Newsletter / News 2021-11

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.

Trope Report is a monthly newsletter that intends to showcase works and tropes from all corners of this website. It also aims to keep the troper hivemind updated with pertinent trope changes and discussions.

It's November! Some of you might already be typing furiously for this year's attempt at a 50,000-word novel, while others might be preparing to tame the facial hair or looking up new ways to cook a turkey. This month begins with All Saint's Day and related celebrations (for Christians) and ends with the early strains of Christmas music, as well as the horrifying realization that another year is almost gone... but we're getting ahead of ourselves!

In between all of that, we hope that you take time to read through this issue. We've got everything from the history of Batman to writing-related fora to gratuitous references to our master, Shai-Hulud. So scroll for a bit — the turkey will be out soon.

~Synchronicity, Chief Trope Report Officer

---

Tropes and Works

Trope Spotlight

Obscure Tropes

This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.

---

• When someone recites something or performs a song from memory, they often stand in a familiar way: straight, elbows slightly out with hands against each other, fingers usually hooked together. This is the Recitation Hand Clasp. A character who does this looks stately and a bit old-timey, though posing this way does have a physical effect. The trope is more than a decade old but could use a bump in example count.

New Tropes

This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.

---

• When somebody clarifies the pronunciation of their name (or, more rarely, the name of someone they know well) on-screen, this person is Pronouncing My Name for You. When this trope is employed, No Pronunciation Guide is avoided. Not only do in-universe listeners learn it, it is useful for cluing in the audience, too. This trope, launched on October 15th, was conceived as an example catcher for It Is Pronounced Tro Pay, which has attracted all kinds of misuse over the years.

Work Spotlight

New Work Page Spotlight

This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.

---

• If the Thanksgiving season has you nostalgic for your family, check out Litterbox Comics, which began in 2018, but was just added to the wiki on October 7th. It stars Fran, a geeky harried mom, as she and her husband try to raise their two silly sons. Oh, and they're all anthropomorphic cats. The comics are fairly short and all available online, and new ones are uploaded every now and then, so while there's a decent trope listing already, there may still be more that could be added. Perhaps we've only scratched the surface.
• In 2016, a controversial production trailer dropped for a cartoon called High Guardian Spice. Five years later, it finally — but quietly — arrived on Crunchyroll. The show follows four girls training at a special school to become "guardians" of the city. The work page was only made on October 28th and still needs fleshing-out and crosswicking, and due to the impact of the 2016 trailer controversy, the page needs some eyes on it to prevent complaining.
• You may be familiar with these songs: "That's What Friends Are For", "Don't Make Me Over", or "I’ll Never Love This Way Again". That's because Dionne Warwick is one of the 20th century's most prolific singers, releasing dozens of albums and multiple hits through the years. Yet her page (made in late October) still has less than ten tropes. If you are familiar with her music, feel free to pop by the page and help expand it.

---

Older/Obscure Work Spotlight

This section is intended to highlight works that may no longer be in the zeitgeist — but that doesn't mean they're any less tropable.

---

• Alter Ego (1986) is a life simulator originally developed and published by Activision for computers of the era, made thanks to Dr. Peter Favaro's interviews with many people. You get to live your life from Infancy all the way to Old Age, making decisions in multiple situations along the way. Each choice can affect your growth, interactions with others, possessions, and even the outcome, since you can die prematurely if you're not careful. There's growth, love, and work, but also crime, psychological issues, and potentially even skippable sexual events. It's been re-released on the Internet, Steam, and smartphones, so it's accessible to many gamers, complemented by how it's relatively timeless for a game of this sort, even if many trends and the technology seem to suggest your life will be forever like The '80s.
• Paragon is a pinball table made by Bally in 1979. It was designed by Greg Kmiec, and features artwork by Paul Faris. It has a Heroic Fantasy design with landmarks like the Golden Cliffs, the Waterfall, the Valley of Demons, and the Treasure Chamber. The art is incredible, plus it's fast and challenging with the SuperSize table, four flippers, multiple targets, and Spelling Bonus, so it's bound to offer quite the interesting time.
• This Is Why You're Fat (in 60 Seconds) is an Adobe Flash game by domreinalabaster released in 2009. It's the very first Thanksgiving. You shoot laser beams at turkeys to kill them, making delicious gibs fall on the ground, with more of them dropping if you kill multiple targets at once. Once it's finished, a man devours them and gains weight based on how well you perform, potentially ending with thousands of pounds in body fat. It's a quirky little game with two funny songs, so check it out after eating your ratio of turkey meat and compare.

---

Works That Need a Page

This section takes a page from the List of Shows That Need Summary. It is intended to spotlight works that people have been talking about enough to link around the site, but don't have a page yet. If the work page link turns blue after this, then we know we've done our job!

---

• Orion Rigel Dommisse is a singer and songwriter known for folk songs whose calming instrumentals belie cryptic, emotional, and haunting lyrics. Despite some of her songs, such as "Skinwalkers", having moderate success, she doesn't have a page. And what would be better than cozying up and writing a page for her as the leaves turn outside?
• BORE.D is a Korean YouTube channel that focuses on cooking. What distinguishes it from others — and makes it have a lot more tropes than most cooking channels — is that the videos use a video game-themed aesthetic, with ingredients being shown in an inventory, utensils being shown as equipment, and eggs getting beaten in a very literal way. Despite having over a million subscribers at the time of this Report, this channel fit for a feast does not have a page.

---

Non-English Work Spotlight

The wiki may be in English, but that doesn't mean non-English media are any less important! This section focuses on works that may have a language barrier to deal with — but are worth it if you do.

---

• The Starry Night is an oil painting by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. It shows the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with a village near it. It uses a great color scheme with the dark blue sky and the yellow objects in the sky, including stars, the crescent moon, and Venus (even if it's not possible to see them both at once in reality). While the nights come earlier each day, perhaps you can take a look at the painting and appreciate the nocturne sky yourself.
• Coca Cola Kid is a Platform Game developed by Aspect Co. that was only released in Japan. You play as a boy named Cokey who has to save Ms. Sakurako after she gets kidnapped by Mr. Iwayma. Now he has to go through five zones with three levels each, beating up foes and consuming copious amounts of the fizzy drink. It plays like Sonic the Hedgehog Chaos since it runs on the same engine, but with more acrobatics like clinging and jumping off walls. It's overall an enjoyable game for fans of food mascot platformers. Just make sure to not look at the screen after Mr. Iwayma transforms for a few seconds in the intro if you're not into flashing lights.
• Quest is a German short film by Tyron Montgomery and Thomas Stellmach. It opens with a shot of a desert, with some brown clumps of sand visible next to an empty bottle. Those clumps turn out to be a sandman who falls through the sand and ends up in a world made of paper. It's looking for water to maintain cohesion, which comprises the titular quest. This film uses mostly stop-motion animation and only sound effects without voices to create an engrossing atmosphere, compounded by the sandman visiting some disturbing locales later on. Make sure to watch it if you're looking for an animated diamond in the rough.

---

Creator Page Spotlight

Works would be nothing without the people who make them. This section highlights authors, artists, actors, musicians, and everyone else responsible for trope creation and proliferation.

---

• Leslie Cheung was a Hong Kong-Canadian multihyphenate. He passed away in 2003, but not before contributing much to both the Asian pop and arthouse film scenes. Movie fans might recognize him from being a Wong Kar-wai collaborator, while East and Southeast Asian fans might know him more for his prolific music career — Cantopop might not have been the same without the song "Monica". An openly bisexual man who occasionally cultivated an androgynous look (see the acclaimed Farewell My Concubine), he also opened doors in conservative societies.
• Chris Eyre is a Cheyenne-Arapaho director best known for Smoke Signals. In contrast to certain depictions of Native Americans you might see this month, Eyre's filmography views Native American life through a modern lens, and undoubtedly helped the way for newer indigenous-centric works and characters.
• Seen Dune (2021) and want more sand? How about a video game from the same franchise? Westwood Studios was an American video game company largely credited for developing the Real-Time Strategy genre with Dune II, in addition to creating many other hallmark games of the nineties, including the Legend of Kyrandia and Command & Conquer series. The studio was eventually bought and merged into Electronic Arts, but Westwood's contributions to the gaming industry won't be forgotten.

---

Image of the Month

This section brings you the best of the recent selections from Image Pickin.

---

This issue's featured image comes from Paul Roman Martinez, and illustrates My Real Daddy. Used with permission.

Bill Finger on the couch with the typewriter describing the Bat-mythos and Bob Kane on the drawing board describing his original idea.

Batman, one of the era-defining comic books from the medium's golden age. Created by the world-famous Bob Kane, the series follows the titular broody hero — the secret identity of billionaire Bruce Wayne — and his sidekick Robin as they go against many of Gotham City's greatest villains such as the Joker and Catwoman.

But would you believe us if we told you that Kane didn't come up with any of that? All those things we mentioned were actually invented by Bill Finger. As the image shows, although Kane was the one behind the name and the idea, it was Finger who gave the series its identity. In spite of the fact that he didn't receive any credit for his work until 2015, long after he had passed away, fans of the series have held him up as the true driving force behind the series. Overall, a poignant and gorgeously-illustrated image that, just like Finger, deserves recognition.

---

Projects and Discussions

Forumwatch

Hey guys! Welcome back to Forumwatch! In this section, we'll be telling you about what's going on in the forums — interesting discussions that may be going on in Wiki Talk, some fun forum games, or lively debates going on in On-Topic Conversations, you name it!

---

• Redirects allow us to make sure that content that has multiple names, whether an alternate name or just different spelling, all lead to the same article. After all, you wouldn't want to have two pages that result from Commonwealth vs. American spelling differences. But the nature of redirects makes them fickle to work with. If you have suggestions for redirects that should exist but don't or if you want to talk about existing redirects, come to the Redirect discussion thread. Help us keep our wiki easy to navigate.
• Job hunting is a frustrating process. You apply to jobs that seem desperate for employees, only to either be rejected with little to no message or to suddenly get your promised wage slashed. And that's not getting into the difficult process of actually applying. Everyone has different experiences with finding jobs, with varying success. If you want to communicate about your job hunting experiences, give advice to others, or ask for advice from others, head to the Job search strategy discussion thread and see what kind of help you can find.
• Do you like science fiction? Do you like big-ass books? Then we have the story just for you: Dune. Follow Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides and Lady Jessica, as he comes of age and tries to avert death at the hands of enemies that try to subvert his family's power. Also, there are giant sand worms. You have to be wary of those creatures. A feature film of the first half of this novel has recently been released in theaters, and a sequel covering the rest will follow. If you want to talk more about this story, go to the Dune thread and communicate your thoughts.
• Have you ever said anything just...really bizarre? Like, something that you know you definitely don't say everyday? Something that in hindsight, you wonder why you even said it in the first place? If you have said something weird and want to share, then visit The strangest thing you've said today... thread and share your best quotes from the day. Trust us, we will want to hear all about it. Or maybe not. Who can tell?

---

Trope/Article Changelog

This section covers renames, removals, redefinitions, hard-splits, merges, and wick cleaning. We'll try to keep you alerted to any major changes to the site, including perpetual projects and Wiki Talk decisions that you may have missed, but if you want to be a part of the process that affects so much of our wiki, then head over to the Trope Repair Shop on the left-hand side of the forum.

---

• Animated Adaptation has been expanded to include animated adaptations of all media, not just adaptations of live-action TV series. Discussion here.
• Instant Birth: Just Add Water! was renamed to Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!. The trope was expanded to include implausibly quick labor, necessitating a rename. TRS thread link.
• It Is Pronounced Tro Pay has been renamed to Pretentious Pronunciation due to misuse and natter. TRS thread.
• Several list pages (examples: The 50 Greatest Cartoons, John Peel 20 Favorite Albums) were cut due to having no tropes/tropable content and copyright concerns. See the TRS thread for the pages of concern.
• Mixed Ancestry is now a redirect to Interracial and Interspecies Love Index, since TRS discussion deemed the concept People Sit on Chairs.
• Needs Wiki Magic Love was cut and the index recreated at Pages Needing Wiki Magic. Needs Wiki Magic Love was moved to the Administrivia/ namespace to discourage wicking, but that still didn't stop it from gathering wicks, so TRS discussion opted for more drastic action.
• The One With was cut for not being tropeworthy, being used as a Just for Fun thing and Shout-Out to Friends. JustForFun.The One With remains intact. Thread.

---

Pages Needing Help

This section highlights articles indexed on the Pages Needing Wiki Magic policy page and sub-pages. Such articles are, at best, under-performing and below wiki standards. At worst, these pages are in violation of the wiki's rules against stubs. If you're an editor, try checking out some of these under-performing trope and work articles to see what improvements you can make to the page.

