Trope Description Improvement Drive

"It doesn't make sense to think of forces of nature as villains. No Antagonist lists Man Vs. Nature conflicts in the description of a prime example of the trope, and contrasts this against the Big Bad."

I would agree, but what would we call "nature" in such stories? It's not an "antagonist" but it's something that hinders our (human) heroes.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

I like the First Installment Wins sandbox. I think it's much cleaner and more helpful.

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I've got a question about the scope of Fake Brit because it almost seems to be a couple of tropes rolled into one while missing a huge swathe of 'British' in the process.

I can't find the original YKTTW and I notice the Discussion Page shares a history of confusion about the scope of the trope, and whether the trope started with its current scope or developed it over time.

It starts as a trope about non-Britons who have to fake being British. However, it quickly descends into being a Fake South East English trope as it brings in British actors who have to hide their native regional accent in favour of the 'southern' English accents (which would normally be RP or Cockney, and therefore limited entirely to South-East England). Those cases are not Fake Brit, they're.... real British people who are faking which part of Britain they're from (and sometimes which class they're from, too).

There are two reasons why a British actor might fake their accent.

• One is covered in the Fake Brit trope: being forced to fake a south-east English — usually RP-based — accent because regional accents have a history of holding actors back from international careers (a sort of No Regional Accent Allowed trope). This is actually misleading because it's not the primary reason why British actors ended up learning RP-style English. The primary reason has nothing to do with wanting an international career — it's about having a career at all. Traditionally, non-RP accents were such a pariah that no actor without RP could get any domestic career worth anything — even broadcasters, journalists and weathermen had to learn RP and discard their native dialects. So, international careers are an extension of this. This would therefore be the full scope of the No Regional Accent Allowed problem for British actors.
• The character is from a different part of Britain than the actor. This is also covered by the current Fake Brit trope, but also misses the full, existing scope of this issue by limiting it solely to the south-east (such as RP and Cockney). British actors faking a different British accent isn't limited solely to RP/Cockney accents. To use soaps as an example, actors have had to fake Salford or Mancunian accents (Coronation Street), Liverpudlian accents (Brookside), East-end (but not necessarily Cockney) accents (Eastenders), South Walian accents (Pobl Y Cwm), etc.

So, to summarise, the Fake Brit trope is currently trying to be:

• A non-British actor pretends to be southern English (RP or Cockney, usually). This is actually Fake South East English.
• A British actor pretends to be south-eastern English because the actor is from a different part of the UK but they're not faking being British. This is actually Fake South East English.

The tropes Fake Scot and Fake Irish exist. With Fake Brit limited solely to south-eastern English, that means the following situations excluded from any existing 'fake British accent' trope:

• A non-British actor pretending to be from the Midlands, Northern England, Western England or Wales. New trope or new trope scope needed as current tropes only cover Ireland/Northern Ireland, Scotland and Southern England (which is really the South-East of England). That's Fake English (which RP and Cockney could be rolled into) and Fake Welsh (the latter is likely to be a rare trope but does sometimes happen).
• A British actor pretending to be from any non-Southern England region (so, Midlands, Northern England, Wales, Western England). They're not faking being British, they're just faking which part of Britain they're from. This is basically Fake Regional Origin, and is common.
• British actors being forced to hide their native regional accents and use RP-style language, not because their characters are specifically from a different place to the actors, but because of traditional bias against non-middle-class British accents (a slowly dying but not yet extinct issue). This is more of a No Regional Accents Allowed issue than a Fake Nationality and has contributed to the existence of the situation where the non-British actors tend to default to an RP-style English as mentioned in the Fake Brit trope.

Edited by Wyldchyld on May 19th 2019 at 1:55:36 PM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

That last bullet seems like it could be its own trope, but is possibly covered by I Am Very British (which implies it's only about American media but has non-American examples).

I feel like these Fake Nationality tropes are all over-split, honestly.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Should Comical Translation be crosswicked with the Translation Tropes it lists?

Is it actually already covered by another, more widely used trope?

It's just on the edge of Pages Needing Wicks, with 13 wicks...

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The Good, the Bad, and the Evil says about "faction split", which doesn't necessarily happen in every example. The trope's spirit is simply about "3 factions of white, gray and black" and the examples mostly follow this.

I want to edit the little part out. Can I?

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

It's a large portion of the description right now. Can you sandbox your proposal?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Brought this up four pages ago, but didn't get a response:

The following have been added to Audience-Alienating Premise's page description under "Associated Tropes and genres":

• Anything excessively Darker and Edgier or Lighter and Softer than, or otherwise inconsistent with, the source material (particularly if said adaptation is In Name Only.)
• Adaptation Decay — They Changed It, Now It Sucks!
• A work with a hardcore Geek or Nerd following tries too hard to reach non-nerdy/non-geeky audiences.

Would these fit, considering that changes to work when adapting it seems like a completely different thing from a work's premise?

Generally a premise includes how you change/update a previous work. Creating Freddy vs. Jason, for kids! is a pitch/premise.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

There isn't an analysis clean-up thread so this'll be close enough.

