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Ask the Tropers:
openfanfic question
Is posting a fanfic here and making edits to it just to bash a (canon) character you don't like cause for a block/ban? (I'm not the one doing this, btw)
openPolicy on Potholes for main work pages listing characters.
I was just adding the newest Hero for Overwatch and added a pothole for the character to match the other ones listed there. But then I realized that this would be a chained sinkhole, no matter how relevant the pothole was. I thought about editing out all of them but a lot of works pages do this, from Street Fighter 6, to The King of Fighters XV (to a degree), to Mortal Kombat 1. Is this good practice? I couldn't find a policy on this.
resolved Dethroning Moment over the R-word?
Let's talk about this moment on DethroningMoment.Advertising:
- Mister Toodleoo: One night in December 2018, a Canadian TV channel (either The History Channel or OLN) was airing a very short (10 seconds or less in length) PSA during many commercial breaks, and it extremely pissed me off due to it being blatant cancel culture propaganda/fearmongering. It starts with a man in an office workplace talking on a phone, but all we hear of his conversation is the line “That’s so retarded.” (I will admit, this is a good way of getting people’s attention.) This catches the attention of a female coworker, and we then see the man from her perspective. What is this perspective, you ask? Well, the man has turned into a demon! (And he’s heard speaking in some kind of demonic language; I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be.) We then cut to a young girl telling the camera that “When you use the R-word, people see you differently,” followed by a closing screen that includes a slogan. Okay, there are so many problems with this PSA! First of all, it doesn’t say what is wrong with the word, other than it supposedly ruining your reputation. Second of all, the onscreen slogan at the end (which I don’t want to type because it’s my Berserk Button) means that the people who made this PSA think that the word is completely irredeemable, which proves that they are unaware of the Italian word “ritardando”, which is used to tell musicians to slow down, as well as road signs in my home city telling truckers not to use “engine retarder breaks”. Third of all, “wordfighting” campaigns such as this can be psychologically harmful to people with my kind of OCD. For example, it would cause the supposedly “uncivilized” words to pop into our heads at certain times, such as when we hear incomplete sentences that begin with “That’s so ...”. I think that living in fear of these words is a waste of stress. Also, as South Park once showed, when you label and discriminate against people because of individual words they have said (like this PSA is doing), you are doing the same thing that caused the words to become taboo in the first place! Speaking of South Park, modern airings of the show on MuchMusic bleep out the word “retarded/retard” but not “fuck”! Let me just finish by saying that when I was young, I used to be offended by words like “stupid” and “shut up” because I had been told they are “bad”. One time in fourth grade, I was having trouble forgiving a girl for telling some boys to “shut up”, and I never want to go back to that unforgiving mindset again, no matter how much PC culture wants me to.
This feels less like a DMoS and more like a long rant by someone pissed off that it's not PC to use the R-word anymore, trying to justify it with their OCD, by saying there are normal words that sound like it (retardant, ritardando, brake retarder), and because they were taught not to use words like "stupid" and "shut up" in elementary school like most kids. That's like saying we shouldn't stigmatize the N-word because there are completely innocent words that sound like it like knickers, vinegar, and Nigeria. They complain that it doesn't say why it's bad to say the R-word, the commercial shouldn't have to spell it out to the viewer that the R-word was used as a slur towards the mentally (and sometimes physically) handicapped. It's pretty common knowledge by now. Am I alone in this?
Edited by supernintendo128openExaggerated villainy on Princess Peach: Showtime Videogame
I saw a questionable entry on Princess Peach: Showtime! that claimed the final boss wanted to kill all the Theets as part of her endgame; having just beaten the game and seen nothing of the sort in her or anyone else's dialogue I was confused—at most she destroys the theater and can potentially destroy the island if left unchecked, which is bad, but nowhere near what a Final Solution is.
I deleted the entry on the game's page and Grape's character sheet while explaining the reasons, with links to the scenes in question, but Fireball246 readded the entry on the game's page with a rude edit reason that appears to have been cut off.
Edited by lalalei2001resolved Guilt-Based Gaming but not really
was reading the page in question when i came across these examples, under the "guilt-based idling" folder:
- In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, after going through the toe-tapping animation four times, Sonic would eventually lie down, looking at the player with a very bored expression. In Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, Tails yawns, and in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Knuckles does some shadow-boxing.
- In most of the 3D Sonic games, idling for a long period of time will result in the characters talking to themselves or, in the case of Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, each other. This is normally more of an Easter Egg than anything, but in Shadow, a few of the things they say when you do this are heartbreaking. Especially painful is Charmy Bee's comment about wanting to go home and watch cartoons in Shadow's Prison Island... an innocuous line, until you consider that the planet is being invaded by aliens, who are shooting at 6-year-old Charmy as he looks for disks on an abandoned military base alone on the orders of the closest thing to parents he has, and the only one protecting Charmy is Anti-Hero Shadow.
- In Sonic's appearance in LEGO Dimensions, after tapping his foot for a few moments, Sonic will recline on the ground ala Sonic 2. After a few moments more, he will fall asleep and dream of running.
thing is, these aren't actually guilting the player for idling. these are just standard idle animations tacked on to the Sonic example tree (since the examples above it are actual examples of Sonic games nagging or otherwise penalizing the player for idling). permission to cut these, or at least move to the proper Idle Animation page?
resolved Brandishment Bluff
Need to check something regarding this trope. Does it cover bluffs where the one bluffing claims to have planted explosives, threatening to detonate them? If not, then I may look into a proposing a sister trope titled Bomb Bluff.
Edited by ZerukinopenFolders won't open
I can't open folders when I click them on a page. What's going on? How do I fix it?
openAdvertising/FlagsForGood seems like it’s just advertising for that brand
This page is under Advertising but isn’t about any of their ads and all about their products. Is that not against the rules?
openDoes Politically Incorrect Villain cover characters who are jerks but not evil?
I've seen a few entries for Politically Incorrect Villain regarding characters who, while certainly not likeable, aren't actively evil. Since that page's description only makes mention of outright malevolent characters qualifying for the trope, I'd like to ask if these characters are valid examples of it.
resolved Web Video series in Creator Namespace Web Original
I came across the page Josh Scorcher, which (putting aside some cleanup with regards to a since-removed ROCEJ wick, some real-life troping and misuse that I've already noticed) seems like it's more suited to the Web Video namespace than Creator, particularly with how it already has several subpages that Creator pages are only allowed to have for tropes regarding their works (such as a YMMV page).
I'm guessing that moving the namespace requires copying the content on Creator/ over to Web Video/ and then cutlisting the Creator/ copy, but the page has got so large that I don't want to immediately jump to doing so without fully knowing what I'm doing. What is normally done in this situation?
Edited by Akriloth2160openRepeat AutoEroticTroping offense Webcomic
I ended up coming across the page TearJerker.Sonic Into Across And Beyond, as the main page has come up in the related query for another work I follow.
This would not be a problem if not for the following two reasons:
- The sole contributor to the article is Motorbike User 43, who is also the author of this fic.
- This person has already been suspended before for Auto-Erotic Troping.
Though I hate to throw another user under the bus (they've consistently reacted very poorly to being called out for policy violations, self-flagellating rather than trying to improve), I draw the line at behavior indistinguishable from ignorance.
Edited by TrocyteVopenChristopher Lee war service
Should this part on Christopher Lee be changed?
While he had a legitimately distinguished career, the claims of serving in the SOE or being a Nazi Hunter have been disproven, or at least are too far-fetched to be true. The SOE archives do not show him as being a member. His claim of being a Nazi Hunter in the Central Registry of War Crimes and Security Suspects (CROWCASS) is impossible, as the CROWCASS did strictly office work compiling evidence, not searching for former Nazi war criminals, and his name does not appear in any documentation. Serving in the Winter War (mentioned further down the page) is also doubtful, as there were only 200 British volunteers who actually made it to Finland and they arrived a year after Lee claimed to be there.
openCan I change this back?
On Sponge Bob Square Pants S 14 E 2 We Heart Hoops Sponge Chovy, I wrote:
"The episode this is a sequel to outright revealed Old Man Walker to be Hoops when GrandPat meets back up with his friends in the present day."
For reference, "We Heart Hoops" is a Sequel Episode to "The Lil' Patscals". The point is that this is a Captain Obvious Reveal because "The Lil' Patscals" already showed that Hoops grew up to be Old Man Walker, and "We Heart Hoops" sets it up as a mystery for half of the episode when the answer was outright stated in its predecessor.
Another user changed the sentence to "the episode this is a sequel that outright revealed", which doesn't feel right, because this even did not happen in We Heart Hoops, it happened in The Lil' Patscals. I guess the sentence could be reworded, but I just want to be sure that this wouldn't count as an edit war if I changed it back.
openConcerning Pokémon edits made by a troper. Anime
Troper Blast Vision needs a tap on the shoulder, because I’ve been going through certain pages of the Pokémon franchise and he seems to be making edits about the characters of the show in a snarky, character bashing like tone. I’ve come here to avoid starting edit wars.
openactor role sorting
The list of acting roles on Michael Kovach, which was formerly sorted alphabetically by work, was recently resorted by ~Eeker Boi 14 to be alphabetical by character instead.
There's currently no rule for how actor roles should be organized on creator pages, but the consensus in this thread, at least, seems to be a firm "no" on sorting by role.
Any objections to a reversion on the page to the previous method of sorting alphabetically by work?
resolved Troper appears to be making edits motivated by homophobia
Troper Calm Hill Of Treasures made several edits removing anything related to homosexuality and altered a Woolseyism entry to complain about the localization before deleting it without explanation.
resolved Trolling, edit warring Videogame
User Calm Hill Of Treasures,
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/el.php?findfor=CalmHillOfTreasures
has been engaging in blatant agenda-based edit warring and trolling on the ymmv page for Unicorn Overlord,
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/UnicornOverlord
Their particular focus is the Woolseyism trope (a noisy minority of chuds on twitter have raised a big stink over the localization).
Calm Hill has ignored invitations to discuss issues they have with the example, their edit reasons have been utter nonsense (citing Zero Context Examples despite including more than sufficient context), they've deleted Les Yay and Ho Yay from the same page because, "Grammar", they deleted a Crowning Funny example (that has a quote from the localization) because "typo", and they re-worded the Woolseysim trope to be hostile to the localization because, "fixing a sinkhole", before just deleting their own revised version because, "Grammar".
Edited by RaxisopenPossible Single Issue Wonk/Partial Plagiarism Western Animation
The Precision Driver repeatedly posts on the Complete Monster proposal thread characters from The Simpsons, a show completely unconductive to having CMs because it’s too comedic.
- They did this three times in the past few months.
- The first time they did this they proposed two unrelated characters from unrelated episodes of the show: Kostas Becker from the non-cannon episode "A Serious Flanders" (a parody of Fargo) who isn’t played seriously enough with comedic moments like telling a story that gets interrupted and his death being an Overly Long Gag were he the ice rolls over a bunch of times before he drowns, and Russ Cargill from The Simpsons Movie who is Played for Laughs with he says comedic stuff like “people should listen to him because he’s a big man on TV” and after he’s defeated he is comforted by Cletus who says “don’t worry, I once lost a game of tic tac toe to a chicken” and is potentially a Well-Intentioned Extremist. (This on its own wouldn’t be enough for a query but the next one is more of concern)
- the second time they presented "more arguments" for just Becker (they admitted that Cargill has redeeming qualities) but the arguments were just repeating the same points in the earlier post along with proposing an image for the image links pagethat was just Becker holding a pen and a book in ominous light (they edited out the image since then) and later a different image that’s also just Becker in ominous lighting.
- The third time was earlier today when, again, they just repeated the same arguments with repeated statements that Becker has no redeeming qualities (including that as an argument that he’s heinous). They also compared him to Randall Boggs who does have some funny moments but not in the same way as Becker.
- Now that isn’t the only reason I’m bringing this up, I also think parts of their EP was largely lifted from Kosta Becker’s entry on NightmareFuel.The Simpsons (which wasn’t added by them)
- "A Serious Flanders" has Kostas Becker, aka the debt collector, who basically walks right out of a serious drama and acts as a Knight of Cerebus throughout the entire two-parter. After violently murdering the Rich Texan, chopping him to pieces and ripping his face off, he single-handedly kills Fat Tony's crew in a bloody shoot-out, before killing Fat Tony by putting his head in a donut maker. He also forces Ned into hiding for three years, only to shoot him once Marge unintentionally reveals his hiding spot. He has almost no funny scenes or jokes, and is probably the most serious villain to step foot in Springfield.
- From their first post
- Kostas Becker from The Simpsons two-part one-off episode "A Serious Flanders" is a notorious debt collector and gangster who, along with his associates Seamus and Collette, are introduced by having the Rich Texan captured and killed before having him chopped up and has his face ripped off at the start of the episode. Later on, Becker and his associates capture Homer so he can act as leverage against his neighbour Ned Flanders and after that, Becker takes the lives of Fat Tony and his crew during a shootout at the Lard Lad donut shop, with Disco Stu and Charles Montgomery Burns getting caught in the crossfire during the shootout. To showcase how monstrous he really is, he forces Ned and his sons Rod and Todd to go into hiding in Wyoming for three years and tries to have him killed when Marge unintentionally reveals his hiding spot. Throughout the two-parter, Becker has almost no funny scenes or jokes compared to previous villains such as Mr. Burns, Robert Terwilliger Jr./Sideshow Bob, Fat Tony or even Russ Cargill, helping to make him the most serious and vile villain to set foot in the city of Springfield, thanks in part to Brian Cox's spine-chilling voice-over performance throughout the two-part episode.
- From their second post
- Firstly, while Russ Cargill does have a few gueninely funny moments throughout The Simpsons Movie despite being a vile character, the same cannot be said about the monstrous Kostas Becker from "A Serious Flanders", who basically walks right out of a serious drama and acts as a Knight of Cerebus throughout the entire two-parter. His vile deeds include brutally murdering the Rich Texan at the beginning of the episode, having Homer captured so he can act as leverage against his neighbour Ned Flanders, murdering Fat Tony, Legs, Louie and Johnny Tightlips during a shootout at Lard Lad Donuts and forcing Ned and his sons to go into hiding in Wyoming for three years and tries to kill him when Marge unintentionally reveals his hiding spot.
Maybe I’m just overthinking things, but since their only forum activity appears to consist of trying to get characters from the simpsons on the Complete Monster page with stuff that’s not relevant to the discussion and what appears to be partial copying from the Nightmare Fuel page. To clarify I’m not officially reporting them, I just want to clarify somethings. Thoughts?
Hi everyone, new troper here and this my first query on "Ask The Tropers".
I noticed that Madagascar fridge page is actually about first movie and not franchise in general. Given that Ice Age fridge page was once the same but got split into first movie and series in general, I think the same thing should happen here. So I'm asking you for your feedback and support in helping me in the cleanup of Madagascar fridge page.
Edited by Filip04