Trope Description Improvement Drive

Should Padding the Paper mention Filler, as a Not To Be Confused With, or something?

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Asking again, should we delete the "a true inversion is" paragraph on Funny Character, Boring Actor since it's a Trivia item and you can't play with those?

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Question 2, Informed Species has a big bold note starting with "This trope is NOT 'animal has qualities that differ from their real counterparts' (which would be the Downplayed section of the Playing With tab)". This is self-contradictory; a Downplayed Trope is still a trope. The parenthetical was added in 2022 by ~thenabster126 with no edit reason.

Are such cases valid downplayed examples (in which case we need to rewrite the note entirely)? Or are they not examples at all (in which case we need to delete the parenthetical)?

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

Yeah, delete that section.

I don't think the Informed Species parenthetical makes sense; that's more Artistic License – Biology.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Er, so... after randomly stumbling upon it today, what the heck is Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide"? The description is wordy but pretty vague when you come right down to it, preferring to split into a bunch of subtypes without ever making it entirely clear what the essence of the trope is. Thus the example section includes:

• A genocide occurs but characters try and obfuscate it, usually with euphemisms. (Interestingly, the whole part in the description about flat-out trying to erase it from history - which is absolutely a plot point in some works I've read - doesn't even show up in the examples that I saw.
• A genocide occurs but the narrative tries to obfuscate it.
  • Relatedly, the person writing the example primarily wants to complain about this supposedly happening even if it's more just Fan Wank.
• A genocide occurs, period.
• An act of mass murder occurs (and is not obfuscated by the narrative), but there's fan wank over whether or not it can be called "genocide".

Honestly, my head hurts after reading this, and that's without factoring in the dark subject matter.

So the trope name and laconic seem to be suggesting "government obscures genocide by using a euphemism or plain denial in order to make it more palatable to the wider public", but the very first "type" in the description is "don't hide, justify its usefulness", which makes the entire trope "reasons given for a genocide" which isn't tropeworthy as a whole. The individual arguments are and we have tropes for them (Refuge in Audacity for one, Dirty Business or I Did What I Had to Do for two, Unperson for three), but "justifications for a genocide" as a whole isn't, given that those justifications aren't unique to genocides; they work for any horrible thing the government/a public official does and wants to frame for palatability.

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 12th 2023 at 9:51:06 AM

The main trope page mentions Never Say "Die" as a similar trope. That trope is about works that try not to use certain death-related words because of the implication.

Isn't that what this trope is trying to do? Then, Why do we need Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide" in the first place?

Valdo

So, I went on a discussion regarding my planned trope Symbolic Mirror Reflection, and its similarities with The Mirror Shows Your True Self.

The first sentence of the latter says: "This is a trope for all the times a character's reflection in a mirror is different from what others (viewer included) see with the naked eye."

Thing is, the wording of the trope implies truth, and I believe my confusion over that is what led me to wanting to make a new trope.

This post explains how the two tropes can be properly split up.

How do we fix the both of them so that we get proper distinction on which instance goes where?

TV Tropes Pantheon Group Members Database

I don't think issues regarding the description of TLP drafts hare handled here, but rather in TLP itself or the TLP Workstation Thread.

135 - 169 - 273 - 191 - 188 - 230 - 300

If there are no objections to the proposed edits here and here, I guess I'll enact them later tonight (if nobody beats me to it).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

^ The additions sound fine to me.

Macron's notes

Naughty Narcs: the description makes it seem the trope is specifically and exclusively about DEA, the US federal agency that deals with narcotics, but examples listed (and from media not included) present this as a common problem at all levels of law enforcement in many countries whenever drugs and money are involved.

the statement above is false

The Bus Came Back has minimum time gap requirements agreed and listed on Administrivia.No Recent Examples Please - but they've never been added to the trope page itself.

The Administrivia page guidance has just been slightly rephrased, so this feels like a good opportunity to update the trope page as well. How's this?

(As a Recent Examples rule that may generate notifiers, I figure the bold is justified - we want it to stand out so that tropers don't miss it when adding examples)

In the Villain Respect description it says a Complete Monster can never show this, only fake showing this, they always have no respect for both heroes and fellow villains. From what I understand of the Complete Monster guidelines, this isn't true - a Complete Monster can have respect for someone else as long as it's just about the ideology/symbol they represent rather than being genuine, self-sacrificial love i.e a Complete Monster who's The Social Darwinist can respect a hero or villain for being strong and taking what they deserve from the world. Should this be fixed?

As this was basically a cut/paste of wording already on the Administrivia (locked) page, and there were no objections here, I've added it.

However, we've got a similar issue on Won the War, Lost the Peace, where No Recent Examples, Please! has time restrictions that aren't on the trope page.

Proposed wording (incorporating the current 'straight and civil' note):

And specifically for WonTheWarLostThePeace.Real Life:

I'm wondering if the 'straight and civil' should be rewritten into 'as objective and impartial as you can, and try to avoid emotive language' - as that seems to be the message behind it. Or is that just telling tropers what they should already know?

Thoughts?

Is this something you've already flagged on the CM cleanup thread? If so, we can take that steer as a starting point for a rewrite.

If not, probably worth mentioning there, if only to see if any of the other CM regulars want input into the rephrasing?

Edited by Mrph1 on Apr 23rd 2023 at 4:15:31 PM

Is Good Morning, Crono about the protagonist of any age, starting the story by needing to wake up? Or kid heroes only, as Sleep and Wakefulness Tropes says?

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There are lots of examples on the main page of non kid characters, so the description might need some minor tweaking to better explain that.

I feel like Encounter Bait's description is kind of barren. While perfectly functional since it's a simple and straightforward trope, I wonder if it would be fine if I added something like this as a second paragraph:

While this seems counterintuitive since random encounters are often seen as a nuisance, forcing more can be quite useful to speed up the Level Grinding or Money Grinding processes. Some games also have bait that will increase the encounter rates of specific enemy types, which can be quite helpful in its own way. For example, hunting down a Rare Random Drop from a particular mook.

Edited by Karxrida on Apr 23rd 2023 at 6:00:36 AM

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Looks good to me.

Macron's notes

How to de-Video Game, and de-Kid Hero, Good Morning, Crono?

Suggestion to replace the first two paragraphs:

Heroes usually aren't granted the courtesy of starting their adventure out in the thick of combat. That would just be cruel, unless they're being forced to undergo Training from Hell. In many cases, if the main character is no more than sixteen years of age, they'll likely start the game in bed, sleepy and bleary-eyed. A sibling, parental figure or, if it's a more romantic genre, Patient Childhood Love Interest will usually be the one to awaken the hero, informing him/her that they're Late for School/an audience with the king/a date with their love interest.

In Video Games, it very often begins with a dialog box on an otherwise empty black screen, which fades in to reveal the hero in bed after the person speaking has yelled at him to wake up a few times.

Depending on how connected the character is to what is to come, there may be a prophetic dream as a form of prologue beforehand.

Edited by Malady on Apr 23rd 2023 at 7:57:02 AM

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I'm not sure where else to take this: Gross-Out Show's description implies it's exclusive to animation, but there are lots of live-action examples listed and John Waters' live-action movies are even credited as the trope codifiers. Would it be fair to change the trope's description to make it sound not so animation-exclusive, or what?

Edited by wootzits on Apr 25th 2023 at 2:22:19 PM

That seems fair. The very first sentence is "animated show that _". Could use some modifying.

I'll assume no comments about means that you're fine with my suggestion?

If so, I'll wait a few more days, then go ahead with it.

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I would change the first sentence.

"aren't granted the courtesy of starting out in combat" is a very weirdly constructed sentence. Obviously, starting out in combat would probably ''not' be courteous.

Well, if you feel like charging ahead with the changes, I'm not going to stop you.

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