Trope Report - WikiNewsletter

Awesome work, guys! :D

I enjoy reading these a lot. Good work.

Watching this thread for updates, now.

I wonder if I should make this bi-weekly. Nah. Too lazy.

Wasn't Threadwatch supposed to be about notable threads and developments? Again, laziness.

The only thing to do that comes to mind would just be a carbon copy of Made of Forum Win.

Does the News Letter have it's own page yet?

Trope Report does. Though I never added any of the forum editions to what had previously been there before I found out about it.

edited 28th May '10 7:13:06 PM by Scholastica

Added.

Oh hey, thanks T!

Heheh, Second First Edition. Amusing.

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.

Good day, Tropers. Thank you for taking time to read the third edition of Trope Report. We hope to reward you with all the latest information on the ins and outs of TV Tropes. In addition to our regular articles, today we bring you our first edition of Work Of The Week, a section devoted to reviewing one of the many works found here on this very wiki. Read it! And if you like the review, play it! Anywho, enjoy your read.

Forumwatch:
First things first, let us give a warm welcome to the newest members of our forum community! If you haven’t already done so, please give a big hello to: Blissey1, Blue Ink Alchemist, Mandew, The Yeti, Fhthd, Girl Washing Silk, Knighted (Good for nothing liar, you owe me a kidney!,) Midnight Velvet, Thy-Robocop, Parakaitz, Senator Awesome Pants, Unobtainable Cheese, Kuro Fox, Nonsensical Lyric, and DJ Atomika! Welcome to the forum you guys!

As you many of you have no doubt already noticed, the JBM icon has undergone a metamorphosis. No longer is it a frog with giant eyebrows which had absolutely nothing to do with the phrase “It Just Bugs Me!”, now it is a full fledged bug! A June bug to be precise! And The Fandom Rejoiced!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes:
It seems last week drained people out. The changes to mention are down by a third! Oh well, less work for me. Here are the changes to be mentioned. Remember, if you wish to have a say in these matters, please go to the Trope Repair Shop subforum.

• The game series Monkey Island has been split into separate pages according to individual games. Examples for any specific game of that series go on the specific page.

• Tropers, please note that Exactly What It Says on the Tin means Exactly What It Says on the Tin! If it can not be figured out just by looking at it then it doesn’t belong there.

• Pair Apparent, where two characters are more or less considered a couple even with no exact confirmation has been cut. Most of its examples have been merged with Official Couple.

• Heroic Animals has been cut on account of nobody being able to figure out what it was trying to describe. Launcher, if you are reading this; give it a better description next time!

• Norma Bates has been renamed Mummies at the Dinner Table since nobody knew who Norma Bates was.

• Baka will soon be cut, but will be included in the new and upcoming Japanese Words The Anime Fandom Expects You To Know (Bets are being made to see how long that title lasts).

• Informed Equipment is the new name for Fight In The Nude. Who on earth thought Fight In The Nude was a good name anyway? Really?

• After much deliberation, it has been decided that Pettanko will be split into two tropes: A-Cup Angst for flat-chested girls who hate being flat-chested, and Petite Pride for girls for whom a flat chest is a STATUS SYMBOL!

• Eagleland has been soft split into two three four subgroups. Type one is the Make-You-Want-to-Immigrate-to-California Type. Type two is the Evil-Jerks-Portrayal type. Type three is the Good-Average-Joe-But-Nixon’s-In-Charge type, and the Mixed category is a mixture of the three.

Spotlight Stealing Trope:
Editor’s Note: We apologize to our readers for any incoherency in this article. To assure it never happens again the Trope Report staff has pledge to dunk krrackknut’s head into a tub of cold ice before he writes anything ever again. Thank you for understanding. – Scholastica Parable

...Tchoday, we *hic!* turn vour atten-shun ta de Alcohol Hic trope.

Ya know, it's dat soun' dat *hic*! a...wossat...ah! a drunk pwerson...makes when...totally wasted! HOORAY! *hic!*

Eets a beet of a *hic!* shortcut when ya wanna' sho' some'on drunk and...stuff. Beer...hey, beer! Awesome! *gulps* Where wuz eye? Awright, yeah. Beer'cn *hic!* make everythin' fonny, an' makin' tings fonny makes ya laff! An' *hic!* when yer laff so much, ya get de hiccups! Ain't *hic!* that a riot? 'course, it don't work so *hic!* well when ya tryin' ta drown yer sorros', but *hic!* we can steel do it wen we cry! *hic!*

So Yeah. *hic!* Alzo, dis is Truth in Television *hic!* for som' drinkers, so take dat in mind. *hic!*

Anyways, eet's happy hour! WOO-HOO! *gulps down entire glass* HELLS YEAH! MORE! MORE! MORE! MOR~... *collapses*

- (Taken from krrackknut’s voice recorder)

Needs More Wiki Love:
Today's call for Wiki Magic love comes from the direction of the Pickup Hierarchy, a trope which describes those ever-present collectables in Video Games, and the different values the game assigns to them. More than it needs examples, it needs wicks—it's not even linked on things like 100% Completion! Let's get the word out!

-Written by Freezair For A Limited Time

Edits From The Editor:
Fast Eddie has recently revealed the existence of psychic Tropers. They can read minds and bend spoons and all that jazz. Who they are remains a mystery however, as Fast Eddie also informed us:

“All the psychic tropers are concealing their powers from the general public. Out of a fear of being hunted as witches, no doubt.”

Psychic Tropers, stay sharp! We can’t protect you all the time!

Add More Here:
Work of the Week
Iron Gaia is a freeware Science Fiction RPG series for the PC. Please note that I haven't finished either of these games, as they both are rather difficult due to deliberate challenges and bad game mechanics.

It concerns the events on board a massive Space Station (possibly a Generation Ship) named Iron Gaia. In Where Angels Fear to Tread, an engineer named Armand Carter wakes up into an utterly hellish situation on board the station. The Gaia CPU [1] has gone insane, and psionically-gifted humans calling themselves Celestials are roaming about the space station with their own agenda.

In Iron Gaia: Virus, a trenchcoated Tommy gun-slinging psychic cyborg named Dietrich Slade is trying to make his way off of Iron Gaia before it impacts into a nearby planet. Along the way, expository flashbacks occur, many horrible mutants are fought, many computers are h4xx0red, and many swear words are emitted by the player at the myriad security cameras placed around the levels.

Ya know, I WANT to like these games, but it rubbed off on me the wrong way. Many of the tile sets are rather unapologetically taken from other games, such as many elements of the 2300 A.D. maps from Chrono Trigger (although given that most tile sets for RPG Maker are typical fantasy, this is probably the best they could get). And while it's possible to get used to the security cameras in Virus, I can't help but think there was probably a less frustrating way to implement that mechanic. Also, lots of RealSongThemeTunes in MIDI format are used for background music, and it's jarring walking into a room and hearing plingy (totally a word) versions of 'Engel' or 'Angel Attack' play. The fact that Dietrich is a one-man party through much of Virus also makes some battles extremely frustrating (here's a hint: don't get paralyzed).

The Teal-Deer version: System Shock plus Final Fantasy with a bit less fine-tuning than either.

Seen worse. But could have been better. Especially since there's lots of other RPG Maker games these days with less things from other games and with more interesting mechanics, more balance, and more polish.

7.5/10.

- Written by Charlatan

That’s all folks. Thanks again for reading through this weeks addition of Trope Report. Feel free to praise us after all this hard work! Remember, we’re just the information providers. Its up to you to do something with it. Get involved, give the tropes more love, you are the wiki! The Power Is Yours!

Oh wow, I was so not expecting to see Pickup Hierarchy there. Thanks for the pimpage!

Unobtainable Cheese

Most. Depressing. Handle. Ever!

“All the psychic tropers are concealing their powers from the general public. Out of a fear of being hunted as witches, no doubt.”

SUFFER NOT THE UNCLEAN TO LIVE!

Hooray, my review is posted!

And yes, plingy is totally a word.

Is there any way I can join in this awesome thing? Because it is awesome, and a thing, and I want to join.

WAAAAAAAGH

Huzzah for me being new.

edited 4th Jun '10 1:18:11 AM by DJAtomika

"Japanese Words The Anime Fandom Expects You To Know" is Wiki Win.

The bug icon change isn't And The Fandom Rejoiced, it's Broken Base due to the high amounts of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.

This edition has been added to the Trope Report index. I'm thinking about "syndicating" the forum content into their own pages, but mainly I'm thinking about ways to change the theme of the logline.

edited 4th Jun '10 9:58:10 PM by TParadox

And The Fandom Rejoiced Because My Word Is Law!

Ah, your right, I'll make a note of that next week. And thanks.

This is so cool.

After much deliberation, it has been decided that Pettanko will be split into two tropes: A-Cup Angst for flat-chested girls who hate being flat-chested, and Petite Pride for girls for whom a flat chest is a STATUS SYMBOL!

I'm glad to see this.

I'm also happy with teh IJBM icon change. Even when I'd have my zoom settings at the normal rather than the 80% I have for this site, I could never tell what it was.

