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:
openRemoving Duplicate Images? Print Comic
I searched the Image List for images that I uploaded, and discovered a couple of cases where I accidentally uploaded the same image more than once. Is there a way to cutlist the duplicate images?
openCancelled comic Print Comic
New Warriors 2020 seems like it's cancelled. (You know, the one with the superheroes Safespace, Snowflake and Screentime.)
I can't find it listed anywhere, except a webpage
that doesn't seem like it's gonna offer it for sale the supposed release day.
Should we cut list it?
Edited by MichaelKatsuroopenMisuse of RecycledScript? Print Comic
While looking at Ms. Marvel (2014), I came across this:
- Recycled Script: Kamala's random airplane trip to visit relatives in Pakistan feels an awful lot like Nico's random airplane trip to visit relatives in Japan in A-Force which G. Willow Wilson had also wrote for.
Is this really a valid example? Because the random plane trip in A-Force was just one scene, whereas the trip in Ms. Marvel was the plot of an entire issue. I am also, like, 98% sure that this was written by Kyrtuck, who has a history of misusing tropes and also trying to sneak their opinions into examples.
Edited by StrixObscuroopenWas There a Mass Cleanup? Print Comic
I was looking over Inferiority Superiority Complex, and noticed that a bunch of examples that used to be there were gone, and a look at the history confirmed that someone named Zealots deleted a whole bunch of examples, with no explanation as to why. Was this part of a trope cleanup effort, or was Zealots doing an unsanctioned purge?
Edited by StrixObscuroopen YMMV problems in Green Lantern Print Comic
So, almost a month I removed these entries from the YMMV page of Green Lantern.
- Memetic Loser: It's either Hal, for losing his mind despite supposedly being one of the most willful individuals in the universe and becoming his own antithesis (and having a panned movie and generally being the least liked lantern) or Kyle for not being able to catch a break to save his life.
- Memetic Personality Change: In Fan Works focused on the Justice League where Hal is a secondary character, he'll usually be portrayed as a tryhard constantly attempting to prove his worth to the rest of the league. In fact portrayals of him like this are more common now than ones with Aquaman, which is saying something. This has only gained more steam following his appearance in The LEGO Batman Movie as The Friend Nobody Likes.
These entries only applied to specific portions of the fanbase and do not represent the Green Lantern fanbase as a whole, and in my opinion, don't really add much to the page and are just there to make fun of otherwise beloved characters in a page that, in theory, is supposed to be neutral. Troper DBZFan102 added them back with the justification:
See the webcomic parody 'Injustice For All' for just one example of Hal being portrayed like this in Fan Works. Basically anyone who never read Hal will depict him negatively, and Kyle similarly gets a bad rap for his Trauma Conga Line of a life... Also, see There Is No Such Thing As Notability. Examples don't need citations, least of all ones about trends inside a fandom, and least of all ones that are YMMV, and thus based on opinion. That's like asking for an example of Dex-Starr being called Rage Cat in a fan work for the Memetic Mutation example.
I still stand by my earlier opinion, not to mention that a single fanwork doesn't speak for the entire fanbase, but maybe I'm just taking this way too seriously. What do you think?
openAstro City - Glamorax pronouns? Print Comic
There seems to be some ongoing back-and-forth on the Characters.Astro City page where the pronouns for a character named Glamorax keep being switched back and forth between 'they/them' and just the character's name/Glam. Looks like it's happened a few times over the last few years. I haven't read enough of the comic to weigh in (only a few scattered trades here and there), but it'd probably be good to settle it one way or the other.
Asked on the forum topic for Astro City (as far as I saw there was only one from 2014) as well, no answer yet.
openHow do I create a new work page? Print Comic
I want to write a page for the S Pider-Man storyline Sins rising, but I don't know how to actually start a works page.
openBad Example of Base-Breaking Character? Print Comic
I was looking at Batgirl (2011), and came across this:
- Base-Breaking Character: Alysia Yeoh. Less about the character herself, and more about whether her being transgender is handled well or is being shoved into the reader's face to make the comic look progressive. Her getting Demoted to Extra when Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher and Babs Tarr took over made this worse. It doesn't help that when she was brought back, many felt that the writers are treating her less like a full character, and more like a PR stunt.
- Wouldn't this be a case of Broken Base, rather than Base-Breaking Character, if the divide is "less about the character herself"?
- Is she even a base-breaking character? I'm not in the Batgirl fandom, so I have no idea what the general mood is, but in my experience, when someone uses the "shoved in the reader's face", it suggests someone's been analyzing things in bad faith.
openIndexing of Judge Dredd Complete Monster page. Print Comic
Okay, ~Psychotic Ranger 4567 and I seem to be going back and forth, and I want to nip this before it becomes an Edit War.
I think that Judge Dredd should be listed for works with their own examples at both Monster.Two Thousand AD page Monster.Comic Books (similar to, say, how Conan the Barbarian's listed under both Monster.Marvel Comics and Monster.Comic Books ), but 4567 thinks it should only be under one. If it were just 2000 AD stuff that'd be fine, but considering there's DC, IDW, etc., that's numerous other comics. Just like Conan has both Marvel and Dark Horse.
So, thoughts?
Edited by ACWopenEditWar in YMMV/SonicTheHedgehogIDW Print Comic
Jeffret
keeps readding a Base-Breaking Character example for the Deadly Six in YMMV.Sonic The Hedgehog IDW despite being repeatedly told it doesn't apply by other users (due to the arc the Deadly Six debuted in not being 6 months old yet). He's also added complainy statements about the Deadly Six to the page previously, which were promptly deleted for being natter and violating the "YMMV can't be played with" rule.
openSuperman = Designated Hero? Print Comic
Troper DBZFan102 added Superman to the comic book section of Designated Hero with the following argument:
"Superman came off as this in his earliest stories, as he had yet to become the iconic beacon of hope he is today. One story showed him angry that a friend of his died to a car accident and hijack a radio stadio to declare war on all reckless drivers. Hundreds of dollars in property damage later, Superman has succeeded in his goal, as driving laws are now rigidly enforced by the mayor (after Supes kidnapped him and took him to a morgue so he could guilt him with all the victims of driving accidents, natch), and the story ends with Superman getting a ticket for parking in the wrong place. This leaves the reader wondering if it's just a kooky Ironic Twist Ending typical of comics of the time, or if Superman is receiving Laser-Guided Karma for his vigilantism. Hijacking a radio station to declare war on blank sounds straight out of a Saturday-Morning Cartoon villain's playbook."
- "He sometimes slips back into this in modern comics, particularly some moments in Superman: Grounded where he refuses to do hero things just to make some kind of vaguely-defined point about non-interference."
I have to ask, is this valid? I know that Golden Age Superman wasn't exactly the boy scout he is today, but I still question the validity of this entry. What do you say?
openCharacter pages for the Green Lanterns Print Comic
The character page for the Green Lantern Corps has become enormous in recent years. I think the Earth Lanterns have enough tropes to fit their own pages. What do you say?
openIs Barry Allen a Designated Hero? Print Comic
Barry Allen has earned himself quite the lengthy entry at the comic book section of Designated Hero. It reads:
"The Flash: Barry Allen, the Silver Age incarnation of the character, has largely became this upon being brought back and pushed as the main Flash.
- Upon returning, he created the Flashpoint incident while trying to undo the meddling of his arch-enemy, Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash, who had altered Barry's past to give him an angstier backstory involving his mother getting murdered. However, rather than work with other heroes who are experts on this kind of thing, like Booster Gold or even his own former protege and Superior Successor Wally West (who unlike Barry, could run through time-and-space unaided and understood their powers on a much greater level), he did this by himself, resulting in a distorted Darker and Edgier timeline. While his motivations were sympathetic, the sheer idiocy of his blunder and how easily it could have been avoided, especially as he was warned prior during the Prelude to Flashpoint about what was going to happen and did it anyway.
- When he realised what he did and undid it, the result still didn't fix his mistake, resulting in a new timeline that was still Darker and Edgier, only everyone was also Younger and Hipper on top; while Barry's life in this new timeline wasn't bad, his friends were made miserable with both marriages and people erased, including Wally West, Wally's kids, and also Jay Garrick, Jesse Chambers, and the rest of the Flash Family. Though all of this was because Executive Meddling was in play (co-publisher Dan DiDio wanted the rest of the Flash family erased due to his personal dislike of Wally West and his belief that the franchise should be simpler, as well as his preference for Darker and Edgier stories and belief that True Art Is Angsty), it essentially meant that in-universe, Barry was personally responsible for erasing his nephew and family from existence, essentially killing them, while making everyone else he knew miserable and lonely. Meanwhile, Barry in this new timeline? He was a young, happy single with a cute Adorkable girlfriend, largely beloved by his city, with nobody knowing or remembering what he did.
