TO-DO LIST
- Retool Kaiju Works and Vampire Fiction into more tightly defined genre pages through sandboxes (Sandbox.Vampire Fiction and Sandbox.Kaiju Works)
- Retool Mons Series into a more defined genre index, Mons Genre.
- Move contents on Superhero and Superhero Stories onto Superhero Genre, with "Superhero" being retooled as a Definition-Only page about the character archetype instead of the genre.
- Retool Mystery Fiction and Supernatural Fiction into proper supertropes.
- Retool Fighting Series and Sports Stories into genre tropes, or something more specific.
Indices Under Discussion
- All indices in "People and Demographics" (except Queer Media): Moves to Useful Notes or a merge with Media Diversity Tropes are options being taken into consideration. Discussion starts here
.
- Queer Media: Should it get streamlined into a proper genre page? Should Queer Romance be merged with it?
- Magical Girl Genre Index: There are concerns of redundancy with Magical Girl. Should it get merged into the latter?
- Mecha Show: Possibly getting retooled into a proper genre page or merged with Mecha Game, but it might be too redundant
with Real Robot Genre or Super Robot Genre.
- The options to cut Sea Stories, Space Stories and School Stories have been rejected in the lastest crowner
. However, some work may still need to be done in these pages. Fleshing them out and retooling them into supertropes for related genre tropes is a possible option
.
- The options to cut Christian Fiction and Military and Warfare Works have been contested
, with claims they are still worth keeping. Should they get narrowed and retooled into proper genre pages?
- The crowner has approved redirecting Video Game Stories... but there has been no agreement on which suitable page to redirect to. Candidates are Video Game Tropes, Video Game Culture and Fictional Video Game, with the possibility of retooling the index through TLP being also brought under discussion
.
- Books on Trope: A new Tropology/ namespace is being discussed for this page (as well as Sorting Algorithm of Tropes and other such pages) elsewhere. The index may get linked in the floatbox in Metafiction Demanded This Index for the time being.
- And last but not least Works by Subject as a whole: After clean-up is done, is it worth keeping the index around?
In case Works by Subject gets cut, each section may get merged
with different indices (e.g. "Stock Characters" with Stock Characters and/or Genres, "Settings" with Settings and "Themes" Queer Media with Genres, with the other sections being addressed in pending discussions).
Indices not discussed: Biker Media, Conspiracy Thriller, Criminal Procedural, Detective Drama, Gangster Fiction, Government Procedural, Law Procedural, Police Procedural and Spy Fiction. Either there's nothing to do with these indices, or they may need some further discussion.
- Samurai Stories: Determined to be redundant with Jidaigeki, Bushido Index, Samurai, Western Samurai, Everything's Better with Samurai, and Samurai Cowboy. Was cut.
- Shark Stories: Determined to be redundant with Threatening Shark. Was redirected to Sea Stories.
- Bovine Fiction, Bug Works, Canine Fiction, Elephantine Fiction, Equine Fiction and Feline Fiction: Cut.
- Dinosaur Media: Merged with Caveman Media with a new Settings index (under Works Set in Prehistory) being created.
- Alien Works, Angel Works, Deity Fiction, Demon Works, Dragon Works, Elf Works, Fairy Fiction, Genie Works, Ghost Fiction, Goblin Works, Leprechaun Fiction, Mermaid Media, Monster Media, Mummy Media, Mutant Media, Robot and A.I. Works, Toy Tales, Troll Tales, Unicorn Works, Werebeast Works, Werewolf Works, Youkai Works and Zombie Stories: Cut and redirected to relevant tropes and trope indices.
- Dolls: Moved to MediaNotes.Dolls.
- Clown Media, Ninja Fiction, Pirate Stories, Princess Stories, Psychic Stories, and Witch Works: Cut and redirected to relevant tropes and trope indices.
- CrimeAndPunishmentSeries.Detective Drama: Merged into Detective Drama.
- Spy Literature: Merged into SpyFiction.Literature.
- Ancient Rome: Moved to UsefulNotes.Ancient Rome.
- Mars Media: Redirected to UsefulNotes.Mars.
- Crossover Works: Merged with Crossover.
- Ballet: The index marker was moved up to only cover the trope section.
- Works Set in Prehistory, MediaNotes.The French Revolution In Fiction, MediaNotes.The Napoleonic Era In Fiction, Works Set in World War I, Works Set in World War II and WorksSetInWorldWarII.The Holocaust In Media: Moved to Historical Fiction subpages.
- Child Care and Babysitting Stories, Cooking Stories, Immortality Works, Music Stories, Time Travel Tales and Transformation Fiction: Cut and redirected to appropriate tropes and indices.
The index Works by Subject was ostensibly created in order to house existing indices of works with significant commonalities in subject matter and themes. These indices were previously listed on Genres; however, the argument was made that many, such as Queer Media and Asian-American Media, did not actually meet the definition of a Genre.
Since then, as discussed in this Wiki Talk thread
, a number of indexes went through the Trope Launch Pad whose definitions can largely be boiled down to "work prominently includes 'x' eponymous thing in it", which has a couple of problems:
- It contributes to Index Bloat on the wiki, i.e. overly long blocks of indices that could potentially cause the page's indexing to break altogether.
- There is concern that many of these indices are essentially an end run around the Trope Repair Shop's ongoing cleanup of tropes on what was formerly Everything's Better With Indexes (now Garnishing the Story).
Largely prompted by a Troper Critical Mass on the since-discarded TLP for Ursine Fiction
, the thread previously voted to impose a moratorium on new Works About "X" Indexes. We have previously removed Samurai Stories and Shark Storiesnote as redundant to existing tropes, and there is a lot of agreement to do the same to the entire "Animal Fiction" category; however, we have since agreed to create a thread to deal with the entirety of Works by Subject in one swoop.
Options proposed in Wiki Talk:
- Cull redundant or otherwise unnecessary Works by Subject indexes, cutting or merging them into other indexes (as we did with Samurai Stories and Shark Stories)
- Merge Works by Subject into Genres (not mutually exclusive with cleanup of unnecessary indices).
Edited by JustaUsername on Oct 18th 2025 at 7:52:12 PM
Question — should we edit the OP to summarize each of the Works by Subject actions that have already been voted on and taken? So that we know which indexes have already been taken care of?
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallOnly a mod can do that, sadly. (Or the OP themselves)
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Got it.
~Justa Username (or a mod) — if a list of actions already taken were put together, would you be willing to edit the OP to include it? Not yet — such a list would need to be put together — but when it happens, would that be OK?
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallMy bad, I'll just exclude that one from the crowner since it's already well underway and we aren't sure about it.
Trust me, I'm an engineer!Thumbed down the Our Monsters Are Different option, because it presumes that all other pages have corresponding Our Monsters Are Different pages.
The Dolls move too because that page has a different, trope-like, structure than the other pages discussed here. It may merit its own thread.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThough I've upvoted anyway, I'd be more comfortable with "to equivalent Our Monsters Are Different pages" if which pages specifically were listed separately.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupPerhaps Mons Series would be for the next crowner.
Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 5th 2024 at 3:06:02 PM
Kirby is awesome.I don't think there's really anything wrong with Mons Series. By that logic Mecha Show and Magical Girl Genre Index would have to be changed as well.
Call me "Heruru Meruru". http://blue-star-above-me.tumblr.com/
I mean, those are certainly on the table since they're on the index. They (along with Mons Series) all have the same related issues. The way they're currently written, at best they're redundant with the corresponding trope page. The point that "not all works that include the X are part of the X
" is kind of irrelevant. Redundant =/= the same, it means performing functions similar enough as to make one of them superfluous. The examples on the Mons and Mecha pages subsume all of those on the corresponding index, making the index functionally redundant, which wouldn't necessarily be a major issue if there were clear metrics to keep the entries on the indices from morphing into the examples on the trope pages, but because the scope of these indices are ill-defined, they end up being wide and ambiguous enough to potentially include all works in the former anyways. This second point has always been one of the sticking issues of the Work by X indices as a whole and while I think there's less of an issue with bad additions that call into question the entire index as was the sitch with the Animal indices, it's still present partially because without a tighter definition for these pages, there's nothing really to stop them.
Focusing on Mecha Show for a second, by most definitions outside of this site, My Life as a Teenage Robot does not qualifynote and neither does Kill la Kill,note , yet both are listed. We can call them improperly categorized and thus all is needed is cleanup, but the broadness of how the index is defined makes them legitimately debatable and does not prevent future "miscategorizations" from happening.
Now in the case of Mecha, Magical Girls, and possibly Mons, I do think there's a legitimate genre to be noted, but these indices are poorly describing them, which is causing the redundancy with the trope pages. If we want to use them as genre indices, we have to actually define the genre to keep the two distinct. "X in an important position" as these indices are mostly defined as is not a clear enough definition (what does "important" mean?).
And if we're redefining these pages, I personally think it'd also be a good opportunity to move them to names that actually have "Genre" in the title, seeing as both Mons Series and Mecha Show include works that are not shows or comics as "Series" and "show" implies.
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Yeah, I'm also surprised we didn't list out each one, tbh. That was also part of the motivation behind me listing them. At the very least, maybe linking to the post so people can better see what that entails?
Edited by amathieu13 on Nov 5th 2024 at 7:38:37 AM
Upvoted, but agree that Dolls needs a separate look and moving everything to Our Monsters are Different Pages might not be an answer. Especially if in a few years those get treated like bloated pages and this just gets shoved elsewhere.
Edited by Nethilia on Nov 5th 2024 at 7:52:01 AM
I focus on obscure 1990s or graphic Middle Grade Literature novels and dolls. (She or zie, not they.)Just to be clear, Mecha Show and Magical Girl Genre Index are part of the next section: they're not affected by the current crowner.
It's part of the current section, but I retroactively excluded it from the current crowner because I goofed when I was drafting it and forgot we still hadn't quite decided how to handle it.
Edited by StarSword on Nov 5th 2024 at 10:42:29 AM
Trust me, I'm an engineer!
Is Mons Series part of that section too? I’d be hesitant to delete it or the two other indexes you mentioned.
Thank you! I was going to get to it myself but I was busy — I apologize about that.
Calling the crowner. All options adopted.
Mons Series is still on the table, and I think there's an argument to be made that it can be reasonably placed on Genres if the criteria are tightened.
Yes, that's we were copying some of them to a Sandbox for sorting instead of redirecting.
Edited by StarSword on Nov 8th 2024 at 5:33:14 AM
Trust me, I'm an engineer!Should Dolls go ahead and be moved or is there anything else that needs to be done? ~SeptimusHeap mentioned possible further discussion.
I focus on obscure 1990s or graphic Middle Grade Literature novels and dolls. (She or zie, not they.)I just finished sorting out Works Set in Prehistory in the Trope Launch Pad. Cutting the sandbox.
I was going to launch Sunday, but since this is a TRS project am I allowed to just go ahead and launch?
Edited by StarSword on Nov 8th 2024 at 9:21:01 AM
Trust me, I'm an engineer!I’m not sure all the creature indexes have associated Our Monsters Are Different indexes, like Robot and A.I. Works- there was once Our Robots are Non-standard, but it now redirects to Robot.
Anyway, what should be on the next crowner?
Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!
Pretty sure that always included equivalent pages even if they didn't use the Our Monsters Are Different format, like Mummy for Mummy Media. At the very least, I included such pages in my suggestion post
.
As ~StarSword stated here
we should discuss about what to do with Mons Series, Mecha Show and Magical Girl Genre Index, as well the rest of Other Stock Characters section
Edited by StalkerGamer on Nov 8th 2024 at 11:40:36 AM
Crown Description:
Several indexes contained within the Works By Subject index have been identified as having issues, with a key one being their lack of purpose as indexes. This crowner will determine what to do with several of the items on this index. Discussion starting here

Old crowner archived.
New crowner hooked.
Trust me, I'm an engineer!