Removing complaining, bashing and other negativity from the wiki

I was wondering if you guys think it might be a good idea to make an Arrowverse thread to cleanup the complainy, wall of text, or just misuse entries that seem to be on every single one of its shows pages.

Maybe, IDK the work well but it seems worth it.

The Arrowverse shows have had quite dramatic fanbases, so I can see the argument. The amount of shipping arguments and bashing of certain characters I've seen...

Noticed a recent change to The Batman (2022) that adds nothing except character bashing. I've bolded the changes.

The original example Edward Elliot, the reporter that was going to release Martha's tragic history to the press. Ignoring both ethical reasoning and bribes, he was willing to destroy an innocent woman's life just so he could sabotage Thomas Wayne's political career. It's not too surprising when Thomas vengefully asks Falcone to "put the fear of God into him" though he is horrified when Falcone kills him.

and the changes ** Edward Elliot, the reporter that was going to release Martha's tragic history to the press. Ignoring both ethical reasoning and bribes, he bribes, this prick was willing to destroy an innocent woman's life just so he could sabotage Thomas Wayne's political career. It's not too surprising when Thomas vengefully asks Falcone to "put the fear of God into him" though he is horrified when Falcone kills him. While it's made clear Elliot was an unscrupulous dickhead, it's made clear by Thomas' reaction he didn't deserve death.

Aside from the just bad writing in the last sentence (if you read it aloud, using "it's made clear" twice just comes off clunky), this doesn't make the example anything but more negative and bloated.

Permission to cut?

Edited by ArthurEld on Mar 24th 2022 at 11:56:10 AM

What trope is this?

From Emily Bett Rickards:

• Ascended Extra: Her role on Arrow wasn't meant to be very large or developed — in the comics, Felicity is barely more than a footnote of a character — but the producers (and later the viewers) reacted to her and her chemistry with Stephen Amell so positively that she was brought back with greater importance, becoming the third person to join Team Arrow, not to mention Oliver Queen's love interest...effectively pushing aside his longtime romantic partner from the comics in the process.

• Creator Backlash: She's aware in some aspect of her character now being considered a Base-Breaking Character for the entire Arrowverse after the Seasonal Rot of Arrow Seasons 3, 4, and 6 along with the infamous ending to the Crisis on Earth-X Crisis Crossover. However, Rickards' comments in interviews have alluded that she's just as frustrated as the audience is about her character's mishandling. Notably, she was angry about Felicity's disability storyline being quickly brushed aside (as she had even done tons of research about disabilities and was excited to represent the individuals in question). Furthermore, she was disappointed about the Darker and Edgier material she was asked to shoulder during Arrow Seasons 3 and 4 (since she felt that the more angsty storylines she was given didn't play to her strengths).

The bolder part of the first and a lot of the second seem like just excuses to complain about her character. Creator Backlash is also a trivia trope and already documented else where, namely Trivia.Arrow in a much less complainy way. Am I wrong and this is not just complainy.

Asshole Victim.

It's been changed now anyway by another troper, so moot point.

This was on the YMMV page for The English Patient:

• Hype Aversion: There's a throwaway joke from American Dad! to the effect that a firework named for this film "looks beautiful, but it takes a very long time for (an) unsatisfying payoff" — the joke being that watching the firework blow up is a similar experience to watching the movie, for many.
  • King of the Hill takes two shots at it — once when Kahn, trapped in a cave, laments that he's going to "Die like English Patient girlfriend; long, painful, boring death!" and one in a side-book where Hank snarks that "You don't have to be English to watch this movie, but you sure as hell have to be patient."

This is basically just repeating jokes other people have made about the movie. It doesn't explain how this counts as Hype Aversion.

Those can go just on account of being shoehorns.

The Dead Rise to Advertise needs a general cleanup. A lot of examples seem to have been untouched since like, 2007/2008, being filled with natter and commentary about this and that commercial being examples of Uncanny Valley.

I know there's a What An Idiot clean-up thread, but this is about complaining, so I wasn't sure which thread to bring it to. This entry reads like someone really hates Gavin. There's another entry about Gavin playing a different game stupidly, and the "Bonus" line at the bottom of this one seems to suggest that Gavin just plays like an idiot all the time. I'm therefore not even sure if there's anything legitimate to salvage because it comes across like he always plays games stupidly.

Does does anyone follow Rooster Teeth enough to be familiar with their Let's Play segments? I don't know anything about them.

• Rooster Teeth:
  • Gavin's stupidity reaches epic proportions during their Let's Play of Monopoly. Gavin owns Park Place and Boardwalk and at one point had three houses on each. Unfortunately, he was forced to sell all of them due to Geoff, Michael and Ray not landing on either of his properties and him landing on Geoff's pink monopolies with buildings twice (Virginia Avenue with four houses and St. Charles Place with a hotel). Eventually in Part 2, he lands on one of the three railroads owned by Ray with only $90; not enough to cover his $100 rent.
    You'd Expect: Gavin to mortgage either Park Place for $175 or Boardwalk for $200 (he has no other properties) which will give him more than enough to cover his bill.
    Instead: He gets this bright idea to trade away Park Place and Boardwalk to his competitors! Geoff declines his first deal to accept both for Baltic Avenue, the Water Works and $500 cash. Michael then accepts his next deal which results in him receiving Park Place and Boardwalk in exchange for Connecticut Avenue and $500 cash. Keep in mind, both of Gavin's deals had him trading away his properties for less than the combined face value^note Park Place is worth $350 and Boardwalk is worth $400 for a combined total of $750 and he made a worse deal with Michael^note $500 plus the $120 face value of Connecticut for a total of $620 than he would have made with Geoff^note $500 plus the face values of Baltic Avenue and the Water Works at $60 and $150 respectively, totaling $710. Even a beginner at Monopoly could tell Gavin he made a horrific move by trading away the two most expensive properties on the board.
    To Make Matters Worse: Two turns later, Gavin makes an even worse deal by trading Connecticut Avenue back to Michael for $9!
    Bonus Idiot Points: Gavin drags the game down even further by considering trades despite him having no properties! It's no wonder the rest of the guys become genuinely thrilled to see Gavin finally bankrupting out of the game.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Mar 27th 2022 at 3:29:03 AM

Are these guys playing a role or are they just themselves in the let's plays?

From Xenogears:

• Wangst: Not that there isn't plenty to legitimately angst about in this world, but sometimes, the characters go a little overboard in whining about it all.

Possible complaining aside, this entry's biggest issue is that it's zero-context.

Just cut the example.

From VideoGame.Dungeon Keeper:

• Polish the Turd: EA designed the mobile version so that writing a 1-4 star review redirects you to a service page, and doesn't actually publish the review.

Does this count as bashing?

Polish the Turd itself is on Tropes Needing TRS for being blatant complaining and not even filed as YMMV.

For a "trope" that invites complaining, that entry isn't itself complaining, just stating that is a thing that happens.

Seems neutral enough for me

This was fairly recently added to the YMMV page for John Wick. I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss it, but at the very least it feels like a misuse:

• Idiot Plot: The first two films are more or less based on Bullying a Dragon to the extreme, with the villains seemingly going out of their way to cheese off a guy who is, by all appearances, a One-Man Army and The Dreaded among even professional assassins. The first film's instigator at least had the excuse of not having heard of Wick, but the second film's antagonist knew full well how absurdly talented he was, and was counting on Wick's skills being enough to kill his sister, but not to kill him.

This entry outright admits that the first film isn't really an example. Plenty of screentime is dedicated to showing how Iosef doesn't know or care about John until he sets him off, and Iosef's father openly notes how stupid he's being.

For the second film, I feel this entry overstates how difficult John assassinating Santino's sister is (it boils down to sneaking into her room and shooting her). Santino then has two skilled assassins at his disposal who put up competitive fights against John, as well as a Red Shirt Army that at least slow him down. I think the films overall demonstrate via the sheer number of people who are willing to go up against John for a payday that he isn't completely implacable, and that since plenty of ordinary assassins are willing to take that risk it can't be reduced to 'they're stupid and don't know how good John is'.

It seems to be misuse in a way. I'm honestly split between suggesting cleaning it up a bit or just cutting it.

From YMMV.Hoops:

• Eight Deadly Words: The show is very hard to follow because the main character literally spends every episode hurling abuse, treating everybody like absolute crap (including people he claims to care about) and talking about dicks. There's not much in the way of relatability or even likability in the cast of characters who are varying degrees of jerk, mostly for no reason (with the possible exception of Ron, Shannon and Matty), and none of the characters are developed over the story, with the biggest evolution of character being the team finally realizing Ben is an asshole in the season 1 finale.

This entry is very, very whiny and complain-y, plus the trope itself is In-Universe Examples Only. I assume I can delete this on sight, right?

Related, should I do a wick check on Eight Deadly Words to see if other tropers have written out-of-universe examples? I suspect it might be the case, and if it is the trope might need TRS.

EDIT: I'm doing the wick check anyway.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Mar 30th 2022 at 1:20:17 PM

Could that fit Too Bleak, Stopped Caring?

Maybe with a rewrite? Or left as is?

Well Hoops is a comedy, and I believe comedies can't be Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, unless that rule was changed.