---

• November's birthday is Will Rogers' birthday, one of America (and the world)'s earliest multimedia celebrities. We've got a great description that both goes into depth about the person as a creator and serves as a short biography, but the trope example list is context-anemic (as well as aimed more at Will the person instead of how he presented himself to the world or the roles he played) and the page violates the Red Link policy of creating links to works that don't have pages yet. Take some time this month to review one of the oldest superstars and their surviving works.
• Many of our readers recognize the Mr. Potato Head toy, even if they only know the character from Toy Story. You probably didn't realize that we have an article dedicated to it, though, since there's only 35 wicks (none from Toy Story, oddly enough) and less than 400 inbounds. Did you know that it was the first toy advertised on television? (This was when customers had to supply their own potato.) It's been in production ever since. The (admittedly short) description is decent, but there are few tropes and even less context for a toy that has been in production since 1952.
• Speaking of playing dress-up, Fashionable Evil is a trope with less than 30 wicks and 500 inbounds, probably due to the fact that nobody ever added examples. The page has been around since at least February 2012, back in the dark times of TV Tropes, and despite getting wicked on several character pages, nobody remembered their Crosswicking duties. Without a few dedicated tailors fixing years of neglect, this outfit might be destined for the landfill.

Project Spotlight

Looking for a project to dedicate some time to, but not comfortable jumping into large threads? Here are some smaller projects, or more recent discussions, in need of a few more hands.

---

• It's officially November, the month of frantic writing. During this time, it's important to remember that not all writing tricks are good ones. The Writing Pitfall thread exists to curate the Writing Pitfall Index, so that everyone can know just what problems to avoid in their own writing endeavors.
• Speaking of writing mistakes, Plot Holes are something no creator wants to make, and no audience member wants to discover. However, the trope itself is often misused for nitpicking and documenting things like Series Continuity Errors, when it's really for gaps of logic and impossible scenarios. To help with this cleanup, stop by the Plot Hole thread.
• For Americans, it's the month we all associate with stuffing our faces. But if you're not from America, you might be a little confused, or even annoyed, at the American-centric references on the wiki. If you'd like to tackle this, check out the Americentrism thread.
• The Tropes on a Bus are about characters who got formally written out of their shows. However, many examples miss that requirement, and need to be cleaned up. To help out, why not take the bus over to this thread?
• The Headscratchers page is one of the oldest parts of this very wiki. Unfortunately, there's been some problems like recurring questions and answers, bashing and nitpicking, and so on. If you want to help out, please head on over to this thread.

Know the Contributors

• Synchronicity writes Creator Page Spotlight and oversees this whole shebang. Likes tropes and works about comedy, slice of life, and sci-fi/fantasy. For some reason, also enjoys keeping the wiki tidy.
• Piterpicher is the head honcho of Older/Obscure Work Spotlight and Non-English Work Spotlight. Those are the kinds of works he's interested in, but he's primarily a gamer. When it comes to wiki philosophy, the priorities are making it fun for readers, encompassing, and well-performing in terms of SEO. (Editor's note: he also made our snazzy new logo!)
• crazysamaritan writes for the Pages Needing Help section, keeping an eye out for stubs and crosswicking.
• FernandoLemon writes for the Image of the Month. You can most commonly find him in the Image Pickin' forums and occasionally at the Trope Repair Shop, and wishes everyone well on International Men's Day.
• Satoshi Bakura writes for Forumwatch. Their passive nature and busy college schedule often leaves them watching pages and forums without actually participating unless their interest has been sufficiently piqued.
• Mighty Mewtron writes for the New Work Page spotlight. She probably hasn't seen these works before coming across their pages, but she likes to be involved in the growth of the wiki. Beyond the Trope Report, she's most active in the forums, TLP, and the pages for whatever work she's obsessed with this month.
• War Jay 77 writes for the Project Spotlight section. She is also the Herald of Projects: Long Term/Perpetual, and spends much of her time refreshing on the forums, ATT and TLP for new things to respond to. She also enjoys writing, and plans to spend this month working on her NaNoWriMo novel.
• gjjones writes for the Project Spotlight section. He also frequently spends his time working on projects whenever they are necessary, cleaning up wiki entries and participating in the ATT and Trope Repair Shop threads.
• 𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 writes for the Obscure Trope Spotlight and Changelog sections.
• STARCRUSHER99 writes for the New Tropes spotlight, taking advantage of his time lurking in the TLP. Outside of Trope Report, he enjoys participating in the CM/MB threads, lurking on ATT and TLP, and editing whichever piece of fiction that he happens to be obsessed with that day, official or fan-made.
• plakythebirb, otherwise known as "The Thanksgiving Turkey Who Should Have Never Been Pardoned", usually writes for the Works Needing Pages section.
• Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.

---

This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies. We have some shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top! We'll take the customers that we can get, serving anyone to anyone!

Interested in becoming a contributor, or have suggestions for works or tropes to feature? Pop by the the thread and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)