Trope Description Improvement Drive

What I mean is, would removing that change the way Magical Girl is used on the wiki? Even seemingly small alterations have needed TRS in the past.

The fact that those points were added unilaterally, especially if done recently, seems like a strong case of reverting it without a TRS. As Magical Girl describes a genre that exists outside of this wiki, not something we made up and defined its boundaries, it should be describing exactly that genre. If it is used right but the description is wrong, then it's all the more reason to just get it over with and fix the description. On the other hand, if the description has been wrong for a long time which made its usage wrong, then it would need a TRS. In this case, it would mean that newer works lacking the last two point might be omitted, which is difficult to check, but also I doubt this kind of misuse would be prevalent.

I mean, yeah, if they were added super recently then we can send a notifier and revert. But at a certain point we just no longer have the right to alter things on our own. This comes up from time to time and it always sucks but I just want to make sure we're doing things correctly.

I just think that, while the first three bullets are actually important milestones in the genre's history, the last two are irrelevant to an article about the genre, since neither sexuality or dark/serious themes are so central to the modern Magical Girl genre that we need to pinpoint where they started (unlike elements like The Rival or battles against evil). (I also agree with My Final Edits that the fourth bullet point feels unnecessarily creepy.)

If the list were on the Majokko Meg-chan page, I'd have zero problems with it.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Jan 13th 2024 at 3:15:05 AM

Looks like we've just had a unilateral rewrite of the Role-Ending Misdemeanor description.

(Notifier sent)

Do we simply want to revert it, or is there anything here worth keeping?

And with apologies for the double post —

This was added to the intro of Promoted Fanboy in 2022, seemingly unilaterally and with no edit reason.

Any objections if I cut it? It seems unnecessarily harsh - especially the "scab labor" claim.

There are plenty of examples of people who ended up employed by franchises that they were fans of, but were professionals first and foremost.

(You could write a long list just for Doctor Who or the Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Old:

The cinema industry takes advantage of entertainment with feature-length movies to earn credibility. From popcorn to the box office, filming a movie takes a lot of effort to make a successful career. However, if any misbehavior happens, you really can't help yourself but throw produce at them. As such, for those who want to work for the filming industry, here are examples to keep in mind.

New:

One reason this trope is called Role Ending Misdemeanor is because early in the 20th century the rise of motion pictures gave concurrent rise to celebrity profiles higher than any seen before, "names" who became known across the industrialized world. When a performer and/or filmmaker took a fall for a crime, or was even just accused of one, the fallout was often quick and spectacular. Cautionary tales of careers ruined or at least hobbled by bad behavior persist to this day.

Honestly... neither strike me as good. The old one is a whole lot of word cruft in broken English. With the new one, I don't really get what the first sentence is trying to say? Why is it called Role Ending Misdemeanor now?

It's unnecessarily harsh and makes it sound like liking your job and being professional about it is mutually exclusive, which is obviously false. Cut.

Think Nothing of It's list of motives takes me three screens, is it save to move to Analysis/?

Yeah,move away!

Hi, hope I'm in the right place. I've been wiki-walking through Mary Sue tropes, and I found somewhat odd references to Terrible Writing Advice on 2 pages.

Anti-Sue has this at the end:

Terrible Writing Advice's video "How not to write a Mary Sue" elaborates on the problem.

And Avoid Writing a Mary Sue has this (listed weirdly as "Extra Credits"):

It just seems like weird unnecessary shilling to me. Thoughts?

On the Magical Girl discussions I'd definitely chop the fanservice one. But as a magical girl fan I think the social commentary stuff could be kept. The consequences bit I don't get so much. I don't think character death was common in earlier shows but consequences (friends getting memory wiped and so on) were.

First one should definitely go. The second one I wouldn't mind keeping, since it is a "how to write X" article, and so it makes sense to have some links to further resources. But let's see what other people say.

Thank you, and I'm happy to hear from someone who knows more about the genre than I do. I'd be happy for more input on this issue before I take any action.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Jan 26th 2024 at 4:52:21 AM

Discussions have come up around Badass Israeli needing a rewrite to be less glorifying of the IDF given the current situation in Gaza. I personally agree but I have to admit through I don't know where to start with it.

Edited by GracieLizzy on Jan 26th 2024 at 6:09:12 PM

Womb Level: "unfortunately side effects" and "far, far, too often" are smugly looking down on the trope. Okay to rewrite this more neutrally?

Is it? It seems to just be describing the circumstances that make it a "womb" level specifically. It uses negative language but doesn't seem to be looking down on the entire trope.

Yeah, to make it more neutral, I'd personally say "(very) high overlap / often occurs with", etc.

That's not what it's saying though. It's not an overlap thing; it's a version so common that it led to the name of the trope, though it seems like the "womb" part wasn't necessarily intentional.

The description for Idiosyncratic Episode Titles bothers me in that it's very TV-centric, like it assumes this trope is almost always used in the context of TV episodes, let a LOT of the examples are books or movies in a series (including the one in the trope image). I feel like the description should be changed to more clearly state this is a trope for any type of serial work, including book series and movie series.

Edited by molokai198 on Jan 29th 2024 at 5:24:04 AM

A suggested addition to Spoiled by the Merchandise:

Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 30th 2024 at 3:12:30 PM

I discovered that Convenient Eclipse's description was never clarified after the TRS thread from July 2022 deemed this the only necessary action, apart from changing the reference to Total Eclipse of the Plot. I think it was found that the trope should be about a natural event that is used to an advantage or unintentionally benefits a character.

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Jan 30th 2024 at 1:00:55 PM

Sounds good to me.

TRS recently decided to kick Curtains Match the Window to a cleanup thread. While there wasn't a lot of misuse, the description is a bit bare bones so I was thinking on how we can expand it.

For one, I don't think we need the last sentence in the opening paragraph.

Maybe rewrite to be something like this:

^ looks good to me.

Given that we've just had a NRLEP decision on the Badass Israeli trope (locked page), is it a good time to review the description?

• Rewrite the "Israelis are badass in most cases" intro to something like "Israelis are frequently portrayed as badass, especially in western media" so it's clear we're talking about stereotypes, rather than burying the lede.
• Cut most of the detail about the RL structure of the IDF and its string of successes
• Keep the final para, but remove the specific statement about Palestinian and Lebanese creators and make it a more general point about negative portrayals skewing that way.

How does that sound?

Edited by Mrph1 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 10:41:42 AM

The suggested changes are good.