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
Another reminder that the term "Chairs" is not applicable to examples. This example is just misused because it's just not imitating anything specific from Yu-Gi-Oh.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupThese examples from OneyPlays seem like misuse, given the reaction don't happen within the show itself.
- Actually Pretty Funny:
- Doug Walker responded to OneyPlays saying that he hasn't seen much of the jokes/impressions they made of him as a Running Gag, but enjoyed the ones he has seen.
- Subverted by Linkara, who finds them personally insulting and blames them for people calling him "The Lightbringer" based on his old webcomic. He has further elaborated that he doesn't appreciate being referred to by the name of the cringey webcomic he made, which he's not particularly proud of.
- Even infamous creator of Sonichu Christine Weston "Chris-Chan" Chandler actually had a positive response
to one of their impressions and jokes about them.
Edited by randomtroper89 on Oct 29th 2025 at 2:43:49 PM
Is Young Frankenstein an example of Denial of Digital Distribution? I tried looking for Young Frankenstein on streaming, but I can't find it on any major streaming services. Not even YouTube and Amazon have the movie available to rent digitally. You'd figured Young Frankenstein would be on Hulu or Disney Plus (since it's a 20th Century Fox film) in time for the Halloween season, but apparently not.
Edited by Nightchicken on Oct 29th 2025 at 5:15:33 AM
In The Gilded Age, the character Mr. Winterton is introduced in season two as husband to a known character. Over season three, he is referenced but not seen and dies offscreen. Does this count as Bus Crash? Or just Killed Offscreen?
Edited by isoycrazy on Oct 29th 2025 at 8:34:31 AM
Bus Crash requires the character being written out prior to being killed, so if there's no reason given why he doesn't appear prior to his death, it's Killed Offscreen.
Would this mean that any example of a character dying between the first and second installment of a work not count as Bus Crash?
Watch until 4:02.
https://youtu.be/gxQ3zbhnt7U?si=wzrn4Tc7ff5nNPz8&t=154
People notice he's muttering about blood, but possibly only Morrow seems to realize that Commissar Kurt Namark has fallen to Chaos. Is this an example of Obviously Evil or Devil in Plain Sight?
Question. The trope Halloween Episode includes a number of standalone entries (such as movies) that are set during Halloween and are not part of a series. How flexible is this trope — specifically, how literally should "episode" be taken?
Thanks.
So, in this ATT Thread
, we were discussing about this example on the YMMV page for The Adventures of Willy Beamish
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Looking at the cover, you assume it's a harmless kid's game. Heh, won't you be in for a surprise. If you read the fine print, note that it says, "What if you were nine again, knowing what you know now?"
We've discussed that this example didn't quite fully explain what inappropriate content was in the game that would make it inappropriate for the kids. So, in that thread, I had suggested a rewrite to this example that would provide more context to the game's content:
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Based on the cover, this seems like a harmless kid's game. But this game actually contains some content not appropriate for the younger audience, like a scene where a nude calendar is used to distract some plumbers and the numerous fanservice moments.
I was wondering if this rewrite is okay for the page? Granted, I've never played The Adventures of Willy Beamish before and I was going by what was listed on the main trope page. So, I'm not 100% sure what kind of content is in the game.
I love animation, TV, movies, YOU NAME IT!This on A Million Is a Statistic:
- Game of Thrones:
- The final episode treats Jon having to assassinate Daenerys as a far more tragic event than the previous episode featuring Daenerys burning all of King's Landing to the ground and killing tens of thousands in the process because the former was a main protagonist of the series and the aforementioned deaths were all featured extras who just appeared in one episode.
Does Chuck Cunningham Syndrome apply if the narrative actually explains their disappearance? From Malory Towers:
- A lot of girls introduced in Darrell's first year were never mentioned again in the sequels. These include Katherine, the head girl of the first-formers, and Emily, who was Darrell's sort-of friend before she befriends Sally. Emily is mentioned again, but another girl called Violet was mentioned twice in the first book—once when naming everyone in the form, and again when Mary-Lou discovers her damaged fountain-pen—and was never mentioned again.
- Daphne, a major character in the second book who saves Mary Lou's life and becomes Mary Lou's best friend at the climax of the novel, fades into the background after this fact. Her name re-appeared once in the fifth book, and she was enlisted to get Clarissa away from Gwen in the fourth book, but she was otherwise gone. Ellen, also introduced in Book 2, and played a major role there, all but disappeared in the following books. However, she appeared in the third and was mentioned in the fourth. In both books, she was in the form above the main characters, justifying her disappearance.
- In the fifth form, we were introduced to Janet, a student held back from the previous batch of girls who was later revealed to be a very talented seamstress, who did not return in the final book. However, she was mentioned when the girls were talking about some of the girls who has left school to do other things (e.g. Mavis went to train in singing, and Catherine stayed home to help out her mother).
Most of these examples do have reasons for not appearing again (e.g. they moved up a form, they left the school, etc.)
I think that's Put on a Bus. Chuck Cunningham Syndrome is when they disappear with no explanation or even acknowledgement.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThe other day, I caught a new example added to YMMV.Kamen Rider Jeanne And Kamen Rider Aguilera With Girls Remix; I adjusted what appeared to be misinformation in it, but I'm not even sure it qualified in the first place so I commented it out at the same time. Using my version of the entry:
- Harsher in Hindsight: Shieri Ohata, who plays Tsukuyomi in Kamen Rider Zi-O and this special, was dropped from her agency and vanished from the public eye without explanation in April 2022, with it later being revealed that the first installment of Girls Remix was filmed shortly before.
For context, Girls Remix is a Massive Multiplayer Crossover that aired after the incident described. Tsukuyomi played Big Damn Heroes in the final episode, arriving to join in the battle with zero plot importance. Also, the actress' disappearance is assumed to be just quietly retiring from acting and not anything malicious.
Since the only "harsh" thing seems to be that it was an appearance made after the actress left the industry, and said appearance has nothing to do with the events surrounding the actress, I question if it fits.
In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, would Snoopy's fantasy count as Filler? While it lasts a few minutes, it really doesn't have anything to do with the plot save for Snoopy arriving in the pumpkin patch and causing Linus to mistake him for the Great Pumpkin and faint which could have been done using regular Snoopy.
Hi!
The trope definition says (italics added):
Filler episodes are entries in a generally continuous serial...
That suggests that the trope involves episodes in a series, not sections of a standalone work. I say cut it, citing this thread.
And given that it seems to have some tie-in with the plot, it won't be a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, either.
Edited by BoltDMC on Nov 1st 2025 at 7:37:33 AM
Does a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere still count if the boss is revealed to be plot-relevant in the manual? There were eight potholes to ATITM on the page, but some of the "manuals" still don't explain the boss's relevance, merely it exists, so they're probably valid examples.
- The Darklurker from Dark Souls II is one of the only bosses in the entire series who's given next to no explanation to what it is. Not only does it lack any story relevance, being a Superboss, but not even the description for the soul obtained from beating it provides any explanation, simply stating "Perhaps it's better that some mysteries remain unilluminated". The only implications to what it might be comes from the game guide, which reveals that the location it's fought in, the Dark Chasm of Old, might be made from the remains of Manus, Father of the Abyss, and Dark Souls III, where it's implied it might be either the angel who contacted Holy Mother Gertrude and inspired her to found the angelic faith of Lothric, or that it's somehow connected to the Angels that fly over the Dreg Heap.
- Sunstar from Mega Man V is very out-of-nowhere. After spending most of the game with the Stardroids as the Big Bad, then having it be Wily behind it all, it's very bizarre to have the Final Boss be a doomsday weapon never even hinted at throughout the game and with no reason to be there (unless you read some books saying Wily found him alongside the Stardroids).
- Immediately after defeating the first final boss of Gungrave, an "Alien Head" erupts from the ground, causing you to fall from the previous boss's arena to an entirely separate corridor, in which you fight him for the true final battle. There is no dialogue to give you any clue as to what the hell just happened, and after defeating it, you are inexplicably placed outside the structure you're in. Much like the rest of the final level, the game neglected to mention many key details about this being, including his non-mutated human form. Which is a shame, since he actually plays an important role in the backstory, but you wouldn't know this if you had merely played the game.
Also going to bring up this example a large amount of Kirby final bosses are plot relevant once you read the manual.
- Kirby:
- This trope describes the stock Kirby plot since "Kirby's Adventure". In most Kirby games, the Big Bad is eventually revealed to be corrupted by, or have a true form as, some Eldritch Abomination, whom Kirby then fights as the True Final Boss if he's collected all the thingummies. Relative to Kirby games' breezy easiness, this will be a SNK Boss, especially in the Arena submodes, where some of these final forms are hidden.
- A notable subversion in Kirby Super Star: The final bosses of "Milky Way Wishes" are this unless the player watched its introduction sequence. However, in the original Super Nintendo Entertainment System version, the introduction sequence was both optional and not indicated to even exist, meaning many players probably wondered what was going on at the end of the game. This was corrected in the DS remake, where the introduction was automatically played.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think this line in the trope description is clarifying that All There in the Manual isn't enough explanation to disqualify it from the trope.
"Sometimes explained with All There in the Manual, but that might be an Author's Saving Throw."

The "Franchise features people acting heroically" side of the event is People Sit On Chairs.