Aliens in Cardiff is a fairly prolific trope, with over 400 wicks, and like a lot of tropes that size, it has seen some misuse. The concept is fairly simple-something completely out of the ordinary happens in a small, mundane or obscure real-life location. The laconic makes this even clearer-supernatural, science fiction or world-endy kind of events happen in small, not well known places.
The problem is the same as with many tropes like this, examples that fit one of the criteria, but not all of them. There are examples of Hollywood style action and violence taking place in small towns-but since those are not unrealistic, fantasy actions, they don't qualify (a bank robbery in a small town is not this trope). Or, it's a fantastic event that takes place in a small but fictional location, also not this trope. Most commonly, it's used for locations that are real but not small, and simply not super famous. This has the added slightly gross factor of being western-centric and ignoring the size and importance of massive cities or even entire regions/provinces/states simply because they're in locations tropers aren't familiar with (like Africa or central Asia). These also don't apply-audiences scratching their heads because they nothing about Lagos, Nigeria is not this trope. The trope is a writer putting something fantastical in a real world, humdrum location-often lampshaded, and used as a grounding element to put supernatural elements in contrast with the banal.
Following the Wick Check, the trope will probably need a little time in TRS just to clarify a few things in the description-the problem is not with the way the trope is described, but rather in a lot of misused examples getting shoehorned into the main example (often tropers would add an example in it's correct folder, but then tack it on to an increasingly large paragraph on the main page) plus there is a lot of that annoying question and answer style which is often used with old tropes. A revised description would hopefully establish the criteria a little more clearly (possibly with a bolded list) and also show examples of things that are not this trope to help tropers avoid the common mistakes.
Aliens in Cardiff Wick check (50/50)
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Correct usage (12/50)
- Animalistic Abomination: "The Kivouackians from Satellite City are a mix of this and some more upright designs that look like humanoids with varying degrees of weirdness. Many of them have traits from multiple different varieties of furry earth animal, like Shuck, who resembles a large black hellhound-creature but with horns and a smushed bat-like face, Felicity, who's like a mixture of a donkey and a dragon, and Winifred, who's sort of like a cross between a (wingless) furry dragon, a deer, a horse, and a lizard. The show's ostensible protagonist, Sullivan, keeps them as houseguests at a middle-class manor in rural England. Most if not all of them are older than the current universe and came from a place that existed before our own, can be dismembered and put back together without apparent permanent harm, and see humans as inferior creatures who don't deserve to survive, but they usually stay inside Sullivan's house because most of them (the animal ones, at least) aren't much bigger than a large dog and are vulnerable to human weaponry." It’s a barebones example, but it fits (there’s very little explained about the creatures at all).
- Big Applesauce: "If the writers pick someplace off the beaten path instead, you've got Aliens in Cardiff." Simple and clear explanation of the two.
- Development Gag: "This is how Aliens in Cardiff came to be, starting in "The Unquiet Dead". Since BBC Wales films there, it's treated as a borderline Place Worse Than Death in-universe, with everyone astonished that anything interesting happens there. "I saw the fall of Troy! World War Five! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon... in Cardiff."" Actually an important note to make, as it explains part of the trope name is an in-joke and not meant to be 100% serious.
- Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here. "Compare Aliens in Cardiff and Everytown, America." Pothole, needs a little cleanup-just a quick explanation as to the difference that AIC is about real place and NEEHH is about boring places that get a dose of Tempting Fate.
- Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe. "Contrast Aliens in Cardiff." Pothole again-should get a few words as to the difference.
- Doctor Who Pothole about Torchwood. Keep (though maybe not, because Torchwood itself might not qualify).
- Marvel Comics: Kamala Khan: Potholed to mention Jersey City and not NYC. Fits the tone of the trope-Jersey City is by no means small, but it’s definitely more minor in Marvel comics than in the real world, as NYC has nearly all the heroes. This is perhaps the most deliberate example I’ve seen so far of this trope-the writers specifically picked a smaller, more out of the way place, as it should be.
- Stephen King:In King's works, Maine is apparently America's very own Lovecraft State, what with all the Ancient Astronauts, Wendigos and Eldritch Abominations hanging out there. This fits pretty good, but it might be better off just folded into Creator Provincialism. Stephen King’s from Maine, so he writes about it.
- Cocoon If you had to pick where aliens would make contact, you wouldn't guess Coral Gables, FL. A nice, straight forward example...but I wonder if maybe there's a better trope that covers the specific "stuff in a place that eventually become populated by humans"? Or would that just be maybe an inversion of this trope?
- Devil Girl from Mars: In fairness, Nyah didn't intend to end up in a small village in the Scottish moors. Her spacecraft collided with an aircraft while entering the atmosphere so landed her damaged craft there, and now has to make the best of a bad situation. I think it fits, maybe as Playing With?
- Let the Right One In: Vampires in a Stockholm suburb. Vampires can pop up just about anywhere in fiction, and Stockholm isn’t a small city (though it takes place in a suburb). Seems to fit though it’s not a strong example-it’s hard to say where one would expect to find a single vampire. Borderline ZCE, but I lean towards keep.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019): The ancient vampires have chosen for some reason to live in a middle-class neighborhood on Staten Island. In one episode, Lazslo goes into hiding in Clairton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Seems like it might fit, but should probably be listed as a Downplayed example-Staten island isn’t small or obscure, but it seems so compared to the other boroughs of NYC. There’s a pothole to Big Applesauce right on the words Staten Island though, which should be cut if this is kept-it can’t be both tropes at once. Also cut the bit about Lazslo hiding-he's explicitly going somewhere out of the way.
Misuse (17/50)
- California Doubling: Mention is made of a tv movie, Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America. While it takes place in Richmond, Virginia (one of the country’s oldest major cities), it deals with something all over the world. We know a pandemic can start and spread anywhere.
- How We Got Here: A Pothole to You, Me and The Apocalypse about characters hiding from a comet in a bunker in Slough, England. Lots of places have bunkers and most of the characters aren't from there.
- Anime.Dominion Tank Police: The English translations give an amusing example. The series takes place in the fictitious Japanese city of Shinhama,note which literally translates as "New Port". Since the early American translations papered over most of the Japanese cultural references, the audience is apparently meant to think this bleak, futuristic dystopia is located in the state of Rhode Island.
- Or in Wales (not too far from Cardiff!). Not an example. Full of natter about translations and trivia about Japanese cities. The series takes place in the future, in a fictional city.
- The Avatar of Albion: Some sort of MLP fanfic, mentions the ponies “sacking Britain” as a Pothole. Britain feels too large to qualify for this trope, though I have know nothing about this fanfic.
- Halo: Uprising: The Covenant unexpectedly invade Cleveland rather than blasting it from orbit like any other city. Just as they would if a Forerunner artifact were there, and just as Ackerson expected they would. This feels shaky-the Covenant invade Cleveland looking for a mystic relic. But this is during the battle of Earth-the Covenant have invaded many cities, and they were deliberately pointed in the direction of Cleveland. This is definitely a trope, but not this one.
- Season Two Tropes: Both Vladivostok and Sapporo aren't usually the localities of choice for Urban Fantasy writers. Should be a cut, even with context, as DTB takes place in many locations, some big some small and the premise is that Contractors-people with superpowers-can appear basically anywhere. Most of season 2 isn’t even set in Vladivostok, or Sapporo (which is a good sized city) and deals a lot with Tokyo.
- The Great Wall: Aliens in the northern border of China. That’s an enormous region, and the Great Wall itself is a massive national landmark, so it doesn’t fit. This one of those examples that's just "Asia? It must be this trope" ignoring the actual facts of the specific location.
- Village of the Damned (1960): The idea fits (though it has happened elsewhere in the movie’s world), but it’s a fictionalized location so probably falls best under other tropes.
- Literature/Tunnels: Takes place in a fictional city near London.
- Doctor Who S32 E12 "Closing Time": This example mentions it’s not even the first time aliens have appeared in Colchester. Seems like a good reason for a cut.
- Stargate SG 1 S 9 E 7 Ex Deus Machina: Needs more context “A fully-armored platoon of Jaffa in a US office building” Ok…which office building? Where? Why are the Jaffa there? SG-1 operates in a universe where aliens can pop up basically anywhere, anytime on Earth so it seems like a marginal example at best. For the record, the action in this episode takes place in Bethesda Maryland, Washington, DC, and Seattle, Washington.
- My Hero (2000)-is mentioned that Thermoman (alien superhero and the show’s male lead) stops a satellite falling to hit a small town, but that’s just one event in one episode. The bulk of the show’s action takes place in a small town, but a London small town.
- The Magicians (2016): First example is a clear cut (character’s hometown is a real place. Ok, and…?). Second example is about an arc taking place in Modesto, California. ‘’Maybe’’ if the whole show was set there, but it’s about a character who is explicitly in hiding and the show goes all over.
- Devil May Cry 5: Or rather, "Demons in Britain with a bit of Italy". Details around Red Grave City show that it appears to be somewhere in the UK, with big red buses, black cabs, yellow ambulances, even classic old red telephone boxes, motorway signs and roadwork equipment all resembling those used in the UK in reality. In Mission 2, Nero starts out in a shopping mall
that looks to be based off of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Italy's oldest shopping mall in Milan. These locations are fake, and one of the stand ins is for a famous place. Cut. - Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: The majority of the US-centric action takes place in Denver, Colorado. While not a small town by any means, it's a far cry from the usual suspects like New York or Los Angeles. America-centric on the face of it (there are also parts of the game in a major city in Mexico, a breakaway nation in Europe, and an airforce base in Pakistan, but I guess those just don't count?) there is also classic shoehorn language Cut.
- Webcomic/Iji: The entry is very quickly self-defeating. “Technically everywhere” is not this trope. Milwaukee is not a small city, and then there’s an example that says “mostly central Asia” which reeks of western centrism. Central Asia is a massive region with millions and millions of people. Cut.
- Code Lyoko: A.I. Is a Crapshoot and going all SKYNET... and it's based out of an abandoned factory in the Parisian suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt (or at least a No Communities Were Harmed version of it). The main Academy setting is a fictional place and a lot of the action takes place in cyberspace, with the real world settings somewhat inspired by Paris. Cut.
Marginal or possible examples (16/50)
- Alien Geometries This is in an example about a modern hoax orchestrated by students at the Rochester Institute of Technology, so I’m not sure it counts. Cut?
- Historical Fantasy: Reference to a novel called By Force Alone…seems to fit? The aliens are given very little mention in this example so I’m not sure. Might need to be re-written. It would help if the book had a tropes page instead of just getting a shoehorned pothole.
- Vichy Earth: An example about Doctor Who, the episode Invasion of the Daleks. Rrobably a cut as Daleks have invaded the whole earth. It's also not really an example of Vichy Earth, either (its about collaborators, and the Daleks don’t really have that here).
- Characters.Doctor Who Aliens And Monsters. In reference to "The Two Doctors," Feels like an unnecessary example because this is not a character trope. Also the episode itself may not qualify, Seville is kind of a big city. Feels borderline and should probably be cut anyway, at least from this page.
- SCP Foundation: Groups: Talks about the FBI office in Cincinnati Ohio. Might fit (SCPS can happen just about anywhere though, so maybe not), and again I don't know if this is a trope that should go on character pages.
- Gold Digger, the comic book. This is basically a ZCE-it mentions things happening in Decatur, Georgia, but not what those things are. The main character’s family seem to be a weirdness magnet, so that might not qualify. Needs more context either way.
- Shang-Chi (2020): The area mentioned, Chara Sands, is tiny and small. However, the group there are fairly modern (about a hundred years old) and were planted there as one of several such groups. Given that the Five Weapons Society has people all over the planet, and this is Marvel comics we’re talking about, I could see going either way-they’re explicitly a secret group, so having a base in a small area makes sense and doesn’t seem to be trying to use this trope. I lean towards cutting but I could be convinced otherwise.
- Untold Tales of the New Universe: This is a borderline ZCE, it mentions paranormals and undead armies in Keshena, Wisconsion. That seems to fit, but without more context it’s hard to tell-maybe Keshena is a weirdness magnet in this universe (it’s a Marvel comic, but explicitly not 616).
- DoctorWho.Tropes A To C: this fits, as the series is the trope namer, but as written it’s kind of ZCE as it relies on a outside wiki link. Just needs to be cleaned up and pointed out that the show averts this trope as often as playing it straight-it applies to certain episodes, not the series as a whole…maybe it should be deleted then? (I’m not entirely sure what the policy is on that-does it go on the series page and the episode pages, or just the episode pages?)
- Coreline: Has several examples from various fanfics…I know nothing about this universe, but given it’s a big multi-crossover type, I’m not sure the individual examples count, as it seems to be more of a world of adventure type setting.
- Spaced Invaders: A classic example-dim-witted aliens try to invade Earth in a small town, however the location is fictional, so it might better fall under Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here. Possible cut?
- JustForFun.Grand Unified Timeline: This is a weird case, which seems like a vanity project just trying together potentially every fictional event. The trope is specifically Potholed to a Radio drama about aliens crash landing-four separate locations are mentioned, three not precisely identified but called remote, and the fourth is in England’s Lake District mentioned-which is kind of a famous region. The whole concept is so strange I don't know how tropes should work in this case-if it's mentioning the event maybe it shouldn't be Potholed, at least if the work doesn't have its own page.
- Eden Green: takes place in a fictional town that is supposed to be an expy of a real place. Maybe cut, the expy isn’t exactly tiny in real life, but I don’t know how small the fake one is. Needs more context and evne then might not fit.
- NationalStereotypes.Western Europe: in a bit about Wales. Honestly, feels like a shoehorned plothole-the example talks about how backward Wales is depicted, usually in medieval fantasy, but then science fiction tv is brought up about BBC Wales along with Torchwood. As mentioned abvoe, Torchwood itself might not be a proper example.
- QuoteSource.Internet: Mentions It’s Walky as the quote source for this trope…only it isn’t, anymore. I’m not sure if we cut this or make a note that it ‘’was’’ the source but isn’t now. (the current source of the trope quote is The Faculty).
- The Twilight Zone 2019 S 1 E 4 A Traveler: An alien appears in a fictional, unnamed town in Alaska, but he’s there specifically to knock out an Air Force early warning system. Seems like a cut.
ZC Es (5/50)
- Anime.The Place Promised In Our Early Days: The example tells me where things take place (well, where they start and end without explaining where they go in the middle) and don’t explain what is happening in this place. Seems like an alt-history where the soviet Union built a super science thingy on the island of Hokkaido. Maybe it works with more context.
- Doctor Who S24 E3 "Delta and the Bannermen": Just the trope name and not a word of explanation. Hide.
- 3rd Rock from the Sun: ZCE, already hidden on the show’s page. It's a fictional town anyway.
- Three Guys That Paint: ZCE that is hidden on the work’s page
- Sym-Bionic Titan: A bare ZCE, hidden.
