Do you have trouble remembering the difference between Deathbringer the Adorable and Fluffy the Terrible?
Do you have trouble recognizing when you've written a Zero-Context Example?
Not sure if you really have a Badass Bookworm or just a guy who likes to read?
Well, this is the thread for you. We're here to help you will all the finer points of example writing. If you have any questions, we can answer them. Don't be afraid. We don't bite. We all just want to make the wiki a better place for everyone.
Useful Tips:
- Make sure that the example makes sense to both people who don't know the work AND don't know the trope.
- Wrong: The Mentor: Kevin is this to Bob in the first episode.
- Right: The Mentor: Kevin takes Bob under his wing in the first episode and teaches him the ropes of being a were-chinchilla.
- Never just put the trope title and leave it at that.
- Wrong: Badass Adorable
- Right: Badass Adorable: Xavier, the group's cute little mascot, defeats three raging elephants with both hands tied behind his back using only an uncooked spaghetti noodle.
- When is normally far less important than How.
- A character name is not an explanation.
- Wrong: Full Moon Silhouette: Diana
- Right: Full Moon Silhouette: At the end of her transformation sequence into Moon Princess Misty, Diana is shown flying across the full moon riding a rutabaga.
Other Resources:
For best results, please include why you think an example is iffy in your first post.
Also, many oft-misused tropes/topics have their own threads, such as Surprisingly Realistic Outcome (here
) and Fan-Preferred Couple (here). Tropers are better able to give feedback on examples you bring up to specific threads.
For cleaning up examples of Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard, you must use their dedicated threads: Complete Monster Cleanup, Magnificent Bastard Cleanup.
Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2023 at 11:42:55 AM
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Lost in Space
Who's lived for hundreds or thousands of years in a magical, invisible city at the North Pole and can fly around the Earth faster than the speed of light?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Hey, I never said it was a plausible belief.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
World's Toughest Milkman
- Butt-Monkey is borderline. Just saying he becomes a living chess piece for giants doesn't really scream butt-monkey. I would try to emphasize the butt-monkeyness a bit more. But maybe that's just me.
- We don't seem to have a page at Human Chess Pieces (or even Human Chess Piece). If you can find the proper trope name, though, the example seems passable. But saying "as these" or "as this" is really rather awkward writing. Better to spell it out, so the reader doesn't have to jump back to the start to remind themselves what you're talking about, i.e. "...features Iznogoud and Dilat Laraht used as live chess pieces by giants."
- Sleeves Are for Wimps: Insufficient context. All you've said are that the sleeves have been ripped off. You haven't offered anything to suggest the presence or absence of wimpishness.
In general, I find it helps to write examples for the trope page, which encourages me not to leave out important bits (like whether the character is a tough guy). Then I copy it over to the work page. This also helps me remember to do my Cross Wicking. :)
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
I don't think it fits, 'cause it doesn't seem meter-y? They are visual indicators though, and Tropes Are Flexible?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
Lost in Space
Yeah, no. Total shoehorn.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Blackbox.
I'm writing a story about an author that makes a self insert. The story has No Fourth Wall and the characters and the author talk in the middle of chapters. They are fully aware that they are in a story.
For the penultimate chapter, the author decides to give his characters some more autonomy, to let them choose which paths to take...
One of them tries to spoil the story, and the author and him start fighting. This disables the author for a while. The self insert uses this time to take some of the author's power and make himself way too overpowered, going Off the Rails and killing an important character he was not supposed to kill.
The Author comes back right then, and changes the story so that the bad guys capture and torture him for hours. The self insert thinks it was part of the whole 'autonomy' thing, and doesn't blame the author.
In the final episode however, the self insert gets tired of the author controlling him and his life, and escapes the story, which ends there as there is no more main character.
Enter the second story. The self insert (Nicholas) is showing up in the author's (Brian) dreams, and they're good friends after Nicholas saved him in a tight spot. Then a war starts between the good dream characters and the bad ones. While Brian thinks it's the bad guys who started it, it was actually Nicholas who did, after he found out that Brian had sent him to the torture chamber on purpose. He is allied to the Monsters, the antagonists of the story he comes from, and this is kept secret from Brian until the finale. He has become an author, as powerful as Brian, by gradually making him be more and more attached to him, thus making him more important to him and giving him more power.
At one point, Nicholas' story is attacked by the bad guys. The story is destroyed and 90% of the characters die. This was all a part of Nicholas' plan to lure Brian into a trap... In fact, he led the attack himself, killing most of his fellow characters with no mercy.
But that's not all. He wants to control Brian in the real world too, and to that end he plans to kill him in his dreams. He almost succeeds, but Brian defeats him in battle. However, he does not die, as he wrote himself a safeguard in a place where both had used their Author Powers to battle that had later been destroyed.
Brian decides to 'retire' by getting away from the whole good guys/bad guys thing and moving to London. However, he does not know that Nicholas has become a supervillain bent on destroying him...
I wonder if this is a Deconstruction of the self insert?
Well, then SHOOT!
Can Ambiguously Bi apply to a character who is attracted to their own gender, but it's unclear whether they're attracted to the opposite gender?
Is bathing/washing in some sort of public place like a restroom, because you are homeless, an example of Bath of Poverty?
edited 16th Dec '17 1:55:10 PM by jamespolk
Reposting from the previous pages:
Are the following examples being used correctly?:
From Ultimate Marvel Team-Up:
- Strawman Has a Point: Issue 2 starts with a recap of the events of the previous 2 issues, at the Daily Bugle, under the title "Spider-Man: menace?". Fredrick Foswell wrote: "... gaudy red and blue tights, referring to himself only as Spider-Man, jumped into the middle of the riot. Many witnesses describe Spider-Man behavior as mocking and obnoxious. 'It was like he was purposely trying to get the crowd even more riled than it already was', says pretzel cart vendor Cristopher Allen. 'When Spider-Man showed up, that's when things really started to get out of control'. 'I thought Spider-Man was trying to calm things down', said tourist Denny Haynes, 'but it's hard to listen to reason from a guy dressed in tights hanging upside-down from a street light'". And yes, all of that is coherent with the events seen, just casted under a different light.
From Trolls:
- Dueling Works: Merchandise sales are not the only place where this film had to deal with Frozen, as spin-offs of Trolls will be competing with Frozen spin-offs at least twice in the next few years. First, the holiday specials for both franchises will be released the exact same weekend in the United States note , and their sequels will come out three months apart from each other. Trolls won the first duel against Frozen because of the bad reception Olaf's Frozen Adventure received compared to the positive reception of Trolls Holiday.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes.
I'd say yes.
Strawman Has a Point: Not quite enough detail to be sure (also, it's cast, not casted). Dueling Works: Sounds right, assuming the information is accurate. However, keep in mind Examples Are Not Recent; it's written as though it's happening in the future when it needs to be written in past tense.
Now for a question of my own. Would a really big bow fit under BFG? Crossbows seem like obviously close enough, but what about non-mechanical bows? The specific example I'm thinking of is from The Stormlight Archive, with bows so big you need to be wearing Magitek Powered Armor to even draw them. It seems too narrow to make a whole new trope for it.
edited 16th Dec '17 3:37:50 PM by Discar
A BFG is a personal weapon. If it requires some sort of mechanical assistance to wield, it ceases to be a personal weapon and doesn't qualify for BFG. If the thing was normally used with assistance but a specific character was using it unaided, then it could qualify in their specific case.
edited 16th Dec '17 4:11:07 PM by Zyffyr
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Is Dead Horse Trope a trope for works? Or is this work page sorta supposed to be funny. 'Cause it is! :)
Literature.A Million Random Digits With One Hundred Thousand Normal Deviates:
edited 17th Dec '17 11:37:49 AM by Malady
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Reposting this from the last page:
Is this What An Idiot? On WhatAnIdiot.Steven Universe.
- "Bismuth"
- Bismuth finds out that five thousand years have passed, Rose had lied about poofing and bubbling her, and that Rose had given up her form to make Steven. She learns that most of her friends were wiped out by the Diamonds, only leaving Pearl and Garnet as the survivors.
You'd Expect: That she would tell Pearl and Garnet what happened, and show them the Breaking Point after leading them to the Forge. Even though they trusted Rose, they would be able to help Bismuth's grief and trauma as her family.
Instead: Bismuth hides her feelings and instead gives Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst upgrades for their weapons. Later on, when Steven makes a bed for her at night and talks about how hard it is to live up to his mother's image, she decides to take him to the Forge alone and show him the Breaking Point. Steven refuses to use it, or let anyone use it, triggering Bismuth as Steven had said it the exact way Rose said it. Then she attacks him, mistaking him for Rose, and the fight ends with Steven stabbing her with Rose's sword. It's implied she goes Suicide by Cop by demanding that he shatter her, because she thinks she'd be better off not knowing that Rose didn't care about her. Pearl and Garnet sadly elect to keep her bubbled, because of Bismuth's anguish and knowing she nearly killed Steven. As a result, they have to restrain a formidable ally.
- Bismuth finds out that five thousand years have passed, Rose had lied about poofing and bubbling her, and that Rose had given up her form to make Steven. She learns that most of her friends were wiped out by the Diamonds, only leaving Pearl and Garnet as the survivors.
I've got an entry for Red Panda Adventures that I'm not sure actually applies for Beware the Superman. The actual entry is a bit zero context, so I'm going to fill in the blanks best as memory allows to see if it's an example before I correct it on the page.
Actual entry, for reference sake:
Beware the Superman: The reason given behind the Crimson Death's orgin. But the character himself gave more grey reasons
More context:
The Crimson Death is a man given Combo Platter Powers in a project that experimented on low level supervillains to pass their powers to him. While his creation is stated to be intended as a check against lone wolves like the Red Panda who answer to no one, the Crimson Death himself states his creators really just wanted a superhero they controlled. This backfires as the Crimson Death's debut episode features him killing everyone who knew his identity.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Correction made
edited 17th Dec '17 4:11:00 PM by sgamer82
World's Toughest Milkman
I think that's ok, but please note that your second sentence isn't a complete sentence. You either need to drop the "While" or replace the period with a comma.
Is the following example from Freaky Friday (2003) being used correctly?:
- Unintentional Period Piece: All the gizmos Tess puts in her purse and has to juggle on a daily basis would definitely not have been included had the film been made in The New '10s. Even just entering the next decade, she would have had a single smartphone to replace all of it, which might have made the theme of her workaholism keeping her away from her family harder to convey.
WesternAnimation.My Little Pony The Movie 1986: "of the same name" is potholed to Similarly Named Works in:
But, since they're sort of part of the same brand, they don't have the "but have nothing to do with each other." requirement of Similarly Named Works, right? Shouldn't it be Recycled Title?
edited 19th Dec '17 3:44:48 PM by Malady
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
I found this on WebAnimation.Help Me Doctor Hazama:
- Only Sane Man: Litchi, Ragna, Blue Ikaruga Ninja, and Relius.
- Believe it or not, Hazama comes off as this from time to time.
No, the other one.
Purge.
World's Toughest Milkman
Even if we ignore the apparent illogicality, it remains a Zero Context Example.
Regarding Spoiled by the Merchandise, does it sound worth noting when merch spoils something for a show that premiered about a month beforehand?
That wouldn't be a spoiler then if it aired before the merch appeared.
The merch has to be revealed in some way before the event happened, like a toy fair or a magazine at minimum.
I want to revisit an example I'd proposed a while back. It's an entry for In Spite of a Nail for Red Panda Adventures. At the time I proposed it, I only got one response saying it wasn't example because the differences between the two worlds were too great. That never seemed satisfactory to me because that struck me as the entire point of the trope. I tried a few avenues for clarification without much success so I'm going to try again here:
- In the Red Panda Adventures episode "The World Next Door", a time traveler from an Alternate Timeline secures the Red Panda's aid by offering the full case file on an upcoming Villain Team-Up that, in his universe, killed the Red Panda's sidekick the Flying Squirrel. How useful the case file would be was up in the air, as the two universes have vast differences. A trusted friend in one is a supervillain in the other, the Red Pandas' costumes are different, and there are at least two confirmed Gender Flips between counterparts. Despite that, when the day comes and the Red Panda Revenge Squad assembles in "A Dish Best Served Cold", the villains' roster is essentially the same as the case file minus those differences and their plan, right down to the death trap used, goes almost identically to the alternate world's version. So much so that the villains are perplexed when the Red Panda notes the death trap they just created had been thwarting him for four years and rattles off details on its inner workings.
The original entry had some more detail, such as World War II still happening, the Flying Squirrel was one of the Gender Flips, and, on relistening to episodes, there's even an encounter with a minor supervillain that both sides share, but I left that out of this version thinking it would probably take away from the entry by making it too long.
edited 22nd Dec '17 8:24:12 AM by sgamer82