It took me weeks to figure out that it was a human-ish face/bug face hybrid, but at least it communicated "being bugged," rather than, "have a look at this cool beetle."

edited 7th Jun '10 9:13:48 PM by TParadox

I do suppose it conveyed being bugged.

Uhhhh, Groggy can pick up the review for this week, if he doesn't mind. Holy shit I am busy.

Challenge accepted!

I'll see if I can write something short enough to fit the format.

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.

Our weekly Trope Report newsletter has come to bring you all the news! Unfortunately some of this news is already a week old. Oh, well. Better late then never. Lets get this part started then, onto the news!

Forumwatch:
One of the best things in life is to meet new people. So let us kick off today with a welcome to our newest members here on the forums. There were not a lot of people entering the light this week but we welcome them all just the same! To all you troping bretheren out there, come on over and say hi to: Kanedii, Kryptorok, Adannor, Enkufka, lyredragon, and Golden Lantern!

For once we actually have news to bring you from the forum! As many of us have found out over the past week, the normal method of potholing a Troper’s handle has left everybody with a redlink. Freom the General Announcements thread, we have Madrugada with this explanation:

"Where'd My Contributor's Page Go!?!?!???"

or " 'S okay, we just moved it..."

Since there have been more and more collisions between Contributor's Pages in the Main namespace and pages for tropes, works, or other pages that really should be Main-namespaced, Fast Eddie wrote a thingy that automagically moved all pages that were set as "page type > a Contributor" to the Tropers/ namespace.

There are two ways to get to your contributor's page now:

• you can use Tropers/name the same way you would use any other namespaced title: (Tropers/FastEddie goes to Fast Eddie)

• or you can use the shortcut @/ in front of the name:. @/FastEddie goes to the same place: Fast Eddie

If your handle is only one word, you'll still need to use double curly brackets around it: (Tropers/{{Madrugada}} or @/{{Madrugada}}) to get to Madrugada no matter which notation you use

So there you go.

Please note that if your name has been potholes anywhere on the wiki, such as on the Fan Fic Recommendations page, it is currently a redlink until you go back and adjust it to the proper format.

In other news, all elimination games have been removed from the Media subforums and moved to Forum Games. The cause of this move was an alarming proliferation of these games in what is supposed to be the section for the discussion of media.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes:\\ Back to regularly scheduled programming of renames, rewrites, merges, splits, and cuts. As usual there are some things here many of us did not know existed while others definitely will catch our attention. Remember, Tropers, if you want to be a part of the process that affects our wiki so much then head on over to Trope Repair Shop on the left hand side of the forum.

• Heroic Confidant has been cut. Being a very very specific trope, it has been sent back to YKTTW for now to see if it can be more open.

• Kill the Poor has been renamed to its redirect, Neutron Bomb since not everbody listens to the Dead Kennedys. In fact, if you have never listened to the Dead Kennedys that that last sentence makes no sense to you.

• Do Not Want has been cut. Again. We Do Not Want it.

• Psycosomatic Superpower Outage has been cut and everything on it has been moved to Psychosomatic Superpower Outage on account of the former missing an “h”. While Xtreme Kool Letterz are okay, regular bad spelling is a sin that is punishable by being burned at the stake.

• I Just Want To Be Accepted has been cut for just being a lousy article.

• The “What Measure Is” Family lost several of its members. Awkward titles have led to the decision to cut and rework Wha Measure Is A Me into Expendable Clone and What Measure Is A Non Cool into Only Cool People Matter. What Measure Is a Non-Super? has been renamed into Muggle Power. What Measure Is a Non-Unique? has been renamed into Uniqueness Value.

• Snake Or Naga Or Lamia Oh My has been renamed into simply, Snake People. Not the most imaginative name out there but is get the point across.

• Guaze Guaze Kiss has been merged with Florence Nightingale Effect. Any examples of a doctor, nurse, caretaker, or whatever falling in love with someone they are giving medical treatment to goes there.

• You Fail Economics Forever has undergone a massive clean-up. See the page itself for details.

• -4STR, an admittedly bad title supposed to indicate one gender being statistically stronger than the other has been renamed to Game Favoured Gender.

• A Great Corner, which seemed to be little more that a copy of Kicked Upstairs, has been cut.

• Would You Like Flaming Skulls With That has bee renamed to Flaming Skulls since the former makes you hungry.

• Just a reminder to everyone, TV Tropes does have a Recap/Recap section. Any episode summaries for an episode of a show should go there.

