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
While we're on the subject of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, does "jaywalking" necessarily have to come last if there's more than three parts to the statement? Take this line from Grand Theft Auto Online for example ("jaywalking" in bold):
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I've thought about that as well, but it still seems a bit iffy to me.
Of course they are just potholes so I guess deleting them outright while leaving the entry itself intact is a viable option.
I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.I'm not sure if this is the correct trope to put it under, given it was a rather brief affair (a matter of few months, rather than years)
- Vindicated by History: The initial reaction towards the film was mixed-to-bad, and it wasn't considered particularly funny, either. However, with the premiere of Jurassic World Dominion - the movie which The Bubble was mocking - various scenes gained background context and thus became a lot funnier, improving the overall reception.
The trope is No Recent Examples, Please! (5 years) so you don't need consensus to delete it.
Retcon has these two examples:
- Frozen:
- Olaf's Frozen Adventure implies Norway exists. Previously, Arendelle was the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Norway.
- Kristoff is Sami according to Word of God. Come Frozen II and the Fantasy Counterpart Culture Northuldra are introduced. Kristoff is never implied to be Northuldra, he dresses differently from the Northuldra, and he was born a decade after the Northuldra became trapped in the mist.
Would Raichu's Pokédex entry from Ultra Moon and Octillery's Dex entry from Legends Arceus count as Leaning on the Fourth Wall? Raichu's Ultra Moon entry says that you don't see many of it because so many people prefer the look it had as Pikachu which I took to be either a nod to or a jab at the anime having Ash's Pikachu refusing to evolve while Octillery's Legends Arceus entry says for a long time, people didn't believe Remoraid turned into Octillery which I think is a nod to fans questioning why a fish turns into an octopus to this day.
Hi!I don't think this really fits the trope. Previously, the exact same entry was under Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, which most definitely wasn't the case, then re-added under the new trope.
The part that I'm questioning is that this is neither surprising nor unexpected. All the listed examples are core elements of the gameplay and are the most obvious ones when it comes to a skirmish with minis - which is the core concept of the game. It feels more like pointless gushing over the basics of gameplay and its marketing pitch than actual fitting examples of the trope, making it more of a chair-sitting affair. Furthermore, all of those examples are already listed under other, actually fitting tropes. Still:
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: A large component of the game are the implementation of "realistic" mechanics to the combat.
- Decent armor and a shield dramatically increases the chance of surviving an encounter with an enemy. It is highly recommended that your entire frontline be equipped with good armor and a shield at minimum, else they get cut down by a random strike.
- Helmets are necessary to survive combat in this game, as even a single hit to the head can instantly kill a brother. Even a hat or head wrapping is better than nothing.
- Bladed weapons tend to be mediocre against armor, which often needs heavier weapons designed to punch through armor to be effective. Once the armor is broken however, swords become extremely deadly, as their high accuracy and low fatigue cost make them easy to kill enemies with. Meanwhile, the anti-armor weapons lose effectiveness, as their lower accuracy means that they will likely not land a hit.
Edited by Tropiarz on Sep 29th 2022 at 2:42:29 PM
Found this on Dark Horse Victory:
- Epic Rap Battles of History: Whenever a third party appears who is not mentioned in the title, they tend to get a significant amount of people in the comments claiming them the winner. Examples include HAL-9000 in Bill Gates VS Steve Jobs, Lincoln in Barack Obama VS Mitt Romney, and Vince Offer in Ben Franklin VS Billy Mays.
Does this really count? The videos themselves never show any rapper explicitly "winning" the battle, so any "win" is purely Audience Reaction (and never a unanimous one either).
Nope
Not that I'm too clear on what Ambiguously Christian wants to be, but this example from Encanto - The Family Madrigal seems to go past "ambiguously" and "they actually are culturally Christian at least; it's just not plot-relevant"?
- Ambiguously Christian: Of the "Hispanic Catholic" variety, as their faith is never openly stated but strongly implied. We see a number of crucifixes in the Casita, Alma and Pedro were married in a church, Pepa and Félix were married by the local priest (who, judging by his garb appears to be a Catholic priest). Makes sense, since Latin America holds the largest number of Catholics in the world. That said, the artbook also says the miracle was granted by the land itself and there are some indigenous symbols on the house. It's possible that some syncretism between Catholicism and indigenous beliefs is going on, which is far from uncommon in Colombia.
That's a whole lot of words to say not much at all. If they have christian symbols, and there's a priest around, then it definitely quacks like christianity.
