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:
resolved Diesel Punk or Oceanpunk? Videogame
I really like the look and feel of this videogame called The Brew Barons, a Ghibli-inspired video game where you fly seaplanes, collect items to brew different kinds of alcohol, and fight off sky pirates (just like the epitomous Porco Rosso).
I don't own the game nor can my laptops run it so even if I want to write the page, I'm sadly out of the loop. So as a sort of bookmark, I thought to make it a red link for the time being, hoping either I get to play it one day for myself or someone else makes the page for the rest of us. However, I don't know whether to put it in Ocean Punk or Diesel Punk, or if I should even make a redlink at all.
resolved About Katriel Videogame
Today a troper named Katriel posted a theory on Choices: Stories You Play the problem is it's completely written badly to the point no one can understand it, here it is.
"What more deconstructive/ subversive/ satirical takes on standard choices archetypes and genres could look like A work story with all of the elements of typical choices work stories : a competition in place , a jealous rival willing to resort to any means to dethrone us from the top , an unusually physically attractive boss ... except the job in question is sewage treatment and any [[romance sleeping with the boss ]] is off the table for whatever reason , [[constantly lampshade how dubiously legal the affair is better than a bare bulb ]] , or [[mercilessly deconstruct the trope deconstructed trope]] by underscoring how [[horrifying played for horror]] it would actually be to work under a charismatic , experienced , and halo effect inducingly beautiful person who is attracted to you ... but the feeling is not mutual. Worse yet , all your friends and coworkers dismiss, downplay, and even [[ship you shipper on deck]] with your predator, to the point where they cannot stop [[gushing about how amazing and great they are Creators pet]]. All in all, the [[ultimate message of the story is central theme]] that while not all jobs can or should be necessarily glamorized, they are still important to keep society running and, as a matter of fact might be far more important than many of those "glamorous" careers. A romance from [[ the perspective of perspective flip]] the "other woman" rival seen in more recent romances. In a manner akin to [[ Crazy ex-Girlfriend]] we could delve into the forces that [[psychologically Freudian excuse]] made her into the person she is. Perhaps the plot could focus on her attempts to actually keep a romantic partner after a long history of being dumped by (and in one case [[left at the alter]] by) so many former flames. [[This time never be hurt again]], our heroine chooses to model herself after the sweet [[ childhood friends]] and the [[ maniac pixie dream girls]] that she was dumped for; as well as [[Rom - Com Protagonists in general genre savvy]]. An [[ inversion]] of the "Hollywood" stories that are the bread and butter of so many VN apps like this one. In other words [[ the player character would begin the story with a mansion , a steady partner , and immense fame to an obscure star living out in middle America ; eeking out a living riches to rags]] . It could be a capital "T" [[ Tragedy]] following a once reknowned Writer,Director , and performer from the [[ pre- Hays code]] era as they struggle against greater powers to include radical themes within their projects. [[ Ultimately , though foregone conclusion]] they [[downer ending lose all they once had]] including their [[ mansion]] , respect amung filmmaking elites , and their partner to the fears inflamed by the [[ red scare]] , the [[extreme censorship that smothered their ability to tell the stories they needed to tell bowdlerized]] , and the [[passage of time that obscured their name look upon my works ye mighty and despair]]. The [[frame story]] could center around some [[ greek chorus podcasters]] helping a curator collect interviews and personal objects from the protagonists life , therefore justifying a "collection minigame ", in order to exhibit for a new section on <span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> [[ pre- Hays code]] era" ^ (what Katriel typed not me)
Should we send Katriel a notifer to type their sentences better so we can understand them?
Edited by Ryckmanhresolved How to AKA character pages / make a universal character page Videogame
Making two media pages in the same franchise, which shares similar casts, and would like there to be one character page that links to them both.
Similar accomplished with the https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine
page, with Space Marine II linking to it via "AKA", but I've never had to do this myself until now. Like to know what page contains instructions to accomplish this.
openTropes used to be valid before, but not anymore... What to do? Videogame
In live-service games or those that keep on receiving updates. What should be done when an example that used to be valid or was applied in an older version suddenly got removed in a newer version?
- Keep the example but rewrite the context to state that it used to be the case until Version X removed it?
- Delete the entire trope example?
- When the game was newly-released, there was some fandom discussion on how Childe's name is supposed to be pronounced, because a very specific clip
from Paimon's English VA had the name pronounced like "child" at first, then like "chill-day" next, in the same sentence. I originally added it somewhere
as a trope example, but another troper deleted it
saying it was fixed in a newer version.
- A troper deleted some examples
from YMMV.Genshin Impact without providing an edit reason, though what can be assumed here is that they deleted examples that no longer applied to the newer versions of the game. One of the deleted examples was a Cheese Strategy that was so prevalent or known back in the day, it was widely believed that "miHoYo had to patch it out". The point here is that the cheese strat existed in the past and players were trying to re-create it
before and after it was patched. There were even discussions wondering why the boss arena's ceiling suddenly changed, and fingers were either pointed to this cheese strat with Guoba, another cheese strat with Klee, or it was a semi-related bug with the hole itself.
- Cheese Strategy: The Cryo Regisvine could be safely cheesed by using Xiangling to drop Goubas from a cliff directly above the arena, allowing players to chip off its HP even before it wakes up. The devs eventually caught on to the trick and patched it out in Version 1.1.
Other Genshin tropers brought this up too years ago in the Discussion tab
I'd like to know if there's a guideline for these kinds of examples here on TV Tropes, because there are several other live service games I know of here with trope examples that are "outdated" or "no longer applies in the newer version".
"Blind Idiot" Translation and Good Bad Translation examples also have this dilemma sometimes, as it's common for live-service game devs to fix translation/localization errors when pointed out by players in the game's online platforms.
Edited by DanteVinresolved Cutting Oddity RPG pages Videogame
Folks, it's time to face facts: Oddity is never coming out. It's been five years since the initial announcement trailer with no major updates afterwards, over 17 years since the project started development as Mother 4, and the hype for this game has all but dried up. Since all of the Mother 4 pre-release material has been made obsolete and mostly deleted from the internet, we only have one trailer and a Twitter page that is barely updated to go off of.
When I did a second clean-up (the first clean-up was mostly to remove gushing) removing anything that went off of outdated (pre-rebrand) material or Word of God (which isn't allowed), there was barely anything left. On the Characters page alone, many of the folders were blank and that was before I touched them.
Also worth noting that there were a ton of commented out examples on the Characters page which I removed (there were also a bunch on the main page too before I cut those during my first clean-up). Commenting out examples on an unreleased work in anticipation for the work's release is also not allowed.
Yes, there is gameplay footage in the trailer but it barely tells us anything other than "it's a Mother-inspired RPG." Not much of a premise, and certainly not enough to warrant a page, especially when no information regarding the story, setting, and characters have been revealed afterwards. Literally the only information we have about the setting is "It takes place in a small town in 70s America." There are ten tropes on the main page but half of them are about the Modern Mind enemy instead of the game itself or the overall setting of the game. There's no release date, and at this rate there never will be.
Taking all of this into account I feel there is no longer a viable work page. I propose a cut of Oddity's pages and the material in Oddity's main page be moved to Release Date-Less Work Descriptions in the event the game does get a release.
Edited by supernintendo128openWMG 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 IkeaHanopen 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).
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?
openHow should I include this information? Videogame
Sorry if this is confusingly worded. If this is more of a Trope Finder sort of question, please tell me so or redirect me to elsewhere more appropriate.
Context: This query is about the song “Corruption” from the Phineas & Ferb themed Friday Night Funkin’ one-shot mod of the same name.
The mod’s creator Milo008 has released a remake of the song called Corrosion V2
with significant changes to production, most notably the lyrics rewritten to be more in-character. While the remake was never officially brought into the mod, it was very well received among fans of the one-shot and was considered to be even better than the original, to the point that there were multiple unofficial fan-made charts of this song for the mod itself.
I feel that this information is important to include in the description of this mod, but I don’t know how to mention this remake in the page, or to even mention it at all since it's outside of the mod.
