Everything's confusing with "EverythingsBetterWith" tropes NEW CROWNER 06/20/13: Everythings Better With Indexes

, or, more accurately, Everything's worse than I thought with "Everything's Better With" tropes

Gee, it's good to be back home. :)

Anyway, methinks most of "EverythingsBetterWith" tropes need at best a serious example cleanup, some - even an article rewrite. Seriously, these tropes are supposed to be about gratuitous use of animals in cases where there's no logical explanation for that, except the Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny. But many examples and some articles are more like "name all shows with this animal". This... should be fixed.

So, let's try to fix 'em, guys 'n' gals.

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SUGGESTED COURSE OF ACTION:

• These tropes should be only about gratuitous use of X.
  • Thus, most articles should be rewritten or at least tweaked.
  • There should be a warning on every such page, in bold letters, that This trope is not about any works containing X that you think are good. This trope is about works where X were inserted without any logical reason, just for the Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny. Know the difference.
  • Most examples should be cleansed.
• Animal stereotypes, like Cunning Like a Fox, should be moved to the Animal Tropes index (maybe they even need a specific Animal Stereotype Index).

What do you think?

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LIST OF TROPES, SORTED BY SUGGESTED FIRST ACTION

Everything's Better With Indexes - the index page, for convenience.

Minor things: Rewrite or tweak article, add warning, cleanse examples

• Everythings Better With Dinosaurs - A good-written article. Examples need some minor cleansing.
• Everythings Better With Llamas - The article is okay. Examples need a bit of cleansing.
• Everythings Better With Monkeys - The article's fine (maybe some minor tweaking). Examples need cleansing, and probably need to be categorized into 2 categories: Monkeys and Apes. Also: do we have a trope for gratuitous monkey-izing (or ape-ifying) of human characters? E.g., JLApe or Marvel Apes. If we don't, I'll YKTTW one.
• Everythings Better With Penguins - Examples need cleansing.
• Everythings Better With Platypi - Examples need some cleansing.
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks - Examples. Need. Cleansing. Seriously, if someone is swimming in an ocean, sees a shark and is terrified, it's not this trope.
• Everythings Nuttier With Squirrels - Examples need some cleansing.
• Everything's Worse with Bears - Examples need cleansing.
• Everything's Worse With Bees - Article needs a rewrite. Examples need cleansing.
• Pandaing To The Audience - Article needs some tweaking. Examples need some cleansing.
• Everything's Better Deep Fried - Examples need cleansing.
• Everythings Better With Bacon - Article needs tweaking, examples too.
• Everythings Better With Motorcycles - Surprisingly, it is a trope. Just the example list is too short and non-representative. Needs more examples (I personally remember all those "Sonic on a bike" / "Flash on a bike" bootleg toys).
• Everythings Better With Princesses - Good trope, but maybe needs some examples cleansing or at least diversifying: e.g., "female characters for a young female audience are better when they are princesses" and "damsels in distress in works with a male hero are better when they are princesses", etc.
• Everything's Better with Samurai - Good trope, maybe a bit of example cleansing.
• Zipperiffic, aka Everything's Better With Zippers - Good trope. I'll fix the redirect if I'm not too lazy.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies - Good trope. Examples need cleansing (e.g., Diablo having undead is not this trope).
• Everything's Funkier with Disco - Good trope. Examples need some cleansing.
• Frickin' Laser Beams - Good trope. Maybe some example cleansing.
• Instant Awesome Just Add Dragons - Good trope. Examples need cleansing (Seriously? You're implying dragons are gratuitous in Dragon Quest?!)
• Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha! - Good trope. Maybe some example cleansing.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja aka Everythings Better With Ninjas - Good trope. Some example cleansing.
• Instant Plunder, Just Add Pirates - Good trope. Needs more examples. Space Pirates examples should go there.
• Slime, Snails, and Mutant Tails - Good trope. Needs more examples.
• Stuff Blowing Up - Good trope. Examples need a bit of cleansing.
• A Worldwide Punomenon - Good trope, but maybe needs to be more specific - I doubt it needs to be about any puns in fiction ever.

