Just For Fun / Lousy Alternate Titles

Principal Skinner: Now I finally have time to do what I've always wanted: write the great American novel. Mine is about a futuristic amusement park where dinosaurs are brought to life through advanced cloning techniques! I call it "Billy and the Cloneasaurus!"
Apu: Oh, you have got to be kidding sir! First you think of an idea that has already been done, then you give it a title that nobody could possibly like!

— The Simpsons

Sometimes titles just don't work. They're too short, too long, too vague, or just plain wrong. So we are glad those aren't the titles for certain tropes.

But what...

Dun dun dadaldadalduun!

...if they were?

This is where we think of the worst possible titles for existing tropes.

Compare Laconic Wiki, Renamed Tropes, I Thought It Meant (lousy definitions for trope titles).

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Examples are alphabetized by trope name:

To begin...

• This page is called Lousy Alternate Titles because Goofing Around By Spelling Out The Meanings Of The Tropes With Profanity And Bold Inflation is too long.
  • And it's still shorter than What If Encyclopedia Dramatica Wrote Our Trope Titles?.
  • Also, Really, Really Lousy Alternate Titles That Are Way Too Long And Usually Complain About Tropes, Tropers, And Pretty Much Everything is too hypocritical, and Self Demonstrating Trope Titles doesn't actually apply to all of them.

A

• Age-Gap Algebra is not as judgemental as Good Grief, Folks. Just Date Somebody Your Own Age.
• We picked A God is You instead of You Shall Be As Gods because the game that phrase comes from unfortunately isn't an example.
• Calling it All Planets Are Earthlike explains the idea better than Like Humanity Unless Noted, and not everyone's familiar with certain Tropes of Legend.
• All Your Colors Combined isn't called Taste the Rainbow, Motherfucker! since even without the swearing, it's still an ambiguous meme-based title.
• All Deaths Final isn't called People Die if They Are Killed, since that's a Captain Obvious meme and not really an example.
• It's called America Saves the Day instead of America! Fuck Yeah! because we try to avoid swearing in titles unless it's absolutely necessary.
• One day we might call Amoral Attorney He's a Lawyer! Aaah! Aaah!...but not before "Weird Al" Yankovic sung that.
• We originally had TJWNDHZKFVLPIQTLY. However, none of us could pronouce it, so we had to change it to Angrish.
• Animesque is shorter and snappier than I Can't Believe It's Not Anime.
• Anthropomorphic Food is self-explanatory and not a stupid pun on another trope, unlike The Cake is Alive.
• It's called Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking because Furries, Loli-Porn, and Dubs is too much of a gratuitous Take That! to the anime fandom. And furries, of course.
• Artifact Title is much snappier than The Title Used to Make Sense, and Then the Series Changed in a Way That Doesn't Fit With the Title, But We're Sticking With That Name Anyway for the Sake of Familiarity.
• Artistic License is really a much nicer way of saying YOU FAIL A SUBJECT FOREVER!!!.
• We chose Elements Do Not Work That Way as a redirect to Artistic License – Chemistry. Heisenberg will so kill you for that seemed unnecessarily threatening.
• It's Artistic License — Physics because We Forgot The Newton Laws! is too specific, and also sounds like an in-universe character's failure to take Newton's Laws into account, rather than a creator's misunderstanding of physics.
• Artistic License – Paleontology was chosen because Somewhere A Paleontologist Is Standing On A Chair, Giving The Middle Finger, And Screaming "FUCK YOU!" was deemed a little too manly.
• Artistic License – Sports is less confrontational than If You're Going To Write About Sports, Do The Fucking Research Or All The Nitpicky Sports Fans Will Complain About All This Stuff You Got Wrong.
• It's called Ascended Glitch because We Didn't Mean To Do This, But The Fans Liked It So We Kept It In is a little too honest.
• It's called Ass Kicks You because Butt Butt would have been too much of a pun, even for this site.
• It's called Ass Pull because it describes more payloads than Deus Excreta, which in turn would be confused with "Deus ex Creta", which literally translates to "god from Crete".
• It's called Atomic F-Bomb and not Big Fuck because, again, we try to avoid swearing in titles, and because that sounds like an orgy, like the person who's behind all the sex in the work, or sex with or between large characters.
• Author Filibuster sounded a little better than For Some Reason, The Writer Thinks You Give Two Shits What His Opinion On Anything Is.
• Award Snub is a shorter, more explanatory title than Kendrick Lamar Syndrome.
• We chose A Winner Is You because YOU'RE WINNER ! looks not nearly as professional.

B

• We called it Back from the Dead instead of Dead But Not Out because... no-one thought of that.
• Becoming the Costume is pretty self-explanatory, while calling it Fabric Conditioning is clever but also a lot harder to understand.
• It's called Belief Makes You Stupid because Mormon Tapirs is way too obscure a reference.
• Best Known for the Fanservice is more subtle than saying Screw The Plot, There's A Hot Topless Chick!
• Beta Test Baddie wasn't called Incomplete Monster because, let's face it, someone would find a way to start a Flame War over it.
• Better Than It Sounds is called that because Making Good Fiction Seem Like Crap And Making You Guess Which Fiction It Is is a lot to type.
  • And also because Adventure Ho is too specific to one show.
• Big Breast Pride (or related tropes) should in no case be named 1 Girl 2 D-Cups. The fact that it's misleading would be only the slightest problem.
• Big Brother Bully isn't called The Rodrick because not everyone's seen (or watched) Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
• They call it Big "NO!" because nobody can remember just how many letters are in NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Ditto with tropes such as:
  • Big "YES!" (YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!),
  • Big "NEVER!" (NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!),
  • Big "WHAT?!" (WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT!!!),
  • Big "WHY?!" (WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!),
  • Big "OMG!" (OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!), and
  • Big "SHUT UP!" (Shut UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPP!!!).
  • Big Word Shout (Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!)
  • Kiai (Wryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!)
  • Sssssnake Talk...oops.
• Bizarre Instrument has a better ring than You'd Have To Be High To Think That Could Actually Make Music.
• It's called Black Sheep Hit because it's shorter than If We'd Known This Was Going To Be The Only Song You Remember Us For, We Never Would Have Done It.
• Breast Attack is short and not a dumb pun, unlike What's The Breast Spot To Strike On A Woman?.
• Buxom Is Better isn't exactly the most subtle trope title, but it's significantly less blatant than Busty Makes Me Feel Good.

C

• Canon Character All Along is more transparent and less punny than Canon Fauxreigner, and avoids being a snowclone.
• We don't call Can't Take Criticism Screw All You Fucking Doubters! because our title is more concise and doesn't contain swearing.
• Capcom Sequel Stagnation is better than Super Ultra Ultimate Hyper [Insert Game Title Here] Turbo HD Remix Arcade Edition because it's less confusing to remember.
• Chart Displacement is short and easy to remember. Did You Know That Band Had Other Songs That Charted Even Higher Than The One You Remember Them For? isn't. And that's without naming specific artists and songs.
• It's called Chekhov's Gun because Look At Me I'm A Plot Device! is just a tad snarky.
  • And calling it Sulu's Sword would be confusing.
• It's called the Chewbacca Defense because Total Bullshit Argument would just be rude, and would most likely turn into a Pothole Magnet for complaining.
• Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs could have been aptly named Sugar Porn...the problem is less the porn (we have a lot) but specifically the trope Food Porn which could lead to confusion.
• Calling Christmas Miracle Santa Fu being a Pun is not the problem. Rather it's the fact that probably only a citizen of Hamburg will find it funny. ^note It's the local jail.
• We went with City Mouse rather than The Dude because not everyone is familiar with that word's meaning as "inexperienced cowboy".
• Cluster F-Bomb is generally easier to remember than Fucking Fuckheaded Show That Fucking Likes To Fucking Use The Fucking Word "Fuck" All The Fucking Time, and you couldn't use it in polite company. Also, it's punnier.
• Complaining About Shows You Don't Like is a long title, but Presenting Subjective Opinions Of Things You Don't Like As Objective Fact In A Way That Will Just Start An Argument is even longer.
• Complete Monster is a concise way of saying Worse Than Satan, Stalin, Hitler, Nero, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, And Bin Laden Combined.
• Complete-the-Quote Title isn't anywhere as snarky as Hey, We're So Clever, Why Don't We Name The Work After The Least Relevant Part Of The Quote Relevant To The Subject At Hand?
• Corrupt Corporate Executive is a better title than The Modern HRV Media Group due to unnecessary Take That! in the latter.
• We call it Crack Is Cheaper because Hasbro Owns Your Soul hit a bit too close to home for some people.
• It's Crack Pairing because Shipping Of Two Or More People That Rarely If Ever Interact With Each Other Or People That Hate Each Other And Would Never Think Of Loving Each Other In A Million Years...Or Just Mind Screw Pairings is way too long.
  • And because That Ship Pairing Is No, Just... No. What The Hell Is Wrong With You?! was a little too mean-spirited.
  • And Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight is meme-based, ambiguous, and too much of a Take That!
• Critical Backlash is so called because Flak Lash was way too lame of a pun.
• Calling The Cuckoolander Was Right Listen to the Voice of Butters is already bad as Butters is not the best example of a cloudcuckoolander, so the fact that no one gets The Human League reference is rather irrelevant.
• We call it Cultural Translation since 4Kids Hates Riceballs is too much of a Take That!, and Brock's Jelly-Filled Donuts and Eat Your Hamburgers, Apollo make no sense to most people.
• Cut a Slice, Take the Rest is a lot shorter than Cutting Out A Small Piece Of Something Implying That You Are Going To Take The Small Piece But Actually Taking The Whole Rest.
  • And it's nicer than Hey, If You Cut A Small Slice, Take The Small Slice, You Dickhead!.
• Cuteness Overload is more specific than He's So Fluffy, I'm Gonna Die!.

D

• Damsel Scrappy is the name, since Useless Chick Who Does Nothing But Get Kidnapped And Scream proved to be a tad long-winded, and it's more polite than Dumbass In Distress.
• It's called Dan Browned because If You're Going To Make Such A Big Sodding Deal About It Being Accurate Then Make Sure It's Actually Accurate, Stupid is just too long and mean.
• Dark World is a better title than The Veil since not everyone has played Wolfenstein and it's far from being a good example.
• It's called Darth Wiki because on the one hand, someone would have objected to This Is Where We Put Our Answer to /b/tards, and on the other hand, B is too short.
• It's called A Date with Rosie Palms because it turns out This Hand Of Mine Glows With An Awesome Power isn't actually an example.
• This Idea Is Bogus And You Should Hang Yourself For It does not even remotely begin to describe what Deconstruction is about, even if many think it does.
• It's called Demonization because Lying About Shows You Don't Like is only part of it.
• It's called Demonic Spiders because Fuck This Fucking Piece of Fucking Bull Fucking Shit Fucking Asshole is too full of swears, too long, and is prone to being confused with Cluster F-Bomb.
• Developers' Foresight is more explanatory than Whoa! Technology!.
• It's called Dinner with the Boss because Well, Seymour, I Made It, Despite Your Directions is too vague.
• Directionally Solid Platforms is definitely a better title than The Contra Effect since Contra is known for other things too.
• Discredited Trope is nicer than Stop Using This Bullshit Trope, You Dumbfucks!
• Remember That Scene In That Disney Movie Where The Chick Sings And Animals Come Out To Join Her? Well Look We're Parodying That! Aren't We Clever? is a little too cheeky for its own good. Disney Creatures of the Farce works a lot better.
• We went with Dissimile because it's shorter, catchier, and more punny than "And By 'Metaphorically', I Mean 'Get Your Coat.'"
• OK, we admit it. Distaff Counterpart was chosen because we like the sound of tropers running to their Webster. On the other hand, if we called it Recycled...With Boobies!, not only would it be crude, but we'd have to make it even more vulgar by also renaming Spear Counterpart to Recycled... With Penises!.
• It's called The Dog Was the Mastermind because The Dog That You Saw On The Way To The Crime Scene And Was The Least Likely Being To Do It Got You Into This Mess can cause breathlessness by itself.
• We went with The Dulcinea Effect rather than Thinking With The Wrong Head because even if you get through the ambiguity, it would still be cynical (and immature) to claim love is driven exclusively by libido.

E

• Earth Is the Center of the Universe is more or less self-explanatory, Most Writers Are Terrans, however, sounds much more general.
• Eat the Dog was less punny than Menchi Solution. And Tenchi Solution has since been split, thus ruining the pun anyways.
• Eat the Rich isn't called Voregeoisie because that would just be too messed up, even for us.
• Electronic Eyes speaks for itself. My Vision Has Been Augmented probably too but, you know, phrase-based title and meme-shoehorning and those are no-no.
• Ending Fatigue is called that because The Point Where It Becomes Obvious That Someone Was Paying The Writers By The Word may not always be accurate. It also sounded better than You've Already Killed The Bad Guy, Just End The Fucking Thing Already!.
• Entry Pimp sounds cheerful while Tropers Trying To Shove What They Like And/Or Make Down Our Throats No Matter What is a bit mean.
• We settled on Even the Girls Want Her because Women love Jessica Rabbit, while a wonderful thought, made people, shall we say, over excited by the prospect.
• We call it Evil Laugh instead of BWAHAHAHAHA or something similar because there are so many different types of evil laughs, and people would forget how many "HA"s to use.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin is preferable to The Name Says It All, Really.
  • It's also a good choice because Self Explanatory isn't.
• Extra Eyes...well, More Eyes Than In A Sanjiyan Orgy has two problems. a) it's a bad snowclone of More Teeth than the Osmond Family, b) is left for the reader.
• Extreme Omnivore is less obscure than Zoidberg Fuel.

F

• Fair for Its Day is much shorter than This Old Piece Of Media Is Racist, But Everything Else At The Time Was Even More Racist, And This Was Controversial For Being Progressive By Those Standards.
  • It's also shorter and not as judgmental than Did You Know This Racist/Misogynist/Homophobic/Ethnocentric Work Was Actually Criticized In Its Day For Not Being Racist/Misogynist/Homophobic/Ethnocentric Enough?
• Fan Hater is a fairly precise, short and to the point name. It serves the purpose much better than I Can't Believe Anyone Actually Likes This Heap Of Shit. It's The Worst Thing In The World, And If You Like It, You're An Absolute Tool Who Has No Taste And You're Not Worth Any Time, Effort, Love, Pity Or Emotion, So Why Don't You Just Go Away And Die?
• Fetish Retardant is more understandable than But Nobody Came, which would be a hard-to-understand innuendo that has nothing to do with the quote. We had the trope before Undertale came out, anyway.
• Fetus Terrible...what can we say, A Fetus Worse Than Death would be YET another snowclone.
• Finger Gun could've been called Finger Bang, until it became a repetitious chorus in a South Park song.
• It's called Flying Brick because Harder Better Faster Stronger doesn't mention the flying part.
  • Harder Better Faster Stronger Flyer is a better alternate title, but a bit long.
• It's called Franchise Zombie because I Hate All Of You For Liking This But I Have To Make More Of It! sounds downright insulting.
  • And Oh God, I'm So Tired Of Working On This Show, I Really Want To Move On To Something Else, But I've Still Got Two Years On My Contract, And I Can't Afford To Break It. is simply too long.
• Funbag Airbag makes a Sublime Rhyme, unlike Clash On The Big Breasts, which would make anyone familiar with Final Fantasy V groan.

G

• Game-Breaker is a lot nicer of a name than Things In Games That You Can Use To Make The Game Much Easier If You're A Little Bitch, doesn't it?
• Germanic Depressives is nice and punny. Sour Krauts is equally punny, but pretty offensive. And we really don't want to offend those guys. On account of them being so grim.
• We call it "Get Known" because This Is A Hell Of A Lot Simpler Than Registering just doesn't have that nice ring to it.
• We choose Giant Space Flea from Nowhere because What The Heck Is That Boss Doing Here!? would be too hard to use as a noun.
• Girl-on-Girl Is Hot is a lot shorter than Lesbians, And Bisexual Ladies, Is A Really Common Fetish Guys Have.
• It's Giver of Lame Names because Leonard Of Quirm Naming is too obscure for some.
  • And while Self Demonstration is always fun, That Guy Who Always Names Things With Stupidly Long And Overly Detailed Descriptions Of Their Function is just a bit unwieldy.
  • And The Asgore is a vague character name from a relatively-recent video game.
• Going Fur a Swim is concise. Wearing A Fur Coat Over A Swimsuit As A Common Method To Combine Conspicuous Consumption With Fanservice is not.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings is better than Good Wings, Bad Wings since the latter would be confused about wings on mythological creatures being impractical.
• The Great Character Alignment Debate is shorter and not rude, unlike Stop Treating All Fiction Like A Dungeons & Dragons Game Dammit It Doesnt Work That Way.
• It's called Groin Attack because You Just Don't Shoot A Guy In The Dick! is too specific to properly describe the trope.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop actually could be called Endless Eight on a Japanese version of TV Tropes, but in the English-speaking world the current trope namer is much more well-known.
• Guy-on-Guy Is Hot is much shorter than It Turns Out A Lot of Women Get Turned On By Guys Being Intimate With Each Other.
  • It's also shorter than What Do You Mean There Is A Portion Of The Star Trek Fanbase That Likes To Have Kirk And Spock Making Out?.

H

• Hannibal Lecture gets its name from its Trope Namer. This is fortuitous, because calling it Psycho Analyzes You would have required several apologies to Yakov Smirnoff.
• Heavy Mithril is a nice pun, and a lot nicer and shorter than Playing Fantasy-Themed Metal Is The Best Way To Tell People You Like Dungeons & Dragons, If You Still Want To Get Laid Afterwards.
  • Also Rocker's Saving Throw would be confusing enough even if it wasn't a snowclone.
• Heroic Suicide isn't called (Become) an Hero since that just seems like a non-indicative misspelled phrase to people not aware of a certain meme, and said meme isn't an accurate synonym for the trope, and is rather offensive.
• Hoist by His Own Petard could probably be called Wile E. Coyote Syndrome, if not for Trope Namer Syndrome.
• Hollywood Tactics isn't named Just [A] Bunch Of Droids because not everyone knows what JBOD is and can get the Double Entendre. And besides while Star Wars is major offender, it's not just about how the droids fight.
• Hollywood Tourette's was used instead of Tourettes Motherfucking Cunt Bullshit On My Asshole Syndrome, Tourette's Shitcock Syndrome or Tourettes Isn't Just About Swearing, You Idiots.
• Hot Witch is a pretty intuitive name. Hex Bomb would be hilarious, but it would better be reserved for actual magical explosives.
• Humans Are Special sounds somewhat more neutral than Fuck Yeah, Humanity!.
• It's called Hype Aversion because You Should Avoid This Like A Plague Or Else You'll Turn Into A Mindless, Drooling Dipshit Like The Masses Who Watch This Shallow, Piece-Of-Shit Show For A Fad With Its Over-Inflated Hype Clogging Up The Networks Like The Hardened Fat In The Arteries Of The Pathetic, Lifeless Losers Who Watch It, aside from just being plain cruel, would make you run out of breath saying it.

I

• It's called I Am Not Shazam because that's a somewhat less confrontational title than That's The Name Of The Work, Not The Name Of The Character, You Stupid Idiot.
• Identical Stranger may be more concise, but it does mean that we lose out on the snowclone potential of Dude Looks Like A Different Dude.
• Idiot Ball has a ring to it. Characters Acting Like Idiots Because The Writers Could Not Think Of A Plausible Reason To Have The Plot Happen Otherwise doesn't.
  • Same thing with Idiot Plot. Neither can we call it Beavis and Butt-Head Plot because it would come off as a Take That!.
• It's called Innocent Fanservice Girl because Vague Excuse To Have a Naked Girl Stay Naked was too long.
• We call it Internet Backdraft because Flame Barbeque is a bit too ambiguous.
  • And accurate as Things Which Don't Ultimately Matter Or Warrant Anger But Which Nerds Get Way Too Hostile About Anyway is, it is potentially offensive or alienating to TV Tropes' readership, an audience consisting largely of said nerds.
• It's called Incest Subtext because Bro Yay just sounds wrong.
• Calling it Index of Film Westerns avoids the ambiguity innate to Western Films. A lot of films are made in Hollywood, aren’t they?
• I'll Be in My Bunk is short and subtle. That Was So Hot That I'm Going Somewhere Private To Jerk Off is more clear, but way too long, and a bit Not Safe for Work.
• Imaginary Friend is how they are commonly called. Cerebral Pals would leave people either very confused or very offended.
• Index on the Moon could be called Albedo Girl...if anyone understood so much mythology, physics AND the popcultural shout out. A bit much even for TV Tropes. Still would make a nice Joe Hill title.
• Insufferable Genius is significantly more clear than So Good It's Bad.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny is shorter than It Funny To On Purpose Make English As Though Translated In Badly Way From Other Language.
• I Surrender, Suckers isn't called Geeettttttt Dunked On!! because the trope existed before Undertale and because it's an ambiguous meme that's hard to explain without spoiling one of the game's endings.
• It's called It Was His Sled because Everyone Knows That Twist, You Don't Need To Mark It As Spoiler Anymore, Dumbass is too mean, too long and too exact. And we still encourage putting It Was His Sled examples in spoiler tags, so there's that.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! is shorter than Exploiting The Fact That Men Tend To Think With Their Dicks.

J

• Jumping the Shark is called that because Oh Shit, The Ruined FOREVER Crowd Was Right is too long, not to mention jumping the shark as a term existed longer than crying ruined FOREVER.
• Just for Fun is simple and short, unlike Yes, The Site Isn't Meant To Be Serious Business, But This Is Just The Section Where We Cut Loose In Describing Trope And Media In Sillier Ways Than Normal.

K

• Karma Houdini is the simpler name. It was originally Fuckers Who Still Get All The Chicks After Doing Horrible, Horrible Things.
• Kill All Humans is definitely much better title than Dalek Gambit for obvious reasons.
• Killer Rabbit isn't as good a pun as Homo Homine Lepus, but the trope is about more than just rabbits.

L

• It's called Laconic Wiki because Describe This Trope In As Few Words As You Can Without Making It Sound Either Really Stupid Or Just Like Some Other Trope. Oh, You Should Try To Make It Only One Sentence, Too. Thanks. would have been a long title and namespace, and therefore counterproductive.
• Calling Lampshade Hanging TV Tropes most favorite trope, even if factually probably correct, would be rather nondescript. Calling it If Someone Complains About A Plot Development, Just Say "Ain't It Ridiculous!?" Until They Go Away might have prevented its rampant misuse but would be hard to search.
• It's called Least Rhymable Word and not Locksmith because not everyone would get the reference.
  • We don't call it By the Way, Do You Know a Good Word That Rhymes With "Castrati?" for the same reason. Also, because it's not a straight example of the trope.
• Lie Back and Think of England at least hints that it's talking about sex, unlike Our Duty to the Party, which is way too vague.
• It's called Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition because Limited Deluxe Green Super Special Awesome Ultra Extended Combat Commando Alien Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot Vin Diesel Widescreen Collector's Unrated Uncut Kane Ultimate Game of The Year Editor's Choice Edition: Director's Extended Cut: The Lost Scenes: Gold Platinum Diamond Chaotic Lawful Evil Good Saga Battle Chest Megapak Galactic Edition Orange Box Omega Limited With More Dakka: Final Cut Champion Edition Ultimate Match Reload Accent Core Heartburn International Final Mix Fucking Legendary Spoony Bard New N' Tasty Edition X is way too long and would be very difficult to remember.
• Live but Delayed is not named Live But Retarded as less commonly used meanings for "retarded" aren't as well known, and the title would probably be taken to mean a mentally disabled baby was born alive.
• Loads and Loads of Characters is far shorter than Alice and Bob and Claire and Dave and Elaine and Fred and Gina and Harold and Irene and Jacob and Kelly and Lloyd and Marlene and Nathan and Olivia and Peter and Quincy and Robert and Sara and Tom and Ursula and Vincent and Wendy and Xavier and Yvonne and Zachary.
• Loads and Loads of Loading is a bit long, but not as long as For The Love Of God, I've Been Spinning Around The Skyrim Logo For Five Minutes! I Just Want To Turn All These Moonstone Ingots Into Elven Armor Already!!!.
  • It's also way less Take That!-y as Sonic 06 Syndrome and Enter the Dragonfly Syndrome.
• It's named Lull Destruction because Holy Shit, It's Way Too Quiet And The Audience Might Lose Interest, So Quick, Add Some Talking is a little harsh on the imaginations of dubbers.
• It's called Lying to Protect Your Feelings because it's less ambiguous than He's Fine I Promise.
• Lyrical Dissonance sounds quite a bit better than Yeah, I Know The Song Sounds Really Happy, But It's Got Some Really Disturbing Lyrics Which Will Most Likely Screw With Your Head.
  • And using that title would mean we'd need a redirect to it from Yeah, I Know The Song Sounds Like A Dirge, But If You Listen To The Lyrics, You'll Realize That It's About Something Quite Nice because the trope works both ways.
  • And 'They Might Be Giants Songwriting' is a tad obscure.

M

• Magic A Is Magic A could have been called That's Not How The Force Works if it hadn't existed before The Force Awakens came out.
• Magical Girl is both more appropriate and less punny than Puts The 'Ki' Into Bikini, not to mention most of the works in this genre are much more wholesome.
• Marry Them All is probably a better name than Threesomes Solve Everything.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros." isn't called Marth and Roy Debuted in Smash Bros. because Roy actually did debut in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover is a shorter name than Pooh, Thomas, Twilight Sparkle, Brian & the Eeveelution Family's Adventures of…. It's also less prone to misuse than At The Olympic Games.
• May–December Romance is a good, short title. Its alternate title, Wait, He's How Old? And She's Only A Fucking Teenager? That. Is. Just. WRONG! isn't, and is judgmental as hell, to boot. (Not to mention we'd need redirects for all the various possible gender permutations.)
• Mayfly–December Romance is a clever pun and is short, unlike A Relationship Where One Person Ages Like A Prune And Dies Long Before The Other.
• If Memetic Badass was called The Chuck, then that would be way too vague, not to mention that character named tropes are frowned upon.
• Memetic Loser is clearer than The Hawkeye.
• Oh, and for the last time, it's Memetic Mutation, not I Can Haz Over Nine Thousand Barrel Rolls In SPARTA With An Awesome Face On My Dakka Gun That My Pretty Cool Heavy Carries Till Hell Freezes Over And Gets Chuck Norris And Harambe To Use The Boost To Get Through The Game Which I Lost So I Have To Burn The Rope Until Stupid Sexy Flanders And Rick Roll Make Steamed Hams To BRIAN BLESSED Look Like The Love Child Of Flonne And Candle Jack Who Secretly Set Up Us The Bo
• Men Are Uncultured is called that because Two Long, Boobless Hours implies it's about the work, not the attitude of male viewers.
• Mercy Mode isn't called There is Now a Level Zero since that's a movie quote as the name of a video game-specific trope. It could also be misinterpreted as an unlockable bonus level that happens at the start of a game's story.
• Mind Screw is probably a less vulgar name than Oh My Fucking God What The Hell Just Fucking Happened!!??
• It's called Misaimed Marketing because Complaining About Toys You Don't Like really only accounts for a third of the page.
• Mistaken for Quake ...because the monthly cap on lousy puns prohibited Not Anyone's Fault.
• Mondegreen was chosen over Do You Need A Fucking Hearing Aid? Those Are The Wrong Lyrics!
  • 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy is also only one potential mishearing of a lyric, the title of a somewhat obscure book about Mondegreens, and probably too easily mistaken for something else.
  • And Oh My God! They Killed Lady Mondegreen! You bastards!! still requires an explanation on the trope page.
• It's called Money, Dear Boy because it's more to the point than How On Earth Did They Get That Actor To Agree To Be In That Piece Of Shit? (not to mention many examples are considered quality works anyway, and it's not the only reason good actors are in bad works).
• We choose Monster Clown because not everyone is familiar with The Kefka.
  • Kefklone wouldn't work for the same reason, and because it implies that every example is an Expy of Kefka, which isn't true.
  • And This Is What I Saw Clowns As In My Childhood is simply too presumptuous about the writers' lives.
• Mooks could have been called Those Nameless Guys That Are There For The Heroes To Beat Easily.
• It's called More Popular Spinoff because Did You Know That This Show Is Actually A Spinoff? is too long a title.
  • And nobody thought of just using Actually A Spinoff.
• It's called Most Common Superpower instead of Superheroines Prefer Silicone because saline is a more common material for those now.
  • Also some are villainesses, so Boobs Of Justice isn't quite accurate.
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls is called that because nobody had the foresight to call it Oh, Christ, Why Did We Even Start This Page? And naming it Complaining About Fandoms You Don't Like because Yucky Girl Cooties has Ruined Them Forever would just start the mother of all flame wars. It's also very long.
• Most Tropers Are Young Nerds looks better than If You Post On TV Tropes, You Are A Complete Loser.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong could just as easily have been named Real SOVIET Damage!, but not everyone's familiar with the fighting game community and its memes.
• It's called Mukokuseki because The Sort Of Art Style That Makes People from Predominantly White Countries Think All Asian Anime Characters Look White Because They're Used To White Being "Default" and Racial Minorities Being Drawn in a Way that Emphasizes How They Aren't White is a paragraph in itself.
  • And Cauc Asian was too punny, even by our standards.

N

• It's called Narm because Totally Fucking Up A Dramatic Moment is a bit much to type.
• We called it New Powers as the Plot Demands because Clark Kent's Third Law was a bit too much of a Take That!. And too punny.
• Nightmare Fuel has a better ring than How Bad Does Horror Have To Be That We Need A Page For When It Actually Works.
  • It's also better than Crowning Moment of Pantsoiling.
• Nightmare Retardant sounds better than You Call This Shit Frightening?
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot is not called Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot Cowboy Hobos With Chain-Katanas And Several Revolvers And The Power of Friendship Fighting Vampire Nazis With Dark Magic Riding Cyborg Dinosaurs With Head Mounted Lasers Voiced By Kevin Michael Richardson Attacked by Snakes On A Motherfrakkin' Submarine Jet With Desert Polar Bears Crashing Into An Ancient Zeppelin With Alien Anacondas In SPACE With Chuck Norris And Samuel L. Jackson With Lesbian Time Travelling Bikini Werewolf Cat Girls Dual Wielding Febreze Part 2: This Time, It's Personal... THE MOVIE! In 3D! Special edition Director's Cut But this time in SPACE! because that would be far too much to type.
  • Even A Football-Playing King in Space is a little too long, and since in context no such character actually appeared, would be too easily confused with Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs.
• It's called Nintendo Hard instead of Atlus Hard, because the former is more well known.
  • We Get Off On Your Tears could mean other things.
  • Controller Throwing Fuel hits too close to home for many.
  • And it's shorter than When Video Game Consoles Started Out, They Used The Arcade Paradigm, Which Involved Quarter Munching Through High Difficulty.
• Nipple and Dimed could have been called The Sight Of Titties Is A Forbidden Fruit In Some Cultures, if it wasn't a bit too long.
• No Endor Holocaust could be named Jossified Killing if that wouldn't be a snowclone.
• We call it No Indoor Voice instead of THE TRADITIONAL ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE, because we don't want to scare off Fluttershy again.
• Nubile Savage is shorter than Primitive Woman Who Looks Like A Swimsuit Model.
• We called it N-Word Privileges because many of us don't have the privileges to write Nigger Is A Four Letter Word, As Long As You Are Part Of A Race That Used That Term To Demonize And Belittle Others properly, even if it wasn't long as heck.

O

• Obvious Beta is short and concise in contrast to Didn't They Test This Game Before They Released It?
• One-Letter Title is less vague than e.
• Only You Can Repopulate My Race isn't a snowclone, unlike I Cannot Self-Pollinate.
• Opinion Myopia is shorter than How Could Anyone Like That Piece of Crap? and How Could Anyone Not Like This Masterpiece?, and isn't political Flame Bait, unlike Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder.
• The Other Darrin avoids the argument present in Dick York vs. Dick Sargent.
  • It's also shorter than We've Secretly Replaced Your Favorite Actor With Folgers Crystals; Let's See What Happens.
• When we tried to name Our Elves Are Better Our Elves are Pointyeareder there came an unholy sound from the grave of Tolkien, probably because of the botched grammar. We quickly abandoned the idea.
• It's a shame (pun-wise, that is) Out with a Bang didn't get called Sexitus. On the other hand, English is sometimes too punny and you could confuse the latter with death of a sex or even death of the act of sex.

P

• Pædo Hunt isn't called DON'T TOUCH DA CHILD! since the trope predated the quote, and the quote's not really about this trope anyway.
• Percussive Maintenance is more fancy than Smack The Thing Until It Works Properly. and a little less ambiguous than Wait SpongeBob! We Aren't Cavemen and just a little more apt.
• Perverse Sexual Lust is just slightly catchier and less judgmental than What Kind Of Pervert Am I, Getting Turned On By a Fucking Cartoon Character?.
• Petite Pride is less ambiguous than the meme-based title Flat is Justice.
• We went with Planet Eater because World Hunger is an actual real-life problem that has nothing to do with the trope and is actually kind of serious.
• Plot Hole is much better title than Voodoo Plot since the latter made no sense and the trope has nothing to do with voodoo.
• Poor Communication Kills is much better title than That's What I Heard due to latter being extremely easily potholed, and easily confused with That's What She Said.
• The Power of Friendship sounds nowhere near as cynical as Screw The Rules, I Have Friends!.
• The Power of Love could have been called Eros Ex Machina, but then we'd have endless arguments about how that name implies little foreshadowing, while this trope often explicitly states itself beforehand.
• It's called Precocious Crush because I Need An Adult means something else entirely.
• Calling Priceless Ming Vase Vase-Ectomy is too gruesome a pun even by TVT standards.
• It's called Primal Scene because it isn't as loaded as Oh My God I Walked Into A Room Where My Parents Were Fucking. It doesn't necessarily involve parents, for that matter.
• Princess Classic is much shorter than Princesses For The Last Couple Centuries Have Been Portrayed As Purity Personified Girly Girls To Appeal To Societal Norms, And Make All Fairy Tale Deconstructions Think This Is The Only Trait Of A Disney Princess, And Mistakenly Assume This Applies Even To The Renaissance-Era Princesses.
• Protection from Editors isn't called George Lucas Syndrome since it's too much of a Take That! and too ambiguous.
• Public Domain Soundtrack is a better title than Legal Copybait Soundtrack since there are songs that don't belong to public domain but still can be distributed freely.

Q

• Quieter Than Silence is shorter than True Silence Is Indistinguishable From The Speakers Not Working.
• Quicksand Box is shorter than Just Because Players Hate Railroading Doesn't Mean The Opposite Is Any Better. Besides, it's not always a bad thing.
• Quicksand Sucks is shorter than What If What Was Essentially Muddy Sand Was Like A Man-Eating Monster? That'd Be Pretty Scary, Right?.

R

• We ended up going with Rambling Old Man Monologue because its a little bit more concise than the title we wanted to use, which was Stories Old Men Tell To Youngsters Which Don't Really Go Anywhere But For Some Reason Nobody Interrupts. Why I Remember One Of These Stories... Boy It Was A Doozy... It Started When My Uncle Sammy, Or Sambo As We Used To Call Him, But You Can't Call Him That Anymore Because Of Those Damn PC Police... Anyway Sambo Was Riding A Chicken Down To The General Store Because Our Horse Was Laid Up With The Flu...
• Randomly Generated Levels is much more neutral in tone than Would You Believe Some Level Designers Are So Lazy They Outsource Their Job To Computers?, which is completely untrue (programming a random map generator that outputs a playable and satisfying level is a challenge all by itself).
• Reality Ensues is a little more polite and way shorter than They May Use This Trope a Million Times in Fiction, But This is What Would Really Happen in Real Life.
• Refrain from Assuming is much better, shorter, punnier, and more polite than I Know They Repeat That Phrase A Thousand Times In The Chorus, But For The Last Time, It's Not The Name Of The Fucking Song!
• Renamed Tropes gets the point across better than What The Hell Were The Tropers Smoking When Naming These Tropes!?. Besides, we don't want to wantonly accuse people of smoking.
• Most Writers Are Herpetophobes is another unnecessary snowclone whose job is better done by Reptiles Are Abhorrent.
• It's called Rhyming with Itself because honestly, Instead Of Using A Word That Rhymes, They Just Repeated The Original Word takes way too much time to type out.
  • And not everyone would get I Used Underpantski Three Times.
• Ridiculously Human Robots is less judgemental than Stupid Scientists Who Make Robots Impractical In The Name Of Humanlikeness.
• Ring of Power was chosen because One Ring To Rule Them All wasn't really accurate, and quoting that entire passage would have been just too long.
• OK, OK. Rock Me, Asmodeus! is not optimal - who still knows an Austrian singer named Falco? But Dance With The Devil is kinda the wrong music genre. Send your suggestions to TV Tropes, The Internet, general delivery.
• Rule 34 is a shorter and more recognised name than Are You Kidding Me? People Actually Draw Dirty Pictures Of My Little Pony And Care Bears? Really?
• Running the Asylum is less rude than Who The Fuck Hired These Fanboys?.

S

• Sand In My Eyes is more intuitive than It's a Terrible Day for Rain, which could be misused for a number of situations involving rain (which this trope is unrelated to).
• Sarcasm Mode and Sincerity Mode are better and shorter names than We Must Know If What You Said Is The Exact Opposite Of What You Mean.
• We chose Scam Religion because Fast-Food Faith sounds just much more offensive. Not to mention it would be confusable with an actual religion involving fast-food.
• It's called Science Marches On because Little Fluffy Dinosaurs, Destroyers Of Worlds is a tad too long.
• Secret Keeper isn't called The Alfred since there are many characters named Alfred, and it isn't the defining trait of Bruce Wayne's butler.
• Calling Self-Demonstrating Article This Trope would ask for it. Also, if God wanted us to use metasyntactic variables, we would be born speaking LISP.
• Sexy Walk is shorter than The Harder A Lady Sways Her Hips, The Harder (Straight) Guys Get.
• Shark Pool is called that because You Could Just Shoot Him, Y'Know is kind of already a trope.
• It might save a lot of time if Shameless Fanservice Girl, Reluctant Fanservice Girl, and Innocent Fanservice Girl (and for that matter, ANY Trope where half-naked women are featured) were renamed Sex Sells In The Media And Everyone Knows It, but it would be too general.
• Shockwave Stomp is a better name than Night Terror's Fury due to Fan Myopia.
• It's called Show Within a Show because Show the characters in the show are watching with you while you watch them watch said show, thus both parties watch the aforementioned show simultaneously is WAY too long and confusing to remember, and it just sounds paradoxical.
• It's called Signature Song because What Do You Mean, That Artist Has More Than One Song? is a little too long.
• We went with Slouch of Villainy because Chillin' Like A Villain wasn't specific enough.
• Small Taxonomy Pools is shorter than What The Heck Is A Fin Whale? Don't Whales All Have Fins? Screw It, I'll Just Show A Humpback Whale.
• We can't rename Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom PION since the short form of mispronunciation Piston by the protagonist's sidekick isn't familiar to these who have played the Ultimate Platformer 3.
• It's called The Smurfette Principle because we couldn't stop giggling after reading Fella Ratio.
• It's called SNK Boss because some would object to Total Bullshit Boss Who Uses Cheap Moves All The Time.
• So Bad, It's Good is a shorter, more familiar and more to-the-point name than It Sucks And I Love It.
  • So Bad, It's Horrible is the same, but for This Is The Worst Fucking Thing Ever.
  • Same for Stylistic Suck and It Sucks And That's The Point.
• So Last Season is less ambiguous than Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.
• Something Else Also Rises isn't called Symbolic Stiffie because the trope isn't just about erections. It also covers women getting aroused, and orgasms.
• Sour Grapes Tropes is not as mean as If Your Life Quality Is Better Than That Of A Caveman, You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself.
• Space Is Noisy does not sound like dialogue and is much more general than In Space Everyone Can Hear You Scream.
• Space Is an Ocean describes a general sentiment, unlike If You're Using Nautical Literature As A Reference For Your Space Opera, At Least Use The Modern One which sounds way too specific.
• Spell My Name with a "The" was chosen because The, being too common a word, would be a horrible title for a trope.
  • And The The unfortunately is taken by a band.
• Springtime for Hitler is a little more poetic than You Fail Failing Forever, especially after the big Artistic License rename of that trope class.
• The Stoner is shorter than I Smoke a Fat Pound of Grass and Fall on my Ass Faster Than a Fat Bitch who Sat Down Too Fast.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys is a little less loaded than Stop Acting Like Your Stupid Game Matters And Let Us Play However We Want To.
  • Also, No Items Fox Only Final Destination wouldn't make sense to those unfamiliar with the Super Smash Bros. tournament scene.
• The trope is called Summer Blockbuster because it's way shorter than Immensely Budgeted Film That Throws Everything Except Special Effects Out The Window To Attract Mainstream Moviegoers And Big Money.
• It's called Suppressed Mammaries and not Binders Full of Women because first, we had the trope before Romney made that comment, and second, not everyone is familiar with the use of "binder" as a costuming item and would think that name meant what was actually implied by the meme (i.e. transparent attempts to hire token women)...or something even worse.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel is less reliant on snowclones and old jokes than It Sucks, So They Changed It.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute is shorter and less defensive-sounding than The Old Actor Left And We Didn't Want To Pull An Other Darrin Cause That Would Be Lame, But At The Same Time, We Already Had All These Scripts Written And We Didn't Want To Have To Rewrite Them.

T

• Take It to the Forums isn't rude, unlike This Is Not A Trope, You Dumbass, And We Have A Fucking Message Board.
• It's only called Take That! because Completely Unwarranted And In Some Cases Extremely Cruel Insult Directed Towards A Specific Piece Of Media (That Is Often Actually Quite Good) That Only Serves To PO Fans And Make The Insulter Look Like Nothing More Than A Petty Jerk Ass wouldn't fit.
  • While shorter, Fuck You Other Show, Let's Make Fun Of You! is still not so nice.
• Take Over the World isn't character-named, unlike Dr. Wily's Resolution.
• Teens Are Monsters is called what it is because 6teen gang, Destroyers of worlds didn't make much sense as they're really nice guys, inspite of their flaws and often questionable behavior.
• The "The" Title is a better title than either The or The Most Common Word In Any Title. Ever.
• It's called There's No "B" in "Movie" because Return Of The Attack Of The 50 Foot Killer Ghost Of The Bride Of The Son Of Whatever's Curse is too long a title.
• It's called They Changed It, Now It Sucks! because Fuck This Disco Guy, I Want Michael Jackson Back! Probably wouldn't be understood by most tropers.
• We chose This Loser Is You over The Writers And Producers Of This Show Think That You Are [insert slew of various negative qualities here] due to length.
• Title Drop is very intuitive and clear. Not so much TITLE.
• It's called TLP Bump, because Please Don't Forget This, Everybody sounds kind of desperate.
• Although Too Much Information does get the point across, Oh My Fucking God I Did NOT Need To Know That! kinda sounds good, too. Too bad it's a bit long.
• Transgender Fetishization is more to the point than Sweet Transvestite, and also avoids the issue that "transvestite" is nowdays considered an offensive and/or inaccurate description of transgender people.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions has a better ring to it than Why Should We Care About This Sub-Plot Again?.
• It was felt that referring to it as Trivia was slightly more subtle than This Information Has No Real Importance At All But We Want You To Feel Like You're Contributing To The Article.
• Troll is called that, partly because it's known by that term, and partly because calling it Complete Asswipe Who Likes To Start Needless Arguments On The Web And Should Die Horribly would ironically be trolling itself (although a great self demonstrating title).
• TV Tropes Wiki Drinking Game is a Just for Fun page, Complaining About Edits You Don't Like wouldn't say so.

U

• Unfortunate Implications is a lot less to type than I Can't Fucking Believe They Didn't Realize This Would Offend People. It's also less rude than Idiots Take Offense To Everything.
  • Or, for that matter, And You Really Thought We Weren't Going To Find The Wrong Way Of Looking At This?
• Unintentional Period Piece is an alternative to How Do You Find Out When The Work Was Released? Well, First You Take A Good Looong Look At What The Characters Are Wearing. Fashion Is Fleeting After All And Everyone Has Memorised The History Of Fashion, Right? If That Doesn't Work, Take A Look At Technology They Are Using. Everyone Knows Every Computer Has Only 5 Years Before It Starts Looking Ridiculo-Wait, You Can Just Check Out The Copyright Date? How Come Nobody Told Me?! that someone proposed when they complained they couldn't remember how many O's there are in "looong".
• Unsettling Gender Reveal is way shorter than That's A Guy? Oh, God, It Is A Guy! And I Actually Had A Stiffie! NOOOOOOOOO! My Masculinity Is ruined forever!
  • And Sexual Disorientation would be confused for other tropes.
• Useful Notes is only partly used as Nitpick Fuel. It's also much shorter than Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Real Life (But Were Afraid To Ask).

V

• Viewers Are Morons was more concise than Most Writers And Media Executives Think The Collective IQ Of Your Demographic Is Somewhat Lower Than That Of A Retarded Slug, And They Feel That's Being Mean To The Slug.
• Villain Override isn't called Assuming Direct Control because that's too general and doesn't make sense to people who haven't played Mass Effect 2.
• Voodoo Shark is called that because Your Plot Point Sucks, Your Explanation For Your Plot Point Sucks, And Your Face Sucks is just mean.
  • It's also shorter than Trying To Fill In A Plot Hole With Another Plot Hole.

W

• Wanting Is Better Than Having is shorter than Whining About How Your Long-Sought Goal Wasn't As Awesome As You Thought It Would Be.
• Watsonian vs. Doylist is both shorter, more neutral and not as specific as You Can Explain That Plot Point As Much As You Like But It's Clear You're Just A Hack.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? is more universal than I'm Twelve Years Old And What Is This?.
• What Happened to the Mouse? beat Well I Guess I'm The Asshole For Caring About This Plot Point in a runoff.
• We have Wild Mass Guessing because Off-The-Cuff Predictions And Obsessively Detailed Fanwank puts rather too fine a point on it.
• We call it Windmill Crusader instead of Windmills Do Not Work That Way since the latter is highly misleading even for people who recognize it as a Futurama reference.
• It's called Winged Unicorn rather than Horned Pegasus because that could be misread as "Horny Pegasus", and the pony porn is already out of control as is... not to mention there can be other types of horns than a Unicorn one.
• Wizarding School...If I Had A Dime For Each Time Anybody Cries Harry Potter Plagiarism When This Trope Comes Up, I'd Be Richer Than Mark Zuckerberg Now was actually a quite good idea - until the dude donated half of his wealth to charity.

X

• "X" Makes Anything Cool would've been named Everything's Better With X, but we don't need to add to that snowclone family (even though that is a redirect anyway).

Y

• We say YMMV because These Are Just Individual Tropers' Opinions And Your Mileage May Vary, So Don't Go Making An Assload Of Justifying Edits Just Because You Disagree With A Given Entry is not only way longer, but needlessly accusatory.

Z

• The reason Zany Scheme was chosen is that Can't You Think Of Something Easier To Solve Your Problem? is too long, and isn't a noun.

And finally...

• We call this site TV Tropes instead of A Reader-Maintained Database of Frequently-Seen Elements and Patterns In Many Forms of Communication, Particularly Entertainment Media because, dude, we started out by writing about stuff on TV.

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