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openContinued GDV misuse?
Deleted this misuse from Generic Doomsday Villain:
- Nero from Star Trek (2009). Hailing from the future of the Prime Timeline, Nero is set back into the past with a massive Eldritch Starship, the Narada and gunning to destroy Vulcan and the Federation as a whole. While we understand why — Romulus is destroyed by a supernova and he blames Spock for it — we don't know much beyond that. The initially-canon Star Trek: Countdown explains that the Romulan Senate ignored Nero's warnings and Spock was too late to save the planet, it wouldn't be until Star Trek: Picard that we would get an official answer. We still don't know where he got the ship from.
It outright states they have a clear reason/motive, which means they're not an examples. Also deleted this under Sturm from Characters.Nintendo Wars:
- Generic Doomsday Villain: No one really knows much about him and a lot is merely implied. The only solid, known facts about him are that he wants to conquer the world and he's extremely skilled at warfare. That said, he still turns the game in a very dark direction the moment he takes the reins.
Sturm is an approved Complete Monster meaning he's been deemed to have enough personality to disqualify (sadism and power hungriness are basic but enough motive to count).
Awhile back there was a TRS
on how to fix this, splitting between "villainous Flat Character" and Feral Villain. I'm not sure if there's been improvement on the issue. Thoughts? (And might "Powerful, But Motiveless" be a better name for the intended use?)
openQuestion about potentially off-color remark in Mulan Film
Misogynist character in Mulan had this quote at the end - "In Asia, the women come second."
Now Listen, I'm not asian. I don't know if this is problematic. Heck, maybe the troper who wrote is asian themselves. I don't know if any harm was meant. But I've seen asians, by the by, complaining about the hypocrisy of the West and whatnot. I just want to know is this comment...it's so generalizing, I want to figure out if this was a problematic thing before confronting them.
openStar Trek: Debt of Honor reversions Print Comic
Need to ask permission to partially revert a couple of changes on Star Trek: Debt of Honor, both to avoid edit-warring (I made most of the page) and because mods did them.
𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 deleted this example:
- Mixed Ancestry:
- As T'Cel explains, her mother, a full-blooded Romulan, was rescued from an escape pod as a child and mistaken for a Vulcan, as nobody in the Federation knew they were the same species yet. T'Cel, like Saavik, is half-Vulcan, but chose to rejoin her mother's people and embrace her Romulan half (whereas Saavik is shunned by some of T'Cel's crew for hewing to her Vulcan half).
- T'Kir is as well. However while the book openly establishes that she's of mixed race, and T'Kir is keen to learn more about her father's people, the clues as to what the other half actually is are far more subtle. It's heavily implied that she's Kirk's daughter.
I think I can use Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid for this.
Second, Septimus Heap changed "Part of Volume 2 of the Star Trek (DC Comics) series." to "The markup is: Part of..." while removing a wick to Needs Wiki Magic Love, which is just weird wording. I want to change that to "The comic is part of..."
openFanonDisconinuity example?
- Fanon Discontinuity: A number of Star Trek fans consider the Federation choosing not to help the Romulans escape their supernova as being the final nail which allegedly destroys the ideals at the very core of Star Trek, and as a result reject this series as being canon.
This was commented out citing "Last time I checked, FD only applied to entries that supposedly violated continuity with previous installments of a series." I don't believe FD is restricted to fans rejecting it's canonicity for just objective continuity violations. Thoughts?
openNo Title
A few days ago joshmandreza
added the following to YMMV.Star Trek The Next Generation S 5 E 24 The Next Phase:
- I really believed that it was supposed to be Star Trek Universe standard to get all significant plot points resolved before the episode ends; but one could guess either Creator Backlash or Executive Meddling would have taken care of that.
I removed the example as Left Hanging is not a YMMV item, but joshmandreza has since then added it back.
Looking through their edit-history also shows that they have a habit of adding non-YMMV items to YMMV pages, making a lot of complaining and nattery edits, as well as violating the Example Indentation rules regarding formatting.
open Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy in Star Trek Picard.
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy has been added to the YMMV page of Star Trek: Picard with the following argument:
"The Federation no longer holds the moral high ground after abandoning the Romulan rescue effort and banning synthetic lifeforms inside its space, a major world (Mars) is rendered uninhabitable openly and on-screen, beloved side characters are tortured to death in graphic detail, and the idea of a better future is being strained to the breaking point. As a result, viewers may find it difficult to care about what happens to anyone. The season one finale walks some of this back, with Starfleet coming to the rescue of the synths on Coppelius and the Federation repealing the ban on synthetics, but for some viewers that's too little, too late."
Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy only applies when both sides involved in the main conflict are equally unlikeable or when the heroes' efforts ultimately amount to nothing and the universe still sucks. If the story features clearly defined heroes and villains and the ending delivers a positive outcome, then it doesn't qualify. If people are complaining about the overall darkness in the show, then Angst Aversion (which is already featured in the YMMV page) might be the better fit. Also, that part about the show taking a more hopeful and optimistic rout towards the end of its first season but some viewers refusing to accept that comes off as needless criticism. What do you say?
openToo small a page? Film
Memes.Mulan 2020 seems too small to be its own page, having 6 examples of dubious quality/memeage.
openBroken Base Misuse from a Recurring Problem Editor? Film
I looked over the Mulan YMMV page to do some cleanup now that the live-action film has given it new attention. A while back I went through the Broken Base to adjust some of the harsher language regarding the "Mulan as trans allegory" interpretation (I strongly disagree with that take and consider it to be an example of Misaimed Fandom, and am considering moving it there, but nevertheless I still believe that it should be documented and discussed in a respectful way).
Afterwards I noticed that Marikusu added a very lengthy and wanky addendum
, which first off, is incredibly long and detailed for the point it needs to make, and comes off as overwhelmingly biased towards one side, basically being to rebuff the other (again, I agree with their take, but not with their writeup). The second part of it ironically has the opposite problem, but clearly reads as personal venting that doesn't bother to fulfill any of the requirements for a Broken Base. I tried to deal with some of the misuse by rewriting it under Alternative Character Interpretation, as well as some related wank from different tropers, but I'm tempted to just nuke the damn thing.
The name sounded familiar, and looking it up there was a previous incident
I brought up here in which I had to correct a rather bad example of trope misuse. When I pointed out their issues they sent me back an incredibly rude response accusing me of character bias, which I rebutted by pointing out their issue was with blatant misuse. Thankfully, they did not start an edit war after that.
But based on their current behavior it seems like they haven't gotten any better with their issues regarding trope misuse, using tropes pages as an excuse for personal venting, or Clear, Concise, Witty issues.
So if anyone else has had run-ins with this troper they'd like to bring up, please let me know, because it seems like they have persistent problems with proper editing etiquette.
Edited by AlleyOopopenComplaints Magnet? Film
The Critical Research Failure section under Mulan (2020) is getting quite long and nitpicky, in excess of even what the most flexible interpretations of the trope allow. While a lot of people have correctly called the film out for failing to get basic aspects of Chinese culture correct despite advertising itself as more authentic, a lot of these examples come off as less informed criticisms and more an excuse for certain users to kick the film while it's down by parroting criticisms they saw elsewhere, some of which may misunderstand the actual reason for why the mistake was such an issue in the first place, or introduce Critical Research Failure of their own.
This despite scholars of Chinese culture and people of Chinese descent themselves pointing out that these aspects of Chinese culture get subjected to Artistic License within Chinese-created media all the time, and are not as clear-cut or even the worst crimes the film commits.
Edited by AlleyOopopenMisuse / Complaining?
Mulan (2020) has attracted some suspect additions.
- Critical Dissonance: As of opening day, the film's Rotten Tomatoes critic score is at 75% compared to a user score of 56%. Critics have largely agreed that the film is a respectable but flawed work. General audiences were far less forgiving of the flaws.
If the user score is the “general audience", I question if that’s a big enough to count (most examples I’ve seen are closer to 90/50% gap). I’m more concerned about it contradicting this objective entry.
- Killer App: Even if it meant also paying a $30 dollar premium, people wanting to watch the movie led to a 68% weekly spike on
Disney+ downloads.
That this many are so interested in the movie makes me suspect the “general audiences” are not the general audience but a Vocal Minority. Should someone be done?
- Box-Office Bomb: Thanks to both the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of buzz around the film due to pre-existing controversies, Mulan opened to a miserable 5.9 million dollars. In China
it barely made over 1 million dollars, with optimistic guesses aiming the film would only make 20 million total there.
Box-Office Bomb requires the work complete it’s box office run. Given the messed up state of the box office I can’t tell if this applies. The “lack of buzz” seems suspect as trivial compared to the impact of COVID and The Lion King remake did great at the box office despite it’s controversy.
openAndYouThoughtItWouldFail too soon?
- And You Thought It Would Fail: The film was fairly controversial throughout its development in regards to everything from general fatigue of the live-action remakes to the choice to forgo some elements from the animated movie to Liu’s statements about democracy in Hong Kong. However, the film has gotten good reviews from both critics and general audiences and the deviations from the original movie are generally considered to be for the best.
And You Thought It Would Fail requires it be financially successful as well. It’s only just releasing worldwide so too soon to say. It’s also releasing Direct-to-Video (purchase through Disney+) so is there even a way to measure it’s profitability? (It has unlimited time to recoup its budget.) At least it’s means Disney need not give the statistics to determine its successful ness.
I also asked "No Recent Examples Please" cleanup
.
openMulan YMMV
Are we allowed to make entries that reflect our own opinions, or do we need to only put things that have a general fandom consensus? If someone has an alternate interpretation, does this mean that they are allowed to put their own entries?
openBroken Aesop back and forth
- Broken Aesop: The supposed anti-discrimination message conveyed via Fantastic Racism against the synths doesn't quite work when the synths really are the biggest threat imaginable to organic life. All it takes to doom galactic civilization is for one of them to find the Admonition and construct a beacon that will summon the Higher Synthetics, which from what we see isn't at all hard to do. On top of that, according to the Higher Synthetics themselves, synths will inevitably kill and replace organics, as has happened many times before in this galaxy and others.
I first removed it per Repair, Don't Respond as a bullet was added that "On the other hand, the Romulans believed they were acting for the greater good of the galaxy, even going so far as to sabotage the relief efforts of their own homeworld in their cause. And they were all acting under the influence of implanted alien memories. The Synths, meanwhile, were also either acting under the influence of those same memories or convinced by circumstances that it was the only option for survival. And when presented with an alternative they back down. It is ultimately shown that conflict between organics and synthetics, while likely, is in no way inevitable." It was added back, re-deleted, than added back attempting to address the issue "While this doesn't justify the bigotry toward individual synths like Soji, it still presents them as a group capable of causing disproportionate chaos and death at a moment's notice, making the Federation and Romulans' wariness of them somewhat justified."
Thought on this? Would Strawman Has a Point fit this better? I'd ask the Aesop Cleanup thread but it's been inactive for weeks now.
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtopenNever Live It Down question.
Per proir ATT
, I added this to YMMV.Star Trek Picard:
- Never Live It Down: The Federation refusing to help the Romulans has caused many to label them as racist. This is despite only 14 of the Federations over 150 member worlds expressed such sentiment, and that the Federations would have helped the Romulans regardless if not for the attack on Mars which was so devastating they could no longer afford to send aid nor the fallout of losing said member worlds over it.
Afterwards, HighCrate changed it to this:
- Never Live It Down: Fourteen Federation member worlds threatened to secede if Starfleet sent relief aid to the Romulans, and the rest of the Federation / Starfleet is complicit in denying aid that cost millions of Romulan lives. This has lead several in the show's fanbase to characterize the entire Federation as irredeemably racist.
This removes the explanation for why it is an unfair exaggeration which prior cleanup deemed a requirement for all NILD examples. HighCrate is active on other cleanup threads and was involved in said prior ATT, so I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt over this. But why the change? Is there something I missed? I've invited them here to discuss this.
I'd ask NILD cleanup but it seems inactive at the moment given my last inquiry there has yet to be responded to.
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtopenMulti-person Edit War on YMMV.StarTrekPicard
The following entry has been the subject of a long, drawn-out, multi-person Edit War on YMMV.Star Trek Picard:
- Common Knowledge: The show's detractors often complain that the Federation is "racist" now, and that they refused to help the Romulans due to bigotry. In the show proper, however, Starfleet did try to help the Romulans evacuate for several years before the attack on Mars destroyed much of the armada they'd been relying on. Furthermore, it's made explicitly clear that the decision to cancel the rescue was a case of Realpolitik rather than racial bigotry — many member worlds were uncomfortable expending so much resources to help the Romulan Star Empire, the Federation's oldest enemy, and following the attack on Mars, Starfleet simply couldn't afford to rebuild the rescue fleet from scratch. The ships that were already deployed were ordered to stand down and cease helping, using the situation on Mars as a reason to abandon the project as a whole.
- In addition, writer Michael Chabon has confirmed that much of the Federation's isolationist streak is a lingering effect of the damage the still fairly recent Dominion War did. However, Executive Meddling has so far prevented the show from exploring this in any greater detail due to fears of Continuity Lock-Out.
I'm of the opinion that it's Not an Example. It's unclear from the show precisely how much of the decision to pull out of the Romulan evacuation effort was due to a lack of ships and how much was due to anti-Romulan sentiment, however it is clearly stated that fourteen Federation member worlds were threatening to secede before the attack on Mars led to a lack of ships, specifically because of anti-Romulan sentiment. Characterizing the Federation as having an element of anti-Romulan racism is canonically correct.
As for the improperly indented second bullet point, Word of God is interesting trivia and everything, but if it didn't make it into the show proper then it didn't make it into the show proper, and even if it did, it doesn't change the main point at hand.
openMulan WMG Film
This is on the WMG page for Mulan (2020) :
- Between the disastrous test screenings, the lead actress' poor reception (considered to be "more concerned with looking pretty than emoting"), her controversial opinion regarding the Hong Kong protests (which will not be discussed further here), the backlash Western fans have given to most of the changes (No Mushu, no songs, no Shang), and the recent underwhelming performance of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil at the box office, I'm not entirely confident that this film is going to do well in theaters. Perhaps if it ends up underperforming, Disney will decide to start releasing its remakes exclusively to Disney+, or eventually just cease to do them altogether.
- There's also the coronavirus outbreak to be taken into consideration. It took everyone by surprise, but due to the large outbreak many Chinese citizens will be on quarantined or unmotivated to go to the movies, which will lead to the box office badly hurting.
I don't think this is okay, is it?
open Troper Does not Know YMMV
OK, so hi. Long story short, I watched Disney's Mulan. I disagreed with Shang's teaching methods and felt that said methods were a major contributor as to why his students were doing so badly at first-I also felt his captaining skills were an Informed Attribute (Probably should have put the phrase "Informed Attribute" in my entry now that I think of it, but what can you do?) and he mostly is seen quickly failing at the task at hand so that the title character can save the day. I wrote:
- We're supposed to see [Shang] as this cool dude with this catchy song, and it's not his fault that all his recruits are a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits[sic] afterall. However, from the get-go Shang saddles them with incredibly difficult tasks-like shooting a pomegranate out of midair and dodging flaming arrows, which would be ridiculous for beginners to start out with, and even more ridiculous when you realize that due to the Hun Invasion, they only have three weeks to reach elite level skills. Not helping is that Shang is shown giving barely any instruction at all-just handing them their equipment and watching them fail miserably (And maybe giving them a single brief demonstration if they're fortunate) and getting angry that they can't perfectly replicate these crazy difficult feats on their first try. How they shaped up is a mystery of the ages.Special mention and particularly egregious example in teaching Mulan hand-to-hand combat-we never see him teaching any of the recruits moves, or stances, and instead just forces Mulan to go up against him. Keep in mind that Shang is implied to have had years of specialized training for this and Mulan is still one of the recruits who is doing the worst (and has only been training for a few weeks). As you'd expect, Shang pummels her in a few seconds almost effortlessly. And yet Mulan is portrayed as a "bad student" despite doing her best to oblige her teacher's insane demands.
- ...Shang's biggest (and only) critic, Chi-Fu, is pointed being unreasonable when he criticizes Shang. And we're supposed to agree with Mulan when she calls Shang a "great captain". But when said captain starts his students of with expert-level skills instead of building their strength and endurance or giving them some practical combat level and never really demonstrating any kind of teaching aptitude whatsoever.
- This entry makes no sense. We see a three-minute musical montage. Of COURSE we're not going to see him giving instruction because that would be boring. He obviously must be giving instruction because they're improving noticeably. This takes things out of contexts[sic] and makes completely unreasonable assumptions.
The point is is is that I had an opinion and he/she removed it and is accusing me of character bashing.
For his/her side of the story, see here.
(But know that I am a girl/"she", not a boy/"he")
openDispute on YMMV.Mulan
There is a dispute between myself and Catcher In The Wry on YMMV.Mulan. In short, I removed an entry he wrote, and he took offense to it, PMing me to say he was "annoyed" and that he would take it to a mod. He has not restored the entry, so it's not an Edit War yet, but from the tone of his PM, and of the entry I deleted, I figure it's better to get here first.
The entry was for Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic; the first I deleted because it was, to my judgment, factually inaccurate — it stated that Shang gave no instruction (despite the Make A Man Out Of You montage showing him leading the group in exercises, as well as the group improving, clearly implying that his teaching is effective), and that all he did was demand the recruits like Mulan perform expert level feats and scowl when they failed. Basically, the entry seems to assume that the actions shown in the aforementioned montage are literally the only things Shang did with the group, and therefore Shang is an unreasonable bully for not teaching Mulan anything and then being annoyed that she isn't an Instant Expert.
It also had indentation issues, with a second level bulletpoint that just further expounds on Shang's supposed failures.
The second I deleted because it's based entirely on the first — saying Obstructive Bureaucrat Chi Fu is sympathetic because he's right to be critical of Shang's alleged incompetence. As the first entry is factually inaccurate, the second one based entirely on that should also go.
So far he has not yet PMed me over removing his Alternative Character Interpretation (which I deleted because it doesn't actually explain the alternate interpretation, it just sort of trails off with a parenthetical about how what Chi Fu did was justified), but given his reaction to my removal of his other entry, I expect it's forthcoming.
In all, the entries appear to be based less on the content of the work, and more on this troper's personal dislike for the character Shang, which is in turn based on a factually inaccurate understanding of the movie.
openRequesting a lock
I'm requesting a lock on YMMV.Mulan 2020. People keep trying to add Overshadowed by Controversy, but it hasn't been six months yet.
Edited by Mickoonsley19

I was listening John Mulaney's The One Thing You Can't Replace and I don't know if this counts as an audio version of Gilligan Cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv_1zr3ydFQ
(skip to 3:10)(also puyo version cause why not)