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Ask the Tropers:
openAbout self demonstrating character pages?
I've been having fun with the Self Demonstrating pages and I have two questions.
- I kind of want to make a page for Ned Flanders from The Simpsons, but am not sure how to write how he talks. I know he uses the words "neighbourino" and "diddly", but how does he talk exactly?
- I've been making pages for Rugrats characters, but do I give Phil and Lil separate pages or should they share a page?
openBlatant Lies Real Life
The "Not Real Life" folder for Blatant Lies starts with "This kind of lie has never actually worked in Real Life. Therefore, what follows are all aversions and subversions." But most of the following Real Life examples are straight uses.
The line was added by Thesedaysthosedays, I can't see anything to suggest it wasn't a unproved unilateral decision. Is it supposed to be a self-demonstrating?
Also, they added political examples to it violating ROCEJ
, and we cut BlatantLies.Real Life Politics And War because of the controversy.
What should be done?
openNo title
This example from CriticalResearchFailure.The Nostalgia Critic feels a little opinion-based to me, but I'm not sure. What do you think?
- In his Editorial, "Can Hype Kill a Good Film?", he makes some egregious errors about people not thinking films like Frozen are good, but overhyped. The biggest one, especially if you're a troper, is that he states that Hype Backlash is where people liked something already, but they turned away from it because it got so insanely popular in the marketing and people talking about it. That's actually the definition of It's Popular, Now It Sucks!. Hype Backlash is actually defined as when people hear all the praises of something so much, that when they finally sit down to watch, read, or try whatever it is, they don't see what the big deal is about. Such is the case with Frozen. Many people don't see what the big deal is with the film for several reasons; such as it being derivative of other Disney works, like The Lion King, being a major argument, the songs not being that great, fans of the film saying it shows a pro-feminist message or is about gay rights, which it outright doesn't and isn't (as said by the people who worked on it), people saying it's the best Disney film in years when it has several contenders (like Big Hero Six, most Pixar movies, Meet the Robinsons, etc), etc. Most people who don't constantly sing its praises just see it as "meh", as it's not necessarily a bad film, but it's also not as great as others claim for them. Doug seems to not have gotten the memo, though, as he's repeated the wrong information about the trope in some of his V-Logs, literally saying something along the lines of, "they already liked it, but the hype killed it for them." While there could be people that did like the film, but that happened, that's still not the right trope. Nowadays, many people who are curious about the film go into it with a grain of salt because of how overhyped it's gotten. It's definitely weird because you'd expect Doug to know what Hype Backlash is already, seeing as he's reviewed films as the Critic, and himself, where most of his opinions on why they suck can, partly, be chalked up to not getting, or hating, the hype around them. Again, The Lion King being a major one.
openLunatic0verlord and complaining
Lunatic0verlord seems to habitually add negative comments
or irrelevant details to the page and/or the edit reasons.
- Fire Emblem
: added "for some reasons" because "It makes about as much sense as Emalf's Latino Accent."
- Fake Crossover: adding "Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE might just be one of the fakest crossovers there is." because "I can't call it a REAL Crossover. So it can only be a fake one."
- Invincible Hero: adding "Alice from the Resident Evil Movies. She goes from an unbeatable Badass Normal to an overpowered Empowered Badass Normal across the films. Has hardly faced many things that she could consider a threat to herself and as if that wasn't enough, in order to ensure her invincibility, EVERYONE around her is an Adaptational Wimp (yes, even Nemesis and Wesker)!" because "I guess that's the closest thing we have to talk about her Mary Sue traits."
- Heartwarming.South Park The Stick Of Truth: added "However, they seem to drop it after what he did to Chef, not batting an eye over Cartman pushing him down his fortress.]]" because "What he did to Chef was totally uncalled for. But what Cartman did to him was totally called for."
- Rookie Red Ranger: added "(and, in Echoes, there's Fernand who outright LEAVES in frustration)" because "As a major villain, it's important to mention Fernand." which has nothing to do with the trope, and seems to be there purely to point out "Canon Foreigner gets UPSET".
- Adaptational Wimp was where I first noticed something seemed off... replacing "Alice" with "Alice (and even then, she's a Canon Foreigner)" because "Less flame baity, Alice is exclusive to the films". It seems someone spoke to them because they later changed "[[CreatorsPet Alice]]" to "[[BoringInvincibleHero Alice]]" because "Apparantly that Trope isn't allowed either... Guess that leaves only one option..."
openSpider-Man's a Bourgeois Bohemian? Film
I found an entry for They Changed It, Now It Sucks! on the YMMV page for Spider-Man: Homecoming where it talks about how the movie got rid of some Peter's self-sufficient traits. I don't have much of a problem with that, but around the end of the entry it calls Peter a Bourgeois Bohemian and I have no idea if it's using the trope correctly,
- While fans like the idea of a Spider-Man in a Shared Universe, many don't appreciate how Marvel have placed him more or less as a Heroic Wannabe training to be part of the Avengers, and being a sidekick to Tony Stark who designs his original outfit and gives him a bunch of upgrades. This in effect robs MCU Spider-Man of the very qualities that made him unique when he first came out (an independent teenage superhero who was his own man, who made his own stuff and was not anyone's sidekick). As fans note, the original Spider-Man in the Lee-Ditko era invented his own costume,spider signal, web-shooters and spider tracers whereas here, except for the web-fluid, most of that was handed to him on a silver platter and the central dramatic tension of the film's third part (Peter proving he can be a tough superhero without his gadgets) makes Spider-Man's triumph not so much that of an underdog scrapper pushing above his weight and resourcesnote So much so that when Green Goblin finally found Spider-Man's Secret Identity he couldn't believe that his enemy was a teenager since he, like all of Spider-Man's rogues believed they were fighting an Experienced Protagonist but a Bourgeois Bohemian proving he's more bohemian than bourgeois to his mentor, which needless to say is not very relatable to many in the audience.
I don't think this is a correct usage of Bourgeois Bohemian, as Peter is not upper-class and doesn't display the overt liberal traits that the trope requires. Is this shoehorning?
open User-ish conflict
I'm a bit concerned with the Critical Research Failure section on this page
. Now, first things off, I'm not calling it inaccurate, the poster is entirely correct, but I feel as if the troper who posted this, The Nerf Guy, is being needlessly vindictive and Nattering on; even if these weren't understandable errors to make (lord knows I used to get confused about the first, and the second used to be a thing before the rules changed).
Is that just me?
And yes, to clarify, I was made aware of this by the now-banned Maedar. Since editing on behalf of a banned user is grounds for banning, this is why I have not edited the page myself (which would technically have been strike two for me, I believe), and instead sought another opinion to (hopefully prevent bias).
openEditWar
Characters.RWBY Salem's Faction has had a multi-troper edit war going on for a couple of days.
I took the example Even Evil Has Standards to the Discussion Page on the 24th October (stating that in an edit reason), but Occasional Exister readded the trope without edit reason on the 25th. I flagged that on ATT at the time (it's over the page but I don't know how to link directly to it). It was removed again on the 26th October by a different troper, and then readded again on the 28th October by yet another troper, who switched a Pragmatic Evil entry into the contested Even Evil Has Standards trope. In that time, no-one has gone to the discussion page to discuss it. While it's been a different troper every single time (so no troper has come back to this a second time), the trope itself clearly needs to be discussed.
(Edited to clear up exactly what's gone on with the trope now that I've carefully read the history page.)
Edited by Wyldchyldopen Idk Anime
I'm trying this remember this anime, but I can't find it. So in the first episode there was this guy who couldn't find his dad and he was with another guy and girl. His dad however left him this machine that summoned a white polar bear. Around episode 3 the girl got a machine herself and named it charger.
resolved The Colonial Period
As The Colonial Period has been moved to the Useful Notes namespace, the name sounds too generalizing to non-American tropers, such as myself whose country had two colonial periods. Mind if I suggest renaming it to The American Colonial Period or The Thirteen American Colonies as to make it specific to the US colonial period?
UPDATE: Crowner for Alternative names HERE
.
UPDATE 2: Related thread HERE
.
openMeta WMG
There is this long WMG added by Excelsior123 to the Teen Titans Go page
that looks more like it is theorising about Cartoon Network than the show itself. Should it be removed?
openLeaked content policy?
There have been more than a few things lately that have broken their street dates which has had me wondering if we have a policy for leaked content and if we should if we don't. I myself don't have a specific viewpoint but the various leaks lately have made me wonder if it should be addressed.
openRides With Strangers
The character page claims that Donald Mcarthur (A priest who rapes, tortures, and kills young boys) is a homosexual. I do not think that's correct. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that most pedophiles that target children of their own gender self identify as gay. Should that be deleted?
openThis new troper here Anime
So I got a notification on my watchlist that the Characters.Naruto Team Eight Members character page was modified. I checked it out and saw that Rich 4 (he shows up as a "NEW ACCOUNT" on my watchlist) added Dandere to Hinata's section. However, while Hinata does fit the Dandere trope based on its description and Laconic and Playing With pages, the entry itself written by Rich 4 over-exaggerates Hinata's fainting tendencies—she faints only twice in the manga a.k.a. in Canon, while she faints a lot in the anime filler which is non-canon, the Rock Lee SD spin-off which is also non-canon, and a lot of Fanfics which are, well, fanon. So Rich 4 wrote false/exaggerated information in that example.
I want to fix the entry, but I don't want to cause an Edit War. Would my fixing the entry cause an Edit War? I just want to make sure before I do anything. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Here is Rich 4's edit history: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/el.php?findfor=Rich4
Here is the Characters.Naruto Team Eight Members edit history: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Characters.NarutoTeamEightMembers
openYMMV/StevenUniverse and N8han11
Yesterday, N8han 11 deleted this "To Be Fair" part of the "Steven's Dream" section of What An Idiot with no edit reason:
- To Be Fair: Garnet saw at least one possibility where Steven still went despite being told that Blue Diamond was there.
The YMMV page and it's history
.
openInappropriate Armchair Diagnoses on ST Discovery pages Live Action TV
Hi... UGH! I've been tempted to make a couple edits to the Star Trek Discovery pages... in particular the various, rather un-clinical claims that Cadet Tilly's "special needs" are "code for some form of Autism." But I thought doing so would touch off an editing war, so I'm bringing it here.
I am a veteran of 8 years in Autism services and I find these armchair diagnoses very frustrating. I don't think "Ambiguous Disorder" would be inappropriate to list on the character page or the main page in reference to Tilly, but 1) for context, it's clear her "special needs" have to do with allergies, this was estalbished in the first ep where she appears. 2) Being socially awkward in itself is NOT enough to make a clinical diagnosis of Autism. 3) I wouldn't care so much about this if it didn't come off like a bunch of amateurs offering armchair diagnosis of "Autism" based on a character who is socially awkward and sometimes blurts odd things out, and 4) if I didn't think that this contributed to a serious public misunderstanding of Autism and to problems created where persons in online subcultures relentlessly self-diagnose (and try to justify behavior they know is inappropriate by appealing to their clinically uninformed self-diagnosis.)
As someone trained to assess for and diagnose Autism, who can genuinely speak from an expert opinion on this subject, I see ZERO traits of Autism in Tilly. The armchair overdiagnosis is, no pun intended, a "symptom of a broader disease" that we in social work are trying to bring attention to: the problem of "over-medicalization" or "over-pathologization." If Tilly presented with significant sensory or communication challenges, I'd be more open to other tropers' armchair diagnoses, but there is ZERO clinical basis for the claim that Tilly "offers a more realistic portrayal of Autism" than actual intended portrayals of Autism in other media that have actually been established by "Word of God" and/or in canon, in-universe (IE Max in Parenthood), or implied much more directly by other observed behaviors (like Holtzman in the new "Ghostbusters.")
Sorry, guys, but as an expert in Autism, I don't see it. The truth about behavioral health is that lots of people can be socially awkward at times without requiring a mental health diagnosis to justify human diversity.
Can we please be more judicious about this on the Star Trek Discovery pages? For the sake of not over-pathologizing/over-medicalizing the degree to which social skills vary in human beings even without Autism? Can we PLEASE stop labeling every character in fiction who sometimes struggles with social skills as "Autistic?" Or at least acknowledge this could be YMMV and link to Useful Notes: Autism for a more clinically informed persepective/comparison?
I apologize if this strikes a nerve with Trek fans who themselves have Autism and want to believe Tilly is Autistic too because it's positive to see someone who reminds them of themselves on a Federation Starship. But that's still wishful thinking that has yet to be directly behaviorally implied or confirmed by "Word of God" and there's even a lot of evidence that Tilly is not supposed to have Autism in-universe.
Edited by FTDopenHandling Spoilers re: Character Page Folder Titles
Administrivia.Handling Spoilers states:
First of all, I see this rule violated fairly often with "spoiler character" folders all over the place, but this isn't the place to discuss that. The question lies in what to do with those folders once we find them.
In a recent edit to Characters.All New Wolverine, I simply replaced the "spoiler character" folder name with a vague description and added a "(SPOILERS)" warning. It's not the best way to handle this and I hate putting in spoiler warnings where people should already expect to be spoiled, but it avoids being a Self-Fulfilling Spoiler, it lets readers who haven't reached that point avoid the spoiler, and it doesn't make it hard for people who are spoiled to guess where that character's entry is.
Is my approach right?

Can you delete a page you accidentally created. I was trying to create a separate Trope for page for a Big Hero 6 fanfic I like. It's called The Pulse. But as it turns out, there's a comic book series with the same title. (The comic is a Marvel series written by Brian Michael Bendis And It redirected me to a Fan Works page with the Comic Book and YMMV pages for the Pulse. The BH 6 fanfic itself is in no way related to the Pulse comic book. I just wanted to know if there's some way to delete the Fan Fic page. Here's the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/ThePulse
If you can help me, it would be much appreciated.