Trope Idea Sounding Board

That's what I had in mind. You just worded it better!

Genius Polyglot: A very smart character who also happens to speak multiple languages. I got a response on Trope Finder for Omniglot, but that character doesn't necessarily have to be smart in other subjects.

Edited by Electrite on May 23rd 2023 at 2:54:44 PM

I think the only way this could work is if their polyglotism helps demonstrate or used to demonstrate that they are smart. If it's just "genius and polyglot", that would be People Sit on Chairs.

Edited by CardboardBot on May 23rd 2023 at 6:10:37 PM

Something like Omniglot Linguist would parallel Omnidisciplinary Scientist.

Edit: Never mind, misunderstood the question.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on May 24th 2023 at 7:47:15 PM

I would like there to be a page about minced oaths being used to characterize a character as young. There are two basic approaches I could take:

1. Alter Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head. Currently it deals exclusively with insults, but it could be expanded to include swearing as well. (The new throughline would be "childish versions of intense/insulting" vocabulary.)
2. Launch a new trope, which would be a Sister Trope to Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head.

Any feedback on which would be a better?

Launching a new trope would be better unless you produce a wick check that proves Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head is used for swearing already. And even then, you could circumvent the TRS process by collecting the misuse for your trope instead.

That said, Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head is less about age and more about maturity as adult characters can just as easily use these insults.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 24th 2023 at 3:38:41 PM

I was wondering if we should have a trope along the lines of "one gender is disproportionately killed among the main/supporting cast (as opposed to background characters just there to die)". This came up in the "is this an example" with someone talking about how the way female major characters tended to die while the males live in Kamen Rider got listed under Disposable Woman, but that was not appropriate because Disposable Woman is supposed to be about characters who have little development and just exist to have a relationship to a major male character and die for sympathy, while the female deaths here were major characters. Likewise Monster Misogyny is for background characters being killed by the monster/threat being disproportionately female. With regards to "major characters who die are almost always female", I saw (though I've never seen this show, or Kamen Rider) that Teen Wolf had an Unfortunate Implications entry at one point for this tendency, so that's another example.

There is Men Are the Expendable Gender, but that's not really about male characters in the main cast being disproportionately killed, either, or male minor characters being killed more often - it's about a male death being considered to have no emotional impact if they aren't developed or have "proved" their worth, so if a character has to die as faceless Mooks or to show the scale of a threat without any Emotional Torque, they will be male, and authors might be more comfortable showing more horrifying deaths for the raising stakes factor on male characters while for a female character they would feel it would be more intense than what they are going for. The page for Monster Misogyny makes it clear that trope is not exactly the opposite of Men Are the Expendable Gender but in some ways a complement, "Men Are the Expendable Gender can either avert or invert this, depending on the hostility towards the gender — though on a meta-level, that trope can contribute to the decision to use this trope if a creator makes the victims female so the attacks look more shocking" - if you intend the Emotional Torque and horror factor to be amplified, you might use Monster Misogyny for the same reason you use Men Are the Expendable Gender. Again, the trope is not about main cast members who presumably already have enough character development to "earn" the audience's sympathy, though I've seen it be misused this way like on the page for Worm, about the two male members of the main group the story focuses on dying while the four female members live. So I wonder if there should be a trope of "one gender disproportionately dies in main and supporting cast/characters who have some level of personality and development and aren't just plot devices".

Is there a trope for a character asking "Are you ok" to another character who is blatantly not ok?

i.e.

Edited by KoshaVinka on May 25th 2023 at 1:16:33 PM

Obviously Not Fine

i'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to make a trope somewhere in between Brick Joke and Running Gag to cover the persistent misuse of Brick Joke as "a standalone joke that later jokes build upon" rather than "a joke that's set up with no resolution and then the punchline hits you when you least expect it". the former seems to be the most widely-understood definition of "brick joke" off-wiki though, which could be a problem. we could call this definition "The Runner", which is usually what this type of joke is referred to in comedy writing parlance

Edited by NoUsername on May 25th 2023 at 2:44:15 AM

Literature.Vigor Mortis and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanon have the idea that magical talents want to be used, like Hungry Weapon-s want to be used.

I don't think we have that trope, and I dunno what would be a good name for it. Any suggestions?

