Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openRed link, Creator without page Literature
Hello, tropers.
This time I'm looking to ask for help for a page with a red link to a non-existent Creator page, in One of Ours. The name Willa Cather seems to show up as a red link, indicating that there is no page for the creator (as of written).
Further information when I click on "Related" shows that this isn't the only red link, it's also found in Excited Show Title along with another red link, O Pioneers!
I know that it is likely that something is off when you see a red link in any case, but what do I do for Creator without an existing page? It is not have even been cut off at some point, but rather, never existed in the first place.
Edited by JustNormalMusicLoveropenUsing Localized Names Literature
What is Tv Tropes' policy on using names that were changed in Adaptation Name Change?
It's just that I've been constructing a page for The McGurk Organization and it was only while I was making it that I found out it was originally British, not American, with a handful of character name changes in the process. I mostly have access to North American editions of the books, so I may not even be aware what changes were made.
So which version should I use on the page?
Edited by DancouMaryuuopenCan Literature/Suttree page be recreated Literature
I would like to recreate the page. I haven't read the book yet, therefore I can't add all the tropes. I can only add tropes that I know generally, such as page count and what types of ending the book has.
openPossible Plagiarism? Literature
I just discovered that the description given for the book "Children of Blood and Bone" is very similar to that given on the Amazon page for said book
.
It's not one-to-one—but many phrases are the same, or only slightly different, and overall it looks like it might be a copy (whether of the Amazon text or otherwise) that has simply been adjusted a bit.
openEmily McIntire novels - Romance or Erotic? Literature
I've added in an author named Emily McIntire, who wrote a series of romance novels: the "Sugarlake" series (I haven't read them, though), the Never After series, and "Be Still My Heart".
I've been working on trope pages "Hooked", "Scarred" and Wretched" for the past several days after reading them. However, I'm having trouble deciding where to place them on the genre pages. While I am aware they are romance novels, the books also have graphic erotic moments.
Any suggestions on where to place these novels?
Edited by LilithArtistopenChronological vs alphabatized Literature
I think that in the case of a some tropes — mostly historic or Forgotten Trope such as Courtly Love, Mal Mariée, Lover and Beloved — it would make sense to list examples chronologically rather than alphabetically. You could really see the history and formation of the trope that way. Specifically the Literature examples, because that's the medium that dates back hundreds of years.
I know that would be going against general protocol. Is there any way to carve out an exception for just a couple pages where it makes sense, without making it a big thing?
openWork page with no examples Literature
I was clicking on the Random Media button a bunch, and found a page for Card Rood Rebirth. There are no examples on the page (though they are present on the work's Characters page). It was created in September of last year and has been untouched since that date. The user who created the page has been inactive since May. It also has absolutely no crosswicks and has not been indexed. Should it be cutlisted? If not, what should be done?
openImage Upload Literature
I'm trying to Upload an Image of the full Cover of Creatures of the Flood for my Bamboo Kingdom article, but I don't know how!
openReverting a wiki word that's incorrect Literature
Alright so I made A Deal with a Demon. And had all the letters capitalised. This is how the author on her personal website
has it [https://www.amazon.com/A-Deal-With-A-Demon-3-book-series/dp/B09HNBH9D7
and Amazon]] the people who sell it have it. Plus you know it's on the cover that that is how it's meant to look.
It got wiki worded to add lowercase letters to a and with but again their supposed to be Capatalised for this work. Can I get a revert.
Edited by miraculousopen Family secret Literature
A child is adopted into a family of immigrants. References are occasionally made by the family to some unknown person. The reader finds out eventually that this person is an older son in the family, who had been arrested and had died in prison before the family immigrated.
open concealement Literature
I search a trope about someone who can conceal informations or even the future to the eyes of seers.
openTrope Making Literature
Am I allowed to make my own trope? I am a writer and I want to upload my two story series to here but make it like readable on another site because I don't think uploading my whole story onto TV Tropes is allowed. I don't want to proceed unless I get a response from the mod team. Thanks!
open Is there a limit on how bad taste a work can be and still have a page? Literature
I’ve lurked (reluctantly) for a while, and Tv Tropers I have finally logged on with a question: what is the limit for how bad (morally) a work and/or its creators can be? In the sense that you’re allowed to make a page on it, I mean. I’ve checked the red link club, and the only actual notorious piece of MEDIA I can see there is Stonetoss, and I can understand how it would be hard to edit objectively without endorsing his views.
TLDR: I want to make a page for one of the Virginia Tech shooter’s plays. It’s not even slightly an ideological work. Would that get me banned? Discuss 🤔
openFound a 4chan forum story, is Literature the right place for it? Literature
Luke: The Plague Son of Nurgle
While doing some cleanup work, came across the above which appears to be an unstructured forum story told by multiple people in 2009 and interspersed with comments from anonymous posters. It's not referenced anywhere else on google besides tvtropes and the forum links themselves.
What is the criteria for a web original forum work being listed? Does it need to have an attributable author? Does it need to have evidence of a reader base? Is there some other criteria we use? Does it need to be something someone can actually pinpoint and consume with a clear line between the work itself and people commenting on it? Is there any kind of minimum length requirement?
When I came across this one, it didn't really seem to fit the "Literature" media space to me though I know WebSerialNovels do get classified under literature.
However, I'm not sure this forum story can even be classified as a novel so that's adding to my confusion.
The work page has 1 wick under "The Pig-Pen", 171 total inbounds, and looks to have been created on November 20, 2021 though the original 4chan threads look like they were all from November 2009.
resolved ViewerPronunciationConfusion edit war Literature
(For a new trope, Viewer Pronunciation Confusion is sure getting a lot of "love" here, isn't it?
Offa changed the mispronunciation of Smaug from "smog" to "smawg" on July 25. I changed it back to "smog" on July 26. Offa changed it back to "smawg" today, leaving a comment which makes it clear that they remember their first edit.
Edited by bwburke94openIncorrect work name Literature
It looks like somehow Horatio Hornblower is being displayed as Captain Horatio Hornblower, R.N. when it's put on trope pages, even under the Literature namespace (like here
), as well as the trope page for the book series. "Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N." is the name of a film adaptation, but the actual book series is just Horatio Hornblower. I don't think it's a "move the namespace" issue because the URL is HoratioHornblower, it just displays with the film name for some reason. Is there a way for a troper to fix this or does a mod need to do it?
openShould a work example be commented out if it doesn't state the title at all? Literature
Cleaning and sorting Virgin Power and found this example:
- A short story alternate history features a psychic girl who helps the Nazis win WWII. After she runs away, meets the hero and they both get captured and taken back to Berlin, she asks him to "depower" her. Also subverted, as it implies this will have no effect on her powers but the fact that the Nazis believe her powers have been neutralised is enough.
No work title but the example seems valid (aside from looking more like Justified Trope than Subverted Trope) so what should I do with it?
openTroper complaining on So I'm A Spider, So What? Literature
Warning: this post may contain spoilers for the ending.
Lately, I've noticed that AKITN made multiple edits that were so full of complaints in LightNovel.So Im A Spider So What and its YMMV page. While I can agree with some of the criticism, unfortunately even after I sent a complaining notifier, they still haven't responded. I would like some advice on how to deal with them as what parts of the complaints need to be edited out.
openShould Buratino be included in Pinocchio's franchise page? Literature
Buratino is the protagonist of the 1936 Soviet book The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino by Aleksei Tolstoy, a loose retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio, during the time copyright laws in the Soviet Union were different, that got immensely popular in Russian children's literature and it's to this day famous in Russia. The book of course shares many similarities to the original novel, but also has several deviations and new characters. Can it be included in Franchise.Pinocchio, since it was explicitly inspired by it? And if yes, where would it be? Under adaptations, or under a new header for retellings and pastiches?
Edited by good-morning

Say you're writing a page for a foreign (non-english) writer and you need to list their works. Which title should go first? Original or translated one?
Does it depend on whether the writer's works were actually translated to english or not?