Trope Idea Sounding Board

Well, it's just one example of how the trope can manifest. There's overlap, but they're not the same concepts for the reasons I outlined in the first post.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Are the sea creatures in either game more silly than the terrestrial wildlife, though? The idea that it's exaggerating how strange normal marine life is to humans would be plausible, but only if that's a pattern that actually exists and I can't think of any examples that aren't more like Eldritch Ocean Abyss or Awesome Underwater World.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Yes, they are. The fish are the only real "animals" in Toon Town that aren't Funny Animals or the "doodles" (which are dog-like pets). They're also the only creatures that go based on joke logic, while everything else is grounded in a more consistent tone.

Meanwhile, Neopets is full of silly petpets and strange colors and magic and all that... but the fish that can be found at the fishing spot are objectively weird even by the standards of Neopia, being much more absurd and unrealistic (such as, again, fish that could double as utilities). Pets and petpets are based on real animals or mythical creatures, but these specific fish are more whimsical than that, being entirely fantasy concepts and more to do with being goofy or special.

In both of these cases, the underwater worlds aren't actually explored (Neopets has Maraqua, but it's on par with every other nation in Neopia and you can't explore it beyond a few shops and other areas, and it's basically just a normal world with a blue filter). So it can't be either of those tropes since it's not something explored in depth as awesome or scary, it's just "silly fish".

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 2nd 2023 at 3:18:30 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I asked if we had this on Trope Finder but didn't get a response. So I'm bringing it here. At this time, I don't have a better way to describe it outside of an Example as a Thesis.

I've seen this show up a lot in webtoons and A Date With Rosie Palms, but I don't think it need be that narrow.

Papers, Papers Everywhere: A visual motif of great masses of paperwork spilling out onto the ground or being tossed in the air, symbolizing frustration with or protest against Obstructive Bureaucracy.

Does this appear anywhere other than Brazil and The Consul?

Edited by Prfnoff on Jun 2nd 2023 at 7:52:32 AM

Wondering if there's a trope for a character that has poor time management and ends up being late a lot as a result? Or something similar?

Fantastic Time Management is close, but that involves the use of time travel powers in conjunction with the poor time management. My idea takes the powers out of the equation and deals with characters who have no such powers.

FWIW, this was also posted in Trope Finder, but I figure it's worth pitching it to TISB as well.

Edited by ilovewildkratts1 on Jun 2nd 2023 at 11:17:44 AM

Kaito is an alien and he is kinda spacey, coming from the universe to party and go crazy!

Late for School exists, but I'm not seeing anything that broad.

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Would you think jokes about a T-rex's arms being too small would warrant a page?

Edited by Smashman2893 on Jun 4th 2023 at 1:32:57 PM

Flirtatious blindfolding: certainly a staple of BDSM, but I'm thinking of when it appears in more mainstream media, of somebody covering somebody's eyes while they flirt with them. I don't mean Blindfolded Trip (although it can overlap), or "No Peeking!" Request. A few examples are:

• Film/Amelie: At the very end, when Amelie and Nino are on the moped, unaware of the world around them, Amelie covers Nino's eyes.
• A TV adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro has Susanna blindfolding the Count when she tells him to meet her in the garden. She unbuttons his shirt, strokes his chest, and surprises him by pinching his nipple with a staple remover.
• Voyager: Sabeth sneaks up behind Faber and covers his eyes to surprise him.

Only the last two examples document something noteworthy/of purpose. The first one is just "someone covers another's eyes."

I feel like "covering someone eyes to surprise them either by hands or by blindfolding them" is a better idea than blindfolding someone for flirting because these don't translate well into the examples.

No, I don't think that would collect enough examples, aka Too Rare to Trope.

Poor Time Management in itself is tropeworthy. Being late is just one of the consequences of the trope taking effect.

Edited by selkies on Jun 5th 2023 at 4:24:39 PM

@amathieu13 I don't believe there's a trope like that, but there's definitely room for one—maybe something like "Ghost of Pastimes Past"? A good way to summarize it would be "A character does a task that someone they miss or long for used to do, and visualizes the two of them doing it together."

If you need more examples, there's one in Speed Racer where Speed tries to break his dead brother Rex Racer's record on a track. He imagines himself racing against his brother's ghost and can't bring himself to break the record.

Edited by Admiralakbar1 on Jun 5th 2023 at 10:34:42 AM

That's a great example! I hadn't thought of a title yet either because the idea was so fresh so thanks for that one too.

I'm really surprised we don't have this: Sinister Seven.

Anytime a work features seven villains in a group.

This is very common, and would be of course a subtrope of Rule of Seven (or is it not distinct enough from that?).

OBJECTION!

If this has any significance, it can just be folded under Rule of Seven because that trope covers all symbolism regarding the number 7. What does a group of seven villains indicate on their own? We already have enough problems with ensemble and team so it's best to come up with a clear concept.

Macron's notes

I have an idea I call Spotting The Barb but I can only recall two examples off of the top of my head.

Spotting The Barb

Someone has offered a Stealth Insult. They believed themselves clever enough and shrewd enough that the target of that insult will never figure it out, allowing them to feel a sense of smug superiority over them.

Except that the person being insulted understood the insult, and not in a Double Take sort of way. They got the message clearly, and make it known in no uncertain terms that they were well aware of what was said.

From there they can either simply rely on the other's embarrassment at being found out to chasten them, or they can fully punish them, especially if they're a superior officer or employer.

The speed with which one picks up such an insult can reveal Hidden Depths, and their level of mercy, or lack thereof, in dealing with the offender will speak volumes to their moral standing and character.

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Examples:

Live-Action TV

• CSI: New York: Lindsay is interviewing a CEO who encourages his staff to study the martial arts about the death of one of his employees. The man is calm and polite, if somewhat smug, through the interview as he has tea served. As Lindsay gets up to leave, she reveals Hidden Depths by telling the man that he shouldn't point the spout of the teakettle at a guest, as it is considered rude, whereupon she turns it sideways, revealing that she knew he'd done so on purpose to insult her and treat her like a country bumpkin.
• M*A*S*H: Maj. Winchester is conducting an training session with various Korean doctors regarding surgical techniques, all the while referring to the trio as Larry, Moe, and Curly, and when questioned about it he says that they're revered philosophers back in the States. But when Winchester is suffering a bad back, and they use acupuncture to treat him, which he'd dismissed as voodoo, they say, through their interpreter, "Not bad for the Three Stooges."

Edit: thought of a third.

Edited by TheLibrarian1701 on Jun 5th 2023 at 11:53:55 AM

Is "characters wear a jacket tied around their waists to indicate their coolness and appear stylish" a viable trope or would it attract chairs-y and ZCE examples? I thought of it as similar to Cute Oversized Sleeves.

Appearance tropes are always going to be a hard sell given just how quickly they can degrade. I don't think the idea is untropeworthy, but...well, to me, this sounds most similar to Badass Longcoat. Just scan the on-page examples for a slew of "this character wears a longcoat" ZCE.

Well, in a way, such a trope can be reduced to "X trait + Y clothes," just like the Badass Longcoat trope you linked, which isn't one of my favorite formats of tropes. But I saw COS' on-page examples, and they aren't bad in terms of providing context as I thought they'd be. Being a somewhat recent trope helps since most tropes that are messy/that decay tend to be from the old days after all.

I just launched a work page with a character who does that.

• Yuriota ni Yuri wa Gohatto Desu?!: While the other students of Oshibana Girls' Academy wear elegant, Maria Watches Over Us-style uniforms, Ririka sets herself apart as a laidback fashionista by wearing a Custom Uniform that includes a sweater wrapped around her waist.

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I want to propose a trope for that Bait-and-Switch where character(s) fall asleep on the train with a Sleep Cute, and it's treated sentimentally, but then we smash-cut to the next morning where they're stranded on a train platform in the ass-end of nowhere. But I can only think of two examples ATM, The Demon Girl Next Door and New Game!. Would it be People Sit On Chairs to widen it to include other examples of people falling asleep on the train?

I'm kind of skeptical that is a common enough thing to be an independent trope, because it's basically a parody/deconstruction of a subtype of Sleep Cute that already apparently isn't considered deserving of an independent trope page.

Sleep Cute isn't a requirement, but I think it's a popular part of the setup. I've seen this gag a million times, though I can't remember anything except those two examples.

Here's an example:

Edited by WarriorsGate on Jun 5th 2023 at 7:59:25 AM

x11: Ah, good to know. The answers on Trope Finder were that it could be an inversion of Clock King (checked the Played With page and it talks more about knowing the past instead of being late), and it could be The Slacker (which can be a related trope) and Forgetful Jones (also could be a related trope).

So I'm gonna draft up a concept for it in a sandbox and tweak it. I've got one example but if anyone can offer up some more instances of characters who are not known for their punctuality, that would be great.

ETA: Twice.

Edited by ilovewildkratts1 on Jun 5th 2023 at 8:14:16 AM

Kaito is an alien and he is kinda spacey, coming from the universe to party and go crazy!

Would Permanent Tropes, for things being Permanent, be a good index, even though it's sort of Search Generated?

I guess it would allow Scars Are Forever, This Index Will Live Forever and such, too.

Edited by Malady on Jun 5th 2023 at 8:39:05 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Permanence is a very vague term, and Scars Are Forever and immortality are two very different concepts so I question what else they have in common that would make such an index beneficial. What makes it not search-generated?

Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 6th 2023 at 1:33:24 PM

Regarding "Papers, Papers Everywhere": there are several episodes of MASH that have the clerk's office (outside the CO's office) buried in paperwork. Although that's not really because of obstructive bureaucracy, it's just the Army bureaucracy at work. In one case, Radar is sorting papers into multiple neat stacks. The rest are all from after Klinger becomes company clerk. They show the office as a total shambles, with papers scattered everywhere, and to demonstrate just how bad he is at the job.

"Narn, Centauri, Human, we all do what we do for the same reason: it seemed like a good idea at the time." - Ambassador G'kar, Babylon 5