EDIT: I guess it's like Weapon Wields You, except not always a weapon?

Edited by Malady on May 25th 2023 at 8:40:14 AM

As per a question on this ATT, I was wondering if Late Port For You would be a tropeworthy trivia idea since No Port For You is trivia and it has a subversion folder and we aren't allowed to play with trivia tropes. Is it redundant to Late Export for You?

x4: That's when someone's claiming that they are okay, not someone asking whether someone is okay. I don't think Tropes Are Flexible would be in play here.

Edited by Electrite on May 26th 2023 at 3:27:40 PM

Worm has this too, with whatever gives people their superpowers subtly influencing them to seek out conflict so they can use the powers in battle (which is a justification of the superhero trope of everyone using their powers to fight each other rather than using it for other things or just keeping their head down and staying neutral).

Had an idea for a trope while looking at the Boobs Of Steel and Most Common Superpower tropes. What if there was one for motherly characters who are very well-endowed?

Some examples could include Mercedes from Fire Emblem Three Houses, Ersha from Cross Ange, Sofya Obertas from Madan no Ou to Vanadis, Amaha Masane from Witchblade, etc. Each one of them is either a mom or behaves like a doting mother would (i.e. could qualify for the Team Mom trope), while also being blessed in the chest department.

If this could work, I think I'd name the trope "Motherly Mounds" or something like that. However, I don't know if this has been suggested before.

Has it? If not, would a trope like this work, or would it be unnecessary?

I checked The World's Breast Tropes and we don't seem to have it, but I can definitely see a trope for motherly or nurturing characters being well-endowed. I feel like I've even seen gags of this for male Gentle Giant types, with them having either massive pecs or manboobs. Nothing's coming to mind at this time, though

I think Hartman Hips covers a similar idea with disproportionate waist and hips ratio on drawn female characters in order to make them look more "mature"/motherly. It's something that has merit.

If people want a name, Adults Are Bigger? Like Teens Are Short, but not.

Is this in reference to the motherly/boobs idea? If so, that is way too vague and misleading of a name. The idea isn't specific to adults, just to the character trait of being motherly/nurturing; a teenager could fit under the trope if they were a busty Team Mom. And "bigger" doesn't get across that we're talking about a character's chest size specifically.

Edited by amathieu13 on May 26th 2023 at 8:56:24 AM

Would this expand to works calling attention to women's chests getting bigger when pregnant, which is Truth in Television and probably the basis of the trope?

Is there a trope about that quote "Have you look at yourself in the mirror ?", which sometimes is an indirect comment to call a character ugly.

Not unless the character's nurturing personality was also pointed out, I don't think. Like, a character saying "I can't wait for my wife to get pregnant so her boobs get bigger" is not really a commentary on the wife's personality.

All common idioms and sayings are stock phrases which we don't trope, at least, not just by pointing out that it's a common turn of phrase. See Stock Phrase and No New Stock Phrases

Edited by amathieu13 on May 26th 2023 at 10:02:21 AM

- Sounds like a No, You. "You're ugly!"/ "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

This morning I happened to see the end of an episode of the old Lone Ranger TV series in which the Ranger proves a bill of sale was forged by pointing out that the seller's signature on the bill is identical to his signature on another, genuine document. The explanation is that nobody ever signs their name exactly the same way twice, so if there's two or more identical signatures that are supposed to be by the same person, they must all be forgeries. Or one (always an innocuous one) is authentic and the rest are forgeries.

I also recall seeing this gimmick used in an episode of Highlander the Series. But that's all. I don't even remember seeing it in any episode of Law & Order, and I thought that series had used every "how to detect a crime" gimmick known to man. I searched the wiki and couldn't find anything that seems to cover this. Are there any other examples? Is there a trope that covers it?

Wondering if there's a trope where a character is referred to as an oddball or is "the odd one out" in a group or setting, but is not ostracized by others and thus wouldn't fit under All of the Other Reindeer.

Not The Last Of These Is Not Like The Others nor Uniformity Exception. How the character is an oddball could range from the mundane to something truly bizarre.

If not, could we create one? There are probably tons of examples out there.

Edited by ilovewildkratts1 on May 27th 2023 at 12:59:57 PM