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With that out of the way: Let's discuss some ideas.
Edited by MacronNotes on Feb 27th 2022 at 1:49:11 PM
Something I noticed recently: spiders, usually big ones, making high-pitched hissing and chittering noises. The giant spiders in Skyrim do it and the Magic: The Gathering mobile game plays a similar sound effect when you play a spider creature card.
I don’t know any other examples, but I don’t think these two games would give their spiders such a specific and distinctive-sounding “call” that IRL spiders don’t have unless it was a wider phenomenon. Has anyone seen this any other media?
Edited by loserswithwifi on Jul 8th 2023 at 2:59:58 PM
This is a particular Player Character archetype that I commonly see in first/third shooter games, and to a lesser extent in other kinds of action games. I admit beforehand that a lot of these traits happen to be natural consequences of the aforementioned games' genre conventions and common game mechanics.
- The character is a Heroic Mime, Vanilla Protagonist or Featureless Protagonist. When they're not The Faceless, they look very generic.
- If part of a "squad" (whether an actual military squad, a band of mercenaries, or some other kind of group), they're usually never the leader or even the second-in-command; sometimes, but not always, they're the New Meat. Even when part of an elite group, they're usually low on the totem pole of authority.
- Their range of skills is ridiculously broad, even when their background and occupation logically should preclude that (the average infantryman IRL can't simply jump into a tank or plane and drive/pilot it with the same ease as they would a car, for example).
- Assuming that the player does the bare minimum of playing well, the character proves themself to be a One-Man Army, capable of slaughtering hundreds of enemies over the course of their game. This often makes the character an Almighty Janitor, if they are supposed to be an average rank-and-file soldier, an Action Survivor with no history of combat training, or the like.
- They often have to do practically everything that's plot-relevant, even when there are obviously other people around who could do the job just as well and nothing about this character justifies them being the first choice every single time.
- The character is Made of Iron, capable of tanking far more damage and recovering from it far more rapidly than any of the NPCs, even those that are supposed to be little to no different in overall level of physical ability (or are even supposed to be superior, if the PC is an Action Survivor and the NPCs are hardened soldiers).
- They're often put in situations where they must exhibit Heroic Resolve and/or Heroic Willpower to overcome seemingly impossible odds, such as powering through a crippling or fatal injury to make one last attack that manages to kill the Big Bad and save the day. Even in the rare occasion when they're Killed Off for Real, they tend to be defiant to the bitter end.
Is this archetype tropeworthy?
PS: I'm probably missing a few other common/universal traits of this archetype, but these at least seem to be the most outstanding ones.
Edited by MarqFJA on Jul 8th 2023 at 8:53:28 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.I have my Nominal Coauthor
draft that's gotten enough hats to launch, but I'm wondering if it should be changed to just "Coauthor" so it allows all coauthors, instead of the ones that haven't contributed.
Or if "Coauthor" should be my next draft, and keep the split between nominal ones and actual ones.
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576![]()
- Trying to see if we have this already, but that's a lotta traits to pack into one... package.
That final Heroic Resolve bit makes me think of Japanese Spirit, so how many of your Player Character-s are from Japanese works?
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576I don’t know any other examples, but I don’t think these two games would give their spiders such a specific and distinctive-sounding “call” that IRL spiders don’t have unless it was a wider phenomenon. Has anyone seen this any other media?
This is currently mentioned in the description of Noisy Nature, FWIW, and I'm not sure it's a particularly distinguishable independent subtrope.
It's definitely a thing, though - in addition to a bunch of straight examples, I actually saw it get parodied as a plot point in the season one finale of The Dragon Prince, where the over-the-top shrieking and chittering of a giant spider leads Ezran to figure out it's just an illusion meant to scare people.
I dunno about "coauthor" being tropable in general (or triviable, more likely), but after putting all that work in on Nominal Coauthor, it's a bit late to expand that draft to "any coauthor".
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.![]()
+
: Thanks!
