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openQuestion on what Useful Notes are supposed to cover.
So, if I'm not mistaken, Useful Notes are supposed to be about explaining complicated real world topics to help media consumers understand context when they see them in works and for writers to help them write difficult topics better. A while ago I came across UsefulNotes.Cult, and the last half of the page is entirely dedicated to offsite resources for more on cults, often about how to recognize real cults and how to avoid joining them. Many of the books referenced are out of print and/or expensive, and many of the links to websites are dead or the sites are inactive, but right now I'm more worried about the "largely for helping people avoid joining cults IRL" angle, because I looked through some of the other Psychology UN pages, and there's others that have problems too. From least concerning to most concerning:
- UsefulNotes.Alcoholism And Alcohol Abuse - This page is entirely written as a help page, but I'm torn on what to do on it because alcoholism is almost never portrayed correctly in media and thus is one of the more warranted UN pages. You could also argue that it's closer to the illness pages like UsefulNotes.Depression or UsefulNotes.Personality Disorders (which I think in general are written much better than the other ones I've listed) and thus has merit to stay as is or close to as is.
- UsefulNotes.Trigger - Most of this is pretty alright, and it has merit to be a UN page as it is technically fanspeak, but it definitely gets a little... heated - "Due to the seriousness of this trigger, it is good Netiquette and being a decent human being to offer at least some warning of suicide, of ruminations on suicide and suicidality, or on things that are guaranteed to be severely depressing and bring out such emotions." This kind of language shows up a couple of times here and other similar pages. Notably, this kinda conflicts with the message we have at the top of this page that says don't add trigger warningsnote and the "guaranteed to be severely depressing and bring out such emotions" part conflicts with what we say later that not all people who are suicidal will be triggered by depictions of suicide. Are we not decent human beings anymore?
- UsefulNotes.Victim Blaming - This page says it's about trying to prevent victim blaming in fiction, but is that really a problem? How often do people unintentionally blame victims in their writing? This is just self-help (and possibly soapboxing) disguised as writing advice. Much of it is just a list of examples of victim blaming, and aside from the weird ones (how is blaming a child for wetting the bed "victim blaming", wetting the bed is a victimless non-crime), I think all of these are fairly obvious from explaining the concept. Also, both this page and the next are very vague on who in situations are "victims" and who are "perpetrators"note for instance, if a car hits and injures a jaywalker they had no chance to avoid, who is the victim? Failure to prevent isn't always a fallacy., and that's confusing at best and a problem at worst.
- UsefulNotes.Abuse - This page doesn't even pretend it's connected to anything related to works of fiction. It's largely about telling abuse victims it's not their fault and how to help yourself/friends get out of abusive situations. There's also this very concerning section in Disability Is An Excuse For Jerkassery: "Furthermore, it is not bigoted or ableist to say that there are certain disorders (primarily Cluster B personality disorders and certain types of bipolar disorder) that should absolutely bar you from dating unless they are properly managed, which means sticking to all prescribed medications and therapy regimens without deviation. Again (because this cannot be stated enough), if you have a disorder that has an extremely high correlation with being toxic or abusive and you are not taking the proper steps to manage it, you have no business being in a relationship." Uh, no, this is actually ableist as hell. This perpetuates the stereotype that the mentally ill (especially people with the "scary" mental illnesses) are a danger to society unless they're sedated into submissionnote not to mention how, especially to someone who, oh, I don't know, is bipolar in a depressive phase, this section might come off as saying that they should avoid any relationships, with anyone, altogether - don't forget that the page isn't just about abuse between romantic/sexual partners, but also toxic friendships, toxic family dynamics, child abuse, elder abuse... this can absolutely send the message that people with mental illnesses should just entirely isolate themselves to avoid their inherent nature to abuse others, and, I'm no expert, but I think that's not a good message?.
