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. 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
Bumping from the previous page
.
From Trivia.The Dukes Of Hazzard:
- Fake Nationality: Sort of.
- Despite all the southern charm (and southern stereotypes) of the show, none of the four main actors were actually from Dixie. (John Schneider was from New York, Tom Wopat was from Wisconsin, Catherine Bach was from Ohio and the '69 Dodge Charger was from Michigan.) Due to the popularity of the series, they have been accepted as honorary Southerners, however.
- Meanwhile, Denver Pyle (Uncle Jesse) was from Colorado and Sorrell Booke (Boss Hogg) was from Buffalo, New York. (Booke was actually a graduate of Yale.)
- In fact, only James Best (Kentucky), Ben Jones (North Carolina), and Sonny Shroyer (Georgia) were southerners among the main cast.
Do the above examples fit?
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.![]()
Accurate example or not, it clearly violates the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment and therefore must be denied.
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Honestly The Gadfly even having RL examples is surprising to me. Yeah it fits, but it's probably going to be a ROCEJ issue to call real people trolls, especially politicians.
It's too risky to be there at all. It just needs to be cut.
Re: My Adventures With Superman Main Trio, Should I take Ambiguously Brown off the list of tropes under Lois Lane? Later episodes indicate she’s clearly Korean. Not much Ambiguity there.
mooIn Beavis and Butt-Head, the duo and Adler repeatedly harass a girl named Kimberly by calling her a "vile temptress" for 'sexually attracting the boys' (the duo got erections because she is attractive). Does this still count as slut-shaming, or not really?
Bullman
: It can be kept cut, because Anxiety is more an extremist than a villain, and it doesn’t seem the jerk character isn’t hated that much or even that important.
BigBadShadow25
: The wizard crumbled to dust in the first SHAZAM!, so it seemed like he was dead. I think there was just no confirmation that he did die, and so there was an easy opportunity to bring him back. I think the example could be cut.
king15
: Seems more like Word of God given your points about the importance of the showrunner and also how Condal has deviated from the books. Go ahead and redirect to that trope instead.
gjjones
: It seems like a stretch to separate the actors as not being true southerners, and not worth the three subheadings about it. I’d say either cut or condense into one, smaller paragraph that addresses the trivia.
Ayumi-Chan
: The last example with the author probably fits (despite it’s dryness), but I don’t think specific moments of chapters or episodes can count. You may need to check with ATT or your own gut instinct too.
Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Jul 14th 2024 at 10:15:15 AM
Do not mess with creatures which you do not understand.I found this on Empty Promise
- Miles Edgeworth makes one of these in Ace Attorney Investigations every time he infers that the current confrontation with the Big Bad will be the final one.
I'm thinking this is misuse, because it kinda sounds a little complain-y, and it's not what the trope is about.
Cut as complaining and reliant on YMMV for a non-YMMV.
TooBleakStoppedCaring.Anime And Manga:
- Black Lagoon. While many find it unapologetically entertaining, it's very easy not to care about what happens to anyone since they're all jerks, evil, psychotic, and/or Straw Nihilists, and love to talk about their reasons for being so at length to anybody who cares to listen, and to those who don't have any other option but to listen. I assume misuse if many find it entertaining, correct?
- A common criticism levied at the main Universal Century or "UC" setting of Gundam is that nothing ever seems to get better for anyone regardless of what happens, especially later on. The Earth Federation is a corrupt and inept oligarchy verging on a fascist dictatorship that oppresses those living in space and only seems to prop up its existence by pissing off groups who are worse than them (such as the Principality of Zeon or Cosmo Babylonia and the Crossbone Vanguard) and sheer dumb luck. Even in endings where the Earth Federation does eventually collapse, it's only because they were either replaced by something worse (like in G-Saviour, Reconguista in G and Mad Wang), collapsed into chaos and infighting (such as in the end of Crossbone Gundam) or experienced an apocalyptic event (∀ Gundam). The peak of which being... This being the most popular and revised setting means they care otherwise, correct?
- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam is considered one of the darkest Gundam series. Countless good characters die nearly every episode. The main bad guys are some of the most irredeemable and hypocritical scum imaginable, and regularly get away with it. And the heroes trying and failing to accomplish.... much of anything for most of the story, especially stopping, and saving their loved ones from, said bad guys makes this one of the most depressing Gundam series in the franchise. Valid but should the complaints against UC be moved here as this is the Foregone Conclusion?
- Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters: A major criticism with the trilogy's story is that it starts on such a bleak note and only gets worse and worse for the characters with each ending. By the last movie, you've just been watching an angsty Failure Hero who gets thousands killed, was being manipulated by two alien races that both turn out to be Evil All Along, and ending with an Evil Versus Evil battle between two Generic Doomsday Villain monsters that are otherwise completely unbeatable, with none of the camp, relatable characters, or enjoyable kaiju fight scenes present in most other films to balance out the bleakness here, making it very hard to care about any of it. Then there's a Sudden Downer Ending to boot, with nearly the entire cast dead, the protagonist committing suicide, humanity on the brink of extinction hiding in caves, and Godzilla still ruling the entire Earth uncontested, making all the characters' struggles feel absolutely pointless. Godzilla fans frequently count the anime trilogy as some of, if not the worst films in the entire franchise partly for these reasons. I removed the ending part as TBSC means you stop caring how and thus before it ends, so caring enough to complain about the ending is misuse that belongs elsewhere, but it was added back? Should it be re-removed and/or under what if any circumstances are endings allowed? (I get if it hurts later installments.)
I asked TBSC cleanup
but got no response for several days. Thoughts?
Would concepts like Naruto's chakra coils and Spirit Cultivation Genre meridians fall under Anatomy of the Soul?
On YMMV.Bio Meat Nectar I've come across a Harsher in Hindsight entry, whose context is too vague. My guess is, that it's referring to 2012 Fukushima accident, but don't know for certain. What should be done about it?
For Poor Things:
Despite it's contents, do you think the film would count as an example of a Lighter and Softer film compared to Yorgos Lanthimos's works? Because the past ones, even if they were comedic seemed a bit more dark and edgy compared to Poor Things.
I guess it comes down to whether or not Lighter and Softer applies to a creator's work as a whole.
Because it's generally used for an existing work being changed in an adaptation.
Personally, I don't think it counts, because it seems outside the scope of what LAS is supposed to cover. Otherwise you'd have to add all sorts of examples (George Miller, best known for the Mad Max series, also wrote and directed Happy Feet, just to pick somebody at random).
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Of his films, I've seen The Favourite and Poor Things, as well as about half of The Killing of a Sacred Deer (but know roughly how the rest of the film goes). While I'd say Poor Things is definitely less dark than Sacred Deer, I'd say it is of a similar level of darkness to The Favourite. The main difference is that The Favourite has a Downer Ending, while Poor Things has a happy ending, but Poor Things still has a dark, foreboding tone (especially for the first section prior to Bella leaving, but the dark tone is present throughout the film) that includes themes like suicide, a lack of female autonomy, and implications of paedophilia and incest. So, with my limited knowledge of Yorgos Lanthimos' films, I'd say that Poor Things is about as dark as The Favourite, so not Lighter and Softer, though perhaps his other films are much more dark.
Edited by king15 on Jul 16th 2024 at 9:41:16 AM
I have one question concerning National Animal Stereotypes trope used with Rutt and Tuke from Brother Bear. Namely, these two are given Accent Adaptation in the Finnish, German and Swedish dubs where they speak with South-Western Finnish dialect, Swedish accent and Norrland dialect respectively. What I mean by this is that moose are characteristic animals for the Lappish countries (i.e. Finland, Scandinavia and Norway) and I think that these Accent Adaptations should be added to the entries surrounding them, but I worry that this trope only applies to the original English language versions. Can you advise me what to do in this situation?

This is an awkward time to bring it up, but a couple months back another troper deleted this entry from The Gadfly saying "There's a difference between "Gadfly" and 'just plain mean'":
Speaking objectively, the entire point of the trope is people who rile up others and challenge the status quo. For better or worse, this is a prime example and the fact that we're even having this conversation speaks to it.
Edited by stankykong on Jul 13th 2024 at 9:42:59 AM