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:
openNo Title Videogame
I had requested a custom title for Kid Icarus: Uprising, and I think it was accepted, because on the page for the game itself, it has a colon in there - Kid Icarus: Uprising. However, it doesn't seem to show the custom title on any other page. How does this get fixed?
openNo Title Videogame
So i am a somewhat new troper, and i don't have much ( read: not at all) experience with editing pages, such as how to put Spoilers or writing for other Troper rather than myself. Currently in trying to enrich the Kana Little Sister pages, particularly the Heartwarming page, which didn't have anything still until i started. The question is: Could please another Troper who is also a fan of the game, help here? at least with learning the editing? the wiki doesn't help much with that.
openNo Title Videogame
Okay, I kinda goofed with something here. I made a new page for a game, Cargo Commander , as seen here:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CargoCommander
I took a cue from the Prototype2 and thought that putting it in as a Videogame entry was the correct way to do it, but it turns out I've made it difficult to link to, and the stuff like the YMMV page for it doesn't have the Main button. The thing is, I thought it would do redirects automatically, like it did with the Prototype 2 one here, but evidently I was mistaken -
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Prototype2?from=Main.Prototype2
Could someone please fix this, or better yet, tell me how to fix it myself so I don't screw a page up like this in the future, please?
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
openNo Title Videogame
Not sure how to go about this, but here goes.
Been playing Mass Effect 2 lately. I usually play as a female Shepard and during those playthroughs I love Jack in it. However playing as a male Shepard I find myself continually being pushed away from her because of how much worse she seems to treat him. So I've been working on pointing it out across the game and trope pages, however thought I should stop and ask for a bit of input.
I'm a little worried about going too far in discussing what a Jerkass Jack can be, if I hadn't already. Would someone mind looking at my recent edits and seeing if what I've said is fair enough?
openNo Title Videogame
Oh, I see Whitecroc already reported his own actions in Original War.
Long story short, his edits were pointless from the start. He picked already finished and mistake-proofed entries in the article and change them, creating not only language mistakes but also glaring errors toward game content. He removed or changed beyond recognition numerous tropes that are more than valid for the game, without any explanation of why doing so. When discussion was started, he didn't wait for any settlement, but just keep on editing the page, derailing it even further from the game content. Now the page is heavily vandalised, as his edits are half-made and with both language and content mistakes. Bonus point for starting the whole edit rampage under the guise of "removing grammar mistakes" and succumbing to them himself off the bat.
And I really don't see why I'm suppose to work with person who outright states that made mistakes and didn't bother to clean them up nor gives any reason why editing finished entries.
Edited by RysioPysioopenNo Title Videogame
So I was browsing the Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain page and found out that the Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes page still exists. The problem being that Ground Zeroes is the prologue to The Phantom Pain and word of god says that both projects make up Metal Gear Solid V. While some third-parties are speculating that they will be seperate releases, but the trailer for the game itself shows parts from Ground Zeroes and Phantom pain in it, so there's no reason to keep the two seperated.
Where do I go to propose a merger of the two pages?
Edited by ShaokenopenNo Title Videogame
I'm editing the Character pages for Injustice Gods Among Us. Do you think that only tropes that apply to the characters that show up in the game should be listed there?
I'm talking about all the cameo characters listed in particular. Darkseid, Trigon, Atrocitus, Kilowog, Alfred, and the others.
Darkseid for starters: In his portrayal in the comics, He's one of the most powerful characters in the universe. He's worshiped as a god on his own planet and claims himself as one. He's just as powerful as he is smart, and he wants to eradicate all life in the universe.
In the game, he makes a five second cameo appearance during a stage transition where he grabs the character who gets thrown into his lair through the portal, smashes them into the ground, throws them back through the portal, and shoots his Eye Beams on the way out. That's it. Nothing that justifies any of his character backstory because he plays no importance to the story in the game.
Trigon as well. He's listed as the Big Bad for the Teen Titans. While this is true, the Teen Titans have nothing to do with the Injustice game's storyline. Trigon does show up as part of Raven's S.T.A.R. Labs missions in the game and in her super move, and deserves any tropes associated with him there, but not his entire backstory.
Alfred Pennyworth: What does being a Retired Badass who used to work at MI 6 have anything to do with his brief appearance in this series?
Yet Red Hoods Shadow insists on practically policing the page, making sure nothing gets by without his approval, and he insists that because the character is in the game, and that it is how they are portrayed in the comics, that it is justified to give these cameo characters full background tropes. Last week almost started an edit war over it, but I decided to back off to get this straightened out.
Other tropers agree on my standpoint that only tropes pertaining to the characters as they appear in the game or corresponding comic book (takes place in a seperate continuity from the rest of DC comics) should be listed.
Edited by DRCEQopenNo Title Videogame
Why is Polished Port a YMMV trope? It says on that page itself it's like Updated Re-release but on a different system, and that trope isn't YMMV.
openNo Title Videogame
There's a Edit War in inFAMOUS over The Scrappy entry. This is the removed entry in question:
- The Scrappy: The Voice of Survival makes himself very easy to hate. It's hard to feel bad when the First Sons shoot him.
- Trish. She never misses an opportunity to remind Cole that the Raysphere blast was his fault, makes sure to remind him at several times that it's his fault her sister died, and leads you on an infuriatingly annoying Escort Mission atop a bus.
- Zeke is probably even worse. He is a useless, stupid mooch... in addition to being a traitor. He is apparently Cole's best friend but we are never given any real reason to like or even tolerate him.
I remember posting the Trish part of it awhile back when both the In Famous and In Famous 2 pages were fused, and there have been back and forth edits over it recently, with the last edit deleting it completely. I'd like to know if this should stay off the page or if it should return. Although I personally really do hate Trish, there does seem to be a general enough opinion of her that she deserves her Scrappy status (not sure if this is a good enough evidence, but "hate trish infamous" is a search suggestion on Google with the first several links titled along the lines of "I hate Trish" or "Does anyone hate Trish?"). Same with Zeke from the first game and Voice of Survival. Or do they maybe need to be moved under Base Breaker and have their entries fixed?
Edited by AkoSiKuya23openNo Title Videogame
I have two questions, actually, but since one requires a simple answer and one is a request, I suspect one post will be sufficient.
The simple answer: Are square brackets actually, officially the TVTropes default for stage directions, rather than curved brackets? I've been handed that edit reason a few times, but it doesn't seem to be consistent (or even close to the majority usage) across the wiki. I went through all the instructional entries I could find that seemed relevant and can't find a single reference either way. Personally, I think square brackets look ugly used that way and already serve a typographical/markup purpose - if they're also used for stage directions, there's scope for some very broken formatting - but I'll abide by the rules if the rules exist.
The request is for someone to do...something...about Spec Ops: The Line, because the entire page is riddled with Natter and worse. Entries arguing with other entries, an incoherent and badly-formatted rant about something I can't even parse, and lengthy entries in Fridge Logic, which I thought were supposed to go to Headscratchers. The game attracts incendiary opinions no matter what, I know, but can it at least be kept down to a dull roar? I'd do it myself, but I've made my own stupid edits in the past and I don't think I have the clout or wisdom to clear it all up for good. Or even a little while.
Edited by NanoMooseopenNo Title Videogame
I was just wondering if anyone could tell me why the indexing doesn't work properly on the 5 subpages present in Woobie/Videogames. Reason I asked this is that I created a new subpage for Dark Souls, and added it to a mini-index on the media subpage. Then I find out all 4 other previous subpages have never been indexed properly either. I went out to change each subpage's page type, but to no avail. Could it be that the entire trope's indexing was wrong from the very start, given the Woobie/Videogames subpage itself is indexed under Imagelinks?
openNo Title Videogame
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=YMMV.ProfessorLaytonVSAceAttorney
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/ProfessorLaytonVSAceAttorney
Issues involving raging at Layton being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad when his name is in the title of the game.
Example:
"* Dude, Not Funny!: Layton, the Spotlight-Stealing Squad of this game, calling himself a "mere side character" in the German version of the game."
" Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Even thought he's absent for a good part of the game."
Edited by lalalei2001openNo Title Videogame
The troper nxrmdkjdlsejm made a Homefront Complete Monster subpage with one example (against cleanup thread policy), that's a group (against cleanup thread policy), without consulting the cleanup thread (self-explanatory) and it's an example that we had previously voted unanimously to cut. Mods might want to tap them on the shoulder since they seem content to ignore the cleanup thread.
EDIT: Nevermind, it looks like the mods got around to that over a year ago and it's just taken us this long to notice the subpage. False alarm.
Edited by ShaokenopenNo Title Videogame
Does Final Boss have any place on character and work pages? I know the Final Boss page itself doesn't list examples, but I frequently see it pop up on other pages, and very often in the form of ZCE's. (Especially on character pages—because, really, what else is there to explain once you mention that the character is the Final Boss of the game?) Bonus Boss and True Final Boss often have the same problem as well, at least on character pages.
Edited by MrL1193openNo Title Videogame
Are we allowed to assign Super Power Lottery to anything in Pokemon? I ask because of that ruling awhile back stating no competitive stuff (and some abilities are considered "good" only by a competitive standpoint, mainly Drizzle) but there's no denying that some abilities are flat-out better than the rest.
The ones I thought it would apply to:
- Protean - STAB on everything, can No-Sell certain statuses or types depending on your moves, screws with the AI.
- Magic Guard - Immune to all passive damage, including recoil from the user's moves or from a Life Orb. Can abuse the One Curse Limit if you're inflicted by Poison or Burn since the owner can no longer be put to Sleep or Paralyzed.
- Magic Bounce - Immune to (and bounces back) all non-damaging moves from the opponent unless they have Mold Breaker.
- Drizzle - Mostly rooted in competitive use, but it's the main reason why Kyogre is so Purposefully Overpowered (it can 2HKO the best special wall in the game with a special attack). Supports a ton of Pokemon with a 50% boost to Water attacks, Thunder and Hurricane are always accurate, decreases the damage of Fire attacks by 50%, and turns just about anything with Swift Swim into a Lightning Bruiser since most are Water-types.
- Prankster - Gives all non-damaging attacks +1 priority, meaning you can inflict Burns, Paralysis, use Status Buffs, or heal yourself before your opponent can move each turn.
- Huge/Pure Power - Doubles the owner's attack stat. Anything that has it and is fully evolved has Attack on par with or exceeding most Olympus Mons.
- Poison Heal - Heals the owner by 1/8 of their max HP each turn if they are Poisoned and gives status immunity due to One Curse Limit.
- Parental Bond - Free 50% boost to all damaging attacks, can break Sturdy/Focus Sash and hit targets behind Substitutes (breaking them then hitting again), both hits have a chance to activate a move's secondary effect (essentially doubling the chance like Serene Grace).
openNo Title Videogame
Azure Seas deleted 8.8 from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, citing that it is a Fan Speak term and not to be used as a Trope. While I kinda agree with the notion that we shouldn't be listing examples for 8.8 due to its content*, policy (and the recent discussion we had here about Example Sectionectomy listed Tropes) appears to allow examples for it. Should it be readded (can't do it myself because I won't have computer access for a bit)?
[/*/] always thought 8.8 was flame-baity due to it boiling down to being Complaining About People Not Liking the Show .
Edited by KarxridaopenNo Title Videogame
So, I just started a new game page and it happens that there's this Walking Spoiler character that sole appearance is spoiler. I already know how to put a character image on Tvtrope in the character page, but if it's a Walking Spoiler character, I don't know how to mark the character image itself as spoiler. Help, anyone?
openNo Title Videogame
Anyone thinks VideoGame.You Dont Know Jack is going a bit far with being Self-Demonstrating?
openNo Title Videogame
So what's the deal with Minimalist Run? I could understand putting examples on the page itself, but is it really permissible to stick this trope on work pages that don't, in and of themselves, contain the trope? This is basically an elevated form of Troper Tales, in my opinion. "You can do a Minimalist Run in this game by not doing X, Y, or Z." Congratulations, you've just described almost every game ever.
I feel like this should be In Universe Examples Only. Thoughts?
Edited by SolipSchism

I'd like a little consensus on a trope I'm trying to add.
The ending for Mass Effect 3 has Shepard essentially doing the work of the Reapers, after telling them to go screw themselves throughout the series. I explained this as Character Derailment on the character page but since it's a YMMV trope it was removed. I see, so I then listed it under the YMMV page but Character Derailment is not to be used, ever. Okay, so I tried listing it under Character Derailment itself and it was again removed.
Am I misusing the trope? Is there something I'm missing here? As I understand it Character Derailment is when a character does something that is really out of character for them. Shepard's actions at the end of the third game seem very much out of character, being established to stop the Reapers.
Edited by tsstevens