Duplicate tropes discussion thread

My 2 ct:

• Psychoactive Powers: Powers activate in certain mental states (Hulk)
• Emotional Powers: Mental states themselves can be channeled into power (Jedi in Star Wars)

Edited by eroock on Feb 11th 2021 at 1:35:24 AM

Gender Misdirection and Pronoun Trouble?

I thought the difference was that Gender Misdirection is a form of Gender Neutral Writing done specifically to avoid revealing a character's gender when they're revealed, and that Pronoun Trouble usually happens after the character is revealed but when they have an Ambiguous Gender or their gender just hasn't been revealed yet. However, the actual descriptions seem to be very similar, though I sometimes see Pronoun Trouble in reference to works where characters genuinely struggle with how to refer to a revealed character.

Anyway, is there a difference between Fan Sequel and Continuation? I split off Flash Forward Fic from the latter because fics with a Time Skip seemed distinct from those that don't have one (and Next Gen Fic, which was sometimes used to mean what Flash Forward Fic means now, needed to be disambiguated).

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 12th 2021 at 8:12:22 AM

^ Okay, I can go with the difference of Gender Misdirection being about leading the audience on about still unknown characters and Pronoun Trouble about characters struggling to find pronouns for known characters. However, Gender Neutral Writing defines Pronoun Trouble solely as a translation issue which the tropes does address in its second paragraph. But so does Gender Misdirection in its second paragraph.

What's the difference between Shout-Out and Homage?

"A homage is an extended sequence, significantly more than a simple Shout-Out, but does not actually constitute a crossover even when some of the original stars recreate their roles."

...

Basically like Recycled Plot?

How is Brother–Sister Team significantly distinct from Sibling Team, aside from the genders of the pair involved?

Difference between Friendly Fandoms and Common Crossover?

- Fandoms vs. the works they make together.

Edited by Malady on Feb 14th 2021 at 6:13:13 AM

Is there a meaningful distinction between City in a Bottle and The Wall Around the World? They both seem to be describing the same phenomenon of "an isolated community with little to no knowledge of The Outside World".

I get the impression that The Wall Around the World is about the actual wall/barrier.

Wasn't City in a Bottle originally about something else, but got TRS'd because people kept misusing it?

- Dunno, but there's only been ~150 edits so it's not too hard to check on desktop.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.CityInABottle&more=t

I do know that it's currently on Tropes Needing TRS because it's been repeatedly mistaken to mean literal cities in bottles, like that one Superman example that it has to clarify on the page. As far as I know, it hasn't gone to TRS yet.

That's the impression I got as well, but I'm not sure that's a sufficient distinction to make — "a civilization isolated from the outside" and "the barrier that isolates a civilization from the outside" seem like they would overlap heavily by definition.

The IP threads linked in the source say that people might be using City in a Bottle literally, but I don’t believe it’s been TRS’d.

Overlap is not necessarily the same thing as duplication. A City in a Bottle can be underground or hurtling through space; it does not have to be a community with The Wall Around the World.

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 17th 2021 at 10:02:15 AM

That's the thing — The Wall Around the World explicitly clarifies that it doesn't have to be a physical wall, as long as it serves as a barrier between those inside and The Outside World. Thus, the Earth's surface above an underground civilization or the empty vacuum of space could be TWATW as long as they cut off any contact with/knowledge of whatever world lies beyond them.

While I understand overlap with another trope is not necessarily duplication, the issue in this case is that I can't see how it's possible for an example of one to not overlap with the other: A barrier isolating a civilization would necessarily create an isolated civilization, and an isolated civilization would necessarily have some form of barrier isolating it.

What's really the difference between Oh, Crap! and This Is Gonna Suck? They seem to overlap too much.

Also since we already have More Dakka shouldn't Gatling Good rather be an YMMV?

Oh crap: horrified reaction right before the bad thing happens

This is gonna suck: resignation before the bad thing happens. There's humor in the understatement

More Dakka is just "as much ammunition as possible". Doesn't have to be bullets, can be space lasers or something. Gatling Good is specifically "gatling guns are awesome". No less or more YMMV than the other tropes governed by Rule of Cool.

What's the difference between This Is Wrong on So Many Levels! and Sick and Wrong?

^ IMO, This Is Wrong on So Many Levels! is Sick and Wrong on more levels than one.

I posted this on TLP Crash Rescue but it seems to get buried there.

The new Torn Apart by the Mob trope and Devoured by the Horde have an overlap issue. The latter seems to fully cover to former as it doesn't require the devouring for the trope to apply. So in case there is only the tearing apart happening, which trope is it? Currently, there are four work pages listing the same incident under both tropes:

• Perfume
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars S1E20 "Innocents of Ryloth"
• Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
• The Lion King (1994)

Anybody else seeing a problem here?

Edited by eroock on Mar 1st 2021 at 2:00:09 AM

...Frankly, I'm a little puzzled that Devoured by the Horde does not in fact require a character to be eaten.

When I hatted Torn Apart by the Mob I assumed that Devoured did require eating and that was a major distinction. Weird

Perhaps Devoured by the Horde should be narrowed to devouring. Even then it's not always clear what exactly happens after the tearing apart because of gore discretion.