So this is a place for people who are interested in helping out, or getting help with, wick checks. Maybe you just want people to double-check your work before you submit it to the TRS, or maybe you have a big project in mind and can't tackle it on your own. Either way, you've come to the right place!
Remember to check out How to Do a Wick Check for a run down. For the list of current and completed projects, see Wick Check Project.
Edited by Berrenta on Oct 2nd 2025 at 9:41:48 AM
Do I understand correctly that Composite Character is not "A character is an Expy of two characters from different works"? Because I hardly see examples that aren't that and thinking on investigating.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupStopping for now at 34 wicks. One interesting thing I've noticed is that 7 of the wicks so far are characters who like retro gaming. Would that be a tropeworthy concept on its own?
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallI want to do on-pagers for Grandparent Favoritism Check but I'm not sure how to go about it. I'd been thinking I just do all the ones that aren't already featured in the wicks (hence my reason for wanting to check the on-page examples) but didn't know if it would be better to treat those separately or to lump 'em into the wick categories as they are.
As a side note, one of the "Other" category manages to be a misuse within a trope's description text. Do I just lave that as an aside or? Because if I were to lump that into the misuse category, I feel like I'd have to lump all the correctly-defined description/index appearances into the other category.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailI'm planning a wick check for Gag Boobs due to all too often seeing it used for very large breasts in general, but I want to wait until after Gainaxing is done before doing the wick check and potentially adding it to the queue, because cleaning over 4000 wicks from two tropes in rapid succession (especially if the Gainaxing thread gets complicated) sounds like a giant PITA.
If someone else wants to do the wick check and create a thread for it instead, feel free. I'll help how I can. Dealing with some of these problematic ancient tropes can only help the site, after all.
My troper wallThey Made A Wick Plushie is done!
So, out of 50 wicks for Everythings Better With Plushies...
- 19 wicks are for plushies existing as official merchandise for a piece of media
- 15 wicks are for in-universe appearances of plushies of the show's characters
- 6 are for characters who are obsessed with plush toys
- The remaining 10 wicks are ZCE, characters who are plushies or just plushies appearing
If you combine the three non-correct categories together, they total 31/50, so I think you could TRS it.
Retro Gaming Wick Check is done. Usage is all over the place. Will queue up as "Really A Useful Note".
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Well, I did group "retro gaming exists" usage as its own folder.
I'm almost done with my Badass Baritone Wick Check
. Once I'm done, Can I get some help with the final calculations, because numbers make my head spin, especially in this context.
Precision F Strike Wick Check is going well. Mostly just posting that here so I can have an easy-access link to it.
I will need a second opinion on it after it's done.
one of the suggestions for Quote Swear Unquote is moving examples to Precision F-Strike, should that one wait until the Precision F-Strike thread comes to a conclusion? i can bump up The Chick
Working on a wick check for Tuft of Head Fur right now. Of the 10 checked examples, just 2 gave context beyond "this character has a tuft of head fur." This isn't looking good.
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Go for it. I don't feel ready for launching tropes through the TLP yet anyway so if you want to grab them, be my guest.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 1st 2022 at 6:52:14 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall30/50. There are more correct examples than I expected, but the majority still lack context or explanation as to why a character has a tuft of head fur.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallWick check's done. 37/50 examples didn't give much of a reason for the tuft of head fur. Will queue it up in a bit—gotta think of a solution first.
EDIT: It's queued. Hope my OP's OK.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 1st 2022 at 7:45:25 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallUpdate on Make Me Wanna Shout Wick Check. I counted the total number of wicks for each category and total numbers in all. I wrote down the percentage for each category. How many wicks should I keep that will keep the percentage mostly the same?
I don't understand the question.
Wick Checks are supposed to be a random sample. You obviously did way more than you needed to (you only needed 50 total), but since you already did the work there's no point in removing anything.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 1st 2022 at 10:37:16 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
The current number I have is too high. I want to trim them down in order to make it easier for readers to understand what the problem with the trope is and not have to write toon many descriptions. And it's not the final project, just an early draft.
Edited by Smashman2893 on Nov 1st 2022 at 10:56:05 AM
Just copy the text from each wick. Usually the content speaks for itself and you don't have to comment on it unless you feel it needs extra explanation.
People mostly look at the percentages rather than poring through someone else's wick check, at least speaking from my experience. Your summary of the results is the trusted source. I've done double the wicks needed for a check multiple times just because I felt it was better, not really assuming anyone'd read my wick check super closely and be bogged down by it.
But if you really want to know, the math can be done. You needed 57 wicks minimum because the trope had 3265 wicks. To get as close as possible, you'd multiply the square root of the 3265 trope wicks times the fraction of "wicks in a category" over "total wicks checked."
- Category 1: 26 wicks (45.61%)
- Category 2: 8 wicks (14.04%)
- Category 3: 2 wicks (3.51%)
- Category 4: 2 wicks (3.51%)
- Category 5: 6 wicks (10.53%)
- Category 6: 13 wicks (22.81%)
By nature of being trimmed down as much as possible, the numbers won't be as close to your 343 wicks-based percentages. I'd go with 114 wicks (double minimum). Multiplying my results times two before rounding gives:
- Category 1: 52 wicks (45.61%)
- Category 2: 16 wicks (14.04%)
- Category 3: 3 wicks (2.63%)
- Category 4: 5 wicks (4.39%)
- Category 5: 13 wicks (11.40%)
- Category 6: 25 wicks (21.93%)
This is all to say that I don't think it's a big deal at all to have wicks beyond the minimum. Maybe next time you'd be better off pulling the description at the same time as you select the wick so that you don't have to go back and chase down every wick twice. Saves time and effort.
Edited by Yindee on Nov 1st 2022 at 12:08:25 PM
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailThe more the better really, just turned out more than necessary. The % counts is what matters.
Edited by Amonimus on Nov 1st 2022 at 7:12:16 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I have a backlog of projects I want to do but haven't really done. I've got a wick check for Jerks Are Worse Than Villains I gave up on because I didn't know what to really check for, a wick check for Uncertain Audience I gave up on because I had no idea what TRS could even do there, and a few others I haven't touched.
My next project for the record will be Retro Gaming. Tropes Needing TRS noted it's written like a Useful Note, so I'm planning to check that next.
After that I am going to embark on my most ambitious project yet. I am planning to slowly wick check every single trope on Tropes Needing TRS, starting with One Million BC, over time, so I can finally help clear the unending backlog from that page. It will be exhausting, but I think in the long run it will be worth it.
EDIT: Fuck it, I'm starting Sandbox.Retro Gaming Wick Check. Shouldn't take long.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Oct 30th 2022 at 5:12:08 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall