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.
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 May and Trope Report is on our 29th issue.
There have been quite a few site changes occurring during the past month. Disambiguation links are now green, the sidebar layout has changed for approximately half the the userbase, the FAQ and the Content Violations subforums have their own morgues/archive sections, drafts on the Trope Launch Pad won't launch until they acquire 5 net hats, and edit-banned users can no longer launch TLP drafts.
Other notable changes that have happened over the course of last month are major TRS decisions that have completely overhauled well-established tropes like Unacceptable Targets, Whip It Good, Not Good With People, True Art Is Incomprehensible and They Do. More info regarding those changes can be found in our Changelog section.
We also have a new mascot by the name of Trope Reporter, who is the page image of this issue. More info down below in the contributors section.
Happy troping as always!
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Tropes and Works
Trope Spotlight
Obscure Tropes
This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.- Some of us may celebrate "National Ride a Bike Day" this month, but do you know who won't be learning to ride a bike any time soon? That's right — apocalypse survivors. For whatever reason, there are No Bikes in the Apocalypse, which means that people should learn to ride one while they still can. Despite being on the wiki since 2011, this trope has only been wicked 68 times so far, so why not flesh it out some more?
- May 21 is the beginning of the zodiac sign Gemini, represented by a set of twins. Here, we recognize that sometimes the stronger of the two will fall, forcing the weaker one to take action. Weaker Twin Saves the Day covers these brave lesser twins, though it needs help of its own, having only 26 wicks since its inception in 2012.
New Tropes
This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.- A Fable is a form of storytelling that has existed in many human societies for thousands of years. They are simple, concise tales that tell important and useful life lessons, often starring animals, plants, and objects. With their easy-to-understand writing style and value as nuggets of wisdom, these little tales have enjoyed longstanding popularity and importance for humans. However, as old as these stories are, the page was only made as recently as March 7. Why not tell these tales to a new audience?
Work Spotlight
New Work Page Spotlight
This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.- How to Train Your Dragon: Book of Dragons is an animated special, part of DreamWorks Animation's fan-favorite franchise. The short, a companion piece of sorts, is an expansion of the titular book that was briefly seen in the first film. It details everything that the people of Berk know about the various species of dragons, as well as the life of Bork the Bold, the unlucky viking who wrote it. As a recent launch, it could do with more examples.
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.- The Cat Piano is a 2009 animated short by Australian studio The People's Republic of Animation. Told as a poem, it chronicles the story of a bustling city of cat musicians, until a tragic night when its finest performers are kidnapped by a human who intends to cage them in the titular contraption
. The short has gained widespread acclaim thanks to its stylish animation, macabre themes, and intricate writing with a script by Eddie White and narration by Nick Cave. If you so wish, it can be watched here. - On your marks, get set, jump! Platform Racing is a series of Web Games combining Platformer and Racing Game mechanics, which, despite declining popularity and the discontinuation of Adobe Flash, still has its second installment accessible through fan servers. Despite a large player base in its heyday, it only has eleven wicks. Perhaps a race for more exposure on this platform would do the trick?
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!- Lunatics is a mockumentary focusing on the lives of six decidedly weird characters... all played by the writer of the show, Chris Lilley. Yes, that includes the college girl and the lesbian pet psychic. It's perfect for those who like the sort of show where absurd situations are treated as perfectly mundane.
- Puzzle And Action is a trilogy of Arcade games by Sega that star the titular duo from Bonanza Bros.. The game tasks the player with completing a series of randomly-selected puzzle and action minigames to help the duo accomplish their goal, be it solving a mystery, catching criminals or finding a treasure. These minigames include navigating mazes, timing photographs, sharpening pencils and counting fish. Despite featuring a quirky sense of humor and fast-paced action, these games have been largely forgotten, and don't have a page on the wiki yet.
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.- Hailing from Spain, Open Your Eyes starts in a prison cell and depicts a wealthy man living a playboy lifestyle. However, after accepting a ride from a Woman Scorned, César's face becomes mutiliated in an accident, and his life takes a turn for the worse. What this film is really known for is the turn for the weird it takes afterwards. Despite Creator Backlash, the film is critically acclaimed and received a Foreign Remake in Vanilla Sky.
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.- Aleksandr Petrov is a Russian animator, dubbed the master of paint-on-glass animation. Among his most popular works are The Cow, Mermaid and My Love, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award For Best Animated Short Film, as well as an adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea, which won him the accolade. Despite his praise within animation circles, some of his works don't have pages yet.
Image of the Month
This section brings you the best selections of the past month from Image Pickin'.
This issue's featured image is Troper-Made, and illustrates Littlest Cancer Patient.
It features the titular child balancing atop a tightrope with the IV bag as their balancing stick. They pointed out that this initial idea alone already provides three big advantages:
And fill it with crossfire they did—it seems like everything is trying to kill this child. Dinosaurs. Explosions. Apache helicopters. Laser cannons. An angry seagull.
A great idea executed flawlessly, this is one sick image that easily wins this spot. No cancer patients were harmed in the making of this pic.
This issue's featured image is Troper-Made, and illustrates Littlest Cancer Patient.
While symptoms of Glurge-itis include Everything Trying to Kill You, only it can.
Some tropes are too inherently difficult or specific to find good images for. Take the trope at hand, for instance: a child with cancer whose only purpose in the narrative is to tug at the audiences' heartstrings, and who is able to survive both the illness and any other perils that the narrative may throw in their direction. Sounds impossible to illustrate, right? Well, there are ways. One good strategy is asking for the help of our good friend, the troper-made image!
The sketch, drawn in pencil by Noaqiyeum, was made after the IP thread was, predictably, having a tough time finding any good images. According to them, this is how the idea came to be:
- I started a couple of sketches of LCPs being backed towards a ledge or limping down a collapsing hallway, and then thought about how the stereotypical IV stand could be relevant in an action set-piece and everything clicked into place from there.
It features the titular child balancing atop a tightrope with the IV bag as their balancing stick. They pointed out that this initial idea alone already provides three big advantages:
- The tightrope is great because it keeps the LCP as the visual focus, comes with an obvious sole path to survival, and leaves maximum white space to fill with crossfire.
And fill it with crossfire they did—it seems like everything is trying to kill this child. Dinosaurs. Explosions. Apache helicopters. Laser cannons. An angry seagull.
- The bird is my favourite part of the joke, and not just because the circumstances have conspired to promote it from "ordinary nuisance" to "life-threatening". Right now it's just making a threat display. The poor cancer patient has exactly this moment to choose to upset it, on purpose, rather than lose their balance. The only way this scene proceeds is in a brave flailing panic, pursued by outraged squawking.
A great idea executed flawlessly, this is one sick image that easily wins this spot. No cancer patients were harmed in the making of this pic.
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!
- Let's face it, the outside world has been going through some pretty dark times as of late. But that's no reason to not appreciate that we don't live in an even worse reality. Posts from a darker timeline explores what our world could be like if the dial was turned up even higher — from botched game series to random transformations, it's a game that will let you explore some darkly comedic scenarios and say, "whew, at least that isn't real!"
- Artificial intelligence might be part of the future, but right now on TV Tropes, there is currently an ongoing discussion on using AI for work descriptions, and a debate on works that use AI and whether they are tropable, since AI aren't humans. If you seem interested in joining the conversation, come see AI policy discussion.
- TV Tropes has three Namespaces for audio media: AudioPlay/, Podcast/, and Radio/. Is that necessary? Too granular? Too muddy? Those are probably not the most popular media types, but we could use some more opinions on this discussion about audio product namespaces, and you don't have to be knowledgeable about them to provide input.
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.
- Ascended Fanfic was reclassified as Trivia due to a professionally published work starting out as a fanfic being background information. TRS thread here.
- Badass in Charge has been merged with Authority Tropes because the former was often misused as a trope despite being an index, and even as an index it was determined to be redundant with the latter. TRS thread here.
- Business As Unusual was sent back to TLP because it wasn't thriving. TRS thread here.