Rename

• Frogs And Toads - Not a trope. If we want to change it into an EverythingsBetterWith trope, it needs a rename, a serious article rewrite, and a thorough example cleansing. Also, for some reason it's listed in the Everything's Better With Indexes index under the Pot Hole "Everythings Slimier With Frogs".
• Everythings Smellier With Skunks - Animal stereotype trope. Needs a rename, to avoid confusion.
• Everything's Wicked With Weasels - Animal stereotype trope. Needs a rename, to avoid confusion.
• Everything's Built with LEGO - Awful title (needs changing), surprisingly good trope. Also, it's not an EverythingsBetterWith trope - legos are just a visualisation technique, like sprites in Sprite Comics.
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry - That's no trope, it's an index. It's redirect name is just Jewelry, which is not a trope at all. Rename and rework into a Jewelry Tropes Index.
• Everything's Louder with Bagpipes - Good trope, but not an EverythingsBetterWith one. Thus, needs a rename, and probably a slight example cleansing.
• Incendiary Exponent - Good trope. Somewhat clumsy name, IMHO. While On Fire may be better. Opinions?
• Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs - Good trope, but not an EverythingsBetterWith one (like Cool Shades). Remove from the index. DONE Since it's not an EverythingsBetterWith trope, it should be renamed to avoid confusion (probably the best way would be to use the current redirect, Hair Decorations). Examples need some cleansing, btw.

Split

• Dolphins, Dolphins Everywhere - Article needs a rewrite. Dolphin stereotypes should be split into another trope. Examples need cleansing.
• Everything's Better With Bunnies - Looks like several bunny stereotype tropes mercilessly lumped into one page. Even the article looks more like a Bunny Tropes Index than a trope. Split, methinks.
• Everything's Better With Kangaroos - Split kangaroo stereotypes (e.g., "kangaroo is the symbol of Australia") into another trope(s). Article needs a rewrite. Examples need cleansing.
• Everything's Messier with Pigs - Split into the Pigs Are Dirty animal stereotype trope, and the article itself. Examples need cleansing. Cute little piglets should go into the aforementioned Everythings Cuter With Cubs.
• Everything's Prettier With Butterflies - Needs to be split into a Butterflies Are Pretty And Harmless animal stereotype trope, and the article itself. Examples need much cleansing.
• Turtle Power - First of all, World Carrying Turtle should be its own trope. Second, Turtles Are Slow needs its own trope, too, as an animal stereotype. After those two are gone, we'll see what's left.
• Babies Make Everything Better - First, split Babies Are Cute and Babies Are Innocent into their own articles (if we don't already have those). Second, split Everythings Cuter With Babies into its own EverythingsBetterWith trope. Then, rewrite the article and cleanse the examples, to better reflect the "babies make every situation resolve for the better just because they're babies" meaning of this trope. And remove it from the Everything's Better With Indexes index.
• Eenie Meenie Miny Moai - Hollywood Atlas version of Easter Island need to be split into its own trope, maybe called Eenie Meenie Miny Moai. "Everything's better with Moai" needs a new name then (maybe the current redirect name, The Moai The Merrier).
• Everything's Better with Rainbows - Needs serious splitting and cleansing. E.g., Rainbows As A Superpower needs its own trope, etc.
• Everything's Better with Sparkles - Needs to be split into several tropes: e.g., sparkles as a sign of magical powers, sparkles as a symbol of beauty, sparkles just for the hell of it, etc.
• Everything's Cooler With Lava - Lava Weapons needs to be its own trope. As for this trope... I doubt it's actually a trope. Need your opinions.
• Gold Makes Everything Shiny - Gold Weapons And Armor Are Better needs its own trope. The trope itself... we'll see what's left.
• Rent-a-Zilla - Kinda good trope. Animated Giant Statue probably needs its own trope, a subtrope to Kaiju.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz - Good trope. Examples (especially Real Life ones) need to be cleansed. Faux Cyrillic (e.g., inverted "R") needs to be split into its own trope.

Remove a confusing redirect name

• Everythings Better With Chickens - Article needs a rewrite. Examples need cleansing. Bonus points for having Nobody Here But Us Chickens as a redirect, which is very confusing, imho.
• Too Many Belts - Good trope. Belts And Zippers as a redirect should be removed, since zippers are their own trope (Zipperiffic).

Expunge

• Beetle Mania - Chairs Sit On People ("some people like beetles"). Expunge?
• Everything's Better With Muppets - Wut. "Name all shows with Muppets cameos" is not a trope. Purge the Xeno. Btw, what's it doing in the animal section of the index?
• Everything's Wetter with Otters - Not a trope (see Beetle Mania). Cute otters should go into the aforementioned Everythings Cuter With Cubs.
• Everythings Better With Chocolate - Not a trope. Examples consist of Sweet Tooth characters, Valentine's Day chocolate, and some random mentions of chocolate.
• Everything's Satiating With Sandwiches - Not a trope, just Trademark Favorite Food but with sandwiches.
• Everything's Spoonier With Spoons - Not a trope. No. "Spoons are kinda funny" is not a trope. Convince me otherwise.

Leave as is

• Everything's Precious with Puppies - Good article, even with a warning.
• Everythings Better With Plushies - Good trope.
• Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut - Good trope.
• Troperrific - Good trope (of course!).

Undecided, need your advice

• Everythings Squishier With Cephalopods - The article itself can't decide what it's about. The "Comical Cephalopods" part may stay, though examples need cleansing. The "Evil Cephalopods" doesn't look like a trope for me, need to know your opinions. The "Other Cephalopods" needs to be purged.
• Seldom-Seen Species - Not a trope. Need your advice as what to do with this one.
• Anything's Awesome With Announcers - Not a trope. "Name all announcers you remember" is not a trope. May be reworked into something like Large-Ham Announcer... maybe.
• Everythings Better On Drugs - Rewrite the article and cleanse the examples to restrict this only to in-universe examples. And even then, I'm not sure it's fit enough to be a trope.
• Everythings Better With Bob - Not a trope. May be rewritten into a trope called something like Bland Names, listing all names that stereotypically denote "ordinary guy" (e.g., Bob, Joe, etc.).
• Everything's Better with Spinning - I don't understand what this trope's about. Need your advice on this.
• Everythings Cuter With Lucky Charms - Suspiciously specific (and broad, at the same time) for a trope. Also, there's a trope called Lucky Charms Title already. Need your opinions.
• Fluffy Fashion Feathers - Is this a trope? Need your opinions.
• Pretty in Mink - It's a mess. A lot of examples, most of which are "Oh, and this one girl wore a fur coat in that one episode". And it has subtropes that are about something quite different. Maybe it would be better, if turned into an index. Need your opinions.
• Rule Of Sean Connery - Needs to be a Subjective Trope. And it's not an EverythingsBetterWith trope. However, maybe (maybe) a Gratuitous Big Name Actor trope is possible... but I'm not too sure.
• Strawberry Shorthand - What is this trope about? Either it's "gratuitous strawberries" or it's "strawberries are cute" or it's "strawberries mean Girly Love"? Probably needs to be split.
• "X" Makes Anything Cool and Let X Be the Unknown - Probably need to be lumped together, since in many cases it's hard to distinguish "X used because it's cooler" and "X used because it's mysteriouser". Probably needs to be put on the Everything's Better With Indexes index. Need your opinions.
• Everything's Cuter with Kittens - Good article. On a side note: We need a general Everythings Cuter With Cubs article, with Everything's Cuter with Kittens, Everything's Precious with Puppies and Babies Make Everything Better as its subtropes, + all the other animal cubs gratuitously used because of Rule of Cute. What do you think?
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French - Good trope, but not an EverythingsBetterWith one (that would be Gratuitous French). DONE Examples need some cleansing, probably. Also, I don't understand - is it about only French language/accent being stereotyped as sexy, or is it about any foreign language/accent that's perceived as sexy in-universe?
• Panthera Awesome - A new addition to the index. I'll think about it later.

Currently discussed elsewhere:

• Goggles Do Nothing - Currently discussed here: [1]
• Everything's Hotter With Flames - Currently discussed here: [2]

Fixed:

• King of Beasts - Animal stereotype trope. Some wise guy put it on the Everything's Better With Indexes index, under the Pot Hole "Everythings Regaler With Lions". Remove from the index, leave the article as is. DONE
• Cool Shades - Good trope, but not an EverythingsBetterWith one. Remove from the index. DONE
• Rascally Raccoon - Animal stereotype trope. Needs a rename, to avoid confusion. RENAMED BY PRFNOFF Examples need to be cleansed. DONE Everythings Rascally With Raccoons, which is now a redirect, needs to be deleted entirely to avoid possible confusion. DONE
• Cunning Like a Fox - Animal stereotype trope, remove from the index. DONE Examples need cleansing. DONE
• Everythings Better With Cows - Article needs tweaking. Examples need cleansing. DONE

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And that's all, folks. Need your opinions, suggestions, etc.