Please advise.
Edited by Duy03openNot sure this should have been removed. Videogame
I recently added an edit for Fourth Wall Myopia on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, that was removed:
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard: This is a major factor to Taash's infamous confrontation with their mother in their personal quest coming off as Unintentionally Unsympathetic to audiences, even though anyone familiar with such issues would recognize the ethos, logos and pathos all hold up. Taash's grievances were on paper entirely understandable; they were emotionally neglected by their mother for most of their life, and one of Taash's fundamental questions is how non-binary characters would even exist in a religion like the Qun. Suffice to say, not well at all; the Qun are adamant that the role you play is the one you're born in and will die in, and are likewise adamant that men and women are assigned to strict gender roles, and while this means that the Qun are surprisingly okay with trans people, they don't even consider non-binary people to even exist. This is a sentiment that several trans people go through when explaining their gender identity to their own parents, and Taash was clearly meant to emulate that with them finding it difficult to keep themselves composed over the matter as their mother doesn't even recognize why Taash made this choice and even insinuates that Rook had a reason for "making her like this". Unfortunately, due to Taash taking an overly defensive tone and their mother being calm by comparison, it comes off to many unfamiliar with such a dilemma that Taash's mother was being unfairly railed on by her child, despite the context making total sense within the universe. This leads to a scene that would otherwise be poignant being undercut by an awkward execution, even when the details of the scene in question make total sense on paper versus how it impresses on itself in practice.
The given reason for the removal was that "this trope is when character's actions make sense in-universe because they don't know something that the viewers do and thus the latter complain that the scene is irrational. In this case, it's not about having more knowledge of the characters (to the point the entry even says that viewers don't know certain elements, quite the opposite); plus, one complaint about taash's reaction is that it's very immature for their age, while it could've been more understandable if they were a teenager." Except that the edit itself notes that the execution is awkward and immature-sounding, and last I checked, the actual trope is that viewers do not realize that the plot is not known to the characters, or that they are in a story. In particular, that the Qun is very strict about gender roles, and so Taash being nonbinary does cause a breakdown in social roles.
Am I barking up the wrong tree here? I'm sincerely wondering.
Edited by LelielopenCan a Continuity Nod qualify as a Mythology Gag at the same time? Videogame
Probably a stupid question, but, what the title says. This is a super specific situation I'm dealing with: I'm thinking of editing a page that's about the second game in a series that was originally self-contained but contained a cameo of the Big Bad from a previous game made by the same developer, before being adopted as part of a series later on as a Non-Linear Sequel.
Can this be considered both a Continuity Nod as well as a Mythology Gag, due to the circumstances? The page I previously made and edited currently lists it as a Mythology Gag when it really should be considered a Continuity Nod (a mistake from the days where I had way less experience as a troper), but can I retroactively slot the Continuity Nod in while explaining that it was originally the latter before later games made it into the former? Or should I Take a Third Option and just replace Mythology Gag with Continuity Nod and call it a day?
openMario Strikers Videogame
From Funny.Mario Strikers I’m not sure which game these moments below come from. Does anyone know? I wasn’t sure where to go to ask this.
- First off, everyone, and we mean EVERYONE takes the game so seriously. So when they’re losing, they’re all freaking out.
- Mario in utter despair
- Luigi getting a twitchy eye
- Peach, as much of a sweetheart as she is, throws a tantrum like a spoiled brat.
- Waluigi mocking the other team.
- Wario saying “I give up” before blowing himself up.
- Bowser setting his own team on fire.
- Wario is a walking example of this.
- Wario's home entrance
in Mario Strikers Charged: He starts off in the same spread-out skydiving pose as most of the other characters, except that he's singing his theme in time with the actual music. But when it comes time for him to switch to a position that would facilitate a "safe" landing, he instead maintains the skydiving pose and slams into the ground gut-first (which also prompts his theme to stop), after which he looks up and glares at the ball.
- While we are on the subject of his theme...
- "Butt smash!"
- Gas Mask, and the opponents' reactions to it
.
Mario: Oh, Wario! *cough*
- Wario's home entrance
- Waluigi has quite a palette.
"Aw, Wario! *cough* Ugh, you're killing me!"
- Waluigi has quite a palette.
- Even Wario himself has a few comments on it: "Excellent vintage," for instance.
- Try using Bowser's Fire Storm on the resulting cloud of gas. This is what happens.
- His frustration when the opponents get a goal. Particularly when he ends up wrestling and beating up the ball... and it blows up in his face.
- "Keep throwing me!"
- Even his Mega Strike is hilarious. He inflates like a balloon and blows the ball at the goal.
- One of his victory animations has the camera on his backside as he laughs while it goes up to his face, giving a thumbs-up and say his name. In slow-motion for some reason.
- Wario doesn't howl in pain if he's electrocuted in the first game. Instead, he screams "OOOOH YEEEESSS!"
- Waluigi's theme.
- "Want the ball? Eh? HERE!". The dancing he does after slamming the ball into his opponent's face is priceless.
- Waluigi´s hilariously silly and childish animations when he loses.
- While most of the characters look cool and controlled during their descent in the home entrances, Waluigi's entrance
has him screaming all the way down.
- Waluigi's crotch chop
. He even has a variation where he starts to do it, only to wag his finger and say "ah, ah, ah!"
- Boo attempting to do Waluigi's crotch chop despite lacking both a crotch and arms long enough to do the motion in the first place, resulting in a rather goofy-looking nod.
- Daisy giving her team the evil eye
after letting the opponent get a goal in. Even funnier is how even Dry Bones is afraid of her.
- Bowser setting his team on fire for letting a goal in. Even funnier is that one of his teammates does the 'Stop, drop and roll' motion to put it out.
- Peach sometimes gets angry at her team for letting a ball in and stomps up and down in a tantrum. While amusing in itself, Birdo's reaction
is just comedy gold.
- Petey Piranha just swaggin' after scoring a goal. And for his visitor entrance.
- Petey eating one of the opposing teammates for scoring a goal while everyone else runs away screaming.
- Petey doing the limbo after scoring. Nevermind where Petey found the random scrap to make said limbo set.
- DK randomly punching the camera over in his exuberance.
- Waluigi does the same thing out of anger when the other team scores, while saying "cheese!"
- Luigi's Airplane Arms.
- Yoshi chasing his tail is both funny and adorable.
- When Diddy Kong scores a goal, he does a little victory dance, then stops and grins sheepishly when he realizes that everyone is watching.
- Dry Bones celebrating a goal by doing the worm. Their head ends up falling off.
- Bowser Jr., when frustrated, goes to kick one of the goalposts, only to stub his toe on it when he tries.
openThe Boba Tea Shop Videogame
There's this game called The Boba Tea Shop which is a horror game where you play as the owner of a boba shop. I tried searching it on tv tropes if there's a page abt it but there wasn't so I was wondering if I could create the page myself if it's okay
resolved Monster Strike needs a lot of help. Videogame
Monster Strike needs help for these reasons:
- Lacks tropes: Monster Strike has tons of characters, and thus a lot of tropes. The problem is there's TOO MANY of them. Just for reference, there's over 140 non-copied impossible+ characters (Impossible/Bakuzetsu/Gouzetsu/Reizetsu), assuming 1 trope for each character, that's still 140 tropes, and that's assuming only 1 trope for each characters and JUST these characters.
- Almost no one's contributing: for examples, the only contribution I have seen is from myself. Though this isn't much of a surprise because the game's very obscure outside of Japan, and I don't really see any Japanese tropers.
- Needs a split: Monster Strike is a multi media franchise with anime and video game. The problem is there's only the Video game namespace and not the anime.
- Needs extra namespaces: Currently there's only Tear Jerker, Wild Mass Guessing and Laconic namespaces.
- Monst Dictionary (provides backstory and lore for a good chunk of characters): https://dic.xflag.com/monsterstrike/
- Game official YouTube channel (could provide some Words of God and a few tropes): https://youtube.com/@monsterstrike
- Anime official YouTube channel (provides lore and tropes): https://youtube.com/@monst_animation
- Monster Strike wiki (English names and characters without Monst Dic profile): https://monster-strike-enjp.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Strike_Wiki
resolved Galthran Etruk's Voice Actor Videogame
A while ago the troper Recon Decon listed Lex Lang as the voice actor of Galthran Etruk from Dragon Rage. The problem with this is that all of the voice actors including Lex Lang are of the Unspecified Role Credit variety in the game. I have asked him to provide some sort of evidence to support this claim, but he's provided me with little than a link to a site that requires a membership to see
(I myself can't see it.) and Recon Decon hasn't responded to my messages since the 6th. Can a member to this site check this link and share what evidence is provided to support this claim?
P.S. I have since created a WMG page section dedicated to trying to figure out which voice actor voices which character.
Edited by RonnieR15openTroper with linking issues and a shipping bias Videogame
Mysticalmagic 483 often edits on the Sonic the Hedgehog pages, and I've found myself having to correct their edits from time to time.
- Here
they don't properly link an example.
- Another
example of not using link brackets.
- Word cruft
In addition, they have such an obvious shipping bias. They are a fan of the Sonic/Blaze pairing. They are entitled to that opinion, because this is the internet, and everyone is allowed to have their own opinion even if I don't agree with it.
What they AREN'T entitled to is deleting mentions of the Silver/Blaze pairing because it goes against their preferred ship.
- Here
they take off details of Blaze's Ship Tease entry.
- Here
they delete a point saying Sonic is a Shipper on Deck for Silver/Blaze.
- Here
they remove a segment where both Silver and Blaze blush at being called a cute couple.
- Here
they insist that the pairing Silver and Amy "makes more sense" (no hate to anyone who ships this, but in canon Amy has a Single-Target Sexuality for Sonic).
- Here
they remove another point about her being close to Silver.
Permission to revert these edits?
Edited by deerhornsaresoprettyopenExample with unnecessary mention of Rule 34? Videogame
So, regarding this example from the Unnecessary Makeover page:
- Midna in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess thinks little of the form in which she's trapped for most of the game; she refers to herself as a "hideous little imp" and jokes with Link that her true form is so beautiful that it leaves him speechless when he first sees it. However, many players find her initial implike design cuter, more unique, and conveying more of her sassy appeal. It's not uncommon for people to joke that Midna's imp form essentially proved the codifier for "shortstack" designs (i.e. a short, busty female character with curves), and artwork of Midna's imp form far outweighs her true form, even—hell, especially on porn sites.
That last part really seems to me like a case of Too Much Information, especially with the way it's worded. I was going to remove it, but I thought I should ask first, because maybe I'm just being too prudish.
Edited by Bluethornresolved William Afton's self-demonstrating page Videogame
Long ago I created a self-demonstrating page for everyone's favorite murderous furry. Said page however was deleted because it was argued in the games Afton had too little lines to warrant his own self-demonstrating page.
Now, I argue we can make another one, mostly thanks to the collab between Five Nights at Freddy's and Dead by Daylight, which gives us a good amount of quotes from Willy and a pretty good idea of what his personality is like. Now I know some people will say "But that's not canon", and while it is true that the collab itself isn't canon (at least to FNAF), it doesn't mean the way he behaves in it isn't: remember everything that was put into this collab had to be approved by Scott Cawthon himself, and seeing how William spoke and acted in Pizzeria Simulator and AR (whose quotes are re-used for the collab) I'd say it's pretty clear that's how Scott imagines William's personality to be like (aka an evil theater kid).

In Characters.Goddess Of Victory Nikke:
I don't think it's good to remove context from an example to make it rely on knowledge of other characters instead of letting it stand by itself, which would make it a bit confusing for readers who aren't familiar with the game, plus according to the "hidden trope name" rule of thumb for ZC Es, it doesn't really specify that her powers are a Compelling Voice. Can I add back the elaboration to not make it a ZCE that's too reliant on work knowledge or at least send a notifier to SonicGamer07?
Edited by Excessive-Menace