Needs Help: Sailor Earth

ATT thread on this subject

Currently much of the examples in Sailor Earth isn't "examples of the trope" but advice for adding OC in a fanfic. Doesn't help that the description even encourage general examples.

About the trope itself, I thought it is about how "new character created to fit in an obviously missing spot of existing theme". But with some entry being "The theme used in this group is very broad, anything would be this trope." (simply add new character with the same theme) and sometime it doesn't has specific theme at all. Here's one example.

Basically, it mean "anything go, no theme, no probllem.". So it seems that the trope is either badly decayed or actually a People Sit on Chairs.

To make things more complicate, this page has surprisingly high inbounds. So I guess that some websites out there list it as Fanfic Fuel?

As far as I can see, there're several options to deal with it.

1. Keep it as a trope but with more clear definition, and remove all generic examples or advice.
2. Make it a YMMV subtrope of Fanfic Fuel.
3. Cut it. Because adding characters inspired by existing is an obvious consequence and not really trope-worthy.
4. Mixed of 1 & 4. Keep it as a trope but limited it to official works (like when a sequel or adaption pull it) since fanworks examples is People Sit on Chairs.

Edited by Kuruni on May 28th 2019 at 10:21:31 PM

Fan-created characters aren't PSOC, though. An Original Character is (normally) a fan-created character in a third-party created work, for example. Other fan-generated stuff isn't PSOC would include Fan Nickname and the like. I've always seen this as a subtrope of Original Character, which even (erroneously?) mentions this phenomenon as a "stock scenario" for Original Characters.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I noticed that the page seems to be attracting a lot of Mary Sue-related complaining due to its classification as a Mary Sue Trope and the fact that it's listed as being related to Copycat Sue, based on what I removed yesterday. I think an Example Sectionectomy might be a good idea due to Mary Sue and its subcategories' Flame Bait status (barring Parody Sue).

I also think Zuxtron had a good point in the ATT query about how this should be YMMV due to its relation to Fanfic Fuel (more specifically, how Sailor Earth characters are meant to fill a gap that seems to have been left by conventions in the original work(s)).

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 29th 2019 at 10:41:37 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I think we need a wick check to see how this page is really being used before we decide how to proceed.

I support the second solution, making this a YMMV Sub-Trope of Fanfic Fuel. There definitely is a real phenomenon where some works have an aspect of their story that inspires fans to invent original characters just for the sake of making new characters, without necessarily planning on using them in a story. Even I like to get in on the action sometimes, I run a community on Reddit where people can display their ideas for Stand abilities.

I'd support a cleanup of any non-thematic examples regardless of what happens.

Edited by Albert3105 on May 29th 2019 at 12:07:46 PM

I'm against making this an Audience Reaction or a YMMV item. There is no value judgment, opinion, or emotional reaction/interpretation involved. It's an objective fact that a given work has a thematic pattern for its own characters, and it is another objective fact that fans are creating OC's that logically fit that thematic pattern in fan fiction or other fan-generated content. Moreover, non-fans can discern examples from non-examples given sufficient context (i.e. the thematic pattern and the original characters added to that pattern).

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

It's an Audience Reaction in the sense that it's something that exists in the fandom, not the work itself. The audience sees a certain element of the fictional world, and reacts to it by deriving their own characters.

(*uneasy*) ehhh... (*uncertain*) I think this needs to be reworded.

(*more confident*) Something happening not in the work itself is not an objective fact about the work. Everything, including Audience Reactions, should be objective facts (fans have done X because of the work).

What I think you're trying to say is that this concept, Sailor Earth, is a derivative trope, where we see it happen in a derivative and examples should be from that derivative work. An OC of Sailor Earth should be an example of a fanfiction, not an Audience Reaction to Sailor Moon. Am I accurately restating your meaning?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I agree with your last paragraph. Sailor Earth should be a subtrope of Original Character, in which the new character fits into a pre-existing theme. It's a fanfic trope, not an Audience Reaction.

I can see how this could cause complaining, as Original Characters in general tend to be looked upon with derision. But yes, a wick check would be good to confirm this.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

My idea is to split this into two separate things:

• An Audience Reaction listed based on the original work, as a sub-trope of Fanfic Fuel, for repeated behaviors in fanfiction.
• A Characterization Trope, listed on the fanfic or fanwork, as a sub-trope of Original Character, for specific instances in fanfiction.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!

I should probably clarify that I was referring to complaining in on-page examples (hence why I said "page" and not "trope") in my previous post. I wasn't commenting on off-page examples, and the Sectionectomy I suggested was for on-page examples.

I'll add that Original Character itself already has that kind of Sectionectomy, and according to its discussion page, Sailor Earth used to be intended to be a definition-only page (2010 or so), despite examples being listed despite that, though the history doesn't go back that far. (Note that I'm not suggesting making Sailor Earth a definition-only page; I'm referring to what the page appears to have been like about a decade ago.)

Edit: The Wayback Machine doesn't appear to support the definition-only page claim that was posted on the discussion page. The "no personal examples" text's only major difference was directing such examples to Troper Tales, since it hadn't been removed yet in 2010.

Another edit: Removed the strikethrough markup from part of this post. As I said, I'm not suggesting making this a definition-only page. I was only saying that someone else claimed it was a definition-only page about a decade ago, and then I did some investigating and found out that the claim was incorrect even then.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 29th 2019 at 1:59:10 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

With regards to the theme-or-not issue, some of the examples are less about a theme and more about filling a currently unfilled niche in the cast. The Yu-Gi-Oh example cited in the OP for instance, seems to be basically saying "if there is a deck type that exists in the card game that doesn't have an anime character that uses it, a fan could make a character that uses that deck type." If that doesn't belong as part of Sailor Earth, maybe that sort of thing could be its own page. It's not quite "any fan character counts" because new characters that (again, using Yu-Gi-Oh as an example) use totally made-up deck types, or deck types that are already represented in the cast, wouldn't qualify.

I do think combing through the examples would be good. I did a quick look in Wrstern Animation and there are bad examples but also good ones.

So it look like cut it is unfavorable choice and we're lean toward move it out of main namespace (to YMMV or other), right?

About the trope definition, should we make "missing spot" as mandatory, or expand it to "anything as long as it follow the existing theme"?

Maybe following a theme. Though, we might want to make it very clear what it means. Like would a OC Storm Trooper of Star Wars fame be considered a Sailor Earth?

That's pretty much what I mean, yes. The "Audience Reaction" article is not the same as just any "audience reaction," in the sense that just because fans "react" a certain way does not mean the phenomenon can be lumped under the Audience Reaction article. It concerns emotional reactions, judgments, and opinions, and it does not concern reactions where we can look at a work and objectively say that yes this phenomenon has happened.

The first seems like it's already covered by Fanfic Fuel. We could probably just move bad examples there. The second is too rigid, imo, as Tropes Are Flexible. I disagree that this should be strictly limited to fan fiction.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

What would a non-fanfic example look like?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Here's one from the page itself.

• Kamen Rider Decade:
  • Interestingly, the series gained a canon Sailor Earth in the form of Kamata/Kamen Rider Abyss, an original character made for Kamen Rider Decade who uses Mirror Monsters that were seen but not contracted in Ryuki. And for extra fun, he's also a Sailor Earth for Kamen Rider Blade, being the Paradoxa Undead, which was named but never shown.
  • Also, Decade has Kamen Rider Kivala, empowered by a small, female Kivat-like bat-critter from the World of Kiva. She didn't operate in the World of Kiva, being Natsumi and all, but she's what a Sailor Earth looks like in canon. The Kiva story of S.I.C. Hero Saga seized this opportunity by giving Kivala a Kiva-canon partner, Megumi Aso.

It's also obviously named after Sailor Moon, so I suggest a rename.

Those lack context. No theme is described, just a Sixth Ranger.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

@ Water Blap

Sailor Earth, by its current definition, is as much an Audience Reaction as Fanfic Fuel is (and Fanfic Fuel is indeed on the Audience Reactions index). The difference is that instead of inspiring whole stories, it inspires characters. Often, these characters aren't actually used in a story, simply having some artwork or even just a write-up of who they are. It is something that happens in many fandoms, and I think it is worth having a page about.

With the Kamen Rider Abyss one, Kamen Rider Ryuki make contract with Mirror Monsters that transform them into Riders. Decade uses one to create a new Rider.

Simplify For Non Fans: Is there an obvious gap or is this theme very broad, like dinosaurs? Power Rangers could have added an ankylosaurus, but it doesn't "fill in an obvious gap" since there's dozens of other creatures like hadrosaurus, spinosaurus, or allosaurus that would fit the theme. This is part of the definition.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I think that limit it to "fill the missing spot" is a must if we would keep it as a trope, but simply "follow the existing theme" would do if we're going to make it Fanfic Fuel subtrope. But even in the latter case, the themeless one should be removed, as well as one that's simply being the same as existing character (Kayube made a good point there), so DBZ's entry that say it's easy to add another Saiyan shouldn't count.