Misused: Adult Fear

Unwiki-wording doesn't make sense.

I assume it's to reduce the wick count without the actual wick cleaning, and leaving the example hanging like ZCE until someone figures out what to do with it.

I'll just cut it then.

That all just sounds like Nightmare Fuel without context.

Also isn't the whole point of cleaning wicks to clean up the misuse when we cut the trope? Un-wiki-wording feels like Loophole Abuse just to clean out TRS faster without actually doing anything meaningful. And it won't make much sense to an outsider.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 25th 2022 at 5:35:02 AM

Yeah; it's not about the wicks, it's about the examples.

Should we remove the sub-indentation on the Adult Fear page? Last I heard, we're not supposed to group tropes like that (not even on indexes), especially when it messes up alphabetisation.

I'd remove them outright (the two under Outliving One's Offspring aren't even that related) as Imperiled in Pregnancy covers 4 of 5 of them anyway. Panicky Expectant Father could be added somewhere at Imperiled in Pregnancy's description for good measure.

Yeah, I think the disambig can actually be mostly pared down...

I already mention that the disambig seemed too bloated before. We don't have to add every possible use there.

Also, yeah, trope's should not get sub-bulleted like that.

Edited by MacronNotes on Apr 26th 2022 at 2:46:32 PM

So, let's take a look at these tropes and see what we can cut:

• Anger Born of Worry: Someone being relieved that someone is safe while also being angry that they put themselves in danger. This feels too general.
• Children Forced to Kill: Circumstances force a child into committing fatal violence. I think keepable because of all the child examples.
• Death of a Child: Stories dealing with child death. One of the biggest usages, keep.
• Growing Up Sucks: Becoming an adult means having to deal with the struggles and worries of adulthood. I've not seen any usage that fits this. Adults don't fear growing up, they've already done it, but maybe it counts for portraying mundane adult problems?
• Harmful to Minors: Children experience or witness potentially traumatic events. Again, keep.
• I Have Your Wife: It doesn't have to be "your wife" though, "I Have Your Kid" also works Seems a bit forced. It's basically just "the villain kidnaps someone the hero cares for."
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: A pregnant woman is placed in some sort of danger; there will likely be some emphasis on the expectant mother fearing for her unborn child's wellbeing. Depending upon how far along she is, she may also be incapable of defending herself or escaping easily. I guess?
  • Maternity Crisis: A woman goes into labor while some kind of calamity is taking place, potentially endangering her and her child. I can see keeping this, but it needs to be resorted.
  • Panicky Expectant Father: The father of an unborn baby starts freaking out during the birth; this is usually Played for Laughs, but can be presented more seriously, especially if there's legitimate reasons for the father to be worried about his partner and/or their child. Eh... same thing as the above, I guess.
  • Pregnant Hostage: A pregnant woman is taken as a hostage. And this just seems redundant.
• Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Villains whose schtick are abducting children. Keep.
• Jobless Parent Drama: A parent loses their job and worries about how they'll provide for their child(ren). I guess?
• Kid Amidst the Chaos: A child trapped in the middle of some massive, chaotic event, common in disaster films. Keep
• Minor Living Alone: A child or underage teen is fending for themselves for some reason. Eh, I'm not seeing it, the kid usually isn't portrayed as being in outright danger and is usually shown to be competent at caring for themselves.
• Missing Child: A child goes missing, with the possibility something horrible happened to them. Keep
• Mundanger: A mundane source of peril in a setting with notably supernatural elements. Keep I guess, even though the wick check showed very little overlap.
• Outliving One's Offspring: A parent must deal with their child predeceasing them. Keep
  • Forced Miscarriage: Someone conspires to deliberately cause someone else to miscarry a pregnancy. Seems forced, and shouldn't be organized here anyway.
  • Tragic Stillbirth: An unborn child dies in the womb, causing distress for the family. Also seems a bit forced, but maybe?
• Realism-Induced Horror: An Audience Reaction where viewers find something especially horrifying because it can happen in Real Life. Keep
• The Runaway: A minor runs away from home, potentially causing worry for their parents; they may also have run away because of a bad home life. Too wishy-washy and vague.
• Struggling Single Mother: A mother who struggles to provide for her child(ren) without support from the child(ren)'s father (who is either unwilling or unable to help). Eh... maybe? I really feel like this disambig is trying to squeeze out every single possible "struggle involving children trope", though.
• Troubled Child: A child has behavioral or psychological issues, often due to abuse, neglect or other trauma. Eh, I guess.
• Troubled Teen: A teenager has behavioral or psychological issues, often due to abuse, neglect or other trauma. Also an I guess.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: A child engages in behavior considered abnormal for their age. Eh.
• Would Hurt a Child: A character — usually a villain — who is prepared to harm a child. Keep

