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
Zzzzzzzzzz
No, please. Getting into "Averted"s on something that is fairly uncommon anyway is a route to madness.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Lost in Space
That could be more of a Defied Trope if anything, but no, let's just not go there.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
This example was removed from Bald Of Awesome by a person who was deleting a lot of things with questionable reasons. Is it a valid example?
- Harry Potter - the Shoebox Project incarnation of Kingsley Shacklebolt is described as having a "shiny bald head full of brains." He is also described as the most awesome person possibly to have ever existed...in one of the Halloween chapters, there is a brief foray into his point of view, and it is revealed that he has always seen himself as more of a force of nature than an actual person.
- As in the film of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Rodney Skinner has this in The Private Diary of Elizabeth Quatermain. It's eventually revealed that (in the fic at least) he actually is not bald, but shaves his head to make it easier to apply his greasepaint when he wants to be seen.
- An In-universe example in Dungeon Keeper Ami. Mercury ends up bald (thanks to a Traumatic Haircut by a dark god). One character suggests keeping it and becoming the "envy of Keepers and cultists everywhere".
- Happens to Usagi in the Grand Tour Series when she manages to save the entirety of Tokyo from an orbital bombardment. She loses her hair due to having the shrapnel picked out of her skull from her device exploding.
Lost in Space
That's four examples, actually. The first looks acceptable. The second is probably also okay. The third is not In-Universe but Invoked. The fourth is probably bad; it doesn't say anything about whether she's awesome after the "haircut".
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
Ok, this is an example for the new Sonic game, Sonic Lost World
Hilarious in Hindsight: Long ago, in the Spanish-speaking fandom, someone published on Wikipedia a fake game information. While the details (Such as Silver and Shadow being playable) are different, guess what the name of the game was... Thats right, Sonic and the lost world.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Thanks! but, the name is diferent. The fake is "And the Lost world", but this is only "Lost world". It's a minor diference, but still.
edited 17th May '13 7:18:15 PM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: [There is never a space between a word and any punctuation right after it unless it's a dash.] Long ago, in the Spanish fandom, someone published on Wikipedia
afake game information. While the details (such as Silver and Shadow being playable) are different, guess whatwasthe name of the game was... Thats right, Sonic and the lost world.[The reader can be reasonably expected to infer this, so you don't need to explain it.]
My notes are in [italicized brackets], changes and additions are in bold, and removals are crossed out.
edited 17th May '13 7:00:03 PM by videogmer314
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
Well guys, posting again. I manage to read all the Sonic X issues. Btw, the comic need a YMMV page. I manage to find a few tropes, sorry for the typos, again...
- Shout-Out:
- In the first Issue, the robot rat is called Ben.
- In Issue 26, The Gran Gordo Issue, Deccoe is dressed as Don King.
- In issue 36:
- Vector-Zilla on the Loose!!
- "Eggman's already stolen forty cakes! That's terrible!"
- Off-Model: Happened in a few issues. Not only that, but some poses are traced! One egregious example is the Christmas issue.
- Bank Robbery: In this series, Eggman is quite fascinated by the use of money. Not only that, but he need it to buy equipment for his machines, so, he decided in the first comic to steal from a bank using a giant robotic mouse. You know how it's going to end.
- Continuity Nod: In the third Issue, E-51 Teacher Robot makes a background cameo during Eggman lesson to Decoe and Bokkoe.
- Big Eater: Bokkun. In every issue, he is obsessed with candies and sugar. This actually becomes a plot point in The Gran Gordo Issue, where he got so hyperactive he try to conquer de world.
- The Cameo: Cosmo in issue five.
- Naming Your Attacks:
- Rouge "Screw Kick Attack!" in the second issue. It fails because she is underwater.
- FLYING GORDITO SMASHER!
- BIG BELLY BALLISTIC BOUNCE!
- Monster of the Week: Just like the show, most issues have Eggman sending robots to attack Sonic and his friends.
- Mythology Gag:
- Eggman using the word Nincompoops as an insult is just too similar to Robotnik "Nincombots"
- Issue three stars with Sonic running through a beach very similar to Emerald Coast. That Mad Orca appears too!
- Issue three:
- In Issue 5...Behold, The dark Chao's allies themselfs with Eggman!!
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In Issue five, Sonic mentions these wonderful words:
- Gender Flip: Cheese.
- Oh, Crap!: Eggman reaction after Chaos getting rid of his mind control.
- Super Mode: Super Sonics makes a return battling againts a Mind Controlled Chaos in issue 29.
- Take That!: Issue twenty five is Sonic battling multicolors clones with no personality other than destroying, or if you insist, recolors.
- The Voiceless: The Sonic clones.
- Slasher Smile: The Dark chao's.
- 555: If you want to own a Chao, you can buy one by calling at 1-555 Eggman. And if you don't call today, He'll have one of his Giant Robots CRUSH YOUR HOUSE!... So hurry! operators are standing by!
- Pokémon Speak: The Chao. Subverted, Cheese speaks a different language than the other chao's.
- Cheese: Chao?
- Random Chao: Choa.
- Cheese: Chao?
- Random Chao: Choa!
- Gratuitous Spanish: During the Gran Gordo Issues. The writters mispelled Layenda -"Leyenda"! "Buenos noches" when it should be Buenas. The bad Spanish is lampshaded by Sonic.
- Overly Long Name: Tremble before your new leader! Emperor Super Awesome Mega Brillaint Shiny Ehki Ehki Ehki Zowie with a cherry on top, Bokkun! Also known as the King of Many Adjectives and King of Cotton Candy.
- Furry Confusion: In issue 36, Sonic enters in a mascot contest and sees a real hedgehog. He wonders where the little hedgehog gloves and sneakers Are.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Eggman.
- Ascended Extra: Team Chaotix and all the members of S.O.N.I.C.X.
- Not sure of this trope:
- In the third issue, Sonic sings the Sonic X Theme song "Gotta go Faster, faster" Is this a Shout-Out?
- In the third and fourth Issue, chris, Topaz, the president and mister Stewart are being controlled by eggman. But, at the end, they manage to break the mind control.
- In the middle of a fight scene between Rouge and Topaz's Bot, Rouge tells Topaz that the robot makes her butt look big, and she is being a good friend for telling her that. Does this count as Getting Crap Past the Radar?
- In issue five-six, Doctor Eggman manage to clone a whole chao garden thanks to Cheese DNA. Not only that, he planned to sell the clones, only to make them go crazy against their masters. Besides being a homage to certain movie, which title I don't remember, Exactly what's the trope for this situation?
- What does she see in him? Topaz manage to understand Rouge feelings for Knuckles, even saying that if he was human, she would be attracted to him. Exactly what trope would be this one?
Alright, thank you very much again. Wow, a lot of mistakes. And yeah, the quotation marks, I will remember about them.
edited 20th May '13 3:44:23 PM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
You have more than just "a few" tropes.
- In your Shout-Out example:
- The first line needs a period at the end.
- The reference to Pinky And The Brain needs to be put in quote formatting. It doesn't work on the forums, but be aware that you'll need to change that.
- Under Off-Model, the last sentence should be "One egregious example is the Christmas issue."
- For Bank Robbery, you wrote that Eggman stole the whole building. I doubt that's what you really mean, so if it isn't, you should put "he decided in the first comic to steal from a bank".
- Did you delete an example under Continuity Nod and forgot to restore the example indentation? Nothing should have one sub-bullet, so either add another example, or merge it into one line.
- Big Eater is a Zero Context Example, and Action Girl is a borderline ZCE.
- Under Action Girl, you want "especially".
- For Calling Your Attacks, move Rouge's "Screw Kick Attack!" to its own line.
- A few things under Mythology Gag, the entirety of the Lampshade Hanging and Oh, Crap! examples, and the second line of the Hilarious in Hindsight example will need quote markup.
- You want Gender Flip rather than She's a Man in Japan for Cheese.
- Under Pokémon Speak, you want "random" and quote markup.
- The last sentence of Gratuitous Spanish should be "The bad Spanish is lampshaded by Sonic."
- Under Overly Long Name, you want "known" rather than "know".
- Three things for Furry Confusion:
- "Enter" should be "enters", and "see" should be "sees".
- As is, it's a run-on sentence. You should replace the comma with a period.
- "Are" should be moved to the end of the sentence.
- The wording of the quote for Department of Redundancy Department doesn't look correct, but I haven't read the comic, so you should double check that you entered that correctly.
edited 20th May '13 11:40:00 AM by videogmer314
World's Toughest Milkman
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Chicago Manual of Style (one of the most commonly used and respected style guides in the US) says that dashes shouldn't have spaces either. The AP Style Guide (another widely used guide) allows up to half of a space around em-dashes, but no more (and we don't have any way of inserting a half-space).
eta: The UK may have a different convention; I'm not sure.
Splitting infinitives (like ending sentences with prepositions) isn't actually wrong, according to the majority of reputable guides. (Books written by ignorant, self-appointed pundits is another matter.) Even The Elements of Style (loved by amateur writers and loathed by actual linguists for its misleading and misguided advice) says split infinitives are OK (one point where the linguists do agree). And putting punctuation inside the quotes if it's part of the quote is standard in the UK, and has become acceptable in the US.
edited 20th May '13 1:59:03 PM by Xtifr
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
That's weird. But then again, there are a lot of things I regularly do wrong because I just don't care about doing it correctly, like putting periods and commas outside of quotation marks or splitting infinitives.
I'm American, by the way.
I thought about putting this in Medium Blending, but I looked at the page and saw that that was an art trope, not a storytelling medium trope.
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
I have a few more for The Sonic series Characters.
- Cream the Rabbit:
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Remember Chocola? According to the wiki, he was going to appear alongside Cream and Cheese in Generations, but this somehow got scrapped.
- Emerl/ Gemerl/ G-mel:
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite returning as G-Mel and now living with Cream, his last appeareance was in Sonic Advance 3. This is actually irritating since Sonic Chronicles features Gizoids and makes references to Emerl,wasting a perfect chance for him to appear again . Was he possibly going to appear in the never-gonna-happen-sequel?
- Tikal:
- Promoted to Playable: She can be used in the multiplayer mode of Sonic Adventure 2 in the treasure hunting mode, along with Chaos.
- Chaos:
- Promoted to Playable: Chaos can be used in the multiplayer mode of Sonic Adventure 2 in the Treasure hunting mode and is a playable character in Sonic Battle, despite having no relevance to the plot.
Thank you again, oh wise one.
edited 6th Jun '13 10:55:07 AM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Originally posted this to the complaining thread in Special Efforts, but I think it's more appropriate here. False Utopia has this questionable, fandom-based "example" that doesn't really seem to fit:
Literally nothing else on the page is about fandom (or not-fandom, in this case) interpretations.
edited 6th Jun '13 4:10:15 AM by nrjxll
I would personally not want such Audience Reaction examples on a page. I don't know if there is a better Audience Reaction for that, though.
What is the Federation protrayed as, anyhow?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
A few things:
- Under Cream's section, "alongside" is one word.
- Under Gemerl, the period in the second sentence doesn't need a space right before it.
- For Tikal, you should put "along with Chaos" or "alongside Chaos" rather than "along Chaos".
Everything else looks fine to me.
Basically just a Utopia. Deep Space Nine does get into its "seamy" side a little, but in a very different way then what's described, which is the product of a "communism = EVIL" Periphery Hatedom and not supported within even the darker moments of the setting.
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
Another examples in the Sonic characters:
- Silver the Hedgehog:
- Badass Adorable: In contrast to Anti-Hero Shadow and Modern Sonic cool look.
