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Ask the Tropers:
resolved Cut a page with mostly poorly written examples? Literature
I was doing a wick check for If You Call Before Midnight Tonight and found this work page for a children's book. It's filled with zero-context and poorly written examples (including linking a useful note as a trope example on a work page which isn't allowed). I see only two passably written examples on the page. Should we just cut this page?
ADDENDUM: Also, Batteries Not Included isn't on the Useful Notes page.
Edited by supernintendo128openMain work page at a different title than subpages Literature
In German, <ae> is a valid alternate spelling of <ä>. Hence Maerchen Maedchen has Märchen Mädchen as a redirect. But all the subpages are for Märchen Mädchen, with the other as redirect, which has the effect of making the Trivia, YMMV and Characters pages inaccessible from the main work page. Seeing as every other references source I can find calls it Märchen Mädchen, I would like to move them all there and turn Maerchen Maedchen into the redirect. Can I get a go-ahead here?
openWrong page name Literature
The character page for Carrie has a section for "the Mortimer Snerds" which is a misinterpretation that this is what Chris Hargensen's clique calls themselves. The book explains that this is not the name of their group, but an insulting nickname that they call outcast students. Should the name of the page be changed?
Edited by Javertshark13resolved Taking You With Me for Lord Kaan ? Literature
In https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/DarthBane
page, more specifically, the Taking You with Me in Kaan's folder. Kaan was specifically manipulated into using the Thought Bomb to destroy the Jedi and he wrongly believes he would survive it with his followers (said in the book and in his wookiepedia page: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Skere_Kaan
).
While this act effectively kills him, his followers and the Jedi near it, I don't think the Taking You with Me trope should qualify since it is not his intention. I think it is more of a Desperation Attack or a Last Ditch Move than anything else.
What do you think ?
Edited by CybranLordopenAbout Lit RPG works Literature
The page Small Medium Big Trouble has folders has the start and end with a long list of the character's stats. Is this okay, or should they be removed?
openWarrior Cats needs organization Literature
Hey there, so Warrior Cats has an organization problem, with various tropers setting up different pages in different ways (apparently over the years) without being aware of each other. We've got a bunch of essentially duplicate pages and aren't sure what the "right" way to organize all this is.
Sorry in advance for the wall of text.
Basically to explain how the work is set up: Warrior Cats is a book series consisting of just over 100 works at this point. The "main" series is split into six-book-long story arcs, and there's dozens of side books and stories (standalone extra-long-or-short books, graphic novels, short stories/plays posted on the official website, etc) - these side books consist of side adventures, perspective flips, prequels, etc. Altogether, this makes up one long consistent story, just pieces from different POVs, with lots of overlap between them (see this crazy image
◊ which is an accurate, up-to-date depiction of how everything fits together). There's also a tabletop game that they included in the back of some of the books, and some games (browser games and an official Roblox environment).
So as far as the TV Tropes pages, originally it was just one long Literature page, Literature/WarriorCats. I also created a Recap page for the individual books since I felt it was the cleanest way rather than creating 100 work pagesmy reasoning there aren't always many examples, especially for the short stories, and the Funny, YMMV, etc subpages would be basically blank if needed at all. This would also make linking on trope pages cleaner as it can just link to Literature/WarriorCats - especially since several of the books are a perspecive flip that cover the same situations so the example would appear in multiple books. Other lengthy works like Animorphs have done similar.
Anyway, I've since discovered that other tropers have made individual pages for some of the books or story arcs, so we have essentially a whole bunch of duplicates going on, many of which are definitely out of date.
So yeah, what we currently have:
- Literature/WarriorCats, the original page containing examples from the whole series, which has often been used as the main page/the one linked to in examples on trope pages. It also contains Funny, Tearjerker, YMMV, Trivia, etc from all the books.
- Recap/WarriorCats with each book having its own recap page with examples
- Franchise/WarriorCats
- Pages for individual books or portions of the series, some of which have their own examples and ymmv, funny, etc pages. In many but not all cases, these are duplicates of the examples either on the equivalent Literature/WarriorCats page, or an individual book's Recap page.
- The individual six-book-long arcs: Warrior Cats: The Original Series, Warrior Cats: The New Prophecy, Warrior Cats: Power of Three, Warrior Cats: Omen of the Stars, Warrior Cats: Dawn of the Clans, Warrior Cats: A Vision of Shadows, Warrior Cats: The Broken Code, Warrior Cats: A Starless Clan
- Warrior Cats: SkyClan Saga, a messy grouping of some of the Super Editions, graphic novels, and novellas, covering a sort of side story arc about the exile & rebuilding of a missing faction. The page is missing some books relevant to it but that story arc has since merged with the main story anyway.
- Warrior Cats Prequel Super Editions, another messy grouping of some of the side books that take place around the same time as each other. They're not the only prequels, or the only books that take place during this time period anymore.
- Warrior Cats Novellas, a grouping specifically of the shorter-than-normal novellas that take place across the whole series. Theoretically they could fit on one of the previously listed pages or multiple, depending on the novella, and otherwise have nothing to do with each other
- Warrior Cats (manga), a grouping specifically of the "manga" side stories. Manga/WarriorCats redirects to this page. Note that there's some confusion as to what to label these as, since they originally were branded as "manga", then reprinted & had new come out as "graphic novels", and as of the last week or so they announced that they're also going to be adapting the actual first story arc into its own graphic novel adaptation (the existing ones had all been original stories rather than a straight adaptation of a book).
- Books/etc with their own pages (note that some are under Literature, one is under Comic Book, one is under Theatre): Bramblestar's Storm, Moth Flight's Vision, Tigerheart's Shadow, Crowfeather's Trial, Warrior Cats: The Rise of Scourge, Brightspirit's Mercy
- TabletopGame/WarriorsAdventureGame for the tabletop game at the back of the books
If I had it my way, I'd axe the separate arc/manga/prequel-super-edition/skyclan saga/novella/individual book pages, and move anything from those that's not a duplicate back to the main Warrior Cats pages or corresponding book's Recap page. Those pages are for the most part duplicates, out of date, and honestly hard to categorize the side books since there's so much overlap (see image I linked above).
I'd keep Franchise/WarriorCats, Literature/WarriorCats, the recap pages, and TabletopGame/WarriorsAdventureGame since that is technichally a separate thing that isn't part of the books' long story. And if I can think of tropes for the indivdual games then I'd give those their own pages, with a VideoGame/WarriorCats linking to them. I don't know if we'd need a Manga(or comic book or whatever)/WarriorCats or Theatre/WarriorCats pages for the graphic novels and short plays: for the books currently known as graphic novels I'm not sure what the proper namespace is for the books, they're not really considered a separate "work" by fans from the main series, and I don't know if/how to sort the existing ones which are side adventures vs the upcoming straight adaptation. The plays are very short things posted on the official site which have very few applicable tropes which I think is sufficiently covered by a Recap page.
But yeah, just wanted to check if there's a "right" way to organize this, and if we do go removing a bunch of pages, what the correct process for that would look like (if I've requested anything to be cut before it's been years.)
Edited by Dawnwingresolved Formatting and Name Space for Chaos Timeline Literature
Hi, I was noticed that page Chaos Timeline has its tropes split into various categories such as Alternate History Tropes, General Tropes, Character Tropes, etc which is not something I've seen before and was wondering if this is something that should be changed to the more standard list of all tropes in one list?
Also, and I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but I noticed that the work is in the Literature namespace, but appears to be a timeline on Alternate History.com, which takes the form of a series of forum posts, and I've noticed that most works of this variety are in the Web Original namespace. Should this work also be in the Web Original namespace?
openNantucket Trilogy Literature
Why was Nantucket Trilogy transformed into a redirect for Island in the Sea of Time? The latter is a book within the former series, not the other way around.
openmistress of the art of death Literature
Can I recreate the article for Mistress of the Art of Death? I found it on the mystery literature page but it had been redlinked, and the link said that I needed to ask for permission here to create it since it had been previously deleted for being a stub.
I already have at least 17 tropes lined up for the first book (including the redlinks it's left on other trope pages) and will add more as I work through the series. I'm currently halfway through the second book, Serpent's Tale, and if permission is granted I intend to trope all five books.
Edited by Doodlerresolved Close to being an edit war? Literature
JaidebeccaShipper removed
the word "transphobic" from this entry:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The book tells the story of a little boy named Johnny who loves to role-play as different animals and objects. One day, he decides that he wants to be a walrus. This (somehow) causes everyone to treat him as if he actually wants to become a walrus, culminating in a doctor suggesting that Johnny eat worms and have his limbs cut off in an allegory for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery — a metaphor that would only be understood by the transphobic adults in Walsh's audience who would purchase it, despite the book being illustrated and ostensibly presented as a children's book. Walsh boasted that it was the best-selling book in Amazon's LGBTQ+ category, only for Amazon to recategorize it to Political and Social Commentary and for Target to completely remove it from its online storefront.
With the edit reason: " Arguing against an ideology is not transphobic, just like not following a religion doesn't mean you hate people of that religion."
Moroaica added
"transphobic" back to the entry with the edit reason: "trans medication isn't 'ideology' and opposition to that is transphobic."
I'm not sure what do here. But my observation is that they're both troping with an agenda (but hey, correct me if that observation is wrong).
On a related note, Moroaica removed
- Narm Charm: The Zookeeper Author Avatar looking like Walsh is something that fans of the book consistently praise.
Their edit reason for removing it was: "This book has no actual 'fans'"
As much as I disagree with this book's message, this isn't true. The book certainly does have fans and those who agree with Walsh's message. It feels like Moroaica is being disingenuous here and biased.
Edited by AudioSpeaks2openShort stories go in double quotes(?) Literature
I was only recently made aware that apparently the titles for short stories are marked with double quotes instead of italics
. note As in "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and not I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. I just learned that it's a Short Story from that edit lol.
I wish to ask for clarification on the practice(?). Is it just those labelled as a Short Story that are to be formatted as such, or should a word count be considered?
I ask this because I'm interested in/been making work pages for creepypastas, some of which can be quite short. Both The Storm (Arav Dagli) and When the Storm Came are about 5 minutes each, while stuff like Laughing Jack takes about 10 minutes to read note (not sure if I should mention the origin story which is on the same page, as that takes 40-50 minutes to read), and I've always been formatting them with italics. Up until now, I've only been familiar with using double quotes for episode titles or installments in a bigger series (sometimes).
Edited by BlackFaithStaropenWhy is Lord of the Flies “Science Fiction Literature”? Literature
Genuinely curious, since I never even remotely understood it to be science fiction before. Is it because many have argued it’s a form of Dystopian fiction?
openPossibility of purging KalyHender fic pages? Literature
I'm done with that phase of my life and I deleted my fics. I'm wondering if, if the fics haven't been archived, they can be deleted due to inability to verify said fics? And maybe the Kaly Hender creator page could also be purged? Kaly Hender is dead to me.
I know now that you can't delete stuff for personal reasons, but they may still possibly have to go away for inability to verify reasons.
Edited by KalyTroperopenNeed Help With Editing Literature
Hi! So, I’ve created a new page, but I don’t know how to add the ‘tropes’ section. Example: This work provides examples of: with the list of tropes under it. Another thing is, could I request my page to be edited for me? I’m new here. Thanks in advance! Here’s the link:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/BeforeTheSoulrenderTakesHisToll
openI'd like to write an article about a fanfic... Literature
But I don't know if I can, because it is not famous outside a specific Italian niche. I think it deserves an article for being ABSOLUTELY BONKERS in every possible sense of the word, and I'd like to see if it was okay with the rules to inform the international public about this. Thank you in advance^^
resolved Creating a page for an unofficial duology? Literature
I want to create a page(s) for two books I really enjoy, Wolf Winter and In the Month of the Midnight Sun, both by Cecilia Ekbäck. The two books both take place in the exact same setting (Blackasen Mountain) and cover similar themes, but other than that, share nothing with each other: they take place in completely different time periods with completely different casts with no callbacks whatsoever.
Given this, could they be considered a "series" (neither the publisher nor the author has ever described them as such as far as I have discovered) and share a Main page, or would they require two different ones?
If it is the former, what would I call it? Just "Wolf Winter" given it came first?
openAmerican Girl Historical Characters and Suspiciously Similar Substitute Literature
Back in July of this year, I expanded the trope on the American Girls Historical Characters page to add in with Nicki Hoffman's Suspiciously Similar Substitute listing that one of the things that makes the substitute justified is that the character Nicki Fleming has not been available since 2005.
(Ihis is a very long edit; I had done a lot of changes at once.)
On December 2nd, Connie Blackwood made an edit which removed the detail on Nicki Fleming no longer being available.
I am hoping to resolve this information with both Connie and the TV Tropes community. My take is that I feel it is relevant to the entry and others that a lot of the substitutes and repeats in American Girl releases—especially with Girls of the Year—are due to the fact that the target audience will age out and be replaced by younger kids. So a release from 2005 not being available in 2022 is relevant. Often themes and names repeat. It partially matters that Nicki Fleming from 2005 isn't around for a ten year old to compare her to Nicki Hoffman. (Sorry also for the confusing character names. American Girl did that.)
I've also sent a PM to ConnieBlackwood requesting her contribution to this discussion.
(edits because I'm not great at pinging names or making links on ATT to edit history yet.)
Edited by NethiliaopenIs there a procedure for renaming a Media page? Literature
I think that Son of the Black Sword should be renamed to Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. The current page name is the title of the first book in the series while Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is the name of the series as a whole. Is there a procedure for requesting this? I tried searching but only found the procedure for suggesting a trope rename. If not I guess I'll put in a redirect as a temporary solution.
openCan I recreate the deleted page Magazine/RangerRick Literature
That's because the original page had no tropes and was only a description. I could add the tropes to this long-running magazine.
Edited by wingedcatgirl

Skit skat skoodle doot, flip flop flee, the page for this classic book was cut previously!
I created a draft for a much better write-up for the page, but the page says to ask here if it's safe to recreate it so I'm going ahead and asking here just to be safe.
Edited by kablammin45