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
From what I saw...hmm. This may just be the lumper in me but I'm not sure splitting the categories up that much would've been necessary. I think you got all the categories you reasonably could've without nitpicking too much, considering any tropes you split from this would be flexible.
Everythings Better With Monkeys may need a wick check. I think the trope is supposed to be about "monkeys being used for humor," but it basically has become "monkeys exist".
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 22nd 2021 at 8:48:50 AM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallIt still suffers from the dreaded Everything's Worse with Snowclones issue so that's no surprise.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Well, I've started it. I think the actual trope idea is potentially valid, in which case a rename may be necessary. Maybe More Fun With A Barrel Of Monkeys.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallOr even a play on Monkey Business.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.Got the monkey wick check up to 20 wicks. So far a whopping 2 have been correctly used, and one of those two was a ZCE.
...This trope's gonna need a lot of help.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallAlright, the Everythings Better With Monkeys wick check is done. And assuming I did well (how did I do, BTW?) this trope is in bad shape, with 12% correct examples, and 88% incorrect examples, of which 74% are just "monkeys exist". I think this trope needs a rename at the very least, maybe something else though I don't know what. After I get feedback on the wick check, I will draft a TRS write-up.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallStarted a wick check for Nosebleed because while "nosebleeds signify arousal" is a valid trope, the name is too broad and I have a feeling it might be being used as "nosebleeds exist". Two different
ATT queries
brought up that nosebleeds are visual shorthand for different things depending on culture and the possibility of a missing supertrope was discussed, but no resolution was reached.
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Looks good to me, though it's a bit startling that all the correct ones seem to be context-lite.
Nearly every example is a ZCE, so I felt it wasn't really worth sorting them separately.
It has been brought up on the Image Pickin' thread that Bee People might need a wick check. According to the Playing With page, Bee People refers to "A race of beings that lives in a eusocial society, like bees do," and according to the Laconic page, "Fantastic races with a eusocial hive-like society similar to real-life bees and ants." It has been speculated that this trope might've been used to refer to something like humanoid bees or people that look like bees, because of its name. I'm willing to do a wick check for this trope, just in case.
If so, this will probably bee my first wick check I would have done.
Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 24th 2021 at 1:13:29 AM
Working on Sandbox.The Amazing Race TV Tropes Edition.
Awesome; feel free to add it to the sandbox if you want it to be collaborative.
And see How to Do a Wick Check for helpful tips.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallComing in to say I still don't think the Ho Yay wick check's gonna go anywhere. Aside from its creation being a hasty, reckless, irrational decision of mine and wick checks in general prohibiting on-page examples, I simply don't think it really deserves a TRS thread anymore. Sure, there's still rampant misuse running around, but it doesn't really need any significant changes to its definition, name etc. Besides, there's a cleanup thread over on Long Term made with purpose of snuffing out misuse - which is exactly what I thought the TRS thread would do.
I'm not doing anything to the check, though. At least, not right now. I'd like to hear your thoughts about this first.
The prohibition of on-page examples doesn't negate this effort. Sure, a lot of Ho Yay misuse is on dedicated subpages, but it's still wicked for misuse a lot. I don't know if we could add anything but the cleanup thread but I would like to further distinguish it from Homoerotic Subtext, as the line is sometimes difficult to draw.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.My concern is what I said before: I'm not sure what a TRS thread can do that we haven't already discussed and determined wouldn't work.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallAnyway, double post to announce I'm setting up a wick check for Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World, as per this IP discussion
. Will edit with the sandbox when it's up.
Edit: Sandbox.Wake Up Go To School Check The Wicks
Edit 2: To avoid triple posting, I'm putting my other updates here:
- Cleared out some of the backlog. CIA Evil, FBI Good, Moral Dissonance, Never Live It Down, and Darth Vader Clone are all complete.
- I created a new folder for checks that are done but need more review and feedback before we feel comfortable "closing" them
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 26th 2021 at 12:51:50 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI have to concur that with Ho Yay, a wick check does not seem to have an useful purpose. Sometimes there is no fix for misuse other than cleanup, and that does not take TRS.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman~selkies, I see you added to the WUGTSSTW wick check. Thanks for that! But I'm confused about the wicks in the "correct" folder. I'm...pretty sure they're not? The trope is about heroes who can't handle mundane social situations.
Edit:
That's not what they said. Do you know what wicks are? They're the links on the Related pages. If you link to a trope on a different page, it's a wick.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 27th 2021 at 10:57:11 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI'm confused, as well. I thought that WUGTSSTW describes a teen hero that has to juggle between their school life and doing heroics, so I went with this as the basis and thought that examples talking about how a teen hero struggles with balancing his school life and hero duties must be correct... but wouldn't "not knowing how handle mundane social situations" be Socially Awkward Hero?
Edited by selkies on Jun 27th 2021 at 11:04:04 AM
Uncanny Valley Hot Babes in Your Area Are Looking To Know YOU! Click Here to Sign Up for FREE! | Not quite back tbh. Don't expect much.Well. Yeah. The definition is covered and the examples are heavily misused. This is exactly why we're doing a wick check. We can probably get the trope redefined later.
Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 27th 2021 at 2:13:54 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

So I just completed an impromptu wick check for both The Moving Experience and Time to Move to see if either of them are being misused for characters actually moving away. While both of them did have a good chunk of misuse, neither of them had a majority of misuse. However, I'm wondering if there are more variations that I could have noted even among the correct checks, like for the former, whether "character doesn't move at all" is worth distinguishing from "character only moves a short distance away." Anybody have any comments on my wick check, and whether either trope is worth sending to TRS at all?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.