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
"In distress", my ass.
Works for me, too, with the comma custom-titled in.
All your safe space are belong to Trump
Called in favour of a rename. Alternate name crowner hooked.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Can we discuss tropes like Tall, Dark, and Handsome here?
Yes, this is the exact place to discuss Tall, Dark, and Handsome.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
All right, Brown Eyes needs help. It doesn't seem to have any actual tropability. In the Eye Colour thread we couldn't figure out any actual tropes to make out of it. What do people think of just giving it an example sectionotomy and just having it point to the few actual tropes that exist like Elemental Eye Colours.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'd be perfectly fine with that. The only thing remotely tropable to me is that brown eyes are used in a setting to separate normal or Muggle characters, and extraordinary characters with powers have odd eye colours. But I have a feeling that creating might not be worth it and we already have the tropes necessary to cover it.
ETA: Shiny Midnight Black is misspelled in the OP. Also, can bad descriptions be added to the "common issues" section? I've noticed that there are some appearance tropes that have fairly clear and initiative names but the description puts the character's physical attractiveness up front and important personality traits and connotations in the background, sometimes to the point of making seem not tropable. One trope that has this issue is Stoic Spectacles, as noted in it's discussion page here
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edited 6th Dec '12 9:58:09 PM by Oreochan
"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."
I'd say Shiny Midnight Black is another of those. To me the name suggests either black hair combined with Bishie Sparkle (meaning...?), or super-black hair on a character associated with darkness or shadows or nighttime. But the description is about what brown hair supposedly means (evidently not much), and that black hair is only "really" black if it has blue highlights. What? In non-visual media most authors won't bother to specify the highlights, and there's no actual trope/meaning in the description.
Speaking of Bishie Sparkle, why does the description use the phrase "some more recent examples"? Examples Are Not Recent.
edited 6th Dec '12 9:19:48 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Fixed Bishie Sparkle. Agreeing that there doesn't seem to be a trope to Shiny Midnight Black either.
edited 6th Dec '12 6:46:28 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Green Eyes looks like it could mostly be folded into Elemental Eye Colors and Significant Green-Eyed Redhead.
Gray Eyes for cold or dangerous characters... Steely Gray Eyes? The "mystic/seer with a piercing gaze" version sounds like something we probably have already: more about the gaze than the actual eye color, since the description on Gray Eyes says it can be gray or blue.
Edit: I might have been thinking of Icy Blue Eyes. They share the "looks right through you" descriptor, anyway.
edited 6th Dec '12 8:41:29 PM by InsanityPrelude
Brown Eyes are pretty "normal" eye colours, so while I see it as a shorthand for a normal person, it can be simply chairs.
Point of order re Green Eyes - I've seen it being used as a shorthand for supernatural powers without fitting Elemental Eye Colours.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Cutmaster-san
Would you mind sharing some specific examples of Green Eyes meaning supernatural powers?
Anyway, I'm totally in agreement on Shiny Midnight Black.
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.
Yep, on Septimus Heap they are used as a sign of magic users.
That said, if there are no further examples I could see this one going to the supertrope we were mentioning in the TRS thread about meaningful eyecolours.
Also, to the OP Shiny Midnight Black is misspelled.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Shiny Midnight Black is vague, supposedly is the sign of something but in reality is found on pretty much any type of character. It's one of those pretty, but Not A Trope thing. Cut List fodder.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
It's a sign of being Asian from what I recall in the series I watch over here, but nothing else is there about that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I think it's just Septimus Heap for Green Eyes. I do think a supertropes for "Appearance Trait is given a specific meaning in story." It shouldn't just be eye colour. It could be anything. The trope is that some bit of appearance is told to the reader to be significant and it means X.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
So that example would go into a supertrope, I see?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Yep. And if the supertrope picks up enough correlations that are stated directly in a work, then it can become a subtrope.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Shiny Midnight Black is a mess. 'may or may not be x,y or z'. We might be able to salvable it as 'shiny hair' for someone that takes great care of their vain, perhaps as vanity or girliness or wealthy etc but that's it.
A small meta question: How many pages are we discussing at once? The Complete Monster thread allows anyone to bring up any issue at any time and it seems that it helps that thread to keep running even during Forum Drought.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
We are discussing whatever happens to come up. I'm not going to put a limit on things. Crowners for certain things might have to wait in line though.
How does Appearance As Plot Device sound for the appearance supertrope?
edited 7th Dec '12 8:03:00 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
A bit long, but passable.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
"In distress", my ass.
(Was considering "appearances", but in that order it might be mistaken for the verb.)
edited 7th Dec '12 9:13:34 AM by Nohbody
All your safe space are belong to Trump
Perhaps we should make another crowner for it?
Personally, I think Plot Important Look works.
edited 7th Dec '12 9:13:41 AM by deathpigeon
"In distress", my ass.
^ That's better than mine, though not really getting anywhere closer to "not as long" as the original suggestion.
All your safe space are belong to Trump
I support Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.