Trope distinctions - do these make sense?

In most cases, you should list the most specific.

Alright. I did end up just going with Narcissist to be on the safe side, since that discusses his ego tendencies anyway.

So I Am Who? is not about Identity Amnesia? :O

It can be but it isn't only about amnesia. I Am Who? includes when the main character has some special lineage or superpowers or abilities that they aren't aware of (because it was kept from them, or because those in their immediate vicinity don't know either) but are revealed. See Muggle-born witches and wizards in Harry Potter.

There was discussion on the Creepy Stalker Van TLP about the relationship between this, Spies In a Van, and Van in Black. To me, Van in Black appears to be about vans used for government conspiracies, as indicated by the name and the description, but others in the thread though it should be a broad supertrope for all of these tropes. Creepy Stalker Van is set to launch soon. If everyone else in the thread is right about these trope distinctions, the description of Van in Black needs to be changed.

^Thanks for the heads-up.

So The Men in Black themselves are sometimes government spooks, but sometimes unaffiliated. Sometimes they're aliens or Humanoid Abominations unto themselves, like the G-Man from Half-Life, but thanks to the MIB movies and shows like Warehouse 13, they can also be good guys (as often the case with Spies In a Van). So I think that vague suspicion could actually work in our favour here.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 12th 2019 at 10:07:33 AM

Would it cause any problems if I were to go ahead and launch, without stating that Van in Black is the subtrope? We can always make that change later, if that ends up being the decision here, and if it isn't, it shouldn't make a difference, right?

What's the difference of Heaven's Devils and Ascended Demon?

Heaven's Devils aren't demons who've turned against other demons and become good, they're demons who do evil because evil is also part of God's plan — it's all a divine test. So they can still be tempting mortals to do evil, corrupting souls, punishing the damned, causing horrors on earth and whatnot, but it's not out of malice and it all serves a purpose. With an Ascended Demon, they're probably a Defector from Decadence, but Heaven's Devils are just doing a job — they're not even Punch-Clock Villains, in the sense that their ultimate purpose is, theoretically, in the grand scheme of things, good.

Alright, so if there's no objection, I'm going to launch Creepy Stalker Van. And if everyone else is okay with it, I'll update Van in Black as the supertrope for Spies In a Van, Vehicular Kidnapping, and Creepy Stalker Van next Wednesday.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 15th 2019 at 12:05:30 PM

I'd like to add something to the Canonical and Laconical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions. Specifically for the recently renamed Supernatural Light, which does sound similar to Fantastic Light Source.

Edited by WaterBlap on Jun 27th 2019 at 2:53:01 AM

Supernatural Light's name doesn't make it obvious that it's about supernatural beings. /rant

I mean, I thought Ghostly Glow was a better name, but that lost, so whatcha gonna do...

Edited by naturalironist on Jun 28th 2019 at 8:21:33 AM

We are not supposed to base our understandings of a given trope solely on the name. But the names are similar, hence why I suggest the entry on the list.

Edit:

Wrong thread.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Jul 6th 2019 at 12:37:39 PM

I'm trying to ensure my understanding of these tropes is correct, as I've seen examples like:

• Period Piece: Season 1 of Troperia with Alice and Bob was very firmly grounded in 1986, with eighties style hair and Bob having an 80s Porn Stache, cars such as the Ford Orion sedan and Opel Commodore luxury sedan, and a reference to Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor on Doctor Who mentioned.

• 20 Minutes into the Past: The series is very firmly established as being set in 1993, evidenced by the references to John Major as Prime Minister, the launch of the all-new Ford Mondeo, and references to the Prince of Wales and Princess of Wales' divorce.

Am I correct in thinking this:

• Period Piece: It's very clearly set in a specific year, and often the creators will have Shown Their Work on the period concerned. Hard Alternate History (Type I) often falls into this.
• 20 Minutes into the Past: The year (1993 in the example above) is the setting and it's there for verisimilitude purposes.

I'm not certain where both tropes overlap, and am uncertain of how often a work has both.

Would a work that's Alternate History count as one trope, or both, depending on context? (This applies to Web Original examples set on alternatehistory.com that I've been reading about on here).

If anyone could explain the differences, I'd appreciate it - especially as there isn't anything on the canonical list of trope distinctions (and I don't want to make mistakes if using these two tropes!)

Transgender Fetishization vs Attractive Bent-Gender confuses me, because not all examples on the former are of trans characters.

"For this trope, "Transgender" is being used as a catch-all for many different forms of gender-nonconformity, such as Crossdresser, Ambiguous Gender, Ambiguous Gender Identity, Sex Shifter or others."

Taken straight from the page

I know that, but what differentiates the two tropes? Attractive Bent-Gender is already about attractive crossdressing characters.

I was going to add these to Canonical List of Trope Distinctions but do they make sense:

Period Piece vs 20MinutesIntoThePast vs Unintentional Period Piece

• Period Piece: It's very clearly set in a specific year, and often the creators will have Shown Their Work on the period concerned. Hard Alternate History (Type I) often falls into this.
• 20 Minutes into the Past: The year (1993 in the example above) is the setting and it's there for verisimilitude purposes.
• Unintentional Period Piece: A work that was set in Present Day at the time of filming or broadcast is later seen as a Period Piece, unintentionally and retrospectively. It does not age well, and things like technology, politics (pre- The Great Politics Mess Up and references to Why We're Bummed Communism Fell), fashions and automobiles can date it badly.

For Want Of A Nail vs In Spite of a Nail vs Close-Enough Timeline:

• For Want Of A Nail: Small change has big difference, starting a major event.
• In Spite of a Nail: Changing one small thing in the past doesn't mean the entire future will have a drastic change. Some things never change, as they say.
• Close-Enough Timeline: It's not quite the usual timeline, but it'll have to do, as it's the best we can get via Time Travel. Common in anime and fantasy genre.

and

The Stations of the Canon vs Story Reset vs Soft Reboot:

• The Stations of the Canon: A Fan Fic follows the events of the original work as fixed plot points, even if the protagonist or outcome is different.
• Story Reset: The last chapter didn't work out, so we'll reset things, without changing too much.
• Soft Reboot: Like a Continuity Reboot, but in the same continuity not a new one.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Aug 16th 2019 at 10:53:33 AM

To add to the posts about It's All About Me and Narcissist above, where do these MCU characters fall under?

• Tony Stark in general (currently listed as Narcissist on the trope page, I'd say he's an example of It's All About Me; while selfish he cares about other people.)
• Loki in Thor: Ragnarok (currenly listed as Narcissist on the character page, I'd say he's an example of It's All About Me in this movie; he cares about his family and in the end makes a Heel–Face Turn)
• Loki in The Avengers (2012) (currenly listed as Narcissist on the character page, I agree with that).

Also I believe that it would be benefical to rename Narcissist into "Pathological Narcissist" or something, because tropers misuse it a lot for characters who are just selfish.

Tony Stark should not be listed as a narcissist. Although he has narcissistic traits throughout the MCU, it's not a defining character flaw so much as something that he steadily grows out of throughout his character development.

Meanwhile, I think that Loki counts as a narcissist up until Thor: Ragnarok due to it being a key element of his villainous nature, and him going good by the end of that movie.

Reviving this thread because I don't know where else to ask this...

Is there any meaningful difference between Space-Filling Empire and All Nations Are Superpowers that I'm missing?

I'm not seeing one. SFE as written seems more focused on a game-design perspective, where A Na SP frames it (as what sounds like) more as a sibling of Law of Conservation of Detail. Interestingly, they both reference Nineteen Eighty-Four in the description, and claim it as a major example. There's also overlap in the Real Life sections.

This probably belongs on the Duplicate Tropes thread here in TT.

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Jun 25th 2022 at 10:07:02 AM