- The Rebirth era didn't help with this matter, even after Wally West returns. During a team-up with Batman, he discovered Wally wasn't the only forgotten speedster when he meets Jay Garrick in the Speed Force. Rather than working tirelessly to save Jay, as you would expect a hero like Barry to do, he seemingly forgets about it to instead focus on other stuff. Then, Wally has his memory of his kids restored to him, and he calls Barry out on not even informing him about other trapped speedsters; he claims he was working with Batman to investigate it off-panel, but they were clearly not sparing much time looking into this, which could have been resolved by informing Wally, who not only wasn't busy with anything thanks to having his life erased, and also understands the Speed Force to a much greater extent than Barry and would be better suited into looking into it. Then, after the two are manipulated by Hunter Zolomon, Wally has a breakdown over the memory of his kids, so Barry sends him to a mental health facility where he never visits him, trusting instead that the facility can help him. It doesn't. Meanwhile, after sending Wally away, Barry could take this as an indication he should put more focus into finding the lost speedsters, but instead, he starts a different investigation into the "Other Forces", something he could have left up to his new ally, Commander Cold while he continued searching for Jay, Jesse, and Max. While his lack of focus on this could be chalked up to not remembering the other speedsters, it still looks callous of him to know people are suffering and to do nothing, even when told these people are his family."
Okay, I gotta ask: is this valid? I know that some people still have grievances towards Barry even after the end of Comic Book/Flashpoint and I do admit that I don't have the best knowledge on Barry's history, but this entry is so long and descriptive that it comes off as opinionated writing. What do we do with this?
Edited by MasterHeroopenGarfield Website is No More Print Comic
Garfield and U.S. Acres
Since Paws, Inc. was bought out by Viacom last year, Viacom as of yesterday have shut down garfield.com that was in use since 1996 leaving behind two links (one to Nickelodeon and the other to the Go Comics mirror).
All of the garfield.com links in the main Garfield comic pages (including audience reaction pages) along with the cross-wicks need to be updated to point the links to the Go Comics mirror.
Unfortunately US Acres does not have a mirror and cannot be accessed anymore outside the Internet Archive. Any missing comics not archived may have to have their links purged from the US Acres articles via Weblinks Are Not Examples .
The Garfield flash games may have been archived on other sites so any links to them may need to point to the sites that have them saved instead of garfield.com.
There might be other matters, but these are the three main ones I'd figure to bring up here.
openFirst Time Editor Print Comic
After reading a few comic book pages, I wanted to add some tropes on the YMMV page, but I've never edited a trope page before and I'm not sure what the proper procedure is. I didn't want to just hit the 'Edit' button and go wild. I've been trying to look for a good rules or procedure list, but the FAQ on the forum wasn't helping. I could have just missed something, I admit. Basically, what do I need to do to start making edits and additions properly?
openThe page image caption for Know-Nothing Know-It-All bothers and confuses me. Print Comic
Hi, please let me know if there is a better place to ask this. So, the page image for Know-Nothing Know-It-All is part of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Hobbes tells Calvin the basic math problem he needs help with requires calculus and imaginary numbers. The caption is "There are imaginary numbers, just not the ones he's thinking of.", and links to Right for the Wrong Reasons and Eleventy Zillion. Maybe I am missing something and am mistaken, but I feel like the caption is really inaccurate? The joke looks to me like he clearly has a vague idea of imaginary numbers being an advanced and hard math concept like calculus. Even if he barely understands what the term means, I do not see how that implies that he thinks "imaginary numbers" means Eleventy Zillion numbers. Either me or the caption writer is missing the point of something, and I am not sure who. If I am right, it probably needs a better caption.
openAbout Batman Print Comic
Do you think that we should add The Woobie subpage for the Batman franchise? I mean, Gotham is very unforgiving place that is filled with harsh environment and dastardly villains. Batman himself is the Iron Woobie as though he lost his parents to an killer, yet he still presses on and become a Hope Bringer to Gotham. Likewise, Barbara Gordon and Damian Wayne should count as well; as the former was humiliated and crippled by The Joker just to torture her father, and the latter was raised by a mother who is mentally unstable, and a grandfather who is a genocidal maniac. Cassandra Cain, Jim Gordon, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and even Jason Todd are good examples. Heck, it even extends to some in Batman's Rogue Gallery, especially Harley Quinn and Mr. Freeze. The latter is in the tropes, Even Evil Has Loved Ones and Tragic Villain for a reason.
Edited by AlexHoskinsopenNo Title Print Comic
Well, print media, anyway.
Question: Fortean Times. British magazine publication, but a previous troper has methodically changed spellings to American English, which doesn't feel right. This isn't snobbishness or insularity: if I were to go to a works page on an American publication and change everything to British English it would look just as odd and "wrong". I don't want to provoke a flame war by changing everything back. But instinctively - if it's a works page on a British subject, it should be in British English. If it's American, American English. And vice versa. What's the ruling on this? Is there a "style guide" to consult?

DC Future State already has a YMMV page available, but I must question the validity and necessity for it in the first place. For now, the entries are:
The event hasn't even premiered yet, so we don't even know how are tropes are gonna apply or even if they will apply at all. What should we do?