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
This is posted on the YMMV page for The Ramones.
- Values Dissonance: The songs that invoked Nazi imagery are, let's say, not quite as ironic and dark-humored now as they were then, what with the notorious rise in white supremacist groups in the 2010s.
I'm not sure if this is an example. The trope is for stuff that was deemed fine when it came out but is seen as offensive now, and even when songs like "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" came out, the lyrics were controversial. In fact one of their record executives made them change some of the lyrics of "Today Your Love..." because they were deemed offensive.
Edited by HaydenM2001 on Sep 30th 2020 at 4:11:55 AM
Reposting from the previous
two pages
, so it doesn't get lost:
Are the following Dueling Works examples from Trivia.Inhumans being used correctly?:
- Strictly talking about IMAX releases, there was an unlikely match-up: the first two episodes of Inhumans against It (2017), which came out a week later. Inhumans was doing so poorly for IMAX and It was tracking so well that many screenings of Inhumans were outright cancelled to make room for more screenings of It. The Stephen King adaptation brought in a $7 million opening weekend just stateside (as part of a much larger $123 million opening weekend), more than doubling what Inhumans made around the world. To add insult to injury, Inhumans was filmed with IMAX cameras in some sequences and was explicitly brought to theaters that used the format during what the company imagined was going to be a slow month for them otherwise, while It was a last-minute conversion done in response to the film tracking well before it had a record-breaking release.
- With Thor: Ragnarok. Both deal with a race of people (Inhumans/Asgardians) whose home (Attilan/Asgard) is destroyed, and the residents must evacuate to Earth. To top it all off, in the first season finale, Black Bolt signs "We the people are Attilan"; in the Thor film, Odin says "Asgard is not a place, it's a people."
Because the first one just mentions that they were released close together, without mentioning any similarities the works may have.
And the second example is comparing two works from two different mediums (a tv series vs. a film) that are both part of the same franchise and made and released by the same studio.
I think the first one is valid since it actually details how the films were affecting each other, which is way more than you can say for the majority of Dueling Works examples, which are usually just "works released at the same time that have some superficial similarities, so obviously they were competing with each other".
Speaking of which, no. I don't think that the second one works. The two were not competing. At all. It's just stealth complaining about how Inhumans did something worse than Ragnarok.
I haven't played the game, so I don't know if there's more to this or not, but this Emperor: Battle for Dune example sounds more like Retcon to me than Alternate Continuity:
- Alternate Continuity: Emperor is treated as sequel to Dune 2000 (as such they are also a separate continuity from the original Dune novels and the 1984 film) but there are some differences between the two continuities. Emperor Corrino's death is depicted as it takes place in the Ordos ending of Dune 2000, but it is mentioned to have taken place in Kaitain. The House leaderships are also Retconned to their Emperor incarnation, which isn't too hard to achieve since we never saw them in Dune 2000. The Emperor, who was seen, is also retconned to having been named Shaddam IV instead of Frederick IV, but Frederick was a pure manual name in Dune 2000, and never actually said on-screen.
Edited by Primis on Sep 30th 2020 at 2:13:11 AM
Hi. Could a trope expert look at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/LimeStreet
please? I added a Dawson Casting entry which is open to debate. From the newspaper cuttings I have read on the Samantha Smith official site, "hundreds" of 12 and 13 year old (cisgender) girls had auditioned for the part of Elizabeth, and. just like Samantha, most of these girls would already have started the need to wear a bra and have begun periods.
Reposting from the previous page
, so it doesn't get lost:
Is it me or does this example from Harry Hole being misused since it doesn't actually give any examples of the books' Black Comedy elements and just seems to be mostly complaining about the film of one of the books:
- Black Comedy: Many of the novels contain elements of black comedy. One of the complaints about the 2017 film version of The Snowman is that it plays a lot of the black comedy elements (such as the fact that the serial killer leaves snowmen, sometimes containing human body parts, at the scene of his crimes, or the Wile E. Coyote-esque way the killer is eventually dispatched) completely straight
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So, the only difference is that the actor was slightly post-pubescent when the character was supposed to be prepubescent? I think thats kinda minor and very vague. What specific age was the character supposed to be? Im not sure you can put something in Dawson Casting when all you have to go by is the actor getting her first period before the character.
Edited by antenna_ears on Oct 1st 2020 at 12:32:54 PM
Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Oct 1st 2020 at 4:00:10 AM
Can a Narm-y moment be a Crowning Moment of Funny? The Mist has a tragic scene that is, apparently, considered funny by some viewers who feel that the character's grief over the death of his son and companions is over-acted. Well, ymmv. It is also listed as CMoF, and that seems like too much, in my opinion. Or is it okay?
Edited by Tenebrika on Oct 1st 2020 at 7:12:16 PM
Some franchises with their own Narm subpages have on their Funny Moments pages, "for unintentionally funny moments, see Narm.Work Name". Maybe Narm Charm could cover that?
I don't think Narm Charm fits. As far as I understand, Narm Charm is for something that is ridiculous but still somehow works. The scene I'm talking about is definitely meant to be heartbreaking, and some viewers find it funny; hence, it doesn't work, at least, for them.
Edited by Tenebrika on Oct 1st 2020 at 11:26:18 PM
Is this RWBY entry an example of this trope?
- Fashionable Asymmetry: Weiss ties her ponytail to the right as her way of rebelling against her strict father.
That doesn't... seem correct. I'm not sure, though.
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.It seems really pedantic. If you have a single ponytail, you can wear it straight, to the left, or to the right. Nobody is going to look at you and say, "OMG, why do you have this grotesque mismatch between your right and left sides?"
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I cut the aforementioned
example of Dawson Casting, because people don't develop at the same rate. Two girls at the same age may be at different points in development. And it really seems pedantic to the point of missing the point of the trope considering it's not like you can tell by looking at a girl of that age whether she's started her period or not. (Also IMO the level of detail about their physical development was uncomfortably unnecessary.)
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I think there's some Word of God about that design choice? Don't quote me on that. But you can see that in the flashback portion of her Vol 5 character short
, she's wearing her ponytail centered.
Yes, the entry is based on what the creators said. It's never discussed in-universe, so the only reason the fandom knows why she wears it like that is because of interviews. That's why I asked if it's an example of the trope. If the reason she's wearing her ponytail off-centre is rebellion against her father, then it's not because of fashion. Most of her clothing design doesn't involve asymmetry, although there is some asymmetry in her Volume 7 design.
I can rewrite the entry to concentrate on her Volume 7 outfit, but I want to know if the ponytail, given its reason, is an example.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 1st 2020 at 2:08:47 PM
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.Yeah, this comes off as someone wanting to add a particular fact and shoehorning it into the first trope they found.
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.Does the following example from Mutant X look like it's being used correctly or have enough context?:
- Dork Age: The series was a big one for Havok, as it removed him from the main Marvel Universe for almost three years and his value fell so far that Chuck Austen was given a lot of leeway in order to "fix" him.
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For what it's worth, I removed the Fashionable Asymmetry example from the sandbox page.
Edited by gjjones on Oct 1st 2020 at 9:36:33 AM
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.![]()
That example contains essentially no information.
Some at TV Tropes claim that Klaatu and Gort were staging an invasion.
No, they weren't.
Klaatu himself said that his superiors don't care how we run our planet. We can have all the wars we want, as long as it stays here on Earth.
However, if we carry out warlike ways into space, that's when it would become a problem for them.
Considering how often it's misused, is the following example from Adventures in Babysitting being used correctly?:
- Unintentional Period Piece: Sara's obsession with Thor is played up as being weird because at the time, he was a relatively obscure character in Marvel's pantheon, best known for a recent Dork Age where he was turned into a frog. Of course, the huge popularity bump he got from the Marvel Cinematic Universe will likely have people these days wondering what the big deal is.
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Little unclear what that post has to do with this thread.
From VideoGame.Hitman Absolution, surely a Continuity Reboot can't be a Downplayed Trope:
- Continuity Reboot: Downplayed. Tore Blystad, the game's creative director (who also played a major role in past Hitman editions), when asked in an interview if Absolution was a good title to introduce people to the series, stated that yes, it is a great way to be introduced to the style of the series and that the story won't be lost on them.

Can a bisexual character qualify as Mistaken for Gay? Particularly in this case, the character isn't out as bisexual, and just identified as gay for a while, but is too nervous to admit he also likes girls.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.