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:
openEdit War on Sword Art Online Character Pages
Recently, a newer troper named Seport07
removed anything pertaining to All the Other Reindeer, the trope itself and anything that may allude to it, from Yuuki's folder in the Sword Art Online Major Characters page
, and Sinon's Character page
, under the reasoning that nothing in the story states or implies that they were isolated.
Me, having engaged with both the anime and light novels and knowing that they were in fact isolated during their Dark And Troubled Pasts, re-added the entries explaining this. However, today they re-removed the entries on Yuuki's folder
, and Sinon's page
without discussion under the claim of having re-watched the anime and seeing no evidence of such for either character.
Can I ask that this is sorted out soon?
Edited by AnimeGameropenEdit War on YMMV.Wednesday. Could this use a rewrite?
So, here on YMMV.Wednesday, the following happened:
- Damian Wayne added
an Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry for Tyler.
- Endurable Narwhal 313 removed it
citing "A character can very much be a Tragic Villain even if they cross the Moral Event Horizon. Additionally, a vast majority of fans sympathize with Tyler and want o see him redeemed."
- Damian Wayne re-added
it, without discussing it anywhere, citing "1. A quick look on reddit, X, tumblr and bluesky shows this is a very comon criticism. 2. I may vhange the introduction. However "tragic villains" usally also have redeeming qualities".
Normally, I would stay out of it, but I actually think Damian Wayne is right to an extent. While a lot of fans sympathize Tyler, a good number don't and it's quite common to see that people just don't feel sympathy for him. But my thing is that the entry is weird to me:
- The second season was criticised, among other things, for trying to turn Tyler in a Tragic Monster, even after he crossed the Moral Event Horizon:
- While he does have a genuine tragic backstory, with many comparing Thornhill's manipulation of him to outright grooming, this doesn't change the fact he never once displayed regret for his actions. During his breakout from the asylum, Tyler still goes out of his way to hurt innocent people, including throwing Wednesday out of a window for no real reason.
- Before being found by his mother, he also wastes days obsessing over Wednesday and attacks Enid and the rest of Wednesday's friends for trying to protect her from him. Similarly to what had happened in the hospital, he was also acting of his own free will rather than being forced by his Master.
- While Francoise is an Abusive Parent, who outright chains him to a bed, Tyler's self-admitted main focus is trying to kill Wednesday again and he voices opposition to her plans only because he priorities killing the girl in question over everything else. He likewise has zero compunction murdering innocent people, at one point feeding an innocent veterinarian to Isaac and being fully willing to let Isaac eat Agnes's brain. Agnes being only thirteen years old.
- In the end, Tyler does turn against his mom and uncle and indirectly assists Wednesday and her family. However this happened only because he didn't want to lose his powers rather than any moral qualms. Indeed, his critics have pointed out he went happily along with Isaac's plan in the previous episodes even if it meant kidnapping Pugsley and burying Wednesday alive.
- The second season was criticised, among other things, for trying to turn Tyler in a Tragic Monster, even after he crossed the Moral Event Horizon:
I feel like it could be rewritten to be more concise and one entry. Is it cool if I rewrite it?
openLockout or Alienating Premise?
YMMV.Captain America Brave New World.
- Continuity Lock-Out: Unlike some recent MCU films where the continuity lockout came from the sheer volume of stuff audiences were expected to know going in, a common critique of Brave New World is that it relies on its audience remembering specific events from three "lesser" MCU entries, namely a Disney+ exclusive mini-series from four years prior, a film from four years prior released during the pandemic, and another film from seventeen years prior, the latter two being not well received by MCU fans. Brave New World rapidly recaps all of the necessary information from those installments to get everyone up to speed, but it also clearly expects them to be fresh on the audience's mind.
I intend to delete as cleanup
of
YMMV.The Marvels 2023 said CL doesn't apply if it sufficiently explains past events to newcomers to follow, audiences merely assuming lockout is something else. I'm asking if Audience-Alienating Premise might apply as it contributed to work being a Box-Office Bomb.
Relating this was removed from YMMV.The Marvels 2023:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: One the biggest factors that led to the movie's colossal Box-Office Bomb is the fact that the premise of the story involves Carol teaming up with Monica and Kamala, two characters that have previously appeared in the Disney+ streams. The problem with this is the fact that the general audience have no idea who they are, the former only appearing in a supporting role in the previous movie & WandaVision and the latter only appearing in her own series which itself isn't well-received by the viewers. While the movie did give a summary regarding who they are, the perceived Continuity Lock-Out ended up leading to non-comic book fans being turned away from the cinemas' premiere.
Removal reason was "I highly doubt this was that big of a problem, given that a general moviegoer would either just see a bunch of new characters or would have likely seen both Wandavision and Ms. Marvel beforehand if they were hyped for this movie. This is like arguing that audiences would be confused on seeing Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in Age of Ultron, or Black Panther in Civil War, or for that matter The Falcon in The Winter Soldier." Valid or not?
But there's this under AudienceAlienatingPremise.Film:
- This was a major reason why Thunderbolts* (2025) became an Acclaimed Flop. It sold itself on a unification of various villains from prior Marvel Cinematic Universe projects—which, due to the MCU's propensity towards killing off its villains, left it with a collection of second-string characters from divisive or less-acclaimed projects, with Black Widow (2021) and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier providing the lion's share. This put it in a weird position of simultaneously dealing with Continuity Lock-Out and not really benefiting from star power, and it bearing little resemblance to the most popular runs of the comic Thunderbolts didn't give it much of a draw with the core fanbase, either. The result was a lukewarm-at-best runup to release, and while the film tended to pleasantly surprise those who did see it, it nonetheless lost quite a bit of money, with even Kevin Feige admitting that the film was probably doomed from the get-go.
Since asking about other possible AAP examples, asking about this as well. And if valid, would disinterest/unfamiliarity with prior works be grounds for applying AAP to the others?
openFanfic Rec pages formatting Literature
Is there a consensus on how to format a Fanfic Rec page besides the basics? LunaSlashSea has added a lot of three or even six full paragraph spaces to fic rec pages that aren't used on other pages, as well as divider lines (----) between every fic. It looks fine on the page itself but when going into the editor it's kinda messy, mainly for the big gaps.
FanficRecs.Hades and FanficRecs.Hadestown have those attributes, while FanficRecs.Slay The Princess and FanficRecs.Doki Doki Literature Club don't, for comparison.
Edited by lalalei2001openHate Sink misuse/edit war.
Characters.Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Earth Alliance
- Hate Sink: Inverted, she wasn't originally meant or created to be hated, but considering his her time in SEED, he she became like that, How?; Firstly, she's intolerable, a jerk, arrogant, selfish, cheated on boyfriend Sai, and manipulated Kira into seducing him into having sex with her against his will, and tried to shoot Dearka while he was imprisoned, even if she had any redeeming qualities, she wouldn't have been able to save from her death at the hands of Rau. Even her Ocean Dub Actor hate her and when flay died, she feels happy.
New troper Neo Ghidorah 64 added this. I deleted as she wasn't ment to be such given she eventually gets remorse for it and her fate is played tragically, and PM'd them about it. They then added it back, the only notable change is adding the first sentence which is misuse of inversion. (Also, it was consensual even if he exploited Kira traumatized state of mind. Immoral, but exaggerating her heinousness.)
Flay is a textbook Jerks Are Worse Than Villains, but not a deliberate HS. Entry is just listing negative traits and reactions, ignoring mitigating context.
This is practically the only page and item they've edited, so bringing to attention.
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtopenHow should I go about searching for information on this wiki? Web Original
I know this sounds like the dumbest question in the world, but I wouldn't ask it if I didn't feel like I was missing something. The search function on the site itself (I don't use mobile so I don't know if it's different there) only goes 10 pages of 10 links per search, which is obviously inadequate for deep diving. I've found a way to circumvent it by putting -[insert page I've already seen here] in my search, rinse and repeat as I go along, filtering out more and more stuff to prolong my search as much as I can. However, I can't help but think this is extremely inefficient in a way that might be obvious to everyone except me. So is there something I'm missing here? I am aware I could just do exactly what I'm doing in Google search or something, but I just want to make sure if there is an in-site solution to my problem?
openWeird additions to national Useful Notes pages
On 22nd April and later 5th May, following edits from January that introduced write-ups about current cabinets (yes, I know, old news), troper The Blitzerz 97 did an entire string of edits in Useful Notes pages for a long list of nations. His edits were of the same pattern: adding party affiliation of residing presidents/prime ministers (and adding those in the first place, if they were missing) and potential government. Which is weird, but mostly harmless by itself... except handful of those countries had elections campaigns going around that time, and the edits blatantly mislabeled said affiliations, especially when having to either claim someone is "independent" or any kind of left-leaning party (which many were instantly labelled commie and of course also painted red, even if that's not the party's color [which seems to be the "key"]).
I'm questioning it on two grounds: the pointlessness of such affiliations in the first place and, more importantly, how there is a clear pattern of mislabeling. Won't call it an agenda, it's too low key for that, but it's rather obvious where the political sympathies of the troper lay. That without mentioning the obvious - many of those edits are simply factually wrong.
Examples:
This really goes on and on. There were numerous edits in this vein, see more hereopenFunny moments for ads and bumps
So, I noticed that Paramount+ has a funny moments page for it's ad campaign. Now, I was going to say that it should probably be moved to a page for the ad campaign itself, but then I remembered that Cartoon Network also has one for the various bumpers that they've had over the years.
I know that Creator pages generally aren't supposed to have moments pages, but is there an exception for things like this?
openCut subpage for a cutlisted page that was never cut to begin with
Today, I discovered that Meg and Dia have a page here, albeit not in the best state when I initially came across it. I also noticed that there was no YMMV page, even if the popularity of "Monster" should signify otherwise. I soon found out that the YMMV page was cut because the page itself was to be cutlisted... and it hasn't been cut?
On the actual Cut List, or at least the extent that I saw, the Meg and Dia page is nowhere to be seen. I checked the Wayback Machine to see if this event was relatively recent, but it actually happened sometime in 2024, based on the YMMV page being present in March of that year but gone in December. I'm guessing the page was still allowed to remain up as it technically met the minimum three tropes requirement in spite of its quality. I contextualized a few entries on the main pages and added more tropes (mainly via crosswicking from other pages) to further prevent the page from being a stub - it's better than almost nothing, at least.
Since I doubt the main Meg and Dia page is on the Cut List anymore, is it okay to restore the YMMV page, given that the page it was supposed to be removed alongside was never cut in the first place (a few entries would need context, but I'll probably contextualize them if the page is brought back)?
openUnilateral Quote Change
Under NightmareFuel.Warhammer 40000, Lightbearer77 changed the page quote from this:
Have we exhausted all possible ways to divine the future? How many scribes must toil to scratch their visions onto ancient parchments so that we might catch a glimpse of hope? Or are we to suffer only the pangs of despair as yet more horror is let loose on our dreams? Or does the seeking itself give birth to more insanity than man can cope?
The Dark Future Beckons!
Fear the unknown!
To this:
My impression is replacing page quotes requires approval, correct or not?
openMisblamed (Charlie Kirk)
In regards to this entry for South Park S27E2 "Got a Nut"
- Mis-blamed: Following Charlie Kirk's assassination that occurred a month after this episode's release, die-hard fans of Kirk have blamed Matt and Trey for supposedly inciting his death despite the episode never once advocating even a hint of violence against Kirk himself in spite of all their mockery of him.
Now, it was put back in
after initially being removed since, unlike Harsher in Hindsight, Misblamed isn't on No Recent Examples, Please!. That's not what I take issue with. My issue is if this is actually valid usage of the trope at all. From what I gathered, Mis-blamed is specifically for creators being blamed about something for the work itself. Not for being blamed for real life events.
openSelf-Fullfilling Spoiler Character Pages?
This might be a discussion for Wiki Talk, but do we have a Spoiler Policy for character pages that are inherently a Self-Fulfilling Spoiler by their very existence on the page?
For example, Poker Face has Poker Face: Culprits and Victims, which obviously spoilers the victims and culprits. But as an episodic Reverse Whodunnit I didn't think it was that big a deal.
But then I recently found Characters.Only Murders In The Building Victims And Killers was made in between seasons and this is a bad idea. The series is five seasons long at the moment, and the mere placement of long-running characters on the page are huge spoilers.
In both these places, there are places for these characters to go. Their absence from the logical places mean that if you're starting Only Murders and you go to the Characters/ page at all, you will be spoiled on several characters' deaths that won't happen for years.
The pages aren't so long that we need to cut these characters out of them, and even for the episodic works I find it a lot easier to have all the characters of the week in the same place, including the victims/villains.
Edited by LarkmarnopenTheHero being dewicked everywhere
On Acceptable Feminine Goals and Traits, user ~SimonTrope removed a wick to The Hero in an example/explanation, saying that the trope is being dewicked
.
I put it back
because in the header on the cleanup thread, it says
" While The Hero no longer allows examples itself, references to the term in the text of other examples are fine." (my emphasis). The page has—had—The Hero as a reference to the term in a wick.
It's been removed again
by SimonTrope who stated that "According to cleanup thread, The Hero is now a category of tropes, rather than a trope itself. Thus, the trope is being dewicked." A quick check of the edit history shows they're dewicking it across any page it's on
, regardles of if it's just a reference or not.
If I put it back without consult, I'm causing an Edit War. The thread itself says in multiple places that it can be used and wicked in examples
, just not as an example.
Here's the example in question before any edits were made:
- Men Act, Women Are: Men take active roles in the story, and are defined by their achievements and character. Women are passive, and defined by passive things like how they look, or their sexual history, or relationships to men, or status as mothers, not by achievements. (Unless those "achievements" are something related, like being the World's Most Beautiful Woman, being a virgin, or somehow being Not Like Other Girls, or being the mother of The Hero.)
openSelf published works.
I'm looking for a list of works the authors published themselves, not the publishing houses.
Like will wight for example, who created the cradle series. The books are created by "hidden gnome publishing". But it's him.
The reason I'm asking this is, when the final version of the books, or video games, comics, etc. comes out is undergoing several edits made not necessarily according to the author's wishes, so I'm interested on what he's published by himself.
openPractically Joker - will it ever be a trope again?
So is Practically Joker ever going to be an actual trope again, or is it just going to be disambiguation? I know it was in the Trope Repair Shop (I forget if that's the actual name of the thing) for a while, but there are definitely enough examples of Joker-adjacent characters in multiple media types to have it be a trope.
I think the problem with the page as it was before it got pared down to a Disambiguation page was that examples weren't sorted by how close they skewed to the three main factors of what makes the Joker the Joker: the look (or something close to it), the personality (or one that's very similar) and the motivation (or a close approximation thereof). I think sorting examples by that method, or a combination thereof, would help to clarify that it's a trope in and of itself.
openComment Markups
It's related to a query I made a month earlier, but I decided to undo a certain troper's "un-alphebitazion" of pages they edited. (Is it actually allowed to undo them by myself?)
Anyway, my actual concerns are the markups themselves. Is there a certain order they are arranged, or the billing doesn't actually matter?
openAre YMMV entries relating to leaks that have since been officially released allowed?
I was thinking of writing a Ships That Pass in the Night example for a ship that spawned from a leaked image, from a story that is now officially released in which the two characters being shipped do not interact in the story. By the rules around leaks, would it be okay to bring up that the ship started because of a leak? I think it would be somewhat important to add that piece of info, but it's not crucial to the example.
Ideas of what I'd write:
Mentioning the leak:
YMMV.Cookie Run Kingdom - Ships That Pass in the Night - Doughael and Pure Vanilla Cookie. Before the Premonition of Doom story was released, a cutscene leaked that had a brief scene of Doughael and Pure Vanilla Cookie (as Healer Cookie) in the desert together. This immediately caused many fans to start shipping the two characters together and comparing the ship to other Pure Vanilla Cookie ships. Upon the release of the update, the two characters had no direct interaction. Healer Cookie himself is only shown in the aforementioned brief scene, having no dialogue or other appearance in the story.
Without mentioning the leak:
YMMV.Cookie Run Kingdom - Ships That Pass in the Night - Doughael and Pure Vanilla Cookie. In the ending cutscene of the Premonition of Doom story, there is a brief scene that shows Pure Vanilla Cookie (as Healer Cookie) and Doughael standing alongside each other in the desert. Despite Pure Vanilla Cookie not making another appearance in the story and having no dialogue in it, this caused fans to start shipping the two characters and comparing the ship to other Pure Vanilla Cookie ships.
openIs the Oxford comma mandatory here?
Being a native German speaker, my edits tend to invite corrections when I don't pay enough attention, as the german language uses more commata between sentence parts than the english one. I try my best, to avoid cases, where it becomes so visibly excessive, that the sentence feels scattered in English.
The one place, where I feel a comma does definitely not belong, but where I get some edited in frequently, is the so-called Oxford comma in listings. I suppose, automatic spell checkers are geared to include it by default. Without wanting to start a debate (or even flame war), that has likely been exercised fruitlessly countless times among linguists, it just feels completely out of place to me.
Many work titles, from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to Ed, Edd n Eddy forego it as well.
So, yeah... am I expected to include those things here, or are they considered a volountary linguistic element?

I noticed that a troper named OUSIsITH has added a number of quotes in the past couple of months in several pages under Real Life, all of them coming from discussions and quotes from blog posts within the last three years and which take a rather pessimistic view of the future. Some of them are very long, like several paragraphs. Quotes can be found in Reality Is Unrealistic, Terminally Dependent Society, Humans Are Bastards, Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be, and Post-Peak Oil.
Simply being negative might not be grounds for removal, but with the result being in some of these pages being so heavily negative I am not sure whether this by itself merits a review. (I have refrained from pinging the troper in question for now since if this is a nothingburger I'm fine with not bothering them.)