I want to suggestion Here Comes A New Challenger, but that's probably not the best name.
Here Comes A Third Love Option?
The New Romantic Third Option?
Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.How could it possibly be misleading to name a trope that can be laconically described as "the vertex of a love triangle decides to Take a Third Option." as Dating A Third Option?
They don't necessarily become the Official Couple, but I would say that she must appear to be the most likely winner for some time, and the protagonist is falling in love with her, to be this trope she isn't just some random third girl in a harem, who "shows up".
That would normally mean either going on at least some dates, or doing anything that is on a similar level in the work's context.
edited 18th Sep '10 11:56:30 AM by EternalSeptember
And they don't even need to be dated. They just need to show up. Showing up and looking like a challenger is enough to count. Besides, the trope isn't about dating. It's about the character.
edited 18th Sep '10 11:57:01 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickDating Catwoman: When the hero of the show and one of his antagonists have a romantic tone, either as subtext, or, less commonly, right out in the open.
There doesn't seem to be any misunderstanding on that page.
edited 18th Sep '10 11:59:24 AM by EternalSeptember
^^^ Neither is Cheryl Blossom. It's, to quote the laconic wiki, "Taking a Third Option in a Love Triangle".
edited 18th Sep '10 12:04:42 PM by EternalSeptember
"To avoid showing favoritism to either of Archie's existing love interests, they may have him fall for a third girl: the Cheryl Blossom. ..."
"...Cheryl Blossom may be Put On A Bus,... "
"...However, in some cases Cheryl/Archie will become the Official Couple. "
"In Fan Fic, Cheryl Blossom is a frequent target of Die For Our Ship since both Betty/Archie and Veronica/Archie shippers will descend on her with the fury of Hell. Also, expect accusations of the character being a Canon Relationship Sue (which may or may not be the case)."
The indexes the trope is on:
| Char Clone | Character Named Tropes | Chuck Yeager | ||
| The Charmer | Love Interests | Clingy Jealous Girl | ||
| The Cheerleader | Characters As Device | The Chew Toy |
Those are all from the trope page. The Cheryl Blossom is a character.
Laconics aren't always accurate, especially when they're made up primarily of links to other tropes.
Cheryl Blossom is a live triangle trope, not depending to the the titular third option's characterization at all. If anything it's using certain Characters As Devices.
It's not a character type just because it's named after a character.
Even if it could be considered a character trope, it can also be considered a situation. It doesn't have too much wicks, and many of the current name suggestions would drop the "character" concept.
edited 18th Sep '10 12:22:32 PM by EternalSeptember
The Characters as Device index has quite a few tropes that could be also read as "x event is caused by someone" instead of "x characters, who cause x event".
Some of them are indeed better classified as characters, for example Agent Scully that is a mouthpiece of logic, therefore a device, but also recognizable as a common pattern of personality types and behaviors. Renaming it as something like Looking For A Logical Explanation would break these patterns.
But Cheryl Blossom could be called Dating A Third Option, or Love Triangle Turns To Square, or Here Comes A Third Love Option, without losing anything, but the current grammatical structure of the description. The trope would still be about the same thing, without fault.
Automatically ignoring all of these suggestions doesn't make any sense.
edited 18th Sep '10 1:14:02 PM by EternalSeptember
Why? For example The Umbridge is about to be renamed to Tyrant Takes the Helm, why wouldn't "Alice takes control in the institute" work? Potholes are used that way.
Now that I think about it, that previous rename is also a good precedent of slightly shifting the focus from character-centric to event-centric, without anyone caring about the trope's technical classification.
Crown Description:

All right, let's try this again. Cheryl Blossom is a character trope about a character, we'll call Alice who shows up in the middle of a love triangle and goes for the same character, Bob, that was already the target of two other characters Carol and Darla. Alice does not need to actually date Bob, but her presence as another possibility shakes up the current situation. What we need is a name that shows this is a character and is a better name than an obscure character.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick