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I agree with Known Unknown, fundamentally at least. Alternate Self is becoming progressively meaningless on this site, as franchise reboots and multiverse stories are becoming extremely prevalent to pop culture. Tropes are supposed to have meaning; Alternate Self serves a plot function in stories where it's intended. 1966 Batman was not designed to be an Alternate Self, but just an adaptation of a work. Slapping Alternate Self on every adaptation is taking the meaning away. Hell, I've seen countless examples that just say "This long-established character also exists in another universe.", which is pure Zero-Context Example — and you can't add context to that because there is no context.
HOWEVER, that decision should not be unilateral. This is something that needs to be brought up in a Trope Talk thread.
regulation pigeonI honestly agree with the deletion. Alternate Self should only be use if a story introduced an Alternate version of a person. So pretty much only DCEU Flash meeting Arrowverse Flash would fit.
I like to mentioned i seen Alternate Self on characters who just share the same actor. Which makes zero sense.
Chiming in to say if Alternate Self is being misused on the site for adaptations and not for thematic purposes In-Universe, then it is worth doing a wick check to see if the entire trope needs to go to the Trope Repair Shop to clean-up misuse at minimum.
Whirl RX: I think Alternate Self was used instead of Identical Stranger since the latter only refers to characters that share the same actors within the same universe. So I guess people weren't sure whether Identical Stranger works when an actor has played more than one character in the same multiverse. For example, is Arrowverse Atom and Returns Superman an example of Alternate Self or Identical Stranger?
MurlocAggroB: The difference is that it's not being used for every adaption, only those adaptions confirmed to be canon with other adaptions. At the very least, I still think there should be something that acknowledges the connection if we're not using that trope.
Chiming in, I think that the use of the trope has gotten increasingly chairsy. We're not meant to be a trivia catalogue, but rather catalogue tropes and how they're used on stories, ergo, characters.
Knowing that Vigilante from the DCEU has two or three alternate counterparts in the Arrowverse tells me nothing about the story that's shown on Peacemaker, because he never interacted with any of them, nor did anyone ever bring up a comparison, whereas something like "Adaptational Personality Change" does tell me that the story is a somewhat silly affair that still has emotional beats and weight.
We already have tropes that showcase how a character is done different from other adaptations, such as Truer to the Text and all the "Adaptational X" pages. Unless the character interacts with his own alternate self, or it's a specific plot point that other characters are interacting with different versions of the same character, then this shouldn't be used, IMO.
We are discussing character sheets, so it makes sense to add it if it affects something about the character. And in 99% of cases, it does not, and amounts to trivia.
If we must catalog that Peacemaker is in the same distant multiverse as Tim Burton's Batman (and I am not sure we should, at least in the trope lists) then one entry on the works' pages should accomplish that without listing every single overlap in the characters.
Edited by SynchronicitySynchronicity: Here's a somewhat related question. Can Alternate Universe and Alternate History tropes be used for the main pages of a piece of media? For example, the Raimi and Webb films have them to acknowledge that they are an alternate universe to the MCU which they cross over. So can the main Batman 66 page have the Alternate Universe trope to acknowledge that its part of the Arrowverse multiverse?
Edited by DarthDavros75^ That still doesn't amount to anything more than trivia. It shouldn't be listed unless it's being acknowledged as an alternate universe in the work itself. If it's acknowledged as an alternate universe in a different work, then it can be listed on the work where it's acknowledged.
Also, it "not being used for every adaptation" is not true. I cleaned up Characters.Teen Titans 2003 last night, which had an Alternate Self entry on every single character that has also appeared in the DCAMU or another show, all of which just said "this character has an alternate version in this universe". The only one I left was Trigon because him interacting with his TTG version is a large part of the crossover TV movie. That's an extreme case, but pushing back on meaning opens tropes up to decay. If you take a hard stance on an edge case, then there's less chance that someone will replicate it for an entry that's definitely wrong
regulation pigeonThis thread has reached a consensus to remove superfluous/not-plot-or-character-relevant Alternate Self entries from the pages. If we would like to expand the discussion to how to use these + Alternate Universe + Alternate History about the works themselves, let's go to Trope Talk.

Hello. So recently Known Unknown started deleting examples of Alternate Self from the Batman (1966) character pages, with that show having been established as being an alternate universe in DC's live-action multiverse created by Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019). The trope had been used in character folders to have links to different versions of characters shown to canonically exist in the multiverse (for example, 66 Batman had a link to the Burton Batman page). Using the trope in this way has also been used with characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man Trilogy and The Amazing Spider-Man Series.
Known Unknown claims that the use of the trope was inaccurate since they don't fit the criteria of the trope, and that just because these pieces of media crossed over in Crisis that doesn't retroactively make this trope valid. They also said the trope should only be used for alternate versions of character that directly interacted with each other (so Smallville Superman interacting with Arrowverse Superman). They also claimed it shouldn't have been used for characters that didn't appear in the crossover at all, as it has been used for characters that have appeared in multiple pieces of media established to be canon with each other (for example, both Smallville and Arrowverse have used the same villains).
Given that the multiverse is clearly becoming a thing in live-action media and companies are retconning previous films/shows as part of the multiverse, I feel that it needs to be made clear whether Alternate Self is a trope that can be used in situations like this. If not, can another trope be used instead of Alternate Self. Personally I think Alternate Self makes sense in this context, but if I'm wrong I would like to know so I can undo the mistakes that I have made.