Ok, this one's... weird?

VileVillainSaccharineShow.Animated Films have this pothole:

• Dark Heart from the second Care Bears movie is far creepier than he has any business being. A Lucifer-like corrupter who turns children into sadists that wreck a summer camp. He apparently is motivated only by evil, and captures the souls of the Care Bears in a giant ruby chandelier.
  • Dark Heart had nothing on the Spirit of the Book from the first movie, which wanted the whole world to stop caring and manipulated Nicholas into doing her work for her. She always appears as just a face in a book, turns green and always uses creepy Ominous Latin Chanting, comes within two people in the entire planet from succeeding, and is never Played for Laughs. Not to mention the fact that there are people like her in Real Life who will use manipulation to get young people to do their bidding. — Sounds like this troper wants to inject his own "social commentary" into an unrelated kid's film. Normally I'd replace or remove the pothole, but the second sentence is literally pointless. Delete?

Yeah, there's no need for real life commentary on a page about fiction. Burn it.

Red Live Lobster has a lot of real life commentary in its description.

That's not a problem cuz it's the description, not an example (and it's an Artistic License – Biology trope so of course it'll bring up real life for comparison), and also it's not related to Adult Fear.

Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 28th 2022 at 12:09:38 PM

@WarJay I agree with your assessment.

...anyway, going through Video Games, A - Z

And VideoGame.Arknights have this monster.