We Permanent Red Link Club'ed Useful Notes Suicide Prevention because we decided we weren't qualified to give medical advicenote and because most of the suicide hotlines we were linking to were country-locked, it wasn't fair to visitors who lived in countries where we couldn't find an active suicide hotline. UsefulNotes.Suicide, for what it's worth, is in pretty good shape following its cleanup and locking.. What is our stance on giving self-help on UN pages?
Edited by MissConduct
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
resolved Troper that seems to be here just to complain
~katiepricesaunt joined the site last month, but their only contribution is this complainy self-hatted TLP draft
that seems to be taking a potshot at Put on a Bus and has the the troper be needlessly sarcastic in the comments to boot.
I'm not sure if they're just here to complain and be rude, if they're a bandodger of some kind, or what, but I figured I'd report them here and nip things in the bud before they potentially head over to other parts of the site.
openCreating subpages are free will ?
Pretty self explanatory. Some subpages like Cyberpunk.Video Games and AnimeAndManga.Scenery Porn look very long enough to have their own subpages back. Its okay to re-create a subpage without discussion ?
openSelf-Demonstrating Character Pages
Hypothetically speaking, how would one go about making a new self-demonstrating character pages?
resolved Edit warring to keep a YMMV item on a main work page
About a month ago ~King Ghost added
Designated Hero—a YMMV item—with improper Example Indentation to Webcomic.The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace.
Yestersday I sent "YMMV" and "indentation" Notifiers to King Ghost, then removed
the entry from the page and combined
it with the entry that was already on YMMV.The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace.
Today King Ghost replied to the notifiers with what clearly showed he didn't read the articles linked in them to understand why what he did was wrong. I replied to the replies, but then I checked the page itself and saw that he had already
put Designated Hero back on the work page, again improperly indented, and with Edit Reasons that also show he doesn't understand what the problem is.
I'd continue to try explaining things to him before coming here, but since there's a rule violation on the page I'd wanted some help with that, since removing it again is pointless if he'll just put it back once again.
openMultiple Violations of Quote Potholing Videogame
The page quote for The Roottrees are Dead has been potholed to Title Drop three times by three
different
editors
, despite the initial deletion
referencing What to Put at the Top of a Page. I sent the second editor the notifier and they removed their re-potholing attempt by themself, but the third editor added it back in. Does this warrant a reversion and a commented-out warning?
openIs this work too NSFW to add?
I've been thinking about creating a page for The Penisman but I'm not entirely sure if it would be allowed or not.
The Penisman is a webcomic created in 2009 by Sui Ishida, who would later go on to create Tokyo Ghoul among other works, before he started drawing manga professionally. The Penisman follows a superhero with a penis for a head who fights enemies by ejaculating on them. Unsurprisingly, this was originally intended to be nothing more than a shitpost webcomic. However as time went on, it started taking itself surprisingly seriously with way more effort being put into the art and writing than a glorified shitpost had any right to. Despite still being about a guy with a penis for a head, you can really see the DNA of some of Ishida's future works.
Obviously there's a lot of graphic nudity and uncensored genitalia, and so several sites have it marked off as "pornographic," so I'm unsure if it would be allowed on this site or not.
Edited by ThereAintNoMountainopenWMG Editing Videogame
There's been discussion over on WMG.Marvel Rivals that's called attention to some issues people have with the page, myself included. Being a hero shooter full of marvel characters, there's a big section on the page where ppl can speculate on who the next heroes are gonna be, with some making guesses about gameplay, character interactions and what role the devs will give them. The vast majority of it, however, has just been people throwing a bunch of marvel characters' names onto the list with no further elaboration or WMG regarding the game itself. And as a result it's just created this very bloated list with zero substance to the majority of it. It elicits the same feelings for me as a regular tropes page having a ton of ZCE entries. But I don't know if mods or other editors are approaching WMG with the same scrutiny as a tropes page, so idk how to further proceed with this issue. And it's not like it's an issue unique to this one page.
Edited by IkeaHanopenTroper with pretty problematic edit reasons and poor editing behavior
I want to call attention to Tropers/liberty3's tendency to make suspicious edits that don't have a good edit reasons which can be outright rude at times.
- They removed a couple of Thor's tropes because "they didn't agree with it". No factual debunking, no reason as to why it’s not a straight or good example, they just didn’t agree with it.
That’s pretty poor if you ask me.
- This edit reason sounds incredibly aggressive and condescending
. Also, they’re incorrect as well as in the trope itself it’s literally stated that a Smug Super is "a superhero or villain who knows they've won the Super Power Lottery and won't hesitate to remind others".
- Now this is just plain biased and rude
.
- They also have a habit of removing tropes without explaining why
.
As you can seem this troper is bad at being objective, removes tropes out of personal beliefs instead of factual explanations, and can be downright disrespectful in their edit reasons.
openEdit War on Azumanga Shitposts Anime
Reporting a belatedly-realized Edit War scenario:
- Troper.Stop Hating Tv Tropes Plz 123 adds the following Condemned by History entry
to YMMV.Azumanga Daioh, subsequently tweaking the format over successive edits
- Troper.UFO Yeah deletes
the entry, citing poor formatting and complaining
- StopHatingTvTropesPlz123 re-adds
the entry, including a confusing question about YMMV.Fate Stay Night and YMMV.Oreimo's CBH entries
- After StopHating's entry is brought to attention of Condemned by History cleanup thread
, it is again deleted by myself
(not having seen the history proving this was an Edit War yet)
I apologize for unknowingly engaging in an Edit War, but what should become of StopHating's entry? And should we keep watch in case they decide to add it again?
Edited by Galileo26resolved Possibly accidental vandalism
looks like Agent Skyblue M 7 made an edit to Jerk with a Heart of Jerk that chopped like half of the page, including its description: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.JerkWithAHeartOfJerk&page=35#edit43464386
this was most likely an accident or something, but i'm on mobile so i'm unable to revert the change myself, could we get a mod revert to this page?
Edited by worldwidewoomyresolved Need mod / admin help to delete pages.
Quotes.Star-LadyIzolMeredithQuill and
Starladyocs.Star-LadyIzolMeredithQuill
And would it be faster / better if admins deleted the TroperWorks ghost-wick heavy namespace
or if I did it myself?
resolved Loved Dead Fridge Brilliance
Over on "The Loved Dead", there's a fridge page with a Fridge Brilliance entry that refers to the singular line "[...] others who knew something of my ancestry called attention to the vague mysterious rumors concerning a great-great-grand uncle who had been burned at the stake as a necromancer." in "The Loved Dead".
I don't ever use Fridge myself, so I might be off, but I believe there's no Fridge Brilliance here, just speculation. The premise doesn't loop back to anything relevant to the story.
I also question the claim about the USA being burning-at-the-stake free. I am not well-acquainted with the subject matter, but I gather that there is a history of enslaved people getting killed this way, such as happened during the New York Conspiracy of 1741 or a 1805 case in Wayne County.
I would like permission to delete the entry if necessary, but since I do agree with the fridge's essence that this particular execution method here invites theories, I was wondering if the entry can be preserved under another header. Like, for instance, is it WMG material?
Edited by Pfff133openPedro Pascal Roles Live Action TV
A while back, someone greatly expanded the filmography section of Creator.Pedro Pascal, with roles previously unmentioned and/or lacking their own pages. Some of these include instances of him playing himself in something nonfictional, or narrating a documentary. Do these usually go on actors' pages?
Today I removed a credit for him hosting SNL, because I noticed pages for actors who've hosted more than once don't mention it in the filmography.
openWhere do I go to propose modifications to trope definitions?
…Okay, in this case, "modify" is not quite the right word. The trope in question is Central Theme, and the thing I'm considering is adding a remark that emphasizes the word "central", i.e. the Central Theme is a broad concept that much or all of a work dedicates itself to exploring — I don't think a theme that's only prevalent in something like 2 chapters of a 60-chapter novel or 3 episodes of a 100-episode series counts as a "central theme" for the work as a whole. I'm not looking to actually change the definition of the trope — I just want to make it a bit easier to use it properly. Is this a good place for that, or is there a thread on the forums for stuff like this?
openWhy people are so mean ?
Like I just asked that more tropes were dedicated to Buffy. Thank you, I'm aware of how the site got created but that doesn't mean it's doing it justice. What I mean is that no expy is done on Buffy characters when they (Buffy herself in particular) influenced a whole lot of characters. Kim Possible and Veronica Mars were confirmed to be inspired by Buffy, however none of them has Buffy written on their Expy. It bothers and I have a right to speak. What is wrong with you people ? At what point did I express a love (or even mentions) the name of Joss Whedon ? Never so why people are bringing that up. At what point did I speak badly or insult anybody ? None, so thank you to be polite. Like, what is this ? Twitter ?
resolved Buffy should have more tropes dedicated
here's a post on reddit explaining my point a little better : Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show I can considered to be a classic. It's shaped TV and pop culture in a very unique way, in way few does trough the history of medias. Hell, even today, there are articles saying "this is the new "Buffy"" or "this could be a worthy "Buffy" descendant". One of the many aspects that made Buffy so iconic and memorable were the characters. The characters of Buffy are what I can considered to be iconic. I don't really like that word because I think people like to use it a bit too much but I think it applies here. Let's dive into the characters I think had the more impact on pop culture :
Angel : The brooding hero, lurking in the dark who ends up being the good guy the girl fall in love with, I'm obviously talking about Edward Cull... No wait, not at all, it was Angel. Let's admit it, from the first moment Angel turned into a vampire in Buffy's bedroom, it was the beginning of a common theme in teen dramas. Edward, Stefan, Bill, all take their inspo from Angel. They also happend to have a dark side hidden all along. The romance between Angel and Buffy inspired generations of writers, I mean, Scott and Allison in Teen Wolf (especially at the end of season 2 when Allison happen to become one of the bad guys while season 2 have been bulding the tension between them...). The secret circle have this curse that stops Cassie and Adam to consume their love. Same thing with Legacies when the main girl's love interest become mud because...They slept together, like girly, what is this. The end of Becoming : Once More With Feeling season 5 finale remind me of it, same thing with the end of Chilling adventures of Sabrina season 2, with this episode of Legacies season 4 and I know some of y'all will comes to my neck saying but it just a coincidence, main love interests die sometimes...I'm aware and I know thank you but also, I'm not sutpid. I know a certain character's death in The O.C. has nothing to do with Buffy, I know that the death of another certain character in Teen Wolf (despite the MANY connections between the 2) has nothing to do with Buffy. The reason I'm giving those exemples is because, well, the similarities are there. Anyway, I'm done talking about Angel. Let's talk about his arch-rival now.
Spike : Spike is an anomaly. He's a character that shouldn't hold such a big place in the show, because Joss didn't attend him to but I'm glad he's here. I was asking questions around my high school about if people knew Buffy and, despite most of them not actually watching the show, they knew the name and were saying stuff like '"isn't the show with the cheeleader slaying vampires" or "isnt it the original Twilight with the girl falling in love with vampires" and during those interventions, a lot of them mentions Spike, trough his hair, but also by his name sometimes. I think Spike is a character many have tried to replicate but very rarely succed. Characters like Damon Salvatore are fun for a while before it becomes clear that the writers have no intentions to change him or do anything meaningful with him on the long term. Eric Northman tried it and almost succeed before season 5 and beyond. Crowley from Supernatural shares some similarities but those characteristics are used in kind of a superficial level. Hook (Once Upon A T Ime), Luki from MCU etc.... Plus, the tv tropes "Badass Decay" directly comes from Spike, as it was named Spikefication for a long time. There's an article about how Spike open the gate for bad boys getting redemption for the girls they love and along the characters he might influenced was Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls), Chuck Bass (Gossip Girl)... I mean there was bad boys before Spike, like let's be for real, but characters like Dylan from Beverly Hills helped built the "bad boy" archetype as wikipedia and articles are telling about but not really expend it further.
Cordelia Chase : I already wrote a whole post about the influence of Cordy on the mean girl archetype feel free to read it : https://www.reddit.com/r/buffy/comments/1ifd02a/the_impact_of_cordelia_chase_on_pop_cultures_mean/
Also there is this video explaining her impact : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Nt4lgzREk
But without Cordelia Chase, characters like Summer Roberts, Brooke Davis, Katie Fitch, Cheryl Blossom, Lydia Martin, Caroline Forbes,Lizzie Saltzman etc....
Willow Rosenberg : Willow is one of the most important character in the LGBTQ+ community. The critics also appreciated the fact that Willow, was a proud Jewish and that she was good representation for girls. The impact of Willow goes beyond just her sexuality. The character of Willow and her journey is one of the most interting thing on TV ever. The sidekicks of the main characters in teen dramas owns a lot to Willow. I mean Josie Saltzman is a copy of Willow (especially her turn into Dark Josie). Willow is a character with a lot of depth : She start off as this shy, nerdy girl who had no so much respect towards herself. She's smart and really competant in a lot of things but it's obvious that she put herself down and that she don't believe in herself. She has a crush on Xander since years and never dared do anything about it, she always let people walk all over her without any complaints. However she seems to be all positive about and almost childish (which was something changed from the writers. Originally, the actress playing Willow was kinda moody and seems to mooping about herself a lot but the writers wanted Willow to be someone smiling and positive despite all the shit she was taking). Her meeting Buffy made her gaining confidence more. She doesn't want to admit it, but it's obvious that Willow wants people to see that she can be strong and powerful. I can't deny that Willow, especially in the early seasons, wants to help people a lot and she wants to be useful. But she also craves for people to see it and acknoledge it and when it happens, Willow get kinda cocky and arrogant, like Giles alread said once. The Dark Persona thing didn't start with Willow but a lot of characters wants to replicate what made Dark Willow an iconic villain of the show. Betty Cooper turn into Dark Betty is just Dark Willow without debt (because Roberto Aguirre Sacasa just wants an excuse to sexualize the character). Void Stiles from Teen Wolf is clearly a descedant of Dark Willow (even tho, done better on some aspects). Mac from Veronica Mars was clearly meant to the Willow of the show and we could go on and on about it. But let's move on.
Xander Harris : Seth Cohen, Stiles Stilinski, Matt Donovan... Please bffr, Xander was clearly a mjor influence on them. Like, the nerdy boy having a crush on the Valley/Mean/Popular girl, pinning over her for a long time and having a chance to finally get it. I mean Xander (Stiles, Seth, Sid from Skins), fall in love with Buffy (Lydia, Summer, Michelle) who kinda ignore him or consider him as a brother, and he doesn't notice that the girl, less "attractive" and "confident" or not girly enough, is pinning over him secretly (Erica, Anna, Cassie). Either way, while Xander don't end up being with Buffy, he's ending up being with Cordelia (who is basically the original Lydia and Summer). The popular/mean girl ending up with the nerd boy is it. In the 90s, the nerd boy could pin over the popular girl but never quite got her because he realized he worth better than that or someting. It was always the jerk, popular guy falling in love with the nerdy girl . However, I firmly believe Xander and Cordelia are the blueprint for (and almost every shows I'm gonna quote already talked about Buffy has one of their influence) : Stiles and Lydia, Seth and Summer, Dan and Blair, Sid and Michelle, MG and Lizzie, Naomi and Max etc.... He's the everyman. The normal man who is always questionning his place in the group being the normal one without special skills or powers (Cisco from The Flash, Matt from The Vampire Diaries and basically every shows on The CW with a supernatural setting has one of those).
Rupert Giles : While maybe the most subtle but Giles also had it's own fair share of impact on some characters on TV. Keith Mars was the Rupert Giles of Rob Thomas for Veronica Mars, Hopper from Stranger Things is this to Eleven, Alaric Saltzman is the wallmart version of Giles created by Julie Plec for TVD (as the father figure of Elena) and Legacies (for Hope Mikaelson). Lilith and Sabrina has dynamic similar to Giles and Buffy, while darker since Lilith is manipulative. Luke and Rory dynamic remind me of Giles and Buffy.
The Scooby-Gang : The Scooby-Gang as a whole is something that inspired countless of friend group setting in a supernatural world such as Stranger Things, every supernatural shows on The CW, Teen Wolf etc... We don't need to talk about the details.
How Sabrina Spellman, Kim Possible, Hope Mikaelson, Veronica Mars are not expy of Buffy Summers (and even more than them but oh well). The Scooby-Gang should've a trope named after it, same thing with the character of Giles. The romance between Cordelia and Xander should've also a trope after it and being acknoledge as an influence for shows after it. Like I just saw Lucrecia having Blair Waldorf as an expy (by the way, the character of Veronica Lodge is clearly a Blair Waldorf wallmart version.)
resolved Easily Forgiven, now complaining magnet.
Easily Forgiven was recently made YMMV, and it's now attracting a lot of complainy edits (despite cleanup saying they should be neutral
) that seem redundant with Unintentionally Unsympathetic (worse, UU without explaining why their forgiveness wasn't seen as earned as intended) and other issues reading as bashing forgivenesses they don't like rather than why it came of as (too) easy. Some examples.
- Steven Universe: This was how the fandom saw the resolution to the original series with the Diamond Authority's "redemption". Most people expected Blue to be redeemed, but were critical on Yellow and especially White, as due to executive restraints, the pacing of the final few episodes made the ending resolution feel rushed. This is mitigated by the movie and sequel mini-series showing that just because Steven solved matters peacefully with the Diamonds doesn't mean he forgave them for their horrible actions and the three of them (mainly White) still hold a few of their toxic mindsets, but for many fans this was not nearly enough and they should have stayed villains to the end. Would be valid but doesn't explain what they did for those unfamiliar with the work. Also said movie was in production before fan complaints so not an after the fact fix, so if they weren't as easily forgiven as first implied is it not/no longer an example? (YMMV cannot be subverted or played with).
- Jedi Academy Trilogy: The New Republic decides to place the fate of Kyp Durron, who, under the influence of the ghost of the Sith Lord Exar Kun, had first assaulted his master Luke Skywalker, then stolen an Imperial superweapon and blown up an entire star system, in the hands of Luke himself. Luke chooses to forgive Kyp and welcome him back into the Jedi Order. This proved extremely controversial in the Star Wars Legends, fandom, which was reflected in later works: In the P.O.V. Sequel I, Jedi, Corran Horn rage quits the order over it, while a story in Tales from the New Republic portrayed Kyp as The Atoner. Other readers suspect that the New Republic considered the population of Carida to be Asshole Victims since it was an Imperial system whose governor had just attempted to assassinate Chief of State Mon Mothma with Grey Goo and then kidnap the infant Anakin Solo, and Kyp had subsequently helped win the books' final battle for the New Republic after Exar Kun was destroyed, so they weren't that inclined to prosecute him. Argues with itself noting there were those who though otherwise/mitigating context. If it explain why critics felt this wasn't enough, would it be redundant with UU?
- WandaVision: Many fans criticized Wanda for being this at the end of the series. With her having kidnapped an entire town and forcing them to play roles in her weird meltdown, including not letting some of them see their children. And after beating Agatha, Wanda suffers no consequences for MindRaping the people of Westview beyond being shunned by them and simply leaves to live a relatively peaceful life of solitude and self-discovery. Making her seem less like a grieving victim and more like an insane, sociopathic Karma Houdini who should've been thrown in prison or received some kind of punishment instead. Deleted this as she was not forgiven, Westview was noted justifiably still hated her. Even if EF was just getting off light (the TRS said it still requires in-universe forgiveness), this seem to be getting bashy. This is the kind of ill-faith edits being attracted.
- Detractors of Elsa in Frozen cited this trope as one of the criticisms levied against her. While it was already implausible enough for Anna to forgive her so easily after being shut out for so long, even more implausible is the fact that the entire citizens of Arendelle happily accepts her as their queen in spite of accidentally unleashing the Endless Winter that followed beforehand especially considering that unlike Anna who believed and eventually vindicated that she didn't mean to do so (and we the viewers know that she didn't even realize this until Anna pointed it out), they have no reason to believe that it was an accident (especially given how reclusive she was prior to her coronation) so the fact that they welcome someone who in their eyes, intentionally unleashed an Eternal Winter upon their land and abandoned them to their fates rubbed them the wrong way with fans citing this as another example as to why Elsa would have worked better if she actually freezes the kingdom on purpose. Notes it's just detractors. Character extreme popularity means it's likely not a widespread opinion.
- The Owl House: Even though Eda and Luz both make a point to not forgive Lilith straight away for her actions in the Season Finale with the latter doing her best to make amends, there are a number of fans who still think they let her off way too easily for cursing Eda, keeping her in the dark for 30 years and trying to forcibly abduct her into the Emperor's Coven as well as using Luz as a Human Shield in order to let her guard down with her redeeming actions being to help Luz save Eda and sharing the latter's curse not being enough to make up for it. Besides noting she wasn't forgiven until they did all this redeeming stuff and arguably not even then, doesn't explain why critics found it insufficient to redeem them as intended (UU needs that level of objectivity). This could be worked into a valid example, but comes of as Never Live It Down without the requirement (why fans exaggerate/ignore mitigating context) that keeps it from pure complaining/bashing.
I've asked the EG TRS
about coming of as redundant with UU, but it's coming along so slowly I feel the need to bring to attention what I find a disturbing amount of toxicity, lacking the constructiveness/objectiveness that makes other negative audience reaction item valid, for something that while contentious isn't supposed to be a inherently negative reaction, and seems overly complainy even if it was.
open Is there a trope for.... Videogame
Is there a trope for video games where developers seem to anticipate a player will try a certain strategy, and design the level to make that strategy more difficult to implement than it seems? Or if they design the level to punish a certain kind of play, even if it's just the player being careless and not anticipating the consequences of their actions? Kaizo Trap seems close, but it's specifically about victory or completion, I'm thinking more in the general course of gameplay. Batman Gambit works but is very broad as a trope, and it may or may not be Developer's Foresight depending on the exact example.
As two examples that would fit what I'm thinking of:
- In Hitman, the water tower on Colorado seems like the perfect spot to snipe targets from. But if you try it you'll find yourself trapped, as the AI will instantly surround the water tower and pin you down there with no hope for escape.
- In Dissidia Final Fantasy, the last level of an optional dungeon lets you challenge your Assist character to access two chests behind them. But if you do that, you'll have no Assist when fighting the boss Gabranth, and he has a very potent EX Mode build (Assists as a mechanic hard-counter EX Mode, but you just killed your Assist).

This question involves the final episode of one of those rather important older anime series, so if you're interested in Revolutionary Girl Utena and haven't seen it, this spoiler warning is for you.
Here's my question:
"Revolutionary Girl Utena E 39 Someday We Will Shine Together", has an example of Screw This, I'm Outta Here!. At two points in 2024 I deleted one of its two bullets on the basis that the event in question does not meet the trope's "unplanned departure" criteria (the character who leaves pays a visit to another character to say that she's leaving, and is then shown walking away with a suitcase). Now that I think about it, it's a better fit for Won't Do Your Dirty Work.
Recently another editor added this event under Screw This, I'm Outta Here! again. I don't want to be a wonk about this and I'm already uncomfortable with having deleted it twice. The event in question is a key moment in the story and as such, editors like to mention it in as many examples as possible. So if I delete it again the odds are good that someone else will add it back before long.
Am I interpreting this trope too strictly? I've been treating "unplanned" as something along the lines of "spontaneous"—maybe I'm setting the bar too high?
Or maybe I'm second guessing myself too much and what I need is a commented out message to discourage people from adding this to Screw This, I'm Outta Here!?
Edited by ShivaIndis