Ask The Tropers

I can only assume they think that term is offensive somehow, but the removal of "braniac" is bizarre... Message them?

I think maybe messaging them to ask why they're changing those words (and inviting them to this thread) would be a good place to start.

I know people that are enraged by literally any word implying "intellectual inferiority", but without their reply it could mean literally anything.

I sent a message with the link to the thread, so now it's just a wait and see time.

Edit: I'm also notice a few other oddball edits, like this one on Femme Fatale.

^ I can see the reason for that edit, "you" in articles is best avoided because not every reader agrees with it. However "a man" is awkward; "the male protagonist" might be better.

^ But it's not always about the male protagonist.

I would argue that the use of "you" there, in context, is a generality and a hypothetical—it's not meant to apply to any specific "you".

("One" might be more clearly so—but doesn't flow well in this particular sentence, I fear.)

However, if it is preferred against, perhaps something like the following? "First, she turns someone on. Then she turns on them."

I don't think that it's quite as good, but I think that it may work well enough.

Also, HERE the same person removed a YMMV entry, saying that "It's not bestiality if the animal can talk."

...Is the animal anthropomorphic or is it just an animal that can talk?

It's just an animal that can talk. A monkey, to be precise.

...yeah that's still bestiality imo

Actually,the character with a crush on Adam is a giraffe.

Doesn't change that she's an animal (who talks, walks on two legs, and wears clothes, but otherwise treated like an animal in a school that's all animals save one human)...

Yeah, the animals in that show are lightly anthropomorphized in that they have a functioning school and interact with humans as sentient creatures, but that doesn't make it any less bestiality.

I've still yet to get a response from Scarlet Dragon, either in the DM or via linking this query to them, on the matter of the removals and odd edits.

It's not bestiality if they can consent. We're not against bestiality because they're not the same species as us. It's because feral animals can't consent. Full stop.

And a girly girl being considered "ditzy" is offensive because it implies feminine women in general are dumb and seems to contradict the trope Women Are Wiser.

I'm just trying to explain my reasons for these in the calmest way I can. If you think romance with talking animals is bestiality, or being stupid is a feminine trait, that's on you.

Scarlet, do you have any source for that definition? Because according to the Cornell Law School, "Bestiality is the performance of any sexual act between a human being and an animal."

(And I hope you understand that being able to talk is not in itself enough to be able to give consent. Toddlers can talk.)

I don't think anyone is saying that being stupid is a feminine trait.

Regarding ditziness, I have a few thoughts:

First, "ditzy" isn't quite a synonym for "stupid", I believe. It's closer to being a synonym for "scatterbrained"—something that may be true of a character regardless of intelligence. (Think of the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor", for example.)

That said, even if it is used to indicate stupidity, is that what the work does? If so, then it seems reasonable for us to report on the work doing so—after all, troping is essentially cataloguing and analysis. To say that a work presents a character in a negative way doesn't necessarily imply that we ''agree' with such presentation—only that that is what the work does.

As to a contradiction with Women Are Wiser, well, many tropes contradict each other. For one thing, different creators have different views. And with a single creator, they may have a perspective under which there is no contradiction, or may change their mind over the course of the work, or have not intended one or both tropes—or something else besides.

Thus the presence of two contradictory tropes doesn't necessarily imply that one is to be excluded, I would argue.

Both sides are taking the bestiality thing too seriously. The animals in the show are Funny Animals, and while size differences and animal instincts are present, it's ultimately just a kid's show working in one-sided romance plots. The original entry is vague and weirdly accusatory but the removal is also hasty. I'd rewrite it like so:

• The Interspecies Romance of the show, particularly the giraffe Ingrid's crush on the human Adam, can be uncomfortable at times. Even though the animals are anthropomorphic, enough of their animal behavior is present to make such a dynamic feel too close to bestiality for comfort.

Also, girl here, the "ditzy" thing is Righting Great Wrongs and the wiki isn't a place to campaign against an argument that, frankly, I haven't even heard made very much. We have gender neutral tropes that use the word "ditz," like Ditzy Genius, Genius Ditz, and, well, The Ditz.

I reverted the edit they did on Femme Fatale. I haven't touched anything else as of yet.

I suspended them because this is Bluenose Bowdlerization at best and vandalism at worst.

You're right, mewtron, it's just a cartoon. Sorry. The removal just felt like a bit agenda-driven. Arbitrarily re-defining "bestiality" seems like an agenda-driven thing to do. What I mean, is, it's usually a bad sign when somebody says, in complete seriousness, that in a hypothetical scenario, humans having animal sex doesn't have to be bestiality or even immoral.

Anyway, I've reverted most of the "ditzy" removals. Would have done more, but I had manga to read.

I think the "bestiality" debate is a topic out of the scope of this ATT, but I'd like to throw my two cents in here anyway. In my opinion, even if "bestiality" is defined as "a human having sex with an animal", the reason that it's immoral is because an animal 1. isn't capable of verbalizing consent and 2. doesn't have the human-level intelligence to be capable of informed consent anyway. Hypothetically, if an animal capable of intelligence on the level of a human (but not that of a child or of a mentally handicapped human) and capable of human speech were to exist, then yes, it would be ethical to have sex with them.

In this case, calling it bestiality would be rather disingenuous, because the circumstances of the situation make it so far removed from bestiality as we think of it that the moral problems no longer apply. It would be like calling human genetic engineering to eliminate genetic defects "eugenics"; even if it fits the definition of the term, it lacks the immoral connotations of the term itself.

And it could likely kill the human/animal. But let's not Bump this further for discussion, as you admit it's out of scope.

I'm going to lock this because ATT isn't intended for long discussions.