- The Cameo: In Sega Super Star tennis and Super Smash Bros Brawl (In the level of Green Hill Zone along Tails and Knuckles, for some reason)
- Hero of Another Story: heavily implied.
- Super Form: Super Silver, who only appeared in his debut game.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: This is Silver Trope. After all the chaos he went trough in his debut game, being fooled by the Devil, attacking an inocent, destroying the cause of all the destruction of his world, losing a childhood friend (who may not even remember him), having to fight a God, only for all that fight being pointless after the time paradox and have to fight again, this time against Eggman Nega. Finally, after three games of a destructive future, he archieved his safe future in Sonic Colors DS... Only to be destroyed again in Sonic Generations.
- Took a Level in Badass: His boss fight in Sonic Generations. Quoting the wiki:
Super-Speed: Averted. Unlike the other hedgehogs, Silver is a flying type character, as seen in Sonic Riders. He can outrun Sonic, but only by teleporting or flying.
Universal-Adaptor Cast (Im looking for the correct trope, sorry): In the Black Knight game, he takes the role of Sir Galahad, Lancelot Son. He is only in multiplayer mode, though. Is interesting to note that Lancelot is an alternate dimension of Shadow, making people believe Silver is related to him.
edited 13th Jun '13 10:38:59 AM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Hurler of Swine
For an off-wiki tropelist, but if a character is normally of a Sex Is Violence and I Love the Dead persuasion, but then finds that one person for whom they have love/lust but not murderlust, would their desire to actually form a semi-normal relationship with that person fall under If It's You, It's Okay or a romance version of Single-Target Sexuality (Single Target Romance?)?
edited 30th Jun '13 12:09:28 PM by Pig_catapult
Captain of USS Bajor
Seems like a variation on If It's You, It's Okay to me.
Is this an example of The Starscream or something else? (I have it as The Starscream right now.)
- This trope is not limited to the Sith in Star Wars. In the NPR radio plays, depending on the cut you're listening to there's a scene where Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin and Admiral Motti are heard plotting to overthrow the Emperor. They get blown up before they can put their plan into effect, obviously, and it's unlikely they would've succeeded in any case.
I just watched an episode of The Odd Couple in which Neil Simon, who wrote the play, makes an appearance as himself and interacts briefly with the main characters (but doesn't actually say any lines). Does that count as Author Avatar or Creator Cameo (or neither)? He's not "called upon to comment upon the situation, deliver the author's verdict" or break the Fourth Wall in any way, but he's also not performing "a cameo as someone else."
I think that would be Creator Cameo. Unless it was explicitly Fourth Wall-breaking, he's portraying a background character.
edited 12th Jul '13 7:25:22 PM by Nocturna
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
Would Raditz from the Dragon Ball Abridged series be a Inverted Memetic Badass In-Universe? You know, Memetic Loser
edited 18th Jul '13 6:05:02 PM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Is this an example of Don't Make Me Destroy You? It was mentioned a few pages earlier that Grace was made to kill Damien and that she has fireproof fur. Would she have reasonably have expected to win?
On the subject of Don't Make Me Destroy You, does Harry Potter's half-hearted attempt to make Voldemort repent count?
The following was added to First-Person Peripheral Narrator
- The Agent Pendergast novels often do this, as most chapters in every novel take place from someone else's point of view rather than his own, such as from whoever he's mainly working with at the moment (Vincent D'Agosta, Nora Kelley, Laura Hayward, etc.) or even the antagonist after their true identity finally comes to light. It's rare when a chapter actually does take place directly from his point of view, and if so it's usually because there's nobody else with him at the time.
Could someone familiar with these books confirm that they are in fact written in First Person? They way it is described makes me think it might be third person limited instead.
Ok, I got one. A Dead Guy on Display Real Life example:
Sorry for the typos, if theres any. I got the info from wikipedia and a Mundo Fox video.
edited 10th May '13 1:04:41 PM by Tomodachi
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.