All-Purpose Policy and Meta discussion: Administrivia.Trope Repair Shop

Is there any meaningful difference between The Generic Guy and Ridiculously Average Guy?

I also found Ship Level and Gangplank Galleon. It's "video game ship level" vs. "video game pirate ship level". I think they could stand a merge.

Edited by FernandoLemon on Oct 7th 2023 at 6:05:07 AM

The latter doesn't have to take place on/near a ship. There's some examples taking place in/on port towns/islands/coves.

I've mentioned elsewhere that these "video game level setting themes" tropes probably aren't really tropes.

Some of them aren't sufficiently distinct from standard setting-based episodes and could benefit from a merge, but others (like Green Hill Zone, Lethal Lava Land or Big Boo's Haunt) definitely are tropeworthy and able to stand on their own, as they are based on geographical locations as portrayed fantastically in video games. They're part of the broader Settings index. Also, I'm sure we had that discussion before.

x4

The Generic Guy is an secondary character trope

Ridiculously Average Guy is the protagonist is made to be average so that the player/audience relates to him/can self-insert better.

(For the record, we have a Duplicate Tropes thread in Trope Talk for queries like @8401.)

Should Childhood Friends be checked? Cause I’ve seen examples were the characters are childhood friends with each other, which is chairs.

If them being childhood friends is what drives their relationship, provides information as to why they care about each other, and/or kickstarts a bonding-related plot or episode, then it's tropeworthy. Merely saying that "Alice and Bob are childhood friends" is more of a ZCE problem.

^ Agreed. Setting up characters as childhood friends makes it easy for creators to set up relationships without buildup. IRL, it's not as common for people to maintain childhood friendships like they do in fiction. That's what make this a trope.

Examples for Childhood Friends should explain the relationship and not just say they are friends like My Final Edits said.

Found Those Two Guys a problem of through Wick Cleaning Projects under the cleanup section. It says it's often misused for any two characters always seen hanging out together instead of the actual trope definition which is: Two minor characters providing In-Universe commentary. Kind of like a duo version of a greek chorus except less 4th wall breaky and more snark.

I may do a wick check on this, but I feel like renaming it to something like Those Two Commenters or a synonym of "commenters" could maybe help fix the misuse?

I swear that went through TRS ages ago and the thread made no progress on a solution. I wouldn't mind a thread for it in either case.

Edit: It did, which is why the page is even marked for wick cleaning.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 8th 2023 at 6:53:32 AM

Yeah I'll just do another wick check and if my hypothesis is correct, file it under the category of "Ambiguous Name" and propose a rename.

I really like your description of the trope in that thread, lol.

I don't know if it's increased since the thread closed, but I've usually seen this as a huuuuuge Pothole Magnet, especially in Recap pages.

Edited by Coachpill on Oct 8th 2023 at 9:03:14 AM

Huh, so apparently someone already did a wick check for it

And yeah, my hypothesis was correct. It mostly getting misused as a variant of The Dividual. Though the wick checker's proposed solution was to just disambig and dewick. I'm still going with a rename because I think there is some merit behind this trope.

I finished Overshadowed by Controversy's Wick Check (here) and found that it's being used for complaining, preserving flash-in-the-pan dramas forever, and misuse when other tropes are appropriate. Adding to the queue and working on the OP.

What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made on Drugs? is finished and Widget Series is coming along.

Edited by MissConduct on Oct 9th 2023 at 6:01:43 AM

I'm not sure if everything in those below OBC folders are really misuse, especially depending on whether we keep historical examples or not.

The Vanessa Carlton example refers to one of her songs, not just the entire discography, and if that song is still primarily associated with the controversy even if the song itself isn't in the public eye much, I think it'd count, especially if it got blacklisted by radio stations.

The Washington Commanders may have been renamed, but wasn't there a significant amount of time where they were so overshadowed by their name that they had to change it? It wasn't flash-in-the-pan.

"Don't Worry Darling was more of a drama magnet than "controversy"." I don't see how that's different? At least not as explained.

"Olaf's Frozen Adventure" got so much hate during the Coco thing but now I'm unsure if people even care about the short at all. Do people still talk about it without mentioning the very controversial release?

Re: RelaxAlax, Distanced from Current Events and Overshadowed by Controversy are not mutually exclusive — the edit counts as the former, but simply regretting being in the video may not.

Everything is eroded by the sands of time, so hypothetically, a controversy remembered over a piece of media for two decades and then forgotten works as a historical example.

It's been some time since I finished both the wick check of Bleached Underpants and Gory Deadly Overkill Wick Check Of Fatal Death, but only recently have I been able to do the post for the TRS. Would it be a problem if I added them to the queue?

Funny, I was thinking about making a thread for Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000 and Ultra Super Happy Cute Baby Fest Farmer 3000. There's some sort of weird snowclone theme going on here.

But yeah, alternating a self-checking order of wicks/posts for the queue isn't a problem as long as you follow the guidelines at the top of the page.

Thank you for your answer. I am also thinking of switching the position of Bleached Underpants with Title: Requiem, as I think the former is more important. would that be ok?

As long as both entries are yours, you're free to switch them.

Speaking of, I'm switching Washington D.C. Invasion with Extreme Doormat.

I've actually lost count how many times I've switched around my queue.

i have no idea where to put this.

i know there was a debate on Hot Scoop and Hot Scientist being tossed while Fair Cop, Sexy Priest, and other 'attractive profession' tropes got to stay. was that ever solved?

It's not that they got to stay. It's just that no one one has brought them to the TRS yet.

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 12th 2023 at 3:04:28 PM