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:
openFind Out Who Created A Page Literature
I was interested in the page for the book "Let's Go Play at the Adams'" and I was wondering if there was a way to find out who created the original page. I saw the change history but it doesn't seem to record the original creation. I don't know whether or not I missed something obvious but I'm new to TV Tropes and I would really appreciate it if anyone could help me.
Thanks!
openTropeless work page Literature
The Chronicles Of Gray has a decent description but no tropes or wicks. If anyone is familiar with The Lost City of Malalo (the first and only book in the series as of the page's creation), please add tropes to save the page from getting cut.
openWhat tropes are unbuilt here? Literature
These are originally two bullets entries on UnbuiltTrope.Literature
- Arrowsmith has often been cited as having predicted many of the problems facing the medical profession in the modern day, including the political difficulties surrounding public health programs and the competing interests of scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies, all in a time when modern medicine was still a fairly new field. (Lewis did his research when writing Arrowsmith, working with science writer Paul de Kruif to ensure accuracy to the point that de Kruif received a quarter of the royalties.)
- Elmer Gantry predicted many of the scandalous megachurch pastors and televangelists of the 20th century, the titular Gantry portrayed as a womanizing crook who destroys the lives of everybody around him and is utterly cynical about the faith, seeing it purely as a racket after deciding he could make more money as a preacher than a lawyer. Lewis was writing about the tent revivalists of the early 20th century like Billy Sunday, but the field would soon explode with the rise of radio and television; when the book was published in 1927, the radio preacher Aimee Semple McPherson was already one of the most famous Christian leaders in the US and had been caught up in a highly publicized kidnapping case.
The first one doesn't state what trope is being unbuilt, while the second one sound like it's straight example, although I found both of them to be confusing. So I would like to ask if they're really Unbuilt Trope or not?
Edited by KuruniopenAre Crosswick examples supposed to match word for word? Literature
Hey tropers! I'm pretty new, and just turned in my first edit, on Battle Couple Literature (entry for Amelia Peabody) but I have not crosswicked from the work page yet.
As I was getting ready to put in the crosswick, I realized that the examples could be a lot more laconic on the work page, as there is much more context available there. This is making me question my approach to the edit in the first place.
- Are an entry on a Trope page and the matching entry on the Work page supposed to match exactly, or can they be phrased differently?
- Irrespective of the previous question, should I be trying to trim down the examples on the trope page further? Basically, how much context is too much?
open Fan-Fiction Literature
Can You Add My Fan-Fiction To This Website? It's Non-Canon And I Made It For 7 Years.
https://www.wattpad.com/story/226295929-blackcrusader
openAgent Loki: International Man of Mayhem trope page removed Literature
Why was the trope page for the fanfic Agent Loki: International Man of Mayhem removed? The reason given says "Work existed, but wiped from the internet. There is a link to download, but without being certain of the downloading security, it's inadvisable to use." It's true that the author removed the fanfic from the internet but I see no reason why it can't still have a trope page. If a link was the problem, wouldn't it make more sense to just delete the link instead of removing the entire page?
Link to removed trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/AgentLokiInternationalManOfMayhem
openChoosing a quote Literature
I am thinking about adding several quotes to a book series' list of tropes. How long should each passage be?
open"Sorcerer Hunters": which came first? Literature
We refer to this title both to the light novel and the manga. However, both began in the same month and year (august 1993) and were made by the same author. However, according to this page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/SorcererHunters
, you're sure it's the manga.
So, tl:dr which came first, manga or light novel? Because i have my doubts.
Edited by luigirovattiopenThe living and the dead Literature
Could you make a list of tropes in the two parts story "The Living and the Dead", from Anthony Enciso?
openSF and Gender Literature
Maybe this belongs more to TF, but I'd like to ask if there's still a stereotype that Science Fiction is mainly a genre for males, and, by extension, females who read SF would be considered Periphery Demographic? I know that stereotype existed, but I'm not sure whether it's still widespread enough to trope.
openMore from Unbuilt Trope Literature
(The original entry is two bullets at the bottom of LONG list of "teen dystopia" sub-genre entry)
- The Hunger Games itself is a Trope Codifier for the YA Dystopia Novel note Though The Giver and Uglies both predate it, it started the trend more properly , and has many deconstructive elements, thanks to its author being very fond of deconstructor fleets. After all, the dystopia depicted isn't that much worse than the resistance, the Love Triangle is a ploy for attention by the villains, and most of the second book is spent exploring how the main character's psyche has been affected by the events of the first rather than a further adventure.
Ignoring how it's include as Trope Codifier (But is it? The note only claims it "started the trend more properly", not how it codifies the genre), the fact that it outright say "its author being very fond of deconstructor fleets" make me think it's more of "early deconstruction" than actual Unbuilt Trope.
Edited by Kuruniopenexample arguing with itself Literature
The Dune example under "Literature" on War for Fun and Profit is arguing with itself. I don't know anything about the series beyond half-paying attention to the movie and TV Tropes examples. Could someone who does know please fix?
openThe Way of Kings disambig Literature
I dropped a line on the discussion page in question, but those tend to get ignored, so here we are.
Literature.The Way Of Kings was created in 2013 for Brandon Sanderson's book, the first in The Stormlight Archive. Two days ago, someone created a page for a new book by Louise Searl, Literature.The Way Of Kings 2021. So far so good. Except this person then moved Sanderson's book to Literature.The Way Of Kings 2010 and made Literature.The Way Of Kings a disambig.
I really, really question if moving the original page is necessary, especially considering the large number of wicks and huge number of inbounds Sanderson's book had. Normally, the older page gets to keep the title sans date, and the newer one gets the date. It seems like a lot of extra work, done by one troper with no discussion. Should this move be reverted?
openUnmarked spoilers in a work description Literature
The description for A Sound of Thunder spoils the ending of the work, which is intended to be a twist, though it may be subject to It Was His Sled. Should that part of the description be removed or at least reworded to something more vague? There's no spoiler marking on the rest of the page, though.
Edited by mightymewtronopenEdit check Literature
Could someone double-check on my edits on Take That Literature? The alphabetizing was a royal mess, and I'm not sure I got all of it -I kept thinking I was done, and then noticed something else!
Problems included: alphabetizing by a, an, the; alphabetizing by author's first name before last; alphabetizing by series but potholing the series title to the book title, so it looked out of order; slapping stuff onto the end despite the notice on top; different works from the same author scattered around the page, some ordered by author and some by work name; and some that looked they were dropped in where the editor felt like.
(Don't ask about the remaining problems with example indentation, please; I'm worn out from fixing the alphabetical order.)
openIs there a launch pad for books? Literature
I'd like to start a new page for the new 2021 novel "The Plot" by Jean Hanff Koelitz, and it would be helpful to put it in a "launch pad" before it's ready to be posted. But it looks as if there are only launch pads available for individual works—-only tropes. So should I just start the page anyway and gradually add tropes to it, or is there something I missed?
openTroping memoirs Literature
I'd like to create a page for Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? (using the former as the page title) by Richard Feynman. I'm given to understand that nonfiction literature is considered tropable as long as examples are limited to the work and not the subject, but would like to get confirmation of that before I begin.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was the creator of Richard Feynman, and would be reinstating many of the tropes formerly found on that page, since the books are the source for the majority. I'd like to make sure this is appropriate first, though, as it could reasonably be interpreted as Loophole Abuse. That's not the intention; rather, it's in recognition of the fact that the Useful Notes page was a de facto troping of his works.
If the consensus is that this is a bad idea, I'll cheerfully accept it.
Edited by dannybeansopenNamespaces Literature
I've been recently thinking of launching a work page for Anatole, which began as a children's book but later received an Animated Adaptation. Now, in my experience, most works of this type (Franklin, Little Bear, The Dumb Bunnies, etc.) have Literature as their main namespace, but also include a Western Animation namespace that redirects to the Literature one. I'm hoping to do the same thing for Anatole, but the problem is that I have absolutely no idea how this is achieved. Any pointers?
openNot sure if example counts Literature
I can't decide if the following example- taken from LightNovel.Spice And Wolf- fits or not.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Justified in universe. When Holo gets sick from fatigue, Lawrence treats her using the "four humors" method, which was prevalent in medieval society.
True, the medical practices aren't accurate to modern standards, but if they're accurate to the time period depicted then can it really count as Artistic License? (I'm probably overthinking this.)

I was looking over the page for Literature/Fangirl , and I noticed the following Jerkass Has a Point entry:
Now this is obviously some pretty egregious Conversation in the Main Page (with a side of indentation issues) but I'm not familiar enough with the book to be sure about what should be kept.