Needs Help: Prickly Porcupine

Note: This thread was proposed by The Mayor of Simpleton).

Since there are several issues here, I classified this as "Needs Help".

The problem: Prickly Porcupine is defined as when porcupines are portrayed as mean or grumpy. It is also defined as when porcupines are portrayed as shy, or lonely. That's two definitions in one, and the vague name doesn't really describe either well. It has also gained only 117 wicks since being launched in 2011. Healthy, but not really so for a trope launched in 2011.

Due to the unclear definition and vague name, along with a comment on the Discussion tab indicating there may be "porcupines exist" usage, I did a wick check to see if there were any problems.

The wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:

• 12/50 examples were of evil or mean porcupines, or 24%
• 1/50 examples were of shy or lonely porcupines, or 2%
• 15/50 examples were "porcupines exist" usage, or 30%
• 14/50 examples were of literally prickly porcupines, or 28%
• 5/50 examples were ZCEs, unclear, and other, or 10%, and
• 3/50 examples were unclassifiable wicks, or 6%

The wick analysis: Alright, so most usage was of "porcupines exist". The unclear name also led to a lot of usage of literally prickly porcupines, while there was surprisingly almost no "shy or lonely porcupine" usage. Some examples weren't even of porcupines, but of hedgehogs as well.

Solutions?: Based on the wick results, I propose a Trope Transplant. We would be reusing the name Prickly Porcupine for a trope about literally prickly porcupines, as I believe that is a tropeworthy concept. A literally prickly porcupine, for example, may use their quills as a weapon, or otherwise may create problems with them. Meanwhile, the "mean porcupines" usage would be moved to a new trope with a new name, of which I currently have no suggestions (Porcupine Prick? That's all I can think of). The rest of the usage would be cleaned up—and if the "shy porcupine" usage is deemed tropeworthy and common enough, that can be sent to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard.

What does everyone else think?

Paging ~The Mayor of Simpleton) per the Queue.

Anyway, I'm not sure if procupines being prickly is a trope based on the examples from the wick check, between the low-context examples and the fact that porcupines actually have quills rather than simply being portrayed with them due to Artistic License. (And the misconception that they can shoot their quills can probably be folded into Artistic License – Biology, anyway.) I'm leaning more toward renaming the trope to indicate that it's about emotional porcupines (shy, grumpy, etc.); I can only think of Emotional Porcupine right now because I can't think of anything catchier at the moment since the issue here is that "prickly" is used as the sake of a pun as a reference to moods, but it's being (mis)interpreted literally.

Hopefully someone can come up with another word beginning with P that refers to emotions, but doesn't have the issues "prickly" has with the failed attempt at a Double-Meaning Title.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 22nd 2022 at 3:08:26 AM

I'd rather split/yard "evil porcupines" and "aloof / defensive porcupines". With the former showing low wick count, we can rewrite this trope with the latter idea and remove the antagonistic cases. Not confident on renaming, but we can do that along the way.

Yeah, I think porcupines being literally prickly is chairsy, since they are in real life. Shooting their quills can go under Spike Shooter, for other usage in a fight there's Natural Weapon. I'm not sure how tropeworthy is the idea that quills are a prickly nuisance and can create problems, but it seems to me this shouldn't be limited to porcupines. There might be some general trope for Natural Weapon creating problems in everyday life. I don't know if something like that exists or not.

Edited by kundoo on Sep 22nd 2022 at 2:52:38 AM

I overlooked the fact that this only had 117 wicks and thus has the wick check looking at just under half the examples, so maybe Yarding emotional porcupines would be better than retooling (on top of Yarding the other non-Charsy concept).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 22nd 2022 at 5:26:08 AM

Agreed with the proposals so far, but then what should we do with the original trope? Disambiguate? Retool into one of the mentioned concepts?

If we disambiguate, I can't think of anything other than listing a few of the indexes it's currently on (specifically, Rodent Tropes, Scary Animals Index, and The Jerk Index). Or maybe we could just redirect to Rodent Tropes.

Edit: Well, maybe also Spikes of Doom and Spikes of Villainy, so maybe not just indexes.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 22nd 2022 at 7:25:19 AM

Cut and yard.

Seconding cut and yard.

Cut and yard.

Sounds good. Cut and yard.

Aye, cut and yard.

While I've preferred retooling, after checking on-page examples it'd probably have to be made from scratch anyway with this state.

Exactly; any good ideas can just be made in TLP by whoever's interested.

Yard "mean porcupines", move applicable examples/wicks to Spikes of Villainy, Animal Stereotypes, etc.

Cut and yard.

(I think the "aloof porcupine" half was meant to trope the Hedgehog's Dilemma metaphor.)

I'd be willing to TLP one or both of the basic ideas when I have less on my plate. I'm thinking "Surly Spined Mammal" and "Shy Spined Mammal" as possible names.

But for now, either cut and yard or disambig.

It's been 3 days. Should we hook a crowner? Two possible options:

• Cut and yard
• Disambig

Can we call this? It's been over 3 days.

Adding that we also have The Spiny to move examples into.

Cut the subpages. As for why the crowner wasn't called sooner, I kind of forgot about this thread and overlooked it when looking through threads with open crowners.

Yarding done.