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
Heroes Reborn (2021): The Marvel Universe has suffered a Cosmic Retcon (how it happened is still unclear), and now none of the usual Marvel heroes are available. The Squadron Supreme, an obscure team of Justice League expies, are now the big heroes of earth, and both former heroes that have been around in the background (Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, X-Men) and the Avengers that realize that the world has been changed and will try to revert it (Blade, Thor, Captain America) would be their villains. But would they? Would it make sense to add Designated Hero and Designated Villain entries, or are the Avengers and the Squadron Supreme still the heroes and the villains in that scenario?
Ultimate Secret WarsAssume we don't know anything about the Justice League or the Avengers...
- Are the SS positioned as villains, or even antagonistic? Are they actually the "not that bad" kind of villain required for Designated Villain?
- Designated Hero is for heroes who commit unheroic acts but are still considered heroic/the team to root for by the narrative. What unheroic acts are they committing?
Do the following examples from Spinetinglers count as notable aversions, I tried bringing these up in the aversions clean-up thread
, but I haven't gotten a response:
- Adults Are Useless: Averted in Billy Baker's Dog Won't Stay Buried. Billy's mom is there for the horror and shows concern the whole way through and the family vet helps out when things go down.
- Militaries Are Useless: Averted in Camp Crocodile. It's established the camp has military connections and in the end some military people storm in to kill the croc.
From the same work, wouldn't the following fall under either Dirty Cop or The Bad Guys Are Cops rather than Police Are Useless:
- Police Are Useless: In Billy Baker's Dog Won't Stay Buried, one of the cops is part of a religious cult and uses his police powers to block people from leaving town, forcing them to join the church.
And also from the same work, is this example being used correctly if it's only one person who's part of the religion is using it as a scam, rather than the religion itself?:
- Scam Religion: The Church of the Kingdom of Resurrected Pet's in Billy Baker's Dog Won't Stay Buried is an example where the leader doesn't seem to be seeking to scam people, but doesn't really help either. The officer mention above however just uses it as a way to scam money out of people, claiming it is for the good for the church.
A lot of the Goddamn Bats entries in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time seems better fit in Demonic Spiders instead:
- Goddamned Bats:
- During Endless Zones, if one sees Imp types during the selection screen, they need to be extra careful, for the first wave can spawn Imps instead of a single normal zombie... and this also causes the second wave to appear with them, most likely with special zombies, making it much harder to get defenses up before then. Thankfully this no longer happens, although it still gives less time for a player to prepare because Imps are as durable as normal zombies but around 1.5x as fast.
- Tomb Raiser Zombies. They throw a bone which spawns a tomb on the square it lands on. The tomb not only has a lot of health, but also blocks frontal attacks and prevents you from planting anything (other than Grave Busters) on them. And they can do this up to 6 times. Thankfully, they have low health.
- In Pirate Seas, the parrot that comes with the Pirate Captain Zombie flies to any plant you own and begin to steal it. For a small bird, they can take 1.5x as much damage as a regular zombie, and they move fast. If you can't pile on the DPS on them or hit them down with the Kernel-Pult's random chance of butter, say goodbye to one of your plants, while the parrot comes back for another run. Fortunately, the Blover from the Far Future can easily blow the Parrot away for good cheaply and quickly.
- The Imp Cannon is a major annoyance in the Pirate Seas. It regularly fires out annoying imps up to the fifth square, and if you don't destroy it in time, it self-destructs and rains a bunch of imps randomly onto your lawn, up the the third column deep into your defenses. The main problem is that it's hard to hit with most non-penetrating plants as they tend to target the imps in front instead of the cannon, and while the imps can be blown away by the blover, it requires spot-on timing as they're fired out quickly and land quickly.
- In the Wild West, we have the Pianist Zombie. It has a lot of health, makes the other zombies change lanes, which can be very dangerous, and can instantly crush a plant it runs over. Thankfully it's rather slow, dies to one spikeweed, and has a rather catchy tune.
- The Prospector Zombies, who have the ability to jump over to the left side of the lawn and eat your plants from behind, can be very annoying if you don't have a Split Pea or Celery Stalker to kill them.
- Zombie Chickens, which are spawned by the Chicken Wrangler Zombie to Zerg Rush your plants. In Big Bad Butte, Chicken Wrangler Zombies will sometimes spawn early in a level before you have the chance to set up your defenses to deal with them. If you have no lawnmowers and no Lightning Reeds, the chickens can instantly kill you. The good news is the chickens are weaker than Imps, just one attack will take them down.
- The Far Future has the Bug Bot Imp, which moves fast, eats fast, has more health than a normal imp, and drops down in huge hordes every now and then.
- The Shield Zombie has become this since the 3.4.4 Update. Its shield now makes it (and any zombies behind) immune to splash damage projectiles such as Winter Melon's, meaning that piercing plants, E.M.Peach or instakills are needed if you don't want them to protect other zombies behind.
- Disco-Tron 3000 in later 4-flag levels of Terror From Tomorrow, once you've built a good defense. A huge number of them will spawn, and they'll most likely be able to summon their Jetpack Disco Zombies, each of which have a long death animation and hence stay on the screen for a good while. The sheer amount of clutter will cause the game to lag, even if they all go down quickly.
- Hunter Zombies in Frostbite Caves. They stay in the back row and throw snowballs at your plants to freeze them (3 snowballs completely freezes them), essentially a nerfed version of the Octo Zombie. While a few fire plants can easily remedy the Hunter's freezing ability (placing fire plants in front completely negates their ability), the Cold Snapdragon blocks snowballs, and a boosted Infi-Nut stops them dead, they will freeze your plants faster than you can warm them up if there's too many of them.
- Dodo Rider Zombies in the Frostbite Caves world. They're fast and have good health for a fast enemy, and they are the one of two types of zombie that can hop over barrier blocks, meaning that you do have to actually put some offensive plant in that row instead of filling it completely with sun-producers. The Blover can kill them when they hover while the Hurrikale will kill them if they're hovering or if they're pushed onto a Slider tile.
- The Ice Weasels summoned by Weasel Hoarders have two HP instead of the 1/4 HP that chickens have, while also having the Dodo Rider's ability to bypass ice floes.
- Troglobites come in pushing 3 ice blocks across the lawn, which instantly crush any plant they're pushed onto (including Spikerocks, which destroys any strategy of planting those too far ahead). While this is easily countered by using a Hot Potato to melt the ice or having enough DPS to destroy the ice, it's still annoying as the ice blocks can't be planted on, and protect other zombies from most non-lobbed shots. They become potentially dangerous in Icebound Battleground, where they appear in numbers, pushing in long chains of ice blocks which limits a lot of space. And if your plants get frozen, they get pushed as well.
- Lost Pilot Zombies are ambush units that drop down in groups from the fourth row onwards during a Parachute Rain, but stick above a tile for a short while before landing on the lawn, and have more health than a normal zombie. What makes them annoying is the fact that they immediately drop down onto your lawn if a Blover is used, and they tend to appear alongside Bug Zombies and Relic Hunter Zombies (see below) that pose a greater threat but are killed by the Blover.
- Bug Zombies can carry regular, conehead, and buckethead zombies, and act as a fast jetpack with pretty good health. The main problem comes if they're carrying bucketheads, and the level doesn't allow you to bring a Blover. Hope you can kill the bug in time before the Buckethead gets too deep into your defenses... ALSO, they can spawn along Lost Pilot Zombies, meaning you can't use a Blover because it makes Lost Pilots drop in the lawn instantly.
- Parasol Zombie stops lobbed-shot projectiles, rendering powerful plants such as Winter Melon or A.K.E.E. useless. And if they come with Excavator Zombies? Hope you have fun. Fortunately, they don't have much health, so a couple of columns of penetrating plants will kill them quickly.
