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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.
    • Wrong: Big Bad: Of the first season.
    • Right: Big Bad: The heroes have to defeat the Mushroom Man lest the entirety of Candy Land's caramel supply be turned into fungus.
  • A character name is not an explanation.


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. We don't discuss Complete Monster or Magnificent Bastard examples; please don't bring them up.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Jul 17th 2025 at 8:59:01 PM

Tabs Since: Jan, 2001
#29276: Sep 7th 2023 at 8:27:08 PM

Perhaps a Played With example? I imagine the tuning was deliberately included for artistic reasons, which would make it part of the song, but it's also apparently a separate track on the list, which would make it a separate song entirely (and would disqualify the final track from Longest Song).

Malady (X-Troper)
#29277: Sep 7th 2023 at 8:40:17 PM

AdultsAreUseless.Anime And Manga has 12 aversions on it, is that fine to handle in through this thread, or should I make a Clean Up Project thread?

Found Aversion cleanup. Okay.

Edited by Malady on Sep 7th 2023 at 9:19:12 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
Tabs Since: Jan, 2001
#29278: Sep 7th 2023 at 9:19:51 PM

There should be plenty of aversions that look like obvious misuse, right? We do have an aversion cleanup thread.[nja]

Edited by Tabs on Sep 7th 2023 at 9:20:14 AM

Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#29279: Sep 8th 2023 at 6:16:59 AM

From Recycled Title:

"Just one letter off", but an important difference, especially when two of these are character titles for different names.

This feels like it's stretching a long way... cut?

Malady (X-Troper)
#29280: Sep 8th 2023 at 6:23:53 AM

I'd cut.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#29281: Sep 8th 2023 at 6:37:19 AM

And one more I've just seen, from ComicBook.The Immortal Thor:

CDS is specifically for a different franchise, "a way for creators that want to follow up on their previous work to get around the problems posed by attempts to continue a franchise directly".

Marvel's Hulk and Thor are both ubiquitous enough to be treated as franchises in their own right in TVT terms, but they're also both part of The Avengers and the Marvel Universe franchises, so does this really count?

Edited by Mrph1 on Sep 8th 2023 at 2:37:36 PM

Malady (X-Troper)
#29282: Sep 8th 2023 at 6:38:17 AM

Titan Quest: This isn't clothing but fur, for one thing, and are these even castes? Well, "Pack Leader" is one, I guess.

  • Color-Coded Castes: The easiest way to set apart the Tigermen is with their fur color:
    • Orange: Prowlers. They use melee or range attack and do physical or piercing damage.
    • White: Sorcerers. Cast lightning and ice spells.
    • Black: Pack Leaders. They do melee damage, have an aura and a team buff.

Edited by Malady on Sep 8th 2023 at 6:40:28 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
JDMA12 He/Him from the 31st Century (Troper in training)
He/Him
#29283: Sep 8th 2023 at 7:49:48 AM

[up][up] I'd say them being both Marvel makes it so isn't really an example. I think that example could be easily moved to Spiritual Sucessor, though.

Edited by JDMA12 on Sep 8th 2023 at 11:49:57 AM

Mrph1 he/him from Mercia (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: This is not my beautiful wife!
he/him
#29284: Sep 8th 2023 at 7:52:39 AM

[up] That trope's also "not part of the same world or story as its predecessor", though...

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#29285: Sep 8th 2023 at 9:39:49 AM

Is Planet Terra limited to using "Terra" and its cognates in place of "Earth" as our planet's name, or does using equivalent of the word "earth" from other real-life languages (including conlangs), or even a conlang word that - while technically having a different meaning - looks too similar to "earth" or its close cognates to be mere coincidence?

For example, Tolkien's Legendarium's "Middle-earth" setting is explicitly stated by Tolkien to be a fictional prehistoric version of our Earth, and within said legendarium's scope, the planet is named "Arda"; while the given meaning for the name in its conlang of origin is "Realm", it's suspiciously close to Dutch aarde, German Erde, and Old High German erda, all of which mean "earth"/"Earth".note 

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Lord-Jaric Since: Feb, 2015
#29286: Sep 8th 2023 at 2:17:57 PM

With the most recent revelation in Ahsoka episode Fallen Jedi, that Sabine's family died in the Purge of Mandalore and her need to find Ezra is because she feels that he is the only family she has left adding onto everything else that has happened to her and her clear depression at the start of the series, would that qualify her as The Woobie

Edited by Lord-Jaric on Sep 8th 2023 at 4:18:49 AM

AlmightyKingPrawn I can chase the wind, I can race the rain from Down at Fraggle Rock *clap clap* Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: I love you for psychological reasons
I can chase the wind, I can race the rain
#29287: Sep 8th 2023 at 2:20:57 PM

Just added to Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock:

  • Women Are Wiser: The Wise Council has more female members than male members. But it evens out when Wembley joins halfway in the first season.

This is just numbers? It is true that the sole semi-competent member of the Wise Council before Wembley, Henchy, is female in the reboot, but the whole joke about the Wise Council is that Henchy is trying and failing to rein in the others back on the topic of discussing fixing societal issues because they keep going off on tangents like a debate over what to eat for lunch. Large Marvin of all people somehow got elected, and the others, including fellow ladies Storyteller and Icy Joe, aren't any more normal or serious to their role. The joke is literally that almost everyone in the Wise Council, regardless of gender, is the opposite of wise.

Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Sep 8th 2023 at 5:31:05 AM

She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqk
Malady (X-Troper)
#29288: Sep 8th 2023 at 3:27:49 PM

Laconic.Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever says:

A giant version of something runs amok and must be stopped.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: Is just "Bosses / enemies are really big". Although, Mermaid Queen / Giga Mermaid would be a bigger version of a regular mermaid.

  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A number of the bosses are absolutely gigantic. The first three bosses - the Tinkerslug, the Mermaid Queen, and Wilbur - all have the screen zoom out to show how large they are.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
auronrichard Since: Aug, 2023
#29289: Sep 8th 2023 at 3:33:02 PM

Speaking of Sabine:

In Ahsoka's Ymmv, I originally put her as an example of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading, but then I decided to remove it, before I'm sure if she's an example. (Besides how controversial it could be to add it, with the Wolfwren being a more popular ship.)

Edited by auronrichard on Sep 8th 2023 at 3:33:55 AM

Lord-Jaric Since: Feb, 2015
#29290: Sep 8th 2023 at 3:41:33 PM

[up] I'm in agreement that, to me, that Sabine's behavior could be interpreted as being in love with Ezra as that is often the case in such situations.

The whole Wolfwren is irreverent as there is no sign of anything romantic going on there, just the weird thing that some fans have for shipping two characters trying to kill one another.

AnotherWanderingGhost (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
#29291: Sep 8th 2023 at 3:44:24 PM

Re: Titan Quest: Color-Coded Castes says it has to be a dress code enforced in universe, which doesn't seem to apply. I think it might just be Color-Coded for Your Convenience since I can't find any subtropes about color of units denoting specialty (just side of the conflict).

Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
#29292: Sep 8th 2023 at 4:18:22 PM

On Demiurge Archetype

  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Horde Prime. Conquering the universe, making what he can in his image, destroying what he couldn't conquer and erasing all knowledge of his failures. He uses a huge military of spacecraft, robots and clones connected to a hive mind who espouse a dogma about him, and even brainwashed people of the planets he is invading. Immortal and narcissistic, everything exists to where he is the god, the church, and the churchgoer with no room for individualism. Light Is Not Good incarnate, as he's always espousing how he'll bring light to the universe.note  Series creator ND Stevenson admitted that when creating him he was thinking of what it was like to grow up in a deeply fundamentalist environment while transmasculine and bigender.

While Horde Prime is definitely a case of A God Am I, he never actually claims to be THE god, am I good to cut this?

"We'll meet again" | 🏳️‍⚧️
nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#29293: Sep 8th 2023 at 5:40:31 PM

I'm in agreement that, to me, that Sabine's behavior could be interpreted as being in love with Ezra as that is often the case in such situations.

Could, yes, but is it the common enough interpretation to fit the trope?

Lord-Jaric Since: Feb, 2015
#29294: Sep 8th 2023 at 6:36:11 PM

[up] Well at the start of the series she is living in his tower. Listens to a message that he left behind for her. She has a nightmare that cause her to wake up and call his name. Her driving motivation is to find Ezra. Seeing the purrgil again reminds her of the day Ezra disappeared. Ahsoka has to worry about Sabine's focus on the mission to prevent Thrawn's return even it means sacrificing the way to find Ezra, even going as far as saying "I know how much Ezra means to you." And when she does have to make the decision between giving up finding Ezra or surrendering and having a chance to reunite with him, she chooses the latter.

To me at least this is the kind of stuff that typically happens in relationships that would be romantic.

Edited by Lord-Jaric on Sep 8th 2023 at 9:16:24 AM

radicalmight Since: Feb, 2023
#29296: Sep 8th 2023 at 9:13:02 PM

Barbaric Bully: is Terrell from Moonlight(2016) an example of a Barbaric Bully? Or does he just use bully brutality without being that trope?

AudioSpeaks2 Since: Apr, 2022
#29297: Sep 8th 2023 at 10:33:31 PM

YMMV.Thor Ragnarok

Since the third sentence states that it died out in retrospect/over time, should it be removed?

Tabs Since: Jan, 2001
#29298: Sep 9th 2023 at 12:12:21 PM

It being a Sacred Cow for a few years doesn't mean it wasn't ever, right? Maybe the entry can be rephrased (between its release and the release of the following...) so the end doesn't feel tacked on.

Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#29299: Sep 9th 2023 at 1:23:22 PM

Reposting from a couple of pages back:

Is this misuse of Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work? The entry isn't talking about the villains doing something that benefits the heroes because the heroes cannot do it without being seen as unheroic. It's just talking about how various villains died in ways that have nothing to do with the heroes at all.

  • A majority of the villains in the series, if it's not a case of their own hands, then at the hands of villains. Two notable examples include Lionheart, a traitor who helped contribute to the fall of Beacon, being killed by Salem and Jacques, Weiss's abusive father, meeting his end via Ironwood's BFG. There's tons to count that it's easier to count how many villains did die by RWBY's hand: One: Adam Taurus.

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.
Tabs Since: Jan, 2001
#29300: Sep 9th 2023 at 1:36:00 PM

I guess it's easier than listing all the ways that the villains did do the dirty work, as the entry claims? (The dirty work being "killing villains".) But yeah, a listing of just the exceptions (aversions) doesn't describe the trope. There should be some examples written out.


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