Trope Report - WikiNewsletter

Uh

So?

In fact, an attempt to revive said newsletter was attempted, but sputtered out.

Again.

So?

In fact,

This is the Forum Spin-Off of the old Newsletter, which sadly died.

o

Where do you go to read the latest about new tropes? What about old tropes with new names? How can you find the best but least linked tropes out there? Worry no more: Trope Report is here.

Hello and greeting! You are reading the first edition of the new Trope Report, the wiki newsletter of TV Tropes! Our attempt at this is so far going smoothly and we hope to provide all you Tropers with the latest information. But enough of my yacking, on to the articles!

Forumwatch:
Our forum is an ever growing community and we are always welcoming new members! This week we are pleased to extend warm welcomes to Mythsage, Lilly S, Frankomatic, Nightwire, Cable, The Sh33p, Sunshine Duk, X 1 Kyriaki, Jolie Faux, Perseus, Yarou, Giantspot, Rottweiler, Minnie Gunn, Katsuun, and lucky58! On behalf of the Troping community we wish you all enjoy your time here!

Onto the news then. As many of you may now have noticed, the Media section has gained a new subforum, VISUAL ARTS/GRAPHICS. This subforum owes its existence to several Tropers, but the main credit can be attributed to harmattane for taking it up with the Administrator, Fast Eddie. A quick request, a couple of enthusiastic cheers of approval, and there it was.

VISUAL ARTS/GRAPHICS is for the artistically inclined among us. Sort of like Writer's Block for visual arts, but it also for discussion of the visual arts media, like painters, sketcher, and whatnot. Feel like gushing about the Norman Rockwell painting you saw? Want to share your artwork or get tips from your fellow Tropers? This is the place for you.

In other news, Tropers may have noticed that the “Search Forum Titles” option bar has been added to the top center of all forum pages in addition to the bottom. This came at the request of melloncollie who argued that the search bar at the bottom was annoying to use and was likely to be unseen by newer Tropers. The “Search Forum Titles” option bar allows you to search for a word or words that appear in the names of Forum threads. For example, if I wanted to find a subject on Shakespeare I would type in “Shakespeare” in the bar, click, and it would bring up a list of all the threads that have his name in them. This enables Tropers to find a topic much more quickly and hopefully discourages duplicate threads. The “Find Post By Troper” option bar remains at the bottom of the page.

And a happy birthday to Leanan!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes:
Tropers are a meddlesome bunch. They see something and feel an almost instinct-like urge to fix it or make it better. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Trope Repair, the subforum dedicated to the oiling, greasing, fine tuning, total overhaul, or total demolition of Tropes in order to make the wiki better manageable and sensible (What the hell are they smoking?).

• Concerning the wiki itself, Getting Crap Past the Radar now has its own icon◊. Cute, ain't it? This icon will appear for any work or media group that has a Getting Crap Past the Radar page. Since this is a trope rather than a Just for Fun page, thiis icon will not appear on the Main Page.

• Our most recent changes have come as early as yesterday, with Earn Your Anvil being turned into Choose Your Own Aesop on account of the former being misleading.

• In an interesting turn of events Lava Is Red Hot Water is currently in the process of being renamed and merged with Lava Is Kool Aid. The two practically go together anyway so expect a Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid trope to appear instead of those two.

• The Character Page for The King Of Fighters is experiencing difficulties. That page as well as the main entry are in the process of being split according to the games storyline sagas.

• Similarly, Phantasy Star I-IV now have their own separate pages.

• In what has to be some kind of record, Wiki Talk is renamed into Derailed Train of Thought. Seriously, five days? Though it was a confusing name that did happen to be already in use by a subforum.

• Fantasy Gun Control has been limited to subversions, aversions, and otherwise non-played straight reasons only.

• YKTTW Flaming Combo Attack no longer exists. One has to wonder if anyone even knew it existed to begin with.

• I have some good news and bad news. The good news is I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico! The bad news is that Switching To GEICO has been switched with its redirect; Bad News, Irrelevant News.

• New Rules as the Plot Demands is the new name for Screw the Rules, I Have Plot!. Which as you make recall was the new name for The Catapult Turtle Flying Castle Gambit. Bets are on for how long until a fourth name is in order.

Spotlight Stealing Trope:\\ "The book awoke something dark in the woods, something evil. It took Linda. Then it came after me, it got into my hand and it went bad, so I lopped it off at the wrist." — Ash Williams, Army Of Darkness

Today we give our attention to Evil Hand, a Speculative Fiction and Horror Trope, and a subtrope of Organ Autonomy. The Evil Hand is basically a transplanted limb, usually a hand or arm, which does two things. One, act independently of the rest of the person’s body. And two, act totally against the person’s will, usually attempting to do something evil, hence the name. Just as often played straight as it is played for laughs.

The idea of your own limb suddenly acting independently is creepy enough; you are basically loosing control of your own body. Then to top that is usually acts maliciously in which case not only have you lost control of yourself, your body is actively trying to do you harm. Depending on how severe the evil of this hand one may be forced to take extreme measures like Ash Williams up there.

On the other hand, there are few things funnier to watch then a guy smacking himself around. In less serious works, or moments of comedy in serious works, an Evil Hand often provides a dose of silliness. The most famous example of this would be Dr Strangelove’s hand which regularly hit him in the face or did Nazi salutes. Similarly Fry and the Devilbot of Futurama found their switched hands doing… uncomfortable things to the rest of their bodies, much to the audience’s amusement.

The earliest example of this trope in action is in a Grimm fairytale where several brothers switch limbs with animals and a criminal to disastrous effects. As this Trope is of the more specific variety there really isn’t much more to say. Well, now you know!

Edits From The Editor:
And now a word from Fast Eddie! After a problem was brought up on one of the Troper Tales pages Fast Eddie said:

Troper Tales. Who really cares?

Needs More Wiki Love:
Above The Ruins is an Action Adventure and Ending Trope which is, in its own words, "After a big, property-damage-causing event, most often fighting the Big Bad, the main characters are seen on a cliff or plateau overlooking the ruins that resulted. Naturally, Scenery Gorn is heavily used."

And that’s it. Seriously, two sentences worth of description and that’s all. Not even a picture. The trope has about 40 examples but a lack of a good description is just laziness. As Tropers it is our responsibility to give every trope the love it deserves. So if you have the time please take a look at Above The Ruins and flesh it out a bit. A picture would be nice as well.

Add More Here:
That’s a wrap folks. We sincerely hope you enjoyed our hastily-put-together-at-the-last-minute First Edition. Any praise or complaints can be directed to this thread or the Chief Editor’s PM box. Speaking of which, this edition was put together by myself but starting next week expect articles and columns from Morven, krrackknut, Gelzo, and Freezair For A Limited Time. Thanks for reading and see you next week!

edited 20th May '10 4:03:48 PM by Scholastica

Nice work, Schol. You did a great job with this and I look forward to the next edition.

Good job. How much do we have to wait for the next one?

edited 20th May '10 3:46:01 PM by SRC

Next week!

Awesome, bro.

Awesome! Really loved the message from Fast Eddie.

There needs to be a column on We Are Our Avatars.

No, that would require a daily newsletter.

Precisely.

I read all of that.

I'm watching.

Hey, I appeared in something! Nice work.

Sorry I could not contribute!

I have been busy. Maybe you should have someone else as a regular editor for my parts.

I only just read this, but it's pretty impressive. Good work, Parable.

Thanks. And double thanks for saving me the trouble of digging this thing up from the bottom of the thread page.

You could put it on your watched threads list, and pick it off of that.

Oh, so that's what that's for.

Well, actually what it's for is when you click on "thread watchlist," it gives you a list of all the threads you're watching that have updated. Past that is "Watched Thread List," which is, like it says, every thread you're watching.

But you could easily cultivate a selection of threads you want to have at hand to pick off of "Watched Thread List."

Where do you go to read the latest about new tropes? What about old tropes with new names? How can you find the best but least linked tropes out there? Worry no more: Trope Report is here.

Hello readers! Thank you for picking up the second edition of Trope Report. We’ve had a busy week so far, haven’t we? Fear not though! The writers of Trope Report are dedicated to bringing you the best analyisis and latest information. Read on and you will know everything you need to know!

