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
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- Glad to help!
FYI I have unanswered queries on the previous page, but happy troping!
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576Would the following count as a Hostile Show Take Over, Dark Reprise, or both?
For the first two seasons of ReBoot the following Opening Narration is given by The Hero Bob:
To reflect Bon getting Put on a Bus to Hell in the Season 2 finale the intro is instead delivered by Megabyte for the start of Season 3:
Edited by Mariofan99 on Feb 10th 2025 at 9:58:14 AM
Typically, whenever a videogame has a Creature-Breeding Mechanic, and it doesn't keep track of families, there's nothing stopping you from breeding a creature with it's offspring, or siblings with each other. For games like this, are Brother–Sister Incest and Parental Incest valid tropes even though the game itself doesnt treat it as such?
On the Video Game subpage for Brother Sister Incest, Pokemon is listed, and it straight up says it's not something the game itself encourages or even acknowledges. Just that "this is a community suggested tip".
The page for Viva Piñata has the same issue. Both incest tropes are listed, but the game itself doesn't acknowledge it as such because it doesnt keep track of families. So essentially, all there is to say is "You can do this".
I don't think it should count as either trope. Artistic License – Biology maybe. Or just Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
Is this an example of Artistic License – Sports:
- In The Crew Motorfest, Oahu has a race track called Hanauma Racetrack. The only motorsports venue in real life Hawaii is Hilo Dragstrip which is on the big island.
Does Practically Different Generations require that they be alive at the same time? Otherwise, Deanna's big sister, who died as a child, could be added to the following entry:
Deanna Troi's mother Lwaxana gets pregnant during the fourth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, ultimately giving birth to a son who is about 37 years younger than Deanna.
On the Pop-Culture Urban Legends Animated Films page, it lists an example of a rumor that Disney deliberated tried to set their 2D post-renaissance films for failure to prove 2D animation wasn't profitable anymore. This reminded me of a similar claim about them ditching 2D animation for good by setting up their last two 2D films for failure on purpose. This was supposedly done by having a film (The Princess and the Frog) with 'princess' in the name, which would make people think it was just for little girls, and putting it up against movies like Avatar. Then the final 2D film (Winnie the Pooh) was set up for failure by being part of a franchise seen as being for babies, and released the same weekend as the final Harry Potter film.
I am having trouble searching for this claim online. Does anyone know if it was proven to actually be true? Or if not, can it be added to the page?
Where you talking about? The only "Princess and the Frog" thing I can see is:
PopCultureUrbanLegends.Animated Films:
- Denying anything written in Hyrule Historia as being "unofficial" is likely to get what you say disregarded. Being that it was written by the series's production team and overseen by Miyamoto and Aonuma, it should be regarded as canonical as the games themselves.
I've been thinking alot about this one, I feel this is more of a Broken Base as the fandom constantly argues on how seriously the timeline should be taken, even today and on this site.
- WEAVING HISTORY: This chronicle merely collects information that is believed to be true at this time, and there are many obscured and unanswered secrets that still lie within the tale. As the stories and storytellers of Hyrule change, so, too, does its history. 'Hyrule's history is a continuously woven tapestry of events. Changes that seem inconsequential, disregarded without even a shrug, could evolve at some point to hatch new legends and, perhaps, change the tapestry of history itself.
Fans also discuss the meaning of this and it should be noted that later sources about the timeline, follow this by changing bits of the timeline.
- Pre-2010, treating anything from Zelda.com's "Encyclopedia" as official canon was liable to get you laughed at or yelled at. Post-2017, the Nintendo Dream magazine's similarly Fan Wank-happy "Hyrule Encyclopedia" has drawn the fanbase's ire, particularly regarding their theory that Termina ceased to exist at the end of Majora's Mask. This is especially significant given that this book is part of a series alongside the aforementioned Hyrule Historia; this has led many people who don't look too much into things to assume that either both books are fully official or neither of them are.
Not only does this bit seem very complain-y, but I feel its another Broken Base, especially as the wikis treat Encyclopedia as canon and again, fans constantly get into arguments about how canon the Encyclopedia is.
For what it's worth, even though I had restored the Fandom-Enraging Misconception example about Hyrule Historia after its removal, I later retracted my stance and removed it myself. I have little familiarity with the Zelda.com Encyclopedia, though, but I agree that the entry in question is complainy.
How is this?
- Harsher in Hindsight: The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Penny Foolish", where Mr. Krabs is obsessed at getting a penny SpongeBob found, eventually becomes this when minting of pennies become slowed due to production costs.
Edited by TrendingToon1 on Feb 11th 2025 at 11:09:35 AM
The trope is about real life events making something in fiction harsher. The example looks like in-universe, which is not this trope.
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
Also it just... doesn't apply as an example. The connection is literally "pennies."
Arguably, more of a connection could be made because the situation involves a business tycoon who is also a famous miser and weirdly associated with fast food hamburgers, but even so, the two are really disconnected.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.Also, do people actually care that much about the penny stuff? Like, people throw out pennies all the damn time, they're basically seen as worthless. Krabs going through that much trouble for a penny is the entire joke, them slowing down the production isn't going to change that and I doubt it'll change people's perceptions much (my own supervisor at work made a comment about how pennies will stop existing by the time we die just the other day; people don't really care).
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallBumping my previous query
. I got permission from the troper who removed it to re-add it, but I would like some more opinions before I go ahead.
This entry from Steven Universe S3E7 "Drop Beat Dad" doesn't sound right. Walking in on sex is disturbing in and of itself, the fact someone was born from said encounter is irrelevant.
- Cerebus Retcon: In "Story for Steven," Greg is implied to have walked in on Marty and Vidalia having sex in his van. Here, we discover that Sour Cream is Marty's illegitimate son, meaning that Greg may have (unwillingly) bore witness to Sour Cream's conception.
Edited by randomtroper89 on Feb 12th 2025 at 3:39:27 AM
This is from Sleeper Hit AU's Trivia page:
- Outdated by Canon: In an author's note, the creator noted how the manga had taken both Endeavor and Aizawa in directions that didn't quite mesh with their impressions of the characters, comparing it directly to Team 8 in terms of how the world wound up turning out differently.
For those who are unaware of what Outdated by Canon is, it's a fanfic exclusive Trivia trope that, as per its laconic page, "Once-unexplained element popular in fanworks that gets a definitive, contradicting canon answer much later on". This particulary entry doesn't really explain how the fic's interpretations of the two aforementioned characters ends up being inaccurate by its original work. To me, it has some agenda based feel to it. Free to cut?
Edited by KageTsuki88 on Feb 12th 2025 at 8:00:35 AM
So I need help on whether Interface Spoiler applies to a particular character in Honkai: Star Rail (under Castorice's folder), or if it's a misuse (on top of being Speculative Troping for something that is not released yet):
- Interface Spoiler: A relic set added in 3.0, Poet of Mourning Collapse, has Set Bonuses intended for a Quantum Remembrance Pathstrider. No such character would exist until Castorice in 3.2.
When I asked for advice in the Discussions page, it was pointed out that Interface Spoiler applies more to story-related spoilers, rather than "spoiling" anything like a character's element or class, indicating that the usage above might be a misuse. Additionally, that example above really seems like Speculative Troping, since it looks like it's making assumptions that the relic set is her signature set when Castorice is only just announced and her gameplay and stats aren't revealed yet.
Also there aren't any story twists or spoilers about Castorice that could be given away anywhere in the game's current state.

MaLady: Thanks! I've added the example in question in both pages (albeit with different wording for each).
Edited by MyFinalEdits on Feb 9th 2025 at 3:11:19 PM
135 -> 180 -> 273 -> 191 -> 188 -> 230 -> 300 -> 311