I'd cut it personally.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meFrom the Blue-and-Orange Morality page. To me, this is more Fish out of Water
- The second chapter of World Trigger has Kuga, a young boy from another dimension, walking around Japan doing things like offering his classmate a large wad of cash when he offers to take him out for dinner, breaking a mugger's leg, then simply knocking out another group of muggers when he's told by his Ordinary High-School Student friend that what he'd done was excessive, and offering compensation to a woman who'd crashed her car into him. He healed himself almost instantaneously, so it was likely for the car damages.
For context, he broke the muggers leg because they tried to do an "insurance" scam. They bumped into kuga and then claimed he broke their leg, and demanded they pay him for it. Kuga knows they're lying so he responds by actually breaking his leg and then paying him for it
Is it still Video Game Delegation Penalty if you're punished for skipping the dialogue? In Growing Up, doing so will make the game choose a random option for you, which risks giving you an undesirable result later in a character's arc, instead of skipping straight to the dialogue choices as one would expect in a Visual Novel.
Edited by TroperNo9001 on Sep 30th 2022 at 3:45:26 AM
Still waiting for someone to break him free...This was added to Characters.RWBY Salem. It has issues with word cruft and is almost arguing against itself being an example. Tyrian is a Practically Joker example, so he's not emotionally stable. The breakdown that's mentioned here is troped under Villainous Breakdown, and it's true to say that his instability got demonstrably worse when he thought (and after it was confirmed) that he had disappointed her. The problem is whether she's playing any active role in reining in his dark side and keeping him more stable than he would be if he had never met her. And that's the bit I could use a second opinion on.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Oddly functions as one for Tyrian of all characters, while admittedly he is still completely insane while still in her good graces. He's still so mentally/emotionally dependent on her that when she said he had disappointed her, it sent him into a severe emotional breakdown that even disturbed Cinder.
If it helps, he has a Psychopathic Manchild entry that reads like a much better Living Emotional Crutch entry than the one that's just been added (included here for comparison):
- Psychopathic Manchild: Although he generally communicates in a verbose and melodramatic manner akin to an actor on a theatre stage, he has a very infantile emotional dependence on Salem. He regards her as a 'goddess' and is desperate to please her. When he fails to complete his task, he initially cowers fawning madly to himself that Salem will forgive him. When he reaches Salem, he crawls towards her, begging for forgiveness. When Salem gently, but coldly, tells him that he has disappointed her, he dissolves into sobs of despair that attract a Beowulf. Tyrian then takes out his despair on the Grimm, slashing it over and over until his sobs turn into maniacal laughter. Cinder witnesses his entire breakdown in open-mouthed horror.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 29th 2022 at 1:16:40 AM
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.Would Mew and Scyther/Scizor count for Mechanically Unusual Fighter in Pokémon Unite? Mew can reset the moves he learns under certain conditions and if Scyther learns Dual Wingbeat, he stays a Scyther but if he learns Bullet Punch, he turns into Scizor. I also think that Scizor counts as Unexpected Character because while Scizor is very popular the aforementioned mechanic complete with Scyther being able to learn Double Hit, Swords Dance and its own Unite Move called Green Illusion Dive which no other Pokémon that can evolve can do.
Hi!So Cape Wings is for clothing that can transform into wings or vice versa.
But do the cloth-wings need to grant the wearer the ability to fly and glide? Or can the wings be non-functional after the transformation? (i.e. the cloth becomes wings, but only in terms of appearance)
I am confused because the page's second sentence mentions "fully functional wings". However, some examples in the list admit that the wearer isn't shown flying, but still evoke/invoke the trope's imagery because the cape later looks like wings.
- Code Geass: They serve no practical purpose (he can't fly with them), but Code Geass's Lelouch was probably attempting to invoke this motif with his Zero disguise, given that it appears to be a cape-like cloak when settled around his shoulders, but the cape is revealed to be split into two "wings" when he dramatically throws it/them back, recalling this trope's imagery.
- Disgaea 4: Valvatorez, while he's never shown to fly, definitely has this aesthetic going for him.
- The King of Fighters: While it doesn't see any practical use, one of Zero's (the original from The King of Fighters 2001) win poses has him lifting his cape over his shoulders, with an effect that gives it the illusion of wings.
Re: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13543987200A54420100&page=901#comment-22513
I'm unsure about the others, though I don't feel the first counts.
So in Film.Hocus Pocus 2, the Sandersons perform what is essentially a PG Halloween version of Elton John’s the Bitch is Back called the Witches are back. That’s basically falls under Bowdlerise, right? Or is there a more fitting trope.?
You’re Gonna Carry That Weight.Not "Is this an example?" so much as "Where does this go?" but Cowardice Callout should go on the main page rather than a character page, right?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA

I think those are Bread Egss Milk Squick since the Squick doesn't have to be gross, just weird?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA