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
I don't even remember there being a ship tease
Is Frustrated Overhead Scribble the third panel of 2010-11-01 El Goonish Shive, or some other kinda squiggle?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Looks like 'disorientated'.
I'll take that as "We don't have the right trope yet."
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
Does Dal from Star Trek: Prodigy count for Hybrids Area Crapshoot?
He is revealed to be an artificial humanoid made up of 20 different alien DNA. However, he is unable to utilize the DNA and is pretty much normal. And when a shady doctor actually gives Dal the ability to utilize the DNA, it overloads his body and he starts to mutate.
You can't escape this monster
- In "Paintball Deer Hunt", Heather demands that Beth take back the "N" word - refering to "No".
This is an example I want to add to one of the Total Drama subpages, but does it fit Double Entendre, something else, or nothing?
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
I think it works. Thanks.
Edited by Dghcrh on Feb 25th 2023 at 12:10:00 PM
I'm mainly a fan of underrated media.
I guess this would be playing with T-Word Euphemism.
(Not a very well indexed trope, as I couldn't find it while searching for taboo word).
Edited by gropcbf on Feb 25th 2023 at 10:17:02 AM
Owl House / Infinity Train / Inside Job Fan
So anyone who has seen Cocaine Bear, would you call it a Horror Comedy? Because someone changed its description to that from comic-thriller and I wanna make sure there’s an agreement on that before I add it to that index.
The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.
I fix my examples all the time
Found this in Characters.Devil May Cry Other.
- Ambiguously Bi: As detailed in the prequel novel of 5. She's completely awe struck by Kyrie the first time they meet, remarking she believes her to be the loveliest thing she's ever seen, and then appears to attempt to flirt with her. She later remarks to Nero how gorgeous Kyrie is, and that he doesn't deserve her. She also has some extremely suggestive dialogue when tuning up Red Queen, Nero's sword (who she starts flirting with, while referring to it in female pronouns). But then again, while it may just be her fangirling, the fact that she could barely not stutter when talking to Dante (who has a history of having some girls liking him ) and also her calling Nero "honey" in an almost similarly flirtatious manner says something.
- That's not even getting into the fact that she made Sweet Surrender. Did she make it for Kyrie because she realizes that Nero's usual replacement arm isn't exactly suitable for such a task or was it for her to indirectly pleasure Kyrie as well, seeing as she invented it?
- Upon seeing Lady naked, Nico remarks that she has a “smokin’ body”, and awkwardly stammers that she wasn’t checking her out.
- In the Mission 5 start screen, she can be seen hovering over Lady, who is sound asleep, naked with only a Modesty Bedsheet covering her up. It looks like she's just making sure Lady's okay, but with way she's nervously leaning in and reaching and fumbling with her hands, it also looks like she's fighting the temptation to have a peek under the bedsheet or just outright remove it.
- That being said, when Lady wakes up and casually discards the bedsheet, leaving her nude, Nico has no real reaction outside of an annoyed glare that reeks of Please Put Some Clothes On.
- One cutscene has her mistake Nero for flirting with her, going so far as to say "Ew!" Is she irked by the idea of a guy flirting with her or was she just messing with Nero?
- Likewise, when she meets Dante, she nervously stutters around him in a way that suggests either being starstruck, or having a Celeb Crush.
Edited by ElRise on Feb 26th 2023 at 1:59:22 AM
Graffiti Wall
Split it by game?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
With no familiarity of the franchise, I would take the Shipping Goggles off and then do
- Ambiguously Bi: Summary statement of how we're not sure either way but:
- The best evidence that she's into women
- The best evidence that she's into men
Musician/Composer
Reposting from the previous two pages:
In Strike Witches, Yoshika Miyafuji is a friendly girl who often fights the Neuroi as a member of the 501st JFW. However, she draws the line at leaving her comrades to die, as demonstrated when she rescues Gertrud Barkhorn from certain death in the episode "Thanks". Does this fit under the Everyone Has Standards trope?
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.
Everyone Has Standards requires the character to be 'bad' or at least odd in some way that the standards would be surprising, and that example as written doesn't show that. She reads like a friendly soldier, so caring about comrades seems natural
Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 25th 2023 at 1:07:49 PM
She / Her
(x6) I heard it is a Horror Comedy, though I haven't watched it myself. (Granted I'm going to see it tomorrow.)
Here are some ideas for future Mooks, but no Bosses examples:
- In Alien: Isolation, you only ever encounter hostile humans, Working Joes, and completely unkillable Xenomorph drones, and the closest thing the game has to a Boss Battle is when you beat up several stunned Working Joes at once in an attempt to steal a key-card from them.
- Inverted in Shadow of the Colossus. Throughout the game, you don't encounter any mooks, but you do encounter sixteen bosses.
Isn't the inverted trope Boss Game? Should probably go on there instead
This example from Iron Man bothers me:
- Battle in the Rain: Downplayed, the final battle with Iron Monger appears to take place either during or just after a light downpour.
Problem is, this battle happens at night; in live-action, the ground is always wet at night to provide better lighting through reflection (I think it's a trope in itself, I just don't remember its name).
I believe this doesn't count as Battle in the Rain at all.
I was thinking Hollywood Darkness, but that says nothing about wet ground?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
She / Her
(x4) I agree with that the second one is more so a played straight example of Boss Game. As for the first one, I could be wrong but I don't think it counts because it requires having bosses to be the norm in the game's genre; from my experience with those games, they often don't have bosses.
(x3) I guess; both Boss Game and Mooks, but no Bosses say they're polar opposites of each other. Regardless, assuming much of the game is fighting bosses, then it should count as the former.
Since it doesn't seem to be during downpour, then I feel it doesn't count since the fight occurring while it's raining seems to be a requirement. Even if it does count, I don't think it's a downplayed example.
Edited by RandomTroper123 on Feb 25th 2023 at 2:08:03 AM
F1 the robot
This is in the Literature folder on Puppy Love:
- Angela Nicely:
- "Starstruck!" establishes that Angela and her friends (all six-year-old girls) find a pop star "dreamy".
I'm not familiar at all with that series, so... how old is that pop star? If they're a teen or adult, this would be a Precocious Crush, not Puppy Love.
On a semi-hiatus from this site due to being busy with other things (may contribute here and there, but nothing major).
Even the youngest pop stars are older than six.
F1 the robot
In real life, sure. But in fiction, we can't be so sure, can we? Child characters in fiction can do things that would be unrealistic for somebody that age in real life.
Oof, that Ambiguously Bi entry for Nico is a mess, because 90% of it is Shipping Goggles reading too much into things as opposed to the text of the work. Almost all of the concrete statements about her land on the "overtly lesbian" side, with one minor instance of vague roundabout possible attraction to men. It needs a massive rewrite. Here's my attempt:
- Ambiguously Bi: It's made abundantly clear that Nico is attracted to women, given her reaction to Lady in the nude (referring to her as having a "smokin' body" and awkwardly stammering after she exposes herself) as well as comments in the prequel novel where she thinks to herself that Kyrie is the loveliest thing she's ever seen. On the other hand, there is one cutscene that has her attempt to play it cool after a near-crash "Eww, are you flirting with me?". At the same time, it's such a bizarre and out-of-place accusation to resort to, especially for a man she knows is in a committed relationship, that it has undertones that she's not actually as against the idea of men flirting with her as she seems.
Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 25th 2023 at 4:10:27 AM
Here's an idea for a future Real Life Handy Feet example:
- Inverted with handstands. As the aforementioned compound word implies, it involves using one's hands as feet while moving about, leaving one's actual feet suspended in midair.
Side note #2: Inverted trope examples are always significant because they're effectively polar opposites of straight examples.
Re: Percy Jackson
yeah, that's kind of odd. Percy and Rachel didn't end up together and they're just two literal kids who sort of liked each other until Rachel became the oracle of Delphi and had to swear off romance. It was never even a thing so I think it's misuse.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness