On TV Tropes, it's very common for editors to misuse appearance tropes, as well as tropes whose names make them sound like they could be appearance tropes.
Meaningful Appearance tropes are often misused in ways that overlook the "Meaningful" aspect, resulting in Zero Context Examples and misuse in the form of examples that have no meaning even if the tropes themselves are not People Sit on Chairs.
The Appearance Tropes Cleanup sandbox covers tropes with potential issues. Tropes that simply require cleanup will go through this thread, while tropes that require more significant action will have to go through the Trope Repair Shop.
April 2, 2023 update: This thread is no longer for making changes to tropes, and was brought back from the Projects Morgue solely for cleanup. Making changes to tropes is still a job for the Trope Repair Shop.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 2nd 2023 at 9:18:26 AM
Edited to split up the first post for pinning.
This thread is replacing the current Eye Colour Clean-Up TRS
as it's becoming clear that the issue is not confined to eye colours.
Common Issues
Bad Names
Frequently this sort of trope will be named after the bit of appearance it's troping, but leave out the meaning of the characteristic. Just having blond hair isn't a trope, but despite the name, Hair of Gold isn't just about having blond hair. It's about blond hair used to illustrate a certain personality type. We will be changing the names of such tropes in order to help with that.
Appearance tropes are the most likely tropes to have no context associated with them. All Zero Context Examples are bad and are not allowed on wiki pages but they are a special sort of evil when it comes to appearance tropes as they further the idea that the appearance is the trope and not the meaning behind it.
All Zero Context Examples should be commented out on pages when you find them with the following message left on the top of the page:
Shoehorning
Everyone wants to apply as many tropes as possible to their favourite characters. As such people tend to apply tropes to characters even when they don't really fit just so they have a longer trope list. Appearance tropes are especially prone to this. If you have a chance, go through the wicks of an appearance trope and check for misuse. If not, just remove the misuse as you find it.
The Tropes:
This list will grow as we work:
Tropes In Progress
- Eyes:
- Hair:
- Clothing:
- Attractiveness
- Other
Ongoing Trope Watchlist
Please cut any Zero Context Example you see for any of these tropes.
- Hair:
- Eyes:
Crowners:
We have a lot of tropes to cover and only room for one crowner at a time at the end of the thread. As such we'll have a larger list of crowners here as well. I will try to make sure that all crowners get a chance to be pinned.
Hair of Gold:
- Action taken: Renamed to Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold, wicks cleaned.
Shiny Midnight Black:
- Action taken: cut for not being a trope.
Power Blonde:
- Action taken: Cut for not being a trope.
Show The Forehead:
- Action taken: Cut for not being a trope.
edited 28th Oct '14 12:28:17 PM by shimaspawn
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
Is this thread going to be a mega-TRS thread or a super-thread? Sounds like the former to me.
- Adds lens*
It's going to be sort of a cross between a TRS megathread and a large scale maintenance effort. Either way it's a large scale clean up of multiple pages.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
This reminds me that Characters.Septimus Heap has some Zero Context Stuff - particularly eye colour ones - that needs fixing - will do asap.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Should Icy Blue Eyes be on the ongoing watchlist, as it's in the same vein as the other blue eye tropes?
edited 3rd Dec '12 2:18:33 PM by Nocturna
Yes it should. Thanks.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
All right, the two next tropes on my agenda are Purple Eyes and Hair of Gold. Both of these are in desperate need of renames and clean up as they're both massively misused for just the trait when they have something deeper behind them.
- Purple Eyes: This trope is used to indicate that a character is rare, unique, or special in some way. If purple eyes are just something common in the setting, i.e. things like My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, they should not be listed as part of this trope.
- Hair of Gold: This is about blond characters being a blend young, innocent, sweet, charming, chaste, friendly, and noble. Not just any blond.
Purple Eyes could use a rename to something akin to Purple Eyes Of Uniqueness (placeholder), while Hair Of God fits within your previous proposal of Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold. And the wick and example cleaning while we are at it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Zzzzzzzzzz
Changing Hair of Gold To Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold (custom displayed as "Hair Of Gold; Heart Of Gold") would be an excellent move in my opinion.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
R.I.P 2 My Youth
I'm behind this idea. With the lowered TRS cap, the less time we waste with appearance tropes, the more time we can spend on other issues.
While we're at it we should probably throw the Bob Haircut page and its (probable) future splits (Ascetic Bob Haircut, Sci-Fi Bob Haircut '20s Bob Haircut) onto the list.
edited 3rd Dec '12 4:34:22 PM by tdgoodrich1
"Polite life will fill you full of cancer." - Iggy Pop "I've seen the future, brother, it is murder." -Leonard Cohen
Also support Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.
I see the Awesomeness.
I'd point out that a lot of Anime actually doesn't use the majority of the hair colors tropes. Most of them just slap whatever color they want in there, with a few exceptions (ie:Phenotype Stereotype and The Ojou (I think? The "idealized noble woman" trope for Japan that's tall and has knee to ankle length black hair). There's also works that are exceptions (Inuyasha).
Also support Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.
edited 3rd Dec '12 5:23:30 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
Thoughts on Power Blonde?
Rhymes with "Protracted."
I see the Awesomeness.
Feels like "Aversion of [list of blonde tropes] so we can apply a trope". Specifically, both the Blonde Bimbo (or Blonde Ditz) and Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.
edited 3rd Dec '12 6:02:34 PM by Deboss
Fight smart, not fair.
Yeah, it looks like attempting to have some place to shoehorn people into.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Zzzzzzzzzz
Power Blonde? Not A Trope, at least as written now..
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I see the Awesomeness.
Hm, the only other thing I can really think of that involves power and blonde are either racism or a connection with lightning (and that's rather unlikely from my experience).
Fight smart, not fair.
I also think Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold is a great name for Hair of Gold. Also, wasn't Power Blonde a product from the Everyone Loves Blondes TRS thread? I agree that Power Blonde doesn't appear to be trope.
As for tropes that probably need to be renamed... how about Rose Haired Girl? Most of the examples are just "girl has pink hair" and they don't mention any traits in description such as being cheery, passionate or energetic.
Also, I plan to do a cleanup of Raven Hair, Ivory Skin because despite the note, people are still using it for anyone with pale skin and dark hair.
As a sidenote, Icy Blue Eyes is misspelled in the OP.
"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."Power Blonde looks like a coincidence instead of a trope.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
Beauty Mark is an incoherent mess of "sometimes people have moles on their faces."
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
What do people think of Hair And Heart Of Gold?
Ok, I think we need 'em one at a time or we'll keep getting sidetracked. Imma hook a single prop for Hair of Gold.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold is a good name.![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
But can I request Shiny Midnight Black to be the next up? It's... not really a trope.
edited 4th Dec '12 7:12:09 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.I like Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold better than Hair and Heart of Gold. The repetition has a good ring to it.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
On TV Tropes, it's very common for editors to misuse appearance tropes, as well as tropes whose names make them sound like they could be appearance tropes.
Meaningful Appearance tropes are often misused in ways that overlook the "Meaningful" aspect, resulting in Zero Context Examples and misuse in the form of examples that have no meaning even if the tropes themselves are not People Sit on Chairs.
The Appearance Tropes Cleanup sandbox covers tropes with potential issues. Tropes that simply require cleanup will go through this thread, while tropes that require more significant action will have to go through the Trope Repair Shop.
April 2, 2023 update: This thread is no longer for making changes to tropes, and was brought back from the Projects Morgue solely for cleanup. Making changes to tropes is still a job for the Trope Repair Shop.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 2nd 2023 at 9:18:26 AM
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick