Ask The Tropers

Useful Notes are not tropes and should not be listed as such. If the fact that the character is gay is important, it can be put in their description. Character pages need those, too.

The problem with Badass Gay begins and ends at the fact that "Badass, and also, unrelatedly, gay" is not really a trope.

That said, the page remains as a disambiguation for a few meaningful overlaps between "badass" and "gay". If the character fits one of those, you can certainly list it.

Mareon, you've been edit warring on Characters.The Last Of Us Joel And Ellie regarding this issue. If someone deletes an entry you added, you take it to appropriate places to discuss it (the Discussion page, ATT, "Is this an example" thread, etc). You don't add it back, especially in such a confrontational way.

...Huh? It's a good thing wingedcatgirl made a response first, because I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Please calm down. Badass Gay is no longer a trope, and UsefulNotes.Homosexual is not a trope either. Just mention the character’s sexual orientation in their character bio.

If they fit one of the Queer as Tropes tropes then include it there. A sexuality on its own doesnt need to be a trope (that's why Bi The Way got axed). It's not like a character being straight is automatically tropeworthy.

Do your page edits have grammar this bad? I strongly suggest you visit the getting help with English thread before editing again.

^^ Yeah. In fact, their various attempts to add it back to the page mentioned something about Ellie and Diana not knowing the connection between queers and rainbows because they grew up in the apocalypse — there's probably a trope for that that can put on the main page (reworded, of course).

By the way, Mareon, we have a Badass X cleanup. This wasn't decided off the cuff, there was a lot of discussion about it.

So, OP clearly isn't reading these responses to their thread. Can a mod step in, please?

Troper Immithrax has deleted the offending entry and added the character's orientation to the character description, which seems like the right place if it's relevant.

I'm curious if Mareon thought this was a vent section, since they yelled this and left without responding to anything.

Oh, they also took it to TLP, because of course they did. Anything to avoid communicating with people, apparently.

Just find something on Queer as Tropes to put on the page.

So they've decided to list Straight Gay, which, in a step forward, is actually a trope, but the example text they've used is... not great.

I've directed them to Zero-Context Example and the "Get Help With English" thread, which should hopefully solve those problems.

They tried to launch the “Gay” trope in TLP as well.

I will say I don’t think this person is a troll, mostly likely just sensitive to queer erasure. I do think any big changes like that and what happened to Bi The Way should be placed on the main page, or have a huge updating FAQ for things such as that. At least that way it can be better communicated on why the change happened.

We attempted to get the mods to make a bulletin that Bi The Way was depreciated as a trope when we finished dewicking, but they said it wasn't necessary.

Honestly, the deletion of Bi The Way and Badass Gay has proven quite inconvenient for me - and probably other tropers - regarding the use of LGBTQ characters. In most media cases, unless Everyone Is Bi or a similar trope applies, sexuality is quite notable.

The specific reason they didn't post a bulletin was that they didn't want it to lead to bulletin fatigue, as though we cut tropes with over 5000 wicks on a weekly basis.

To the OP: I'll repost what I wrote on the discussion page of Badass Gay about why exactly it isn't a trope:

"To be more specific: There's two ways to look at Badass Gay.

• It's a page about "badass + X trait" with no connection, which makes it People Sit on Chairs.
• It's a "badass despite X trait" page, which is allowed (see also Badass Normal, Pregnant Badass, and many others). But in nearly every case, the work doesn't have any kind of in-universe stigma about how gay people can't kick ass, meaning that the wiki, not the work, is the one creating that stigma.

Either way, this just isn't a viable trope."

Question: is the acceptable term at TV Tropes LGBT or LGBTQ? I've seen a lot of the former, which is new to me — corrected it to the latter when I first saw it, but then rethought and changed it back. Guidance appreciated.

I don't believe the wiki has any official stance on that.

^^ It doesn't matter in my opinion, but LGBTQ is more inclusive from what I've observe.

Also, OP, Badass X is being cleaned up, including Badass Gay.

^x5 Race is often a notable feature of a character. That would not justify making a trope listing all Asian people. In the same way sexuality can be notable feature of a character without being a trope.

Congrats, Mareon! You just made our day today with this comedy gold of a TLP draft. You win TV Tropes' funniest draft award!

I wonder if they're still online. Are they even reading this?

It does kind of seem to me like this thread is now just people dogpiling on someone for being extremely clueless in how they went about what's honestly a fairly well-intentioned purpose.

^^ I'm wondering if they got suspended already for edit warring and/or grammar issues.

^ Yeah, let's keep the clowning on the TLP to the actual draft, which isn't even funny for the content alone but just because it got so many bombs so damn fast. I do want OP to understand our standards and this thread should have a productive purpose.

I'll just try and explain why it got cut. It's not that we're anti LGBT, but that a character's sexuality, in and of itself, isn't a trope.

A character defying expectations? Trope. A character whose sexuality is relevant to their portrayal or the plot itself? Trope. A character who just happens to be gay? Not a trope- even if people wish it is.

While the dogpiling is unfortunate, this person did try to dodge all efforts to calm them down and spam the site trying to fix this issue. It's a Single Issue Wonk at least.

^Will Asexuality end up being remove as well?

^ Probably, along with Transgender.

We could probably keep those around as Useful Notes pages, like with Homosexual.

Anyways, I believe a talk with Mareon is inevitable if they do come back, about how throwing a tantrum is not a constructive and acceptable way to reacting to that trope being removed.

BTW, Mareon also left a blank review on The Last of Us Part II. Too bad, because whatever he intended to write was likely comedy gold.

Mareon, I understand your intention, but approaching this manner with hostility will only turn people against you. If you want something done, ask in a polite way and don't make decisions entirely out of anger. This will help you not just on the wiki, but in real life as well.

I think we should cut it out with the peanut gallery posting making fun or the op and his tlp draft. It's not helpful and probably violates the rule of not being a dick.

^ This person did attempt to evade our rules by using the TLP, which is a huge no-no, in addition to edit warring and temper-tantrums.

The bombing over the draft is purely cathartic fun- purely about the draft itself and not so much about Mareon's actions. It's just so damn absurd that there's no other real reaction to it.

I mean, yeah, maybe we're being kinda dickish, but we're directing our energy at the draft itself, not the OP.

It's not the schadenfreude that makes the draft bombing so fun. It's the fact it got draft bombed so quickly and we just kind of rolled with it. It'd be fascinating even if it didn't stem from willful misunderstanding of how the site works.

Yeah, exactly. At this point it's purely for the spectacle of it all.

Can someone please lock this down? No offense, but I think it’s getting a little out of hand.

^I agree and wonder where the mods are.

^^^^ I'm pretty sure the rules about not being a dick still apply even if the dickish things are not directed at a troper. I'd love to hear a mod speak on that though

I mean, did you read the comments on the draft? Very few of them are actually meanspirited; most are just people goofing around or trying to break a TLP record.

I meant can someone lock down this post? There are others that need to take precedent at this point.

This is a rather poor show for ATT, folks. There's no reason to make this into a peanut gallery.

Removed the OP for failing to address their poor behaviour.