- Relic Hunter Zombies are basically stronger versions of the Swashbuckler, having twice the health of a Conehead variant, and they can drop anywhere between columns 4-6. You can easily kill them using a Blover, but sometimes they spawn with a Parachute Rain Ambush, so you must decide between having a bunch of not-so-strong-but-great-quantity zombies past your defenses, or having two or three greatly resistant zombies past your defenses. Very nice.
- Jurassic Imps have half the hit points of a regular Imp, but move and eat at around twice the speed. Furthermore, they tend to appear in much greater numbers than other Imp types, and enough of them can and will pile up the damage on your defensive plants.
- Balloon Zombies are essentially Bug Zombies if their bugs had more health, as they move quickly and take a lot more damage before their balloon is popped. A Blover will take care of them, thankfully, but in levels without Blover, they are a pain to remove.
- Compared to the other Battlez only zombies, Z-Mechs are more annoying than dangerous. Their most dangerious attack is to warp zombies foward, which is at worst, obnoxious, but can still be dangerous if Gargantuars. The only other things it can do is shoot rockets that burn the lawn and drop in Imp Bots and Blastronauts, the later can easily be shut down by Blover, but if not down so, will cost mowers and/or plants.
Edited by Adept on Jun 8th 2021 at 10:01:55 PM
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- My personal rule of thumb is that if the writeup doesn't try to justify its notability (eg mentions how previous installments did it), then I don't bother waiting around and just delete the aversion. Someone can always add it back with that context if it really is notable.
- Yeah, that's more Dirty Cop.
Umm...tl;dr, which ones are suspect?
Is this example I wrote up good enough for Token White?
- Ejen Ali: M.A.T.A. Academy's young spies are mostly Malay while some are of Mixed Ancestry. Chris, however, is a Caucasian who has an interest in Eastern culture, made evident by his Kelantanese dialect.
"...mostly Malay or of Mixed Ancestry..." would flow better. Note that this is a Characterization trope, so it would fit better on his character page. But Not Too Foreign is already on the character page, so probably no need to pothole it.
Did I totally misunderstand a trope, or did someone take Light Is Not Good way too literally? On Film.Stormbreaker:
Light Is Not Good: This applies to the night combat exercise in the Brecon Beacons, as when the light suddenly comes on, it is announced that K Unit has failed the exercise.
Edited by underCoverSailsman on Jun 8th 2021 at 12:30:07 PM
I wrote the Spinetinglers page, I guess I should weight in here. I can agree on the dirty cop change. For the Adults are Useless one, I can't quite speak on this series as a whole because I've only read the one and only have detailed info on a couple others, but it's so common in things like this and especially the series that inspired it, so I think at least on that one it's notable enough to be mentioned.
Bumpin from previous page:
Under the VG subpage for The Stoic:
- Minecraft, with its default male protagonist Steve, in which case, doesn't showcase any emotions whenever he interacts with the environment, even if he's either building, trading, fighting, or being attacked. Although Steve was intended to be a genderless representation of the actual player controlling them, however, his name and model gives him a more masculine appearance. Given the fact that the game's characters doesn't have any emotions, this can apply to the individual players themselves (if by means male or female), they will never react to almost anything in the environment.
I don't think this counts because as the example says, the player character's lack of visible emotion or voice is more of them being a Featureless Protagonist rather than actually having stoicism as a character trait.
Yeah Steve? isn't The Stoic, he's a Featureless Protagonist.
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.I have something for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!! but I don't remember his name
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Sheep in the big city is not the first Animated show with an antagonist who insists he's an Angry Scientist.
That's not really a good example. We try to shy away from Hindsight tropes that are just "another show used this (usually fairly common) trope."
I'm looking at the recently launched Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, and I'm wondering if a series I know might be an example of a variation. I'm not versed on the folklore but it does seem to be based on the Night Parade, if nothing else. Honestly because it's based on the myth rather than a straight example, it probably isn't an example at all, but I'd like to get another opinion of two before I actually add anything.
- Takeo-chan Bukkairoku: The main setting of the story is the Hyakkisou Inn. The name, which translates to "Manor of One Hundred Demons", is not figurative. Within it live over a hundred different Yōkai, and one high school girl born so unlucky that not only does this end up the only place she's able to live, but she's gone through so much that, much to their frustration, the Yokai can not frighten her like they do everyone else they come across.
If that isn't satisfactory then, while I'd have to give the manga a re-read to be sure, I'd be surprised if there isn't an actual example of the Night Parade in there somewhere that probably flew right past me at the time.
(
x9) Alright thanks. Actually, I'll just pothole Token White in Chris' character folder's entry for Token Minority.
I was thinking this example would fit Bizarre Taste in Food, but reading into the trope more, it has to be a regular occurrence which said character with bizarre taste does to the food they eat. This is more of a minor instance where a character likes a bizarre food, but it has been called back to a few times.
- BoBoiBoy: Probe likes Yaya's biscuits, remarking that they taste like sandpaper. Enraged by that comment, Yaya punches him, and as he flies in the air from the impact, he states that he genuinely likes sandpaper.
So while I was making this I found the trope Alien Lunch. Would it fit that better since Probe is an alien robot? Or maybe something else?
When you're alone I'm reaching out to let you know that you're far from strangers, like the saviorFrom Guppy Love
- Foregone Conclusion: With a title like Guppy Love, it’s quite clear that Applejack’s crush on Rarity wasn’t meant to be.
Not everyone knows about the term the pun is about, and even then, the pun is not obvious.
"Listen up, Marina, because this is SUPER important. Whatever you do, don't eat th“ “DON'T EAT WHAT?! Your text box ran out of space!”From Gay Panic:
- Captain America: Civil War has been accused of this for shoehorning in a random kiss between Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter. While Sharon Carter is his canon love interest in the comics, in the previous film Steve had no female love interest, had a Meet Cute with another male character, and spent the movie obsessing over his Brainwashed and Crazy male best friend, making the kiss seem like the film's way of saying "No homo."
Besides the fact that canonically Captain America is heterosexual in both the source material and the MCU, "has been accused" sounds like a reaction and not an actual reason for why the scene was shot. This entry sounds complainy from a certain troper not happy Steve isn't gay.
The same applies to these following entries:
- The Rise of Skywalker features a never-before-mentioned female Old Flame of Poe Dameron, which rumour has it was only added because Oscar Isaac was so enthusiastic about fans shipping his character and John Boyega's Finn, and the idea that he could be playing Star Wars's first gay lead. The fact that he was clearly bitter about it in post-production interviews brought attention to it.
- Newsies gives the main character a very blatantly token love interest in a film that's otherwise boiling over with homoerotic subtext between all the males.
May I delete?
Edited by Tomodachi on Jun 9th 2021 at 1:19:43 AM
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.Oh, lord. Murder that example with prejudice.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"This is correct use, right? For Friday Night Funkin': Corruption:
- The Cavalry: Villainous example. After Daddy Dearest holds off the corruption for three songs straight, Pico, Skid, Pump, and Mommy Mearest all show up during "Deathmatch" to help Boyfriend corrupt him, and it's facing off against his corrupted wife that finally makes Daddy Dearest succumb.
There's this gem on Bottle Episode:
- Charli XCX made her fourth "studio" album how i'm feeling now from quarantine during the COVID pandemic, and all within six weeks (for reference, the gap between her previous two studio albums were 5 years). The production is intentionally less polished and noisier than her usual synthpop sound, and all her songs about driving and partying have been substituted with more introspective bangers about her mental state during the lockdown.
I'm pretty sure this is misuse because it's never stated that the album tells a story that takes place almost exclusively in one spot. What do you think?
I think your assessment is correct. You can cut.

e: what an odd pagetopper...
Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 7th 2021 at 9:10:14 AM