On TV Tropes, it's very common for editors to misuse appearance tropes, as well as tropes whose names make them sound like they could be appearance tropes.
Meaningful Appearance tropes are often misused in ways that overlook the "Meaningful" aspect, resulting in Zero Context Examples and misuse in the form of examples that have no meaning even if the tropes themselves are not People Sit on Chairs.
The Appearance Tropes Cleanup sandbox covers tropes with potential issues. Tropes that simply require cleanup will go through this thread, while tropes that require more significant action will have to go through the Trope Repair Shop.
April 2, 2023 update: This thread is no longer for making changes to tropes, and was brought back from the Projects Morgue solely for cleanup. Making changes to tropes is still a job for the Trope Repair Shop.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 2nd 2023 at 9:18:26 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Neglected to mention this earlier, but I'm not sure if using them to distinguish a character is enough to make it a trope, especially because of the other tropes mentioned (such as in your post). My main question regarding "Hair Decorations are for distinguishing a character" is "Distinguishing them how?" The old name suggests cuteness, but couldn't Distinguishing Mark or Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (or a subtrope of either of those) be used for that? Those tropes certainly have better names, regardless.
Edit: See my next post. I looked further into Purple Eyes and it looks problematic, as well as redundant with other tropes.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 11th 2019 at 12:13:49 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
(she/her)
Maybe we should focus on what to do with Purple Eyes first as it appears to be one of the last eye color tropes (dunno about Technicolor Eyes and Curtains Match the Windows) that might need work.
Macron's notes
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I'm fine with that. As I said after the cleanup for Gray Eyes was finished, I wasn't sure whether there was unfinished business with eye pages.
Edit: Well, for a start, I looked a the Purple Eyes page, and it seems to be redundant with Supernatural Is Purple and Purple Is Powerful, and the on-page examples are a mess (I'd hate to see what the wicks look like).
Despite the bolded notice in the description, a lot of examples are still nothing more than "This character has purple eyes" (assuming they get further than mentioning a character without mentioning their eyes), while a lot of others are Speculative Troping and/or Examples Are Not Arguable violations regarding a character who has purple eyes for possibly supernatural reasons, but may not actually be confirmed to have them for that reason.
Edit: In contrast to what was done with Green Eyes and Gray Eyes, I'm not sure we'd lose much by going with a full-fledged cut instead of a disambiguation page. The Purple is the New Trope index (which isn't very large) seems to already have the relevant tropes covered.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 11th 2019 at 12:19:50 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
(she/her)
I agree I think Supernatural Is Purple and Purple Is Powerful cover the most of the meaningful examples. Anything that can't go into these tropes can be put under Technicolor Eyes.
Edited by MacronNotes on Dec 11th 2019 at 1:30:14 PM
Macron's notes
Short-Term Projects herald
OK, then, Purple Eyes.
Yeah, we can lose it. It currently reads like Supernatural Is Purple But More Specific.
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
he/him | Image Pickin' regular
(Mystical) Purple Eyes sounds like a meaningful Sub-Trope of Supernatural Is Purple to me. It just needs ZCE cleanup.
Edited by rjd1922 on Dec 11th 2019 at 2:36:58 PM
Keet cleanup
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
IDK, the way I see it, if a trope has an overwhelming amount of ZCEs, that's an issue with the trope itself that needs to be addressed through more than just spamming the double-percentage markup everywhere. Something must be causing it.
he/him | Image Pickin' regular
Even better, actually give the examples context.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Hard to do if the trope is the problem. If it is, it's probably Chairs.
he/him | Image Pickin' regular
It's actually quite easy to explain how purple eyes indicate the character is special/supernatural if you're familiar with the work.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
And that's fair. I was mostly speaking more generally anyway, as it's just a small pet-peeve of mine when people don't consider the fact that the trope themselves may be responsible for a ZCE issue.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I think you're both right. There is something wrong with the trope Purple Eyes, and that's that the name implies something so broad as to be chairs-y and makes it a ZCE magnet.
The two questions we have to answer are:
1.) Is it sufficiently distinct from Supernatural Is Purple as to be splittable?
2.) If yes, what is a name that clearly communicates what the trope actually is so that it stops being confused for "purple eyes exist"?
<Moderator headband on>
Seeing as we are discussing Purple Eyes I've changed the thread title to point to that page.
</Moderator headband off>
I think that we need to discuss a disambiguation with Technicolor Eyes; eye colours that aren't really possible in Real Life aren't chairs but are troped on that page.
Regarding the hair tropes on the last page, one should consider whether it can be cut or redirected to Meaningful Appearance which is the default trope for all meaningful appearance thingies. But that's for later.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Short-Term Projects herald
IMO, no. I'm still waiting to hear how exactly Purple isn't "Supernatural Is Purple, but for eyes".
I'd tend to agree, and would be fine with cutting it and moving any valid examples into Supernatural Is Purple, Technicolor Eyes, etc.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
If it's determined to be worth keeping, and we rename it instead of cutting or redirecting it, then maybe Supernatural Purple Eyes would work. Yes, it's technically a snowclone of Supernatural Gold Eyes, and Everything's Worse with Snowclones, but I don't currently have any other ideas for names that sound less chairs-y.
That said, I'm defaulting to Supernatural Is Purple, Purple Is Powerful, and Technicolor Eyes being sufficient, as opposed to having a separate trope for purple eyes, pending arguments in favor of keeping the current definition.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 12th 2019 at 3:39:45 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Yeah, I'm not seeing any special meaning to be found in the eye-specific version compared to the broader tropes.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Oof, I didn't realize we had a Supernatural Gold Eyes too. This is making me think that we really don't need a separate trope for every different unnatural eye color that means "something spooky and supernatural is going on."
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
That trope used to be called Eyes of Gold. No points for guessing why it was renamed.
What / Where's our unnatural appearance trope? Like the Super-Trope of Exotic Eye Designs, You Gotta Have Blue Hair, etc?
Edited by Malady on Dec 12th 2019 at 1:23:39 AM
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
Short-Term Projects herald
Supernatural Is Gold doesn't quite exist, though...
The only thing that Supernatural Purple Eyes would bring us is a lower likelihood of people slashing together tropes with identical context, as in:
- Trope A/Trope B: Context.
Still not worth it, though.
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Septimus Heap already mentioned that Meaningful Appearance could be applied to the tropes that were being discussed before Purple Eyes officially became the thread's subject, so maybe that.
Disagree that Purple Eyes should be cut, though I think a wick clean-up and a rename (Magic Purple Eyes?) are needed. Eyes suggest an inherent attribute of a person that cannot be changed or removed like clothing. Purple eyes are also impossible in real life, but many works claim otherwise and give an in-story why the character has eyes of that color (i.e. Alexandria's Genesis). That seems tropeworthy to me.
I have also brought up before merging all the "magical eye color" tropes into one single tropes (and made a Sandbox) but this hasn't gained much traction.
Edited by naturalironist on Dec 12th 2019 at 6:34:18 AM
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
How many examples of Magical Hair Decorations exist, though? I assume the hair decs themselves are powerful; if so, that's workable, but Hair Decorations as it is does not.
The idea of using hair decorations to distinguish a character is better served by a different trope such as a clothing-based Sister Trope of Distinguishing Mark.
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!