• Adult Fear: There are a number of child operators in the cast, and many of them have had fearsome things happen to them, in addition to already having a life-threatening illness in Oripathy.
  • Gravel was tricked into leaving her village, then abducted and sold into chattel slavery. Due to how far she traveled and her ordeals, she has forgotten where her home village is in Kazimierz, and her past haunts her in her dreams regularly even as the Doctor's bodyguard in Rhodes Island. Even now, she continues to try to locate her village and get reunited with her family. Her plight isn't even unique, as she has actually rescued other girls from suffering her fate before she joined Rhodes Island, and regularly revisits these rescues in her dreams.
  • Popukar was rescued from being an abused slave, the details of which led Ansel to see Kal'tsit, who was normally fairly stoic, actually angry.
  • Suzuran contracted Oripathy as a result of someone attacking her with a booby-trapped doll to get to her mother. Due to her family connections, an unknown but concerned third party warned that she might have difficult connections with fellow Siracusan Lappland and added a warning never to let them meet in her operator file.
  • Rosmontis was the victim of experimentation when she was extremely young, and she is one of the youngest frontline operators at the tender age of fourteen. She has to deal with her own allies in Rhodes Island being frightened of her power at times.
  • Ifrit was a subject of experimentation by Rhine Labs. Whatever transpired crossed enough lines that Silence pulled strings to get Ifrit out of there and brought her to Rhodes Island, and she has essentially turned into a mother figure for Ifrit out of guilt over what happened to the little firebrand.
  • All of the Ursus students (Gummy, Rosa, Zima, Istina, Absinthe) went through a horrific amalgamated re-enactment of both the Russian Revolution and Lord of the Flies during the Chernobog incident. The situation is so messed-up that even Tachanka, who was only on Terra due to a crossover event, lost his cool when told about the situation, with Chernobog becoming a Berserk Button for him.
  • Eyjafalla is a brilliant scholar and volcanologist, but her Oripathy has progressed to the point where her academic peers fear that the illness will kill her before she can achieve true greatness in her career.
  • Firewatch was the sole survivor of her village getting massacred, and nearly ended up killing herself from neglect in her pursuit of revenge against the attackers.
  • Rope had a bad childhood as a street rat and was forced to steal to survive. Her oripathy nearly made her lose all hope of having a future before she joined Rhodes Island.
  • Mousse was afraid to reveal to others her status as infected and hid it for a long time, allowing her oripathy to progress to a dangerously advanced state before she joined Rhodes Island.
  • Shamare was neglected and treated like a cursed child due to her Arts and her oripathy.
  • Pramanix, Cliffheart, and Silverash have family issues as a result of the politics of their home country. Cliffheart ended up infected due to her carelessness, and Pramanix was strongly encouraged by her brother to go become a priestess against her wishes, resulting in their family situation becoming strained, and she also harbors some jealousy over Cliffheart's popularity in Rhodes Island.
  • The official animated short Holy Knight Light introduces a small Ursus orphan, one of many survivors who lost both their home and family during the tragedy of Chernobog. She refuses to leave the Penguin Logistics crew for the entire sequence, and it's a relief that she ends up adopted by Rhodes Island at the end of the short.
  • Platinum's plight before she joined Rhodes Island is all too relateable - first, the corruption and degrading nature of her original career choice to be an Idol Knight wears away at her. In a moment of weakness, shady individuals from the Armorless Union approach her with a tempting job offer, the price of which was her innocence as she is tested by being assigned to assassinate the Knight that humiliated her. She ends up a corporate slave in all but name, forced to run many missions for the KGCC with little in the way of respite and no break from the killing. It all smacks of an exploitative corporation seizing hold of young and talented people and turning them into practical slaves to the rat race with false promises of a glorious career.
  • The Plastic Knight's panic when he realizes that his child was at risk of being used as a hostage to control him by the Armorless Union is very understandable and it serves as a catalyst for improving his opinion of the Infected Knights when Pinus Sylvestris runs a mission to rescue his family and himself from the knight-assassins.
  • The Near Light animated Teaser has a chilling moment when Flametail wakes up in a blazing ruin and fears the worst for her friends and family when the assassins struck out at her.
  • "A Light Spark in Darkness" features Goldenglow's backstory, and it involved being persecuted by an angry mob for her infection, which cumulated in her barber's shop being burnt down.

I have no idea where to start (there are 17 entries all crammed in one entry up there), any objections if it's scrubbed? I'm not familiar with said game and I don't want to mass-delete stuff without the proper "OK"

Great, go for it

Edited by RobertTYL on Apr 29th 2022 at 10:51:30 PM

those are all just "bad things happening to kids". I'm an arknights fan, and when I have time I can go through and pull out any examples that fit the valid disambig tropes

More "I want to use TVTropes as a platform to express my social commentary while disguising it as a trope entry", from Film.The Last King Of Scotland

• Adult Fear: Nicholas' situation. Imagine if you were friends with someone who's the leader of a nation and then they are being accused of being a dictator. Naturally you defend them, but what would you do when the accusations turn out to be facts and you watch your friend become unstable to the point where he'll kill anyone who does something he doesn't like, including you yourself?
  • Remember Idi Amin was real. Living in a developing (or fragile) country ruled by a murderously tyrannical dictator is sadly a reality for many people. One can go to Uganda and talk to Ugandan people who survived his regime (if they're willing), look at the accounts of those who are now deceased, or a current tyrannical dictatorship like North Korea. - I really can't find a substitute trope for this one, delete it?

Edited by RobertTYL on May 3rd 2022 at 9:42:49 PM

You know, if an example is obviously badly written or doesn't fit an existing trope, you can just delete it.

That just sounds like Realism-Induced Horror with a touch of Fridge Horror.

Yeah if you can't think of a replacement trope right away, just delete it. Also, there's no need to be snarky with that opening line in your post. It comes off as kinda rude.

Harsher in Hindsight?

How are we dealing with both instances on Characters.Encanto The Family Madrigal? Both are about different characters reacting to the same moment.

They can be merged together and moved to TearJerker.Encanto.

Skimmed through the page, and that moment is covered already. I'll just pull them from the character sheet.