Forumwatch:
First off, let us welcome the newest members of our community! Please give a big hello to Malkyrian, heartnibbler, Nightfire, 42 Zombies, Incomplete Dani, Happy Duck, Princessof Punk, Atomic Nut. Welcome to the Forum, you guys! Hope you have lots of fun!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes:
Cut... Cut... Merge... Cut… This sections should be renamed C-C-C-Cutlist! As you can see, a rather large number of items were cut this week. It seems for every good trope we have there is also a superfluous one. Take note, Tropers. Not everything is Tropable (Is that a word?) and you don’t need to take every aspect of a trope and make it a separate trope.

• Obligatory Trope Overdosed Reference has been cut on account of being pointless.

• As has Likeable Sue. Remember kids, It defeats the purpose of calling someone a Mary Sue if everyone actually likes them.

• Cloning Gold also has been cut since it’s basically Follow the Leader. All examples have been moved to that page.

• While The Silent Bob has not been merged, cut, or renamed it has had is description cleaned up to better differentiate it from other tropes.

• Just to clear this up; Spectacled Sadist and Four Eyes Zero Soul, are different tropes. Read and learn, Tropers!

• Screaming CG (Which was when bad CG effects were inserted into a Live Action production, has been merged with Conspicuous CG (Same but was supposed to only for animation), the differences were not considered enough to keep them apart. Apparently this actually happened a awhile ago but was only recently brought up.

• The Aragon, no, not The Aragorn, has been cut and sent into YKTTW for clean-up. It was supposed to be a Spear Counterpart for Rebellious Princess but was made rather poorly.

• Mistaken for Subculture (A Trope than really needs more love by the way) has had its Real Life examples cut. Save them for Troper Tales, folks.

• Metal Slime has had a make-over concerning its description.

• Off-the-Shelf FX has been soft split to differentiate between the two main flavors it comes out as. See the trope itself for further details.

• Long and complicated but basically anything with involved with Big Brother Complex (No, not the 1984 one) has been or will be split or moved or merged.

• A number of Japanese named tropes have been renamed for the sake of clarity. Enjo Kosai has been renamed to Compensated Dating. Hachimaki is now Martial Art Headband.

• The Okona, which was described as Informed Ability meets Mary Sue, has been cut.

• Giant Microbes is in the process of being split. In an unusual case it seems we found a trope growing out of a works page and there are steps being taken to properly separate the two. The Work Page will keep the name so whatever named the trope will have is currently under debate.

Spotlight Stealing Trope:
Today, we focus the limelight on Clone Degeneration, a speculative trope and a rather debilitating disease. Clone Degeneration is what happens when one clones something: a copy is simply not as good or as effective as the original. As such, clones seem to break down quickly or tend to suffer illnesses that the original wouldn't as they lack the defenses.

What would be much worse are clones of clones, or even a recurring system of copies, each one more degraded than the last.

Sometimes the trope is even justified, as the clone degradation is due to a "kill-switch" or a timed shelf-life that the clone's creator implemented.

So, yes. Clone Degeneration is a bad thing.

FIGHT THE DECAY

DON'T CLONE YOURSELF

-Written by krrackknut

Needs More Wiki Love:
*Alternate Animal Affection is a trope that was launched recently by—er, well. While it has a description, it's severely lacking in examples! Surely you've all seen this one—especially you children of The '90s who grew up with a ridiculous number of Funny Animal cartoons.

• Metal Detector Puzzle is a fine trope, but its examples could use some sorting, and its description could use a little beefing out.

• And Never Split the Party is a trope page that's needed some beefing-up with examples for a long time! It's not in a wholly unhealthy state, as it stands, but the Wiki Magic has long passed it by for its more well-known and flashier cousin, Let's Split Up, Gang!.

-Written by Freezair For A Limited Time

Edits From The Editor:
Sometimes things go wrong. Hey, it happens. Fact of life. But here at tvTropes things should always be operating smoothly. If something goes wrong there is someone to blame and Fast Eddie has discovered the source of our problems:

"Everything is Matrix' fault. The reason that we blame everything on Matrix is because it actually is his fault."

Add More Here:
Fun Fact: Gilligan Cut, was TV Tropes very first article.

Well that wraps up this weeks edition of Trope Report. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we did writing it. That’s right, we. Today’s edition was brought to you by Scholastica Parable and the new writers krrackknut and Freezair For A Limited Time. If you liked this weeks issue, feel free to PM me with praise for having such a keen eye and hiring the best talent out there. If you didn’t like it feel free to spam the PM boxes of the other two with hatemail! Thanks for reading and see you next week!

*claps*