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Show Within A Show and Fictional Works -- Clean-up, Pages Discussion, Trope Relationships

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WaterBlap Blapper of Water Since: May, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Blapper of Water
#1: Apr 7th 2020 at 10:23:11 AM

First discussed here, it looks like Show Within a Show has a Missing Supertrope. You can also find ATT threads if you search for "ShowWithinAShow," which imo shows a perpetual issue regarding non-extant shows. (While I said previously that I could go either way with a short-term or long-term projects thread, I feel like a long-term thread is more free to both clean wicks and discuss pages for "shows within shows.")

Issues:

  1. The Description:
    1. Show Within a Show implies that it is specific to television shows, but the examples and redirects clearly are not limited by medium. This implies something is wrong with the description.
    2. The description mentions "the pre-television history of this trope," which implies that this trope is not specific to television shows. However, a significant amount of the description talks about television shows specifically, and of course the name makes it sound like it's specific to shows. A cursory look at the example list and subpages shows it isn't specific to shows.
  2. Trope Relationships:
    1. There are plenty of subtropes and sister tropes, but they don't necessarily fall under Show Within a Show but something more broad.
    2. Moreover, not every related trope is listed, but if SWAS really is the massive supertrope, then that's another issue.
    3. As crazysamaritan put it, "we've mostly bodged Show Within a Show as a supertrope without methodically clarifying the relationship between subtropes."
  3. Some tropers believe we can, should, and want to trope fictional works.
    1. A quick glance through relevant ATT threads shows that people have and may continue to create pages for fictional works like The Ugly Barnacle or Meet the Fatheads. To be fair, there's nothing inherently wrong with this, but people sometimes take a joke (e.g. The Ugly Barnacle) and run with it.
    2. However, not all SWAS belong in the JustForFun/ namespace. It depends on the content on the page, such as the wholly fictional The Ugly Barnacle which was originally in the Literature/ namespace despite the actual Show Within a Show being a one-off bit with no in-universe history provided.

Possible Subtropes:

Possible Sister Tropes:

This is not a TRS effort, so we can't change the name or the basic definition. However, as a projects thread, we can (1) clean wicks, (2) discuss works pages for fictional works, (3) revise the trope description, (4) discuss examples, (5) propose a supertrope through TLP, and (6) discuss the relationship between different tropes. (All of which having precedent with other projects threads.)

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
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