- Camera Screw will receive a Trope Transplant and be split into two YMMV items, with the original definition of cameras obscuring in-game events using the name Event-Obscuring Camera, and the new YMMV item for bad camera controls taking the Camera Screw name. TRS thread here.
- Charm Point was rewritten to explicitly limit it to physical/personality traits and items that are basically a part of a character's daily personal appearance like glasses and remove the part about Magic Feather entirely. TRS thread here.
- Coming-Out Story's definition was expanded to include examples about the moment when a character or a couple finally comes out as LGBT+ after keeping it a secret from the public/everyone around them, which was previously classified as misuse. TRS thread here.
- Darkseid Duplicate was disambiguated due to concerns that it's not a naturally occurring trope, particularly due to heavy misuse. TRS thread here.
- Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest had its definition expanded to include mundane examples, which were once misuse. TRS thread here.
- Dream Team was made In-Universe Examples Only due to tropeworthiness concerns with out-of-universe examples. TRS thread here.
- Fashion Model was turned into an index and renamed to Fashion and Modeling Tropes due to concerns of a lack of tropeworthiness. TRS thread here.
- Im Going For A Closer Look was cut for being a wick-starved stock phrase. TRS thread here.
- Instant Seiza was cut due to a combination of a lack of wicks and concerns that it's redundant with healthier tropes. TRS thread here.
- "Join the Army," They Said was merged with Recruiters Always Lie due to redundancy. TRS thread here.
- Not Good With People was renamed to Better with Non-Human Company due to misuse. TRS thread here.
- Psychobilly Genre was renamed to Psychobilly because the inclusion of the word "genre" was determined to be unnecessary, as the lack of any other pages with the latter name meant that subpage collision is not an issue. TRS thread here.
- Ptero Soarer was renamed to Terror-dactyl because Trope Decay caused it to be used for inaccurate portrayals of pterosaurs in general, when it's supposed to be about pterosaurs being portrayed as monstrous. TRS thread here.
- Due to misuse of Rated M for Manly, a Missing Supertrope called Manly Man was launched to catch such examples. TRS thread here.
- Senpai/Kōhai was merged into Japanese Honorifics due to tropeworthiness concerns. A concept involving the dynamic between the two may be sent to the salvage yard. TRS thread here.
- Sequelphobic was cut due to a combination of a lack of wicks and complaining. TRS thread here.
- Short Hair With Tail was cut because the hairstyle described was determined to be meaningless. TRS thread here.
- Significant Sketchbook was cut, with potential meanings being sent to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard, due to inconsistent usage. TRS thread here.
- Stock Kisses was redirected to Kissing Tropes due to a lack of wicks and a lack of tropeworthiness. TRS thread here.
- Stock Parody Jokes was disambiguated because it was determined to be redundant with Memetic Mutation and Stock Parodies, and many of the examples it did have were Zero Context Examples. TRS thread here
- Stupid Statement Dance Mix was disambiguated due to redundancy concerns and Zero-Context Example issues. TRS thread here.
- Super Coach was merged with and redirected to Save Our Team due to a combination of a lack of wicks and redundancy. TRS thread here.
- The Thing That Goes Doink had its information on the shishi-odoshi merged with UsefulNotes.Japanese Architecture and was disambiguated between UsefulNotes.Japanese Architecture and Big Fancy House. TRS thread here.
- They Do was merged with Relationship Upgrade and disambiguated due to a combination of redundancy and an unclear name. TRS thread here.
- Trope Grid was moved to Just for Fun. TRS thread here.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible was made In-Universe Examples Only to solve longstanding complaining issues. In addition, on-page examples are no longer forbidden. TRS thread here.
- Unacceptable Targets was converted from a YMMV item into an index for tropes about targets that are considered unacceptable. TRS thread here.
- Unrequited Tragic Maiden was rewritten to focus on the juxtaposition of innocent beauty/tragedy (akin to The Ophelia) and limit it to the examples where a bad thing does happen to the character. TRS thread here.
- Villain Has a Point is being rewritten as "Work acknowledges that the villain's motivation is rooted in some good points, without excusing what they're doing about it" and has been made In-Universe Examples Only. TRS thread here.
- Whip It Good was disambiguated between other weapon/combat-related tropes due to use of whips not being a trope on its own. TRS thread here.
- The Woman Wearing The Queenly Mask was renamed to Tough Leader Façade and broadened into a gender-neutral trope for leaders taking on a tough public appearance for their subjects. TRS thread here.
- You Got Spunk! was merged with Baddie Flattery due to its dialogue-based name inviting heavy misuse, and correct examples of the former being deemed redundant with the latter. TRS thread here.
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.
- Happy birthday to H. Jon Benjamin, a voice actor who has played roles in shows such as Archer and Bob's Burgers. His page could use a bit of help with a better description, a full list of roles, and tropes about his work.
- Invisible Mom is a sci-fi comedy following a suburban mom who accidentally ingests a powder that turns her invisible, with hijinks ensuing. The film seems to be invisible on the wiki, with barely any tropes or wicks.
- Virus and Cure Names discusses cases in which a uniquely named virus will have an antidote that uses a similarly styled name. Unfortunately, the trope is suffering example starvation and description anemia, with wiki magic as the remedy.
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.
- WMG is being used for stealth complaining, creator bashing, and overtly sexual entries and responses.
- Confirmed, unfortunately; WMG subpages, designated for theories and predictions in fiction, keep attracting such misuse. If you would like to bring any concerning entries to a thread for discussion, we have the Wild Mass Cleanup thread.
- Confirmed, unfortunately; WMG subpages, designated for theories and predictions in fiction, keep attracting such misuse. If you would like to bring any concerning entries to a thread for discussion, we have the Wild Mass Cleanup
- Have you ever seen an entry that talks about something that occurred "recently", but that something happened five years ago? Do these entries speculate on things that may happen in the future, but those things have already happened or not happened? Head on over to the "Examples Are Not Recent" and vague dates cleanup thread, where those entries can be taken and cleaned up.
- The pages for the Legend of the Heroes: Trails series (especially the character pages) are prone to trope misuse, zero-context examples and word cruft, among other issues. If you would like to help out, please head on over to the Cleaning up the Trails thread.
Know the Contributors
- FernandoLemon writes for Work Spotlight and Image of the Month. He thinks he may have gone overboard with the number of animated shorts referenced this issue.
- War Jay 77 contributed to the Trope Spotlight and Forum Watch section, and couldn't think of anything fun to talk about for May in her bio.
- 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 uhhh, wrote something for the Forumwatch this month.
- plakythebirb, who lusts for M A Y H E M, usually writes for Works That Need a Page.
- Excessive-Menace writes for the New Tropes section. 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 wrote for Projects Spotlight this edition. He mostly participates in the Project Threads, TRS, Trope and Wiki Talk, sometimes ATT, and occasionally Image Pickin'.
- callmeamuffin wrote for this month's Forumwatch and Project Spotlight. Outside of Trope Report, you can find him participating in forum games.
- MacronNotes contributed to the description this month. She spends most of her time on Wiki Talk, TRS, and other parts of the site.
- Berrenta assisted with the Article Changelog, and often finds other pages worth covering when doing TRS work. This month, she mostly contributed to Pages Needing Help.
- GastonRabbit contributes to the Changelog, since he mostly moderates TRS, and adds changes after giving the go-ahead to make them.
- Cutegirl920fire didn't write anything this month because she's getting beat up by F. Scott Fitzgerald for mocking him (she still likes his books though).
- Cardboard Bot drew the image of this issue.
- Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.
- A Nonagon 9 wrote spotlights for Obscure and Non-English Works. You may call him AHexagon6 for World Bee Day.
- Trope Reporter (real name Taylor Von Trope) is the new mascot for Trope Report whose TV head is used as this edition's image. He will be used for future projects and issues. Don't worry, he's only the image of this issue.
This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by the Putnam County Spelling Bee. Applications for this month's trials are now O-P-E-N to everyone. And remember: it's C-H-E-K-H-O-V, not C-H-E-K-O-V.
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.)
and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)