Uke's analysis page says "Based on observation, most ukes... If female, will look more masculine/tomboyish". Is there a validity to this?

I don't know if there's a strict gender role dynamic when it comes to Yuri Genre. That's more of a Yaoi Genre thing. I know a lot of examples that fit that but the "aggressive bifauxnen" is also common in manga.

Everything Is Big in Texas has five paragraphs of mostly-irrelevant introduction that should probably be cleaned up.

I already wrote a sandbox for that.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Well, yes, that's certainly a debate worth having, too.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

@Pichu-kun While those pages claim that Seme and Uke also exist in Yuri, I can't say I've personally seen anything in yuri works that resembles the way the tropes work in Yaoi. Do you know what the basis for that even is?

Edited by naturalironist on May 21st 2019 at 11:25:58 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

It's more subtle and less universal. As someone who used to read a lot of yuri, I've always associated the stereotypical yuri uke-seme dynamic as a tall, usually Aloof Dark-Haired Girl ojou and their shorter, more shy and nervous girlfriend. There is a large amount of fluidity though; yuri works aren't as nearly tied down by uke/seme dynamics as yaoi works.

While dealing with Captain Obvious sinkholes, I came across this in I'll Kill You!'s description.

Should we just cut out that sentence, or is it fine the way it is?

Edited by Berrenta on May 22nd 2019 at 10:48:45 AM

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

Cut that paragraph.

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First Installment Wins swapped out with sandbox, sandbox on the Cut List.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Unwanted Healing, given its TLP listing it, be crosswicked with Greater Need Than Mine?

And Also it isn't a Sub-Trope of Afraid of Doctors, but a Super-Trope or just occurs often with it?

Unlaunch then fix? Or fix now?

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No need to unlaunch.

Greater Need Than Mine: yes.

Afraid of Doctors is just one of the reasons for unwanted healing.

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

My The Good, The Bad, and the Evil sandbox

We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza

Okay, I think I see where you're going with the sandbox. I'd like to suggest that you rewrite it with more of a focus on the "Grey" faction, because they seem to be the linchpin/pivot of the trope, and the way they choose who is the Enemy Mine drives the conflict. Focus more on the way their motivations cause them to be flexible in their alliances like the current description does.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Top Ten Jingle is a Sub-Trope of Breakaway Advertisement, since it's the song-specific version of that, right?

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Alternate Self is highly related to Another Dimension?

Edited by Malady on May 26th 2019 at 10:17:39 AM

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To Make a Long Story Short is, to make it short, a complete mess. I propose a complete rewrite, such as this.

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Alice asks Bob a question. Bob replies with an overly long rant, which is soon cut short: Alice wants a simple, straight and to-the-point answer. So the rant is summarized in just a few words. In other cases, Bob gets away with the long explanation, but Alice reacts with a Flat "What", so it has to be explained away in a short and easy to understand way.

This helps to prevent a hand waved answer, as the short answer would have probably been if provided in its short form from the start. It makes clear that there is an actual (and long) explanation behind the short one, but we'll just ignore it to proceed with the story. Still, the long explanation may still be important: it may contain info that will be important later on, or it may a Genius Bonus if the explanation is based on real-world knowledge. Or both.

It can also help as a way to flesh out the characters by comparison, as one character may provide a long answer and the other want a short one because they belong to different archetypes. The long answer may be provided by The Smart Guy, perhaps with Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness or Techno Babble, and the other may serve as the Audience Surrogate. He may also reject the complex explanation because he's a Blood Knight, and Klingon Scientists Get No Respect. The long explanation may also be provided by the Motor Mouth, and interrupted so he doesn't derail the story.

Contrast with It's a Long Story, where the long story is not even attempted to be told. Compare with Unaccustomed as I Am to Public Speaking..., which seems that will be short but actually turns long. See Rambling Old Man Monologue for long explanations that are actually useless and contain no plot-relevant info (or a small important detail and loads of filler). For the out-of-universes cases of making a plot longer or shorter than may be desired, see Short Story Long.

Edited by GrigorII on May 27th 2019 at 8:00:56 AM

Ultimate Secret Wars

I really think that suggestion makes things worse. (*Sad*)

1. You removed the unironic example from the description, appearing to limit the definition.
2. You doubled-down on Example as a Thesis.

I liked some of what you did to expand connotations, especially how it can be used to characterize people, but I think the proposed description overly limits what the trope is used for, making multiple examples no longer fit the page.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I've mentioned it in another thread, and it's also been discussed on the Discussions page, but Age-Gap Romance's description doesn't match its current definition. It was launched as "Large age gaps in media" but soon became "Large age gaps in media where the age gap causes trouble". A lot of examples are commented out because they don't meet that criteria. The description as is makes the distinction seem optional.

TBH, I'm a little fuzzy on why we need both Age-Gap Romance and May–December Romance. There seems to be some significant overlap there, except that MDR has more numerical restrictions.