quantity and quality, and if it were up to me to decide whether the name stays or goes I'm not so sure of what my decision would be.

I'll vote for a rename.

Inbounds shouldn't matter unless we're planning on cutting the original name instead of keeping it as a redirect, which nobody has suggested. The wick count is high, but not so high that we couldn't get them all fairly quickly with a little concerted effort.

I'd be more neutral myself if the Fast One hadn't brought this in himself, which suggests that more-than-usually strong arguments for keeping would have to be raised, and I have none. (Frankly, I'd be leaning towards rename in any case.)

Wait a minute, how exactly does Samus Is a Girl factor into this? I thought that Dropped A Bridget On Him is the "female is actually male" version while Samus Is a Girl is "male is actually female" version.

I always thought of Samus Is a Girl as in assuming the character is male when you actually have no information either way. Dropped A Bridget On Him is when the appearance is confusing in itself.

Well, we need to distinct them better then. Are they Gender Counterparts, or do they cover other aspects?

Those seem pretty distinct to me. Assuming someone in complete armor is male because they're kicking ass or something vs seeing a very pretty guy with other androgynous features and assuming they're a girl.

The tropes have nothing in common.

• Samus Is a Girl: An Action Girl is established as an Action Hero before being revealed to the audience to be a girl.
• Dropped A Bridget On Him: A character has a crush on another character before it's their true gender is revealed causing a backlash from the crushing character. Always Male because when it happens with a girl crushing on a girl the same reaction doesn't happen.

edited 21st Aug '11 5:22:52 PM by shimaspawn

Then would there be a supertrope for a plain old Gender Reveal, when a character (or the audience) presumes that one character is one gender, when the character is really the other?

edited 21st Aug '11 5:39:38 PM by chihuahua0

There isn't at the moment. People seem to hate making Super Tropes for some reason. Probably because it's easier to pick out the more specific patterns and people tend to scream that Super Tropes are People Sit On Chairs.

... Well, if I got the underlying elements right then Shocking Transvestite Reveal is about as clinically accurate as three words will get us.

That sounds like a trope where the characters walk in on someone they think is a normal guy dressed up in women's underwear.

Gender Mixup Surprise should be fine. Did anyone poke holes in that one yet?

I think we need a wick check, though. I can imagine this being easily misused, but I haven't seen that happening, so we should follow protocol.

It sounds too mild and vague. Like when you're having a baby you think is a girl and it turns out to be a boy. Or when your "boy" cat turns out to be a girl.

Disregard. I have an intuition that this name is not as great an offense as most Character Named Tropes, but I haven't found a solid argument to justify it yet.

edited 21st Aug '11 10:13:05 PM by TripleElation

Mary Sue isn't a straight comparison because we didn't coin the term.

In another thread Eddie has expressed the sentiment that "caught on is caught on", regardless of whether it came from here or not. Just figured I'd mention that, even if your reply will eventually be gone.

Anyway, just to make it clear, I wasn't in any capacity saying "well this is exactly the same case, we should keep it too" but asking "where do we draw the line".

edited 21st Aug '11 10:23:52 PM by TripleElation

Bridget is the poster...uhh...boy for this trope, and has been for a long, long time.

We may have invented this specific phrasing, but "Bridget" has been shorthand for a character who invokes this reaction within anime and game fandom for quite some time. So its sort-of a preexising term.

Not that I'd be adverse to a name change, granted we can come up with a decent alternative.

The question is whether this is really true or just Fan Myopia. I suggest we google "Bridget" and see how much of what turns out mentions the trope.