TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

A Way to Fix Imprecise Trope Pages for Commonly-Referenced Tropes

Go To

AwSamWeston Fantasy writer turned Filmmaker. from Minnesota Nice (Elder Troper) Relationship Status: Married to the job
Fantasy writer turned Filmmaker.
#1: Feb 26th 2023 at 7:41:34 PM

Tropers, we've got a problem and I can sum it up in three words: "Enemies To Lovers".

This is just one example, of course. There's plenty of tropes out there that fanfic and professional writers refer to all the time, and while we have several distinct tropes that all fall under the broader umbrellas, there's many times where we don't have a page under a term that people-at-large actually use.

I got curious. In my own search for "Enemies To Lovers" on the Trope Finder, I found multiple threads for this one example that each had several possible results of their own: Star-Crossed Lovers, Rivalry as Courtship, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Hate at First Sight, Dating Catwoman, Fire-Forged Friends, and Defecting for Love.

This is, quite frankly, a lot. And while all of these can totally make sense to us as tropers, a trope's classification making sense to us doesn't mean a curious outsider will understand.

It's also a Search Engine Optimization problem. If some random internet person goes on Google and searches "Enemies To Lovers" and we don't have a page for it, the TV Tropes website won't show up. If they specifically come to TV Tropes and search "Enemies To Lovers," they'll just see a bunch of unrelated pages and some forum threads.

"Oh, TV Tropes doesn't have Enemies To Lovers? Guess they don't keep up with current stuff."

The whole site becomes less relevant when we don't keep up with the trope names that people use out in the wild. It's basic upkeep.

With the trope cleanups of the last several years, we've seen new disambiguation pages crop up for outdated tropes like The Chick. Why not create disambiguation pages for these other commonly-referred-to tropes that actually span several different trope pages?

A good disambiguation page can:

  1. Solve the immediate search query, and also
  2. Expand the visitor's idea of what "a trope" even looks like.
Ultimately it gives our casual visitors more than they expected, which is always a good place to be for a resource like TV Tropes.

What do you all think? Is a project like this worth exploring? What are some other "layman's tropes" that we don't have pages for and actually span multiple distinct tropes? ("Edgelord" and "Born Sexy Yesterday" come to mind.)

Edited by AwSamWeston on Feb 26th 2023 at 10:12:27 AM

Actual Filmmaker trying to earn a Creator page. Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry — available now on streaming and blu-ray.
MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#2: Feb 27th 2023 at 2:36:55 AM

At least in the case of Enemies To Lovers, it kinda sounds like you're describing an index or even an exampleless supertrope. ("Edgelord" is more a thing in real-world discourse than media as far as I can tell, and "born sexy yesterday" means nothing to me.) I may be missing something, but I don't think there's any policy or anything preventing or discouraging you from taking a page like this to the Trope Launch Pad, to hammer out what it should be if nothing else. In some cases we may not have a page on certain things only because no one has thought to start one.

(I kind of think some of the recent TRS-created disambigs kind of blur the line between disambigs and indexes or supertropes, but that's another matter.)

Edited by MorganWick on Feb 27th 2023 at 2:39:27 AM

LordGro (Old as dirt)
#3: Feb 27th 2023 at 12:29:54 PM

My impression is that Enemies To Lover is a trope we simply don't have covered yet.

TV Tropes is not a complete lexicon of all trope there are. If nobody ever took the trouble of writing up a trope page and walking it through TLP, we don't have it. I expect there are many, even fairly common tropes which are still missing from TV Tropes.

harryhenry It's either real or it's a dream Since: Jan, 2012
It's either real or it's a dream
#4: Mar 1st 2023 at 8:43:26 PM

[up] I've had a few "oh, we only now have a trope for that?" moments, like Sizable Semitic Nose.

As for OP, there's also the question of how truly recognizable some of these terms are. As we saw before, "Born Sexy Yesterday" is a term you're gonna know in certain circles (especially if you follow Pop Culture Detective, where the term came from) but it's something a layman will use. There's also how the most basic Omnipresent Tropes, which most people will know about, don't even allow examples.

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#5: Mar 1st 2023 at 9:41:36 PM

but it's something a layman will use.

Did you leave out a "not" there? Because "Born Sexy Yesterday" certainly reads like nothing but word salad to me personally.

harryhenry It's either real or it's a dream Since: Jan, 2012
It's either real or it's a dream
#6: Mar 2nd 2023 at 12:19:56 AM

[up] Yes that's what I meant, apologies for missing that.

Malady (X-Troper)
#7: Mar 2nd 2023 at 3:18:03 PM

At least for Enemies To Lovers, if you're making an Index, that's easier than making a full trope, since we already know what'll go in the index. and there doesn't need to be heavy description, etc.

...

Onto other common terms...

Is Improper Princess still relevant or is it now a Forgotten Trope or been Cycled out or something?

Edited by Malady on Mar 2nd 2023 at 3:18:19 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
PCD Since: May, 2021 Relationship Status: Mu
#8: Mar 2nd 2023 at 11:08:40 PM

I don't know the phrase "Enemies to Lovers," but I can suppose it might describe something like William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, where a couple quarrel until eventually finding they love each other? If so, are there other, older or even Discarded Tropes that would cover thus situation?

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#9: Mar 2nd 2023 at 11:09:14 PM
Noaqiyeum we must dissent (it/they) from across the gulf of space (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
we must dissent (it/they)
#10: Mar 3rd 2023 at 6:50:21 PM

"Enemies to Lovers" is a subset of Belligerent Sexual Tension, but more of an entire romantic plot arc, and enemies means actual hostility and ideological conflict rather than merely not getting along at first.

ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NO
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (8,356/50,000)
#11: Mar 3rd 2023 at 6:51:49 PM

Well, not exactly. Enemies To Lovers plots don't need BST, which is specifically a type of sexual tension shown through arguing. If the enemies legitimately hate each other at first, it's not BST. And if they get along just fine later, it's not BST.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Malady (X-Troper)
#12: Mar 3rd 2023 at 8:16:54 PM

Foe Yay... Is Red. Because with how broad "Enemies To Lovers" is, it seems like Foe Yay redux, especially given the contents of the cut message / disambig.

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576
nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#13: Mar 6th 2023 at 4:56:53 AM

I mean, though, any trope about actual plots is automatically going to be more tropable than one of the 'Yay' tropes.

Add Post

Total posts: 13
Top