Misused (page action crowner 1/4/14): Mutually Fictional

This trope's about a character from Show A visiting a character from Show B, only to discover while Show B is considered a fictional work in the world of Show A, in contrast, Show A is considered a fictional work in Show B.

However, it seems that there's some problems with the trope, namely, that there's people who confuses this trope with Reciprocal Fiction Paradox, and the fact that people are listing one sided examples. (IE, Show B doesn't exist as a fictional work in Show A, but Show A does. The trope claims that Comic Books Are Real is this trope, but said trope's about "shows turning out to be real", not this.)

Correct:

• Milestone and DC Comics
• DC Comic's Earth-One and Earth-Two
• Bongo Comic's crossovers between The Simpsons and Futurama
• Through the Looking-Glass
• The Number of the Beast
• The Man in the High Castle
• Homestuck and the Midnight Crew

One-sided:

• Fan Fic author Jared "Skysaber" Ornstead
• Harry Potter and Fate/stay night Fan Fic "Fictional"

Mistaken for Reciprocal Fiction Paradox:

• The page image.
• El Chapulín Colorado and El Chavo del ocho
• The Twilight Zone episode "A World of his Own"
• GURPS Infinite Worlds
• Inspector Gadget and Heathcliff & the Catillac Cats
• The Simpsons and Stargate SG-1
• The Simpsons and Futurama

Unclear:

• Superman (DC/Marvel crossovers)
• Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation

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And that's only the main page.

What do we do? Expand the trope to include the one-sided thing? Rename the trope? Put all the examples that don't fit here onto their relevant tropes?

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EDIT: That's what comes of copying and pasting from Notepad without disabling word-wrap first: the text gets messed up.

edited 16th Dec '13 1:48:33 AM by KarjamP

I absolutely 100% thought this trope was the Reciprocal Fiction Paradox.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

So, in other words, Mutually Fictional = Reciprocal Fiction Paradox + Crossover.

Whoa, deja vu.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

I feel like there's too many tropes for this basic concept.

The fact that there was a Trope Repair Shop discussion before this one describing similar issues is saying something.

Okay, so what do we do?

First of all, there's the title. "Mutually Fictional" implies the same exact thing as Reciprocal Fiction Paradox, which is what I always thought this was. The title must indicate that it's a crossover. And to be honest, I'm really confused by this trope's definition. It's too specific. It doesn't even seem tropeworthy.

edited 17th Dec '13 5:31:16 PM by Rethkir

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I'm with Rethkir. The super-specific crossover trope is Too Rare To Trope. It's not supported in the examples and it doesn't match the trope's name at all. I vote merge.

edited 17th Dec '13 11:03:48 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Merge. Personally I like Mutually Fictional better for the final name (more concise).

Merge. Not quite differentiated enough.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

In that case, a merge from me as well, since I don't think it's a bad idea.

We'd still have to deal with the one-sidedness that a few of the examples are showing. (IE, where a character from Show A doesn't have Show B represented as a a work of fiction in their own world {although it still is}, but Show B has works of fiction representing Show A in their world.)

edited 18th Dec '13 1:31:55 AM by KarjamP

I suspect part of the reason for this trope as separate from Reciprocal Fiction Paradox is that this trope isn't trivia, which isn't that much of an objective reason to split (as it's basically Reciprocal Fiction Paradox But Lampshaded), but is more important from a wiki and tropey point of view.

On the other hand, it clearly isn't keeping examples of the one out of the other, since the great mass of tropers don't hold to the same strict division of tropes from YMMV/trivia that us sausage-makers do. But maybe that could be fixed with curation or a boldfaced notice.

edited 18th Dec '13 3:31:07 AM by MorganWick

Mutually Fictional is really just The Same But More Specific of Reciprocal Fiction Paradox that requires a ridiculously specific and extraordinarily rare set of circumstances to occur. Take Futurama and The Simpsons. In Futurama, The Simpsons is a TV show created by Matt Groening, but in The Simpsons, Futurama is a TV show created by Matt Groening. The logical conclusion is that both cannot exist within a the same reality, because it's a paradox. This on it's one is tropeworthy, especially in this case when it's invoked intentionally. It's only trivia because it usually occurs by accident.

In order to be the current definition of Mutually Fictional, the upcoming crossover episode "Simpsonrama" would have to maintain the continuity established that Futurama is still fictional (And we all know how good The Simpsons is at keeping continuity.) It would have to require the specific plot something along the line of Bart and Lisa watching Futurama while Fry and Bender are watching The Simpsons, only to discover that they are watching each other, then they cross over through the TV. If, like the synopsis suggests, Futurama just takes place in the future, then that is not this trope.

So, the entire premise that they need to cross over while acknowledging the fictionality of the other work is way to specific, so it isn't even a trope. So, as stated before, it's Too Rare To Trope. Conclusion: MERGE

edited 18th Dec '13 5:17:13 AM by Rethkir

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Anyone else?

Crowner time

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It doesn't seem like it's really Too Rare To Trope exactly, since there are seven valid examples up there... but it is certainly rare enough in comparison to the supertrope that it makes sense to do the merge.

It looks like most of us favor a merge, but we do need to clarify which direction we're merging.

While Reciprocal Fiction Paradox has the better description, I think Mutually Fictional is the better name, and it has more usage, so I favor Mutually Fictional as the name of the merged trope, but with Reciprocal Fiction Paradox's description.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

And the current page image of Mutually Fictional (from xkcd), which demonstrates the trope better.

Mutually Fictional has more wicks and is a shorter name. But since both names are pretty good, a redirect will suffice.

edited 20th Dec '13 4:34:59 AM by Rethkir

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Fair enough.

What would be the actual trope name and what would be the redirect?

I'd say redirect Reciprocal Fiction Paradox to Mutually Fictional soley on the grounds that Mutually Fictional is a zippier name (and more wicks), but we should hold a crowner for that after it is agreed to merge.

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Prepared a page action crowner for which title to keep, WHEN WE GET TO THAT POINT. (In other words, don't holler just yet.)

Since there's 11 yays, can the crowner now be called?

11 votes is too little. Also, it's been up for just 3 days.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman