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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.

Happy New Year! It's been a full year since the release of the first issue of the Trope Report revival, and we have managed to put out 13 issues of this newsletter, which is amazing. 2021 has been a wild year with many changes and events happening on the site, such as many cleanup projects and trope revamps being underway and completed, and more of them are sure to follow. As the Changelog reports, major pages like Adult Fear, Critical Research Failure, Fan Nickname, Start of Darkness and What An Idiot got major changes that everyone should know. Our New Year's resolution is to ensure this year is just as productive as the last, with more news and announcements to come in the future.

We appreciate all the feedback that we have gotten on Trope Report Feedback 2021, and we will be putting the ideas and suggestions expressed there under consideration.

Happy Troping!

~Excessive-Menace


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Tropes and Works

    Trope Spotlight 

Obscure Tropes

This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.
  • You've begun playing an open-world video game, and your in-game map is nearly all dark. You come across a downed transmission tower and repair its hardware, and suddenly, your map is updated to show the topography and landmarks of the area around the tower. You've just encountered Crow's Nest Cartography. Sometimes called "Ubisoft Towers", these are locations in a world that reveal a portion of the map upon reaching them and usually doing some sort of task to access them. This is a way to challenge players by making them explore, and a way to bring attention to important parts of the world by placing these towers nearby. As of writing, it only has 31 wicks.
  • As many different franchises and works soldier on, it's inevitable for something to change and improve to remain up to date, and special effects are no exception. Much of the time, works begin by using only practical effects, but later on they adopt CGI and other digital effects, either replacing much of the practical effects or utilizing both at the same time. Other times, the CGI effects start out looking rather rough and jarring, but evolve to be much sleeker, more realistic, and more advanced than before. While Special Effects Evolution has existed since 2009, it only has 50 wicks and 628 inbounds, so it would benefit from some more examples and crosswicking.

New Tropes

This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.
  • With Pantone choosing periwinkle, specifically "Very Peri", for the Color of the Year 2022, expect the New Year air to be painted in periwinkle. Not your color? Technicolor Wind has more color options for you. You'll have pink winds, you'll have lavender winds, you'll have baby blue winds, and you'll have white winds. Launched on December 25th, it surely will bring a delightful rainbow of breezes to fly with the tried and true green.
  • Normally, living beings have to die in order to access the afterlife and can't go back to the realm of the living. However, some lucky individuals obtain the chance to visit the afterlife before their time comes. The Afterlife Tour is often led by a Spirit Advisor who guides the living visitor and teaches them all about the afterlife, whether it's a Fluffy Cloud Heaven, a Fire and Brimstone Hell, or something else entirely. This trope recently launched on November 22, but its usage dates way back to The Epic of Gilgamesh, with The Divine Comedy being one of the best known examples of the trope as Dante is guided through the nine Circles of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.
  • Songs are a great way to demonstrate a character's personality and goals. A hero might sing about their dreams for the future, their feelings for their Love Interest, or their undying will, while villains may sing about their Evil Plan or gloat about their power and superiority. While these songs are separate pieces most of the time, there are occasions when they are united in one song. The Hero vs. Villain Duet is when the hero and villain sing together, often during a confrontation. It may be about how the hero refuses to submit to the villain or about their triumph against their foe, but regardless of the subject matter, this trope can help make their fight much more dramatic. Launched on November 11, this trope is a staple in many musicals when the hero and villain are onstage together.

    Work Spotlight 

New Work Page Spotlight

This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.
  • This Way Up is a 2019 Channel 4 sitcom that only got a page here on December 26th, 2021. It follows an Irish woman named Áine teaching English classes in London, dealing with relationships and family dynamics while recovering from a nervous breakdown. The show has only two series of six episodes each, and only a handful of tropes on its page. It is currently available on Hulu in the US. Those familiar with the show are free to catalogue the drama by adding more tropes, especially those common in British sitcoms.
  • A wise man once said, "Everybody wants to be a cat." Even better: what about being a cat who slices their way through enemies? Claws of Furry is a 2018 Beat 'em Up platformer game starring Cat Ninjas trying to rescue their sensei from a group of rats and a giant mecha dog. Its work page was created on December 19 of this year. There are forty-four levels, so if you play through them all, take a paws to add some Video Game Tropes to its page.
  • The Land Mine is a 2016 novel by Eric Wright about a 13-year-old boy named Derek whose dad is off fighting World War II in Africa. When a land mine blows up Eric's house, he's forced to uproot his life, moving in with his grandparents and becoming deeply interested in an apparent double agent for the British army. The work page, created on December 29th of this year, only has five entries on its page. For Historical Fiction fans reading this novel, try to peruse indexes such as War Tropes and see what applies to this dramatic story.

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.
  • Tiger Road is a 1987 arcade game by Capcom that was later ported to other systems. The player character is a martial artist named Jee Wong who has to save children captured by Ryuken, an evil warlord who plans to use them as soldiers. During gameplay, Lee has to battle numerous foes and avoid traps, and in some levels he has to climb multiple stories or fly while doing so. Along the way, he finds stolen scrolls and recovers his powers. With beautiful backgrounds, kick-ass music, and a high level of challenge, it's a fine way to start the year of the Tiger for sure.
  • Atmosfear is a board game with a VHS/DVD originally released in 1991, with several expansions (which use the original game's player characters as hosts) and relaunches released later. Each player controls one of the six Harbingers, who are mostly adapted from historical/mythological figures. To win, they have to collect six Keystones on the game board, then return to their starting spot, open a jar in the center, and select one of the other players' fears. As the players move, the Gatekeeper often interrupts the game and gives the players some kind of condition, which is usually harmful, and if none of the players win the game in time, he wins. Its creepy/entertaining host, unique format, and atmosfear (pun intended) should be a perfect fit for parties... and remember to answer "Yes, my Gatekeeper!" when he tells you to.
  • Atlanta Nights is a book by "Travis Tea" published in 2005. In actuality, it was written by a group of sci-fi and fantasy authors to test claims that PublishAmerica was a company that took part in Vanity Publishing, and they did publish it, at least until the hoax was revealed and the book retracted. The story is inconsistent and difficult to understand, though it focuses on a group of rich Atlanta socialites who sleep around with each other. Its sheer nonsense quotient (one chapter was written by a story generator) makes it either hilariously So Bad, It's Good or downright epic as a piece of trash written by experts.

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!
  • While many of you may be tired of Christmas music endlessly playing during the holidays, the composers of several very famous songs still don't have pages here. Brenda Lee is famous for her performance of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" — and a lot more, having charted over forty times during her life. Bobby Helms performed "Jingle Bell Rock", along with other, less Christmassy country songs. Finally, Johnny Marks was a songwriter who wrote much of the Christmas music that we still listen to today.

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.
  • Novas Aventuras de Megaman is a 16-issue Brazilian comic series based on the Mega Man franchise, specifically its Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X subseries. It takes place 30 years after Dr. Wily took over the world, where all robots were outlawed. With Dr. Light dead, Mega Man and Roll have to defend themselves in this harsh world, though they find their brother X. Afterwards, things go nuts (gore and nukes are just the tip of the iceberg). Despite hardly resembling the source material and the art being a mixed bag, it's at least worth reading for the sheer edginess, creative liberties taken towards the characters/plot, and overall interesting behind-the-scenes stuff, like the rant from the original character named Princess at the end of issue 3, or artists who joined the comic after submitting their fanart.
  • Giga Wrecker is a puzzle-platformer by the Japanese company Game Freak. In the future, the Earth has fallen victim to robots known as the Ajiths, and a young girl named Reika is taken as a slave. One day a mysterious girl breaks into Reika's cell to rescue her, but when the break-in gets noticed, the girl pulls a gun on her and intends to kill her for the sake of humanity. Reika gets shot in the arm and taken by Dr. Kouzuki, who promises to help her survive if he becomes her guinea pig, which is practically her only option. Thanks to the augments she gains from an operation, she can use debris to create weapons and tools necessary for the situations ahead. It's worth buying for the well-done physics, cool setting, and a Level Editor where you can play levels made by people on Steam Workshop.
  • Vader is a Polish Death Metal/Thrash Metal band. It consists of (as of this issue) Piotr "Peter" Wiwczarek (vocals, guitar, and the only original member left), Marek "Spider" Pająk (guitar), Tomasz "Hal" Halicki (bass guitar), and James Stewart (drums). The name comes from Star Wars' Darth Vader, while the music has horror and war themes. With their killer pace, awesome riffs, and original singing style (the lyrics are audible, though accented), they're the legends of the genre.

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.
  • Color Dreams was a somewhat obscure American video game developer for the NES, but they are best known today as Wisdom Tree, changing their brand to focus on developing unlicensed Christian video games such as Spiritual Warfare and Super 3D Noah's Ark. They are still active to this day, publishing reprints of some of their old titles in partnership with Piko Interactive.

    Image of the Month 
This section brings you the best of the recent selections from Image Pickin.
This issue's featured image comes from Mad Max: Fury Road, and illustrates AB Negative.
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ab_negative_mad_max_6.png
Heroes come in two types.

Last month, I wrote a bit stressing the importance of troper-made images. This month, we got ourselves another such image, and by the same troper, no less!

The reason why this image is so good is thanks to all the small details that add to it. For example, the cards are based on American Red Cross donor cards, but with the background text slightly altered to something more appropriate. The Red Cross was given a lampshade for added flavor. The barcodes contain a secret message, which you may discover by scanning themnote . And we can't overlook the caption, a reference to this blood drive slogan.

However, let's not forget that the usage of blood donor cards itself is not only what makes those pieces fit into place, but also what really helps illustrate the trope and all its associated drama. It's clever thinking like this what nets the image the recognition.
Additionally, to celebrate the New Year, we will look back at the pics chosen throughout 2021 to name one as the Image of the Year.
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/asterios_clash_alt.png
"Well my dear, I do have the most right angles."

My Image of the Year (which you might remember was given the title of Image of the Month back in September's issue) gains that distinction solely because it did something that no other image this year did: it made me interested in reading the source material. Asterios Polyp ended up being an enjoyable graphic novel with likable characters and, of course, a beautiful art style. It also ended up being my favorite entry to write, as it gave me a lot of material to work with. If it's a concept that interests you, I recommend checking the comic out for yourself.

~FernandoLemon

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!


  • Traditionally, news networks have been classified as "Creator" pages and placed in that namespace. However, in the midst of cleaning up violations of the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement, people have realized that they don't contain tropable information that isn't controversial. To that end, pages for news networks are being moved to the "Useful Notes" namespace. Help out with the moving process at the On news networks thread and let us know of the network pages you find and move.
  • Magic systems can be simple, complicated, or the Kingdom Hearts style of making it up over time. In any case, you probably have your own magic system that you want to share with others that you are developing for your stories. And where else to share it but at the Describe Your Magic System in a Few Sentences thread! Exposit to us how your magic works, and read how others create their own magic systems if you want any inspiration.
  • Doesn't anyone else find it funny how spiders are commonly feared yet Spider-Man is one of the most popular superheroes of all time? Then again, Spider-Man is obviously a human in spandex rather than a tiny eight-legged critter. Also, spiders don't fight against octopi, goblins, or vultures. Anyways, Spider-Man: No Way Home came out recently, and it was amazing, but let's celebrate the entirety of the Wallcrawler's history in the Spider-Man General Discussion thread, because Spidey also fights against a Russian hunter, suffers a nervous breakdown because his parents are robots, and erases his own marriage just to save his about-to-die-anyway aunt. Fun times!
  • Has there ever been something that you wanted to say about the site, just in general? But at the same time, you don't want it to be a suggestion on site change or anything official. You just want to chat and comment on what is happening on the site itself. Luckily for you, we have such a peanut gallery, and it is called the Observations you've made about this site/forum/wiki thread! Use this thread for any unofficial critiques or comments of amusement, just as long as you keep it civil.

    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.



    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.
  • For January, we are celebrating Margaret Snyder, a children's book author whose publications are primarily Picture Book adaptations of licensed works, such as Dragon Tales and Mickey Mouse. Her biography, however, is merely two sentences long. Her list of published books is non-existent, and is otherwise contained with the second sentence of her biography. Lastly, the six tropes are all violations of Zero-Context Examples. The last time anyone even edited the article was in 2016, definitely making it a relic of the past wiki rules.
  • Let's start the new year off right into the Age of Steam! The page has a number of Zero-Context Example problems, mostly hidden by the comment code, but the description isn't even a proper sentence in length and includes the title of the work in bold rather than italics. The most shameful problem is that this page for a series only really has examples from the first book, but there isn't any sorting to make it easier for someone to come along and split that novel off from the series the way other "first installments" are separated from their franchise articles. While you're fixing context and Crosswicking, pay some mind to the author as well; Devon Monk. Their article doesn't index any articles or provide any examples of tropes common to their various works.
  • As we "close the door" on the old year, we might get nervous about the way that the camera seems to linger of the events of the past year(s). In visual works, this is called Door Focus. Our article doesn't have any videos or images to depict it (although I imagine that a static image will have some trouble doing so), and the description spends slightly more focus on the unimportant "whys" of the character rather than the storytelling. Overall, the examples are a proper collection... for someone getting ready to launch a draft. There are definitely more examples of this trope (a few examples on work pages haven't yet been crosswicked to the trope page), and the biggest problem that the page currently has is probably not enough people being aware of its existence rather than a lack of examples in general.

    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.
  • We all love Haikus / But what if they break our rules? / Haiku-Wiki Thread.
  • Have you ever come across an example that was so long, you had trouble reading it or scrolling past it? Have you ever seen a chain of bullets go that go on for miles? Did it take you a week to read this newsletter because you were trying to finish reading a Broken Base entry first? Well, then we have the cleanup thread for you. Bring those mountains to the thread, and the people there will help you turn them into molehills.
  • Shout-Out is a pretty popular trope, but also attracts plenty of shoehorns, ZCEs, and Fan Myopia. Stop by the cleanup thread if you want to discuss examples you find questionable or unclear.
  • The Condemned by History audience reaction has been problematic due to edit warring and confusion over what qualifies. If you would like to help out with the ongoing cleanup, please stop by this thread.

    Know the Contributors 
  • Synchronicity 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. He can most commonly be found in the Image Pickin' forums and occasionally at the Trope Repair Shop, and will be celebrating Three Kings' Day with his family.
  • 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. Her New Year's resolution for the wiki itself includes clearing out more TRS threads and getting back to her old "Random Media" cleanup spree at least once a month. Let's see how long it lasts this time...
  • 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 setting up his family's Christmas tree, searching his house all over for hidden presents, and editing whichever piece of fiction that he happens to be obsessed with that day, official or fan-made.
  • plakythebirb, still in the body of a penguin, usually writes for Works That Need a Page.
  • Excessive-Menace writes for the Obscure/New Tropes section, as well as writing this month's description. They mainly spend their time lurking and editing the wiki, as well as participating in ATT and writing for the Trope Pantheons project.
  • The Mayor of Simpleton is temporarily returning as a guest editor for the Changelog for this edition. He mostly participates in the Project Threads, TRS, ATT, Trope and Wiki Talk, and occasionally Image Pickin'.
  • Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.
  • Alnair20aug 93 is an orange cat who is a guest editor for the New Tropes spotlight. They interchange between drawing and browsing the interwebs for memes and tropes.
  • Cutegirl920fire is a pig gal who is a guest editor that helps out with the Obscure Tropes and Works sections. While she tries her best to contribute to the Report and the wiki as a whole occasionally, she's usually busy with stuff such as simping for Marie-Antoinette, playing Fate/Grand Order, and working on her stories.

*chirp* This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by the Enma-Tei Inn! A sparrow-run inn placed between the human world and the spirit realm, anyone can come to visit to enjoy its hot springs and delicious food, or rest from their long adventures! It's a wonderful place to stay during the New Year! *chirp*

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

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