Do you have trouble remembering the difference between Deathbringer the Adorable and Fluffy the Terrible?
Do you have trouble recognizing when you've written a Zero-Context Example?
Not sure if you really have a Badass Bookworm or just a guy who likes to read?
Well, this is the thread for you. We're here to help you will all the finer points of example writing. If you have any questions, we can answer them. Don't be afraid. We don't bite. We all just want to make the wiki a better place for everyone.
Useful Tips:
- Make sure that the example makes sense to both people who don't know the work AND don't know the trope.
- Wrong: The Mentor: Kevin is this to Bob in the first episode.
- Right: The Mentor: Kevin takes Bob under his wing in the first episode and teaches him the ropes of being a were-chinchilla.
- Never just put the trope title and leave it at that.
- Wrong: Badass Adorable
- Right: Badass Adorable: Xavier, the group's cute little mascot, defeats three raging elephants with both hands tied behind his back using only an uncooked spaghetti noodle.
- When is normally far less important than How.
- A character name is not an explanation.
- Wrong: Full Moon Silhouette: Diana
- Right: Full Moon Silhouette: At the end of her transformation sequence into Moon Princess Misty, Diana is shown flying across the full moon riding a rutabaga.
Other Resources:
For best results, please include why you think an example is iffy in your first post.
Also, many oft-misused tropes/topics have their own threads, such as Surprisingly Realistic Outcome (here
) and Fan-Preferred Couple (here). Tropers are better able to give feedback on examples you bring up to specific threads.
For cleaning up examples of Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard, you must use their dedicated threads: Complete Monster Cleanup, Magnificent Bastard Cleanup.
Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2023 at 11:42:55 AM
She / Her
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm familiar with the page in question and I didn't find anything stating Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse is a Sub-Trope of Freudian Excuse. As for Screw This, I'm Out of Here!, I don't recall there being anything stating it has to be cowardly.
Good for nothing
Sorry, you're right, but one is "bad character has a story that explains why he's this way", the other is "bad character has a story that explains why he's this way but doesn't justify it". Isn't it redundant to have both when they both say the exact same thing?
Screw This, I'm Outta Here is, according to the laconic definition, "Abandoning the situation (or trying to do so) when it doesn't favor you". In this case, she does it to protect her people, not to save her own skin. She doesn't gain anything by leaving Amazon Lily
There isn't an impossible dream, there are only people who give up
Captain of USS Bajor
More accurately, Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse is when another character dismisses Character A's Freudian Excuse as a crappy rationalization for what they did and says they're still responsible for their own choices. There's also Freudian Excuse Denial, where what would normally make a Freudian Excuse is rejected as such by the character it would have applied to.
Basically, FFINE and FFD are both reactions to a Freudian Excuse.
Edited by StarSword on Jan 24th 2023 at 4:14:44 AM
She / Her
That Laconic for Screw This, I'm Outta Here is inaccurate because the main page suggests it can be for another reason. As for Freudian Excuse and Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse, I don't know because neither page makes it clear.
There's this example from Creator's Culture Carryover:
- Heliand, an Old Saxon poem from the 9th century AD, paraphrases the Biblical story of Jesus's birth, adding local flavor. So the shepherds would look after horses rather than sheep. The Saxons at the time had only recently been Christianized, so the poem downplays the "meek" aspects in favor of the mighty.
She / Her
At least if needs to specify more on the "adding local flavor" part because it doesn't describe the part about a foreign country being more like the authour's.
- Murder by Numbers (2020): In the artbook's UI Concepts section, there's screenshots of puzzles where there's a pink Heart Symbol to the left of the number 300, and given that it's a video game, it's implying that something has 300 Hit Points.
She / Her
I'm leaning on saying that counts because it involves a heart being used as an indicator of Hit Points, though part of me thinks it might be speculative due to the last part. I could be wrong, though.
I am speculating, yeah. The artbook tells me nothing about what the Heart Symbol means, so I'm guessing.
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I fix my examples all the time
Found this in Characters.Elden Ring The Tarnished.
- The High King: In the "Elden Lord" ending, the Tarnished becomes the third consort to Queen Marika (assuming she’s even still alive), ruling over the Lands Between. A similar position is obtained as Ranni's eternal consort in the "Age of the Stars" ending.
She / Her
I agree that's misuse and I feel it should therefore be cut.
Let's say there was this… precocious kid. He has been masturbating since he was 5 or 6 (yeah, I know), directing his lustful thoughts towards feet (and only feet) since that was his fetish. Would he count as a Dirty Kid or not since his sexuality is only directed towards feet and not girls or women in general? Also, does being turned on by feet count as an "unusual turn on", thus automatically qualifying him for the trope Fetish or is that particular fondness common enough that it is not really considered a fetish?
Edited by Oddman on Jan 25th 2023 at 8:05:02 AM
"Can you see what I see?"
I brought this example from YMMV.Lego Island up over in the Values Dissonance thread, and it was agreed that it can't count due to not being "values", but is it possible that the entry could be reworked under a different YMMV trope?
- Values Dissonance: In the second game, Pepper has to go to Castle Island and repair a bridge, which was destroyed by the Brickster. Fair enough, but here's the thing; the kingdoms on both sides of the bridge were bitter enemies at war with each other, and the Brickster's interference meant they couldn't fight. What does Pepper do? Take advantage of the situation and bring peace between the two sides? No, he repairs the bridge specifically so that both armies can go back to fighting each other. However, judging by the dialogue, it seems to be implied that the two sides enjoy fighting each other. After all, when you're a LEGO figure living on Medieval islands connected by a bridge, you were pretty much build to fight the other side. By destroying the bridge, the Brickster pretty much took away their way of life and reason for existence.
♀ | Small ripples lead to big waves
That might fit under the objective trope Deliberate Values Dissonance.
She / Her
Yeah, the technical term is called podophilia if you want to sound fancy. And you're right that we can't list examples on the trope page itself but we can do so on character pages.
Edited by Oddman on Jan 25th 2023 at 8:57:11 AM
She / Her
Thanks, I didn't know that it's called that. Also, where does it say we can list Fetish on character pages? I checked its page, and it just says no examples.
I'm helping!
It's indexed under No On-Page Examples, so it can be listed on work pages.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
Characters.Murder By Numbers 2020: Is "deliberately visually similar" enough to be called a Shout-Out? Or would the shoutout be Ed Fear naming his inspiration?
- Expy: According to the artbook, he's visually designed to be similar to Goro Majima from the Yakuza games.
Ed Fear: For some reason, Goro Majima (from the Yakuza series) was a big inspiration for me here visually. This was a guy who had come into money later in life and wanted to be 'classy' without knowing what classy actually is. Hence the expensive (but tasteless) jacket.
And on my previous query, is my "speculated trope" built on enough clues to call it an Implied Trope of Hearts Are Health?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
I'm helping!
The logic seems circular; we're assuming those hearts represent health (and therefore this is an example) because Hearts Are Health is an established trope.
... that's not a "definitely no", that's a "this situation has weird logic and we don't know how to evaluate it".
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
I mainly fix indentation issues
(x7) Janky Kong:
Hey Janky Kong, just so you know. There is a thread dedicated to Values Dissonance/Resonance
"Can you see what I see?"
I'm aware. Thanks, though. I'll ask about it over there again.
Ever wanted to see the most inexplicably horrifying intro to a game ever?
Is Aristocrats Are Evil limited to villainous/malicious aristocrats, or can they simply be a Jerkass? Characters.The Kingkiller Chronicle has several examples where the noble characters are spoiled and petty and antagonistic towards the main character, but aren't particularly evil—just obnoxious and petty.
It's either real or it's a dream
This trope was recently added to the page E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, for a second opinion to check if my assumptions are correct. I previously took out a "Very mildly" descriptor at the start since I believe that kind of wording is discouraged, and the troper's since elaborated on what they meant with this bolded part:
- Time Dilation: When E.T. is rescued from Earth, the 3 million light year trip back to the Green Planet is almost instantaneous to the occupants of the ship, but a few years have passed on Earth so that in this novel's storyline, Elliott is about 12 or 13 years old. (This is a heavily Downplayed Trope because the way relativity is supposed to work, if you traveled 3 million light years at close enough to the speed of light for your journey to seem almost instantaneous aboard your ship, the trip would still take over 3 million years as seen from the outside.)
I don't think scientific accuracy makes a trope downplayed? The trope's description even notes how depictions of the trope differ in fiction compared to the actual science.
Edited by harryhenry on Jan 26th 2023 at 8:53:46 AM
She / Her
I agree it isn't downplayed since it doesn't work like how it does in Real Life. Because of that, I'm leaning on saying the part in parentheses is unneeded and should be cut.
