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
No, the other one.
Doesn't seem like it's following the trope, but it's possibly a Shout-Out.
Check out my fanfiction!
Reposting from the previous page so it doesn't get lost:
Are the following examples being used correctly?:
From Sonic and the Freedom Fighters -- Blue Horizon:
- Loads And Loads Of Characters: A couple Freedom Fighters may not get as much attention as everyone else, but with as many as there are, this is understandable. It takes every single major Freedom Fighter from both the US and UK comics while also adding other characters from the games and other media. The result is a FF team large enough that it would make The Legion Of Superheroes proud.
- Ultimate Universe: Blue Horizon is designed to incorporate the best elements of the franchise while leaving out the worst.
From X-Women:
- Bare Your Midriff: Kitty, Storm and Rachel had those suits at one point or another.
- Beach Episode: According to the How We Got Here, that's how the adventure started.
Why does YMMV.Frozen 2018 have an entry for Award Snub even though it got nominated for some seemingly major Tony categories, and we don't definitely know yet if it'll lose?
edited 13th May '18 3:24:21 PM by dsneybuf
Yeah, that is not an example. Cut it (or the page entirely since that's the only thing on there).
Also a repost from the previous page:
For Retroactive Recognition, does that apply to former child stars who would later on become famous actors when they have reached adulthood?
For example, in Ultraman Dyna, the childhood version of Ryo Yumimura is played by Eri Kitamura back when she's a child star, under the stage name "Eri Okamura".
edited 13th May '18 10:05:44 PM by Mhazard
No, the other one.
If they're a child star, then they're recognised, for whatever value that word has. I'd also argue that, especially for a voice actress, you don't really recognise someone's voice as a child compared to adult.
Check out my fanfiction!
Overlord (2012): Ainz is a lich (normally a Squishy Wizard) and was considered Weak, but Skilled magic-wise due to his high variety of non-PVP-optimized spells (against someone of max level like himself, he'd likely lose), but is so overleveled his physical strength stat is high enough for him to crush humans barehanded and convincingly masquerade as a swordswinging warrior despite having no weapon skills (so Unskilled, but Strong for physical combat).
Does he count as an Oxymoronic Being?
edited 14th May '18 12:31:05 AM by Chabal2
Goku Black
On Doctor Who. This entry is there under Dork Age :
- Series 8-10, the Twelfth Doctor era, is often the subject of debates as to whether it falls under this trope or not. While Peter Capaldi's performance is generally acclaimed, this run is often criticized for his Doctor's more off-putting, grouchy nature, his Series 8-9 companion Clara Oswald (already a divisive character from the aforementioned Series 7B) receiving the lion's share of the attention, and a lot of polarizing stories and concepts. A common theory from the detractors is that Steven Moffat stayed in the role of showrunner a bit too long, to the detriment of the writing. On the other side of the aisle are those who feel that Twelve's era had richer characterization and plotting, plus less convoluted/more satisfying Story Arcs, than Eleven's seasons in particular. A major factor in which side a viewer falls on is whether said fan is familiar with the original series and not just the revival — those who are familiar with old-school Who seem more likely to appreciate the Capaldi era as a more direct continuation of the "classical" Doctors' eras than the previous revival seasons were.
The entry seems to be fighting within itself, to the point Im not sure its an example. Its sounds like a shoehorned Broken Base entry.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Considering that the Doctor Who pages have been a magnet for bad Broken Base "examples", I would not be surprised.
No, the other one.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No, no oxymoron there. You don't contradict yourself to be strong at something your kind would usually be weak at. That's not about mutually exclusive traits.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Anyone else besides Fighteer want to weigh in regarding The Matrix examples in this post before I remove them? (Turns out Humans Are the Real Monsters does have an entry already, so it's a removal rather than transplantation.)
And I'm still waiting for feedback on this.
On a different note, The Nerf Guy has been insistent on reverting my recent edit to VideoGame.Command And Conquer Red Alert Series on grounds of it being Word Cruft, and suggested taking it here when it became clear neither of us was able to convince the other.
Specifically, I edited Dirty Communists from this:
- Dirty Communists: Naturally. Though in the first game the Soviets were more or less stand-ins for Those Wacky Nazis, portrayed fairly seriously and even being introduced using poison gas on civilians. Later games would see them increasingly boasting of spreading Glorious Communism™ around the world and becoming cartoon characters.
... to this:
- Dirty Communists: Naturally. Though in the first game the Soviets were more or less stand-ins for Those Wacky Nazis, portrayed fairly seriously and even being introduced using poison gas on civilians (though it's actually not that far off from what the real-life USSR did do or at least try to do). Later games would see them increasingly boasting of spreading Glorious Communism™ around the world and becoming cartoon characters.
And then edited the initial part of Tesla Tech Timelinenote from this:
- Tesla Tech Timeline: Tesla himself is never mentioned, nor shown, but boy do the Soviets love to use Tesla coil-like weapons and inventions.
... to this:
- Tesla Tech Timeline: Tesla himself is only mentioned once in the entire series (by Einstein in the briefing for the sixth Allied mission in the first game, and only very briefly and in passing before the conversation topic is changed), and never shown, but boy do the Soviets love to use Tesla coil-like weapons and inventions.
The Nerf Guy's argument, as I understand it, essentially boils down to my edits somehow making zero contribution in any way, shape or form to the description of the trope as it pertains to the example. Overall, it came across to me as relying on an excessively narrow and minimalistically prescriptive interpretation of what constitutes as "contributes to the trope entry".
... Oh, and he also threw the Word Cruft accusation against my recent edit to Vagina Dentata's description, where (besides fixing a misnomer) I added the following after the pre-existing description of the trope's gender-inverted form (properly termed "Penis Dentatus"):
(the most infamous being cats)note .
Since when did Word Cruft apply to the article descriptions of a trope?
edited 14th May '18 7:14:25 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
That Dirty Communists example is word cruft, because it really doesn't have any relevance to the example. The Tesla Tech Timeline and Vagina Dentata ones look like legitimate edits to me.
No, the other one.
I agreed with Fighteer in The Matrix example, so I didn't comment on it.
Self-Fanservice is probably a better trope for fanservice that suddenly happens in fanfics, for various reasons.
For the backstory stuff I'm not sure. An alternate version that exists along the original is part of the backstory for that alternate version, but naturally not for the original. However, it kind of feels like that would inherently be part of the backstory, since an alternate version by definition has a different backstory, unless the separation happens in-story.
"Naturally" is word cruft. What the real USSR did is irrelevant to the work. It's trivia tangentally related to the work.
Einstein mentioning Tesla is about twice as long as it needs to be. If a parenthesis is longer than the rest of the example, you're doing something wrong.
The Vagina Dentata has a lot of pointless intensifiers, like "shockingly" and a bunch of italics for emphasis.
edited 14th May '18 9:50:36 AM by AnotherDuck
Check out my fanfiction!
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
- Tesla Tech Timeline: Tesla himself was never shown in the entire series (not even via photograph), is only mentioned once in the briefing for the 6th Allied mission in the first game, and only very briefly in passing before the conversation topic is changed to more pressing matters, but boy do the Soviets love to use Tesla coil-like weapons and inventions. Below is the breakdown of the Soviets' Tesla tech by game.
Does this work?
The reworded Tesla example is still unclear. The parentheses are replaced, however the new sentence has frequent comma use and meanders often. It's unclear what is a tangent, and what is the main direction of the sentence.
The Soviet Union mention is unnecessary, especially given the backtracking in parentheses.
"Hello. Casually, tell her that she's died."
You also referenced another part of the page with "below". Pages get rearranged all the time, so those kinds of words aren't always accurate. Thus, another kind of Word Cruft.
[ETA] The changes to the "shockingly" part still comes of as Word Cruft in that it wastes time and space saying how it might shock some people. It doesn't get to the point. I would recommend dropping that part entirely.
edited 14th May '18 11:58:19 AM by TheNerfGuy
The Showrunner of Dzwiedz 24
Okay, here's a confusing idea I have:
Can casting the model who posed for the stock photo of William's fiancee in Season 1 of Westworld be considered a notable enough aversion of The Other Darrin to be an example?
Model Claire Unabia posed for a stock photo that was licensed for use in S1 of Westworld, and then she was cast as William's fiancee in S2 episode "Reunion", instead of the producers just shrugging and getting any dark-haired actress that looked similarly enough.
"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis
The trope you want is You Look Familiar.
The Showrunner of Dzwiedz 24
No, not really. It's the same character, but she appears only in a photo in the first season, and when they had to cast an actress for a part in the second season, they went all the way to find the model from the photo.
"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von Lewis
- In Sonic Forces, it's explained that the Phantom Ruby has the ability to create virtual reality constructs that seem realistic to those under its effects. With that said, it ends up bringing the entire plot of Sonic Mania into question, as it is unknown if the entire game was simply an illusion, or if there's more to the Ruby's power than what has been shown in Forces. And Classic Sonic physically teleporting back to his home dimension in Sonic Mania Adventures just seems to raise even more questions about this.
Voodoo Shark requires a plot hole to be patched, causing another one in the process. I dunno about you, but I'm not seeing any plot holes, patched up or not.
No, the other one.
@Marq: I'm not arguing against using italics as emphasis. I'm arguing against excessive use of it. It looks like it's written by someone who's desperate to have you agree with them just how shocking it is.
You still have two long sentence fragments saying basically the same thing about Tesla being mentioned. Just say he was mentioned briefly, maybe with a reference to where, but don't go on and on about how briefly and insignificant the mention was, because doing that only makes it seem so much more important because it's given so much more text than it really needs to and that's excessive to the point of redundancy that ultimately defeats its own purpose.
What's relevant to an example is what's about the example itself. Going on about a tangent on how it was in real life is not relevant. It's a distraction that doesn't make the example more clear, it's the opposite of concise, and in this case it's certainly not witty.
Yeah, I'm not quite seeing the example. I'm unfamiliar with the work.
So it's been about 2 days, is there any chance someone could take a look at the example I posted above? x20
Goku Black
Guys I posted an example X15 . could I get some opinions on what to do.
I am unsure about the Fanfic.Sonic And The Freedom Fighters Blue Horizon entries, but I do believe the Ultimate Universe counts as shoehorning. Both of the listed examples from ComicBook.X Women are zero context.
On The Ludovico Technique:
The Isaac item doesn't involve any brainwashing, but it does involve keeping Isaac's eyes permanently open. Does it count as an example, or just a shout out?
edited 13th May '18 10:38:23 AM by Yinyang107