Spotlight Stealing Trope:
The Legion of Doom is here to destroy you all! Assuming they can work together at all that is. The Legion of Doom is the trope where the villains of a work who normally have little to do with each other gather together for the purpose of succeeding in their common goal. Said goal is normally the destruction of the Heroes of the work.

The Trope’s named comes from the organization of villains in the DC Universe. Back then, one could flaunt one’s evilness without worry and the Doom name stuck. Nowadays self-declared evil team-ups rarely call themselves such except in comedy. Also seen most often in Superhero Comic Books in general, as the hero can often have any one of a dozen villains to face on a given day.

While a Legion of Doom can have temporary success against the hero or heroes, the inherent flaw of such a team-up becomes quickly apparent. Namely, the villains have a tendency to be too self-absorbed to cooperate effectively. Sooner or later, Badman 1 will have it with Badman 2’s jerkish behavior, and Badman 3 will be too busy robbing a bank to help Badman 4 with the hero. Or maybe they all intended to double-cross each other from the very beginning and the whole foundation is based on lies and mistrust.

The Legion of Doom is a powerful adversary, for a time. While focused on a single goal they can be unstoppable but a house full of opinionated and individualistic bad guys isn’t going to last long before pizza toppings become and issue and that whole house goes down like a stack of cards.

Needs More Wiki Love:
Have you ever watched an animated show with a Time Skip? One of the characters is suddenly older. But, hold on now! They animators didn't really draw them older—they just made the kids taller and skinnier, and put gray streaks in the adult characters' hair! You've just seen Animation Anatomy Aging. But did you know that was our name for the trope? Probably not, because it has barely any examples! Almost any animated work with a Time Skip is bound to use this, so help this trope grow!

-Written by Freezair For A Limited Time

Edits From The Editor: When confronted with a problem that would have had many others trembling in fear, Fast Eddie quickly diagnosed the problem as an infectious disease that could engulf the whole wiki! His words of wisdom?

"Have chainsaw. Will remedy."

Add More Here:
Work Of The Week:
On Prince of Persia. We all know that video game movies have had a rocky history... by which I mean that they generally [haven't been very good, at all. Ranging from the ludicrous Mario Bros. movie, to the Street Fighter movies (one of which will be remembered for Raul Julia's fantastic performance, while the other will be remembered for pretty much nothing at all) to a host of other lackluster entries like Doom and Max Payne from recent years; With the sort of reputation that video game movies have had in general, just the fact that an upcoming movie happens to be based on a video game is already guaranteed to load audiences with expectations: casual moviegoers won't expect it to be that entertaining, and fans of the game will generally wind up hating the film for not getting every teensy, tiny aspect of the game right.

The latter complaint in particular is why film producers in general aim to adapt video games in Broad Strokes, as is the case with the Prince of Persia film: It takes the basic starting point of Sands of Time (Prince finds a dagger that turns back time while invading a city, shit goes down in a bad way and he and a princess set out to set right what once went wrong), and in fact has almost the exact same ending too, so you can't exactly fault it for accuracy. Just about everything in the middle, though, is a whole new ballgame, where the movie turns into a standard sword-and-sandals sandventure story. And you know what? It actually works surprisingly well.

Some of the new ideas introduced work quite nicely for the Prince of Persia aesthetic, such as the introduction of the assassins with killer snakes, while others seem like tacked-on comic relief, like the secret underground ostrich racing league. It expands a basic premise into a full feature-length film quite nicely though, much better than if you just took two hours of gameplay footage and sandwitched it between the intro and ending cinematics. There's also plenty of swordfighting and parkour acrobatics to be found, so fans of the series will still be happy with it (although, at times, some of the action may be more likely to remind you of Assassins Creed instead).

In the end, Prince of Persia will not be doing much to reinvent the way people will look at video game movies (like what the Dark Knight series did to comic book films), but it's a step in the right direction - fans of the game won't hate it, and everyone else will at least get a decent adventure story to watch - even though it's a story that has so much to squeeze in, it feels like it's skipping from one scene to the next so fast it's as if the film has ADD. In the end, just go into the theatre expecting cool stunts, some interesting twists, and an enjoyable story, and you'll be entertained.

-Written by goodtimesfreegrog

And Cut! That’s a wrap folks. Lets take a break and be back here next Thursday and somewhere in the afternoon, sharp! We here at Trope Report hope you enjoyed this weeks newsletter, and we hope you think our latest writer, goodtimesfreegrog did a good job on his first article. If you want to help or have a suggestion please feel free to leave your words here or PM Scholastica Parable See you next week then!

edited 10th Jun '10 5:53:07 PM by Madrugada

*applause*