The hypothetical "Coauthor" would be Trivia, since Nominal Coauthor is, yeah. I wouldn't have had the idea, except that a troper that never returned, brought up "regular coauthor" examples.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=tzu0d902oxuzj9nvglx0utsd#comment-v36074f13ade53e
Edited by Malady on Jul 8th 2023 at 6:23:54 AM
Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
- Well, I think you've got something new, if you can find examples beyond Call Of Duty?
I know we dont want LGBT tropes just for the sake of having them, but I think a Religious LGBT Person is unique, very present in many media and it could be an olive branch to the people who think we cut many positive LGBT tropes.
As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.So, I was re-reading a favorite webcomic of mine and came across a scenario that I felt was a comedy of errors (trope, not the play), but when I searched it seemed that there was no existing trope fitting that description.
So, I would like to propose Comedy of Errors as a trope, named after the Shakespearean play.
Here's an attempt at a description:
People make mistakes. It's a simple fact of life. Sometimes those mistakes... snowball. Other people react to a mistake poorly, the mistake compounds with other mistakes, or the mistake causes what would be a reasonable reaction normally to be completely wrong or inappropriate. Then these mistakes compound into events so outside the norm that it's impossible to make sense of them without the full context of why they happened.
If these events leave you with a wild story for friends, family, or complete strangers to laugh about, then congratulations, you have just experienced a Comedy of Errors.
Please note that if the situation is not being Played for Laughs or is otherwise not Hilarious in Hindsight, then you are likely looking at a stock tragedy or drama plot.
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Reminds me of "Fawlty Towers" Plot.
"Fawlty Towers" Plot is what TV tropes uses for what is normally called a comedy of errors off-wiki yes. i wonder if the name might be causing people to miss the idea
Biography covers autobiographies too, but I’m considering splitting them off into a new trope, as I feel they’re common enough on their own and more personal in nature and meaning. Sub-Trope or The Same, but More Specific?
Thinking of a potential trope, "Damned by Declining to Comment."
You've probably seen this Wham Line before in a documentary (or mockumentary): "We reached out to [X] for an interview. They never responded." Or they agree to an interview, but they suddenly stop it after being asked a particularly uncomfortable question. Generally, this is used to imply that someone is guilty, or that a guilty person is incapable of justifying their actions.
I can only think of examples from two different series: Murder Among the Mormons and American Vandal. Can anyone think of any more?
There was a joke on QI about Bill Clinton responding to all questions with either “I decline to comment” or “no” during his impeachment trial.
I would like to propose "Sentenced Without Trial": Someone is condemned for a crime without receiving a trial, even though they are specifically entitled to one by whatever legal system exists in the setting. Either because the legal system is corrupt, or their crime was just that heinous.
- Memento Mori: Twilight witnesses a Bad Future where she became the disciple of the Dark God Tirac, sacrificed the townsponies of Neighvarro to magically empower herself, tried to slay her teacher Princess Celestia, and successfully killed her wife, Rainbow Dash. When the Royal Guard finally comes to arrest her, they state that Celestia has ordered for her to receive no trial and be treated as “the worst of slime to infest the earth.”
- Harry Potter: During the First Wizarding War, Barty Crouch Sr. sentenced many people to Azkaban without trial, including Sirius Black, as part of the extremes he went to in order to take down Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Because of this, Sirius was blamed for betraying the Potters to Voldemort and imprisoned in Azkaban for 12 years, and the truth is only discovered by Harry years later.
- Inkwell Penny Hell: All of the workers at the Devil’s Casino are sentenced to be regressed into children, with Judge Rumor Honeybottom not bothering with trials because the contracts they signed to sell their souls to the Devil are taken as proof of guilt.
Edited by Snowsky on Jul 11th 2023 at 1:22:17 AM

I feel like I've Seen It a Million Times, but can only think of one specific example. A trope where a painter/photographer asks someone to pose for them, but deliberately paints/photos something or someone else to troll them.