I'll probably start with minor changes (example cleansing in obvious cases, warnings insertion, small article tweaking). Meanwhile, I hope this thread gets some more attention and discussion.

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UPDATE:

• Posted a notification (with a link here) on the Everything's Better With Indexes page.
• Changed the Laconic entry for Everythings Better With Indexes.
• Removed all non-EBW tropes from the Everything's Better With Indexes index.

edited 6th Jan '11 3:05:42 AM by Zulfiqar

What they're supposed to be about is when X is inserted gratuitously into a work because hey, everyone loves X, right? Let's throw some X in there!

For example, there's no real reason for Timesplitters to have monkeys. It's a sci-fi themed First-Person Shooter. But it has monkeys anyway because Everythings Better With Monkeys. In contrast, The Pebble And The Penguin is explicitly about penguins. The penguins are there because the plot demands it. It does not count as Everythings Better With Penguins.

That's what it's supposed to be. I'm sure there's lots of misuse and Trope Decay.

edited 30th Dec '10 2:57:00 AM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Um, perhaps we should hard split off the animal tropes into a sub index. Call it Gratuitous Animals, or something like that. If we have to, we rename the most misused tropes so that the name makes it clear it's about gratuitous uses.

edited 30th Dec '10 3:03:33 AM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I agree that Cunning Like a Fox shouldn't be in this index at all. It's a distinct trope.

In theory, I'd love to restrict the "everything's better with..." tropes to gratuitous use of the animals. However, in practice it can be hard to decide what's gratuitous and what's not.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

To Troacctid: Thanks, your comment helped me understand those tropes better. I reworked my main post a bit since your comment.

To Dragon Quest Z: Do you really think a specific Gratuitous Animals page is needed? I'd rather suggest categorizing the existing Everything's Better With Indexes page into several categories: e.g., Animals, Professions, Materials, etc. What do you think?

To Doktorvon Eurotrash: True, there's some subjectiveness there... but isn't that the case with many tropes? As I understand it, it's when X has no plot- and/or setting-related reason to be their, but is shoved in because of Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny. Yes, it's a bit subjective, but imho not 100% subjective.

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Would like to hear everyone's opinions about things discussed in my first post.

For me, it's clear that we've stumbled into a major instance of Trope Decay here. It's almost like, I wanted to dig out a weed in my garden and unearthed an Eldritch Abomination larger than my city. Most of these tropes need cleansing or rewriting or renaming or at least some tweaking. Some even need to be expunged, probably.

But that's my view of the situation. Want to hear yours.

edited 30th Dec '10 2:55:48 PM by Zulfiqar

Wow that's a lot of snowclones. Change the names of (or cut? heh) the ones where "the something" is not gratuitously added? (E.g. Everythings Better With Monkeys is good, Everythings Better With Penguins is bad.)

The gratuitously-added whatevers are probably not 100% random and unrelated to the work in very many cases, so yeah, it's a little subjective, but barely...

edited 30th Dec '10 3:13:41 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

I'd clean ups and maybe some mergers.

[[User Banned]]_ My Pm box ix still open though, I think?

Just renamed Everythings Rascally With Raccoons to Rascally Raccoon. I know unilateral renames are usually frowned on, but this new title is more a shortening of the old one than a different one, and it has improved Added Alliterative Appeal.

Were there any secondary or discussion pages to move? Wicks to correct? What happened to the ptitle? (Is there a way for me to check myself? Couldn't find it.)

Renaming is a lot more than just making a new page and pasting in the contents of the old one. Usually do that last, because it gets in the way of doing the other stuff :)

edited 30th Dec '10 9:16:11 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

That trope had no discussion except for the YKTTW, so I moved that. Did a "related to" search in another tab before editing, which made changing the Wicks easier. The ptitle is currently only on the Cut List and a contributor's page which I'm reluctant to edit.

To rodneyAnonymous: Actually, snowclones per se aren't bad... when they're used properly. Which, sadly, isn't the case here :( However, I think we should first try to correct the wrong usage, before deciding that a trope is "bad" and expunging it.

Tp americanbadass: I'm sorry, could you please clarify: You'd do cleanups and mergers, or you'd support them?

To Prfnoff: Shouldn't renames be crownered or something? Anyway. Now, I think, the examples need a cleanse (Rocket Raccoon and the The Raccoons cartoon series are not this trope). And I guess, we should suggest to completely remove Everythings Rascally With Raccoons, even as a redirect.

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Need help with raccoons. UPD: Go to the Rascally Raccoon page and look for notices in bold letters, if you want to help.

Purged all the other non-rascally raccoons. Moving on to wicks. EDIT: Wicks purged, except those listed above.

edited 31st Dec '10 10:43:33 AM by Zulfiqar

Reworked the list in the main post.

Now I hope it will be more useful for the tropers who want to help us in sorting out this mess. :)

Note: The actions tropes are sorted by (e.g., Rename), are:

• a) Suggested. If you have another suggestion about what to do with a specific trope, voice it here!
• b) First actions. If a trope is listed under, e.g., "Rename", it doesn't mean that its examples don't need cleansing. Just, first things first.

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Laconic entries! We should not forget to check Laconic entries!

Just changed Everything Is Better With Indexes' Laconic entry. If you're curious, it said: "Indexes are Made of Win". No comments.

edited 31st Dec '10 4:31:27 AM by Zulfiqar

Oh...wow...that's probably the most thorough Trope Repair Shop proposal I've ever seen.

Well, in regards to Everythings Better With Monkeys, it shouldn't need a split because monkeys and apes are pretty much treated exactly the same. Apes, monkeys, whatever, same diff, right?

Rhymes with "Protracted."

To Troacctid: Thanks :) Actually, when I started it, I didn't look at the index (the fool!), and thought "Oh, it's just a couple animal-related tropes". Heh.

As for monkeys and apes... I thought gorillas get somewhat different treatment than monkeys. Maybe it's a Western Comics things, though...

Actually, after thinking this over, you're right. Just categorizing the page into 2 categories (Monkeys and Apes) will be OK. I'll change the main post to reflect this.

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UPDATE: Rascally Raccoon is finished. There are still 4 dubious examples; I added a notice in bold letters to each one. Go see the Rascally Raccoon page to see how it turned out, if you want.

I plan to do the same with all mentioned pages that require example cleansing.

But now - a break for New Year :) Happy 2011 everyone! :D

edited 31st Dec '10 10:41:12 AM by Zulfiqar

"...snowclones per se aren't bad..."

Fully aware of that; not sure what part of my post implied that I don't know the difference. It is a lot of snowclones. It is also a lot of mostly bad snowclones.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Oh, sorry I misunderstood you then.

Sadly, that is true.

I guess, the snowclone pattern itself ("Everything's Better With X") is, at least partly, to be blamed for this. People tend to misunderstand it as "X is cool! All works with X are cool and should be listed here!" In my opinion, patterns like "Instant Awesome Just Add X" and especially "Gratuitous X" are much better.

But... I'm not sure that we can really manage to rename a whole widespread snowclone pattern. Thus... we'll have to work with what we've got, I guess.

Even something like X Makes Everything Y would be better, e.g: Kittens Make Everything Cuter.

edited 1st Jan '11 5:46:55 PM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

To Stratadrake: True, it sounds much better. But... it still has that treacherous word, "Everything"... I guess, this word may be one of the main reasons that makes many tropers think those trope are "lists of everyting with X"...

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I'll return to more active work on the "EBW" tropes in a few days. Until then, I hope the topic gets... well... a bit more attention.

UPD: A spin-off thread, where I suggest to change the whole "Everythings Better With" snowclone pattern, to lessen misuse. HERE

Meanwhile, cleaning examples...

I suggest renaming most ones that don't actually use "better" — everything's deader, everything's worse, etc. They're snowclones that don't make any sense.

The point of the trope is that writers treat it like anything can be improved by adding the animal in question — "everything's deader with zombies" doesn't make any sense; it's just a snowclone.

To update this: I've renamed Beetle Mania to Beetle Maniac, and swapped Everythings Smellier With Skunks with its redirect, Smelly Skunk. There's more to follow, I think.

And shouldn't this go on "Special Projects"?

It is.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

No, that's a different thread.

Update: Everything's Hotter With Flames has been renamed to Hot Paint Job, a suggestion of mine that the TRS discussion and crowner approved of.

edited 17th Feb '11 8:05:07 PM by Prfnoff

Bumping this up a bit.

I agree with the general purpose of this discussion, but have little more to add.

Fight smart, not fair.