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Ask the Tropers:
openManchild or Psychopathic Manchild Videogame
Over the past year, there's been a minor edit war over whether Bowser is a Manchild or a Psychopathic Manchild.
This is his entry:
Bowser is a rich and powerful king, but still shows obvious signs of immaturity on a regular basis; he has nasty mood swings that scare even his most loyal servants, he never feels responsible for his failures, always looking for someone else to blame, and is never satisfied with what he already has, always wanting more. The best showcase of this is when he meets his younger self in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: barely anything differentiates them in personality, showing that Bowser has barely evolved mentally since infancy.
Which trope is more appropriate?
openRemnant Inferis: DOOM Awesome page
About a year ago, Remnant Inferis: DOOM had an awesome moments page, but it was cut since it was created by the author. Somewhere in mid to late last year, I made a sandbox page for moments pages for the fic, and the sandbox entries (added by Troper/Marvyn and myself) seem to be enough to add a new awesome page. These entries had no authorial input whatsoever and have been edited to be grammatically correct. Do I have the go ahead to re-create the awesome moments page?
openMinecraft YMMV Videogame
A big majority of the YMMV subpages for Minecraft such as Awesome, Funny, and Heartwarming, are mainly just stories about things other players did and put online and have nothing to actually do with the game itself. Is that allowed?
openYMMV.Catherine UnfortunateImplications edit war Videogame
Hey, troper metaverse keeps deleting an Unfortunate Implications entry on the YMMV.Catherine page about some fans being unhappy with Unsettling Gender-Reveal jokes (the scene in question involves a transwoman appearing before coming out in an Alternate Timeline so they can make a joke about another character she is attracted to being unaware she is a transwoman or attracted to him, basically), despite 3 sources to said reactions being provided (per the guidelines), with a Strawman Fallacy edit reason that these are "misunderstandings" about a Transgender character no longer wanting to transition, rather than about the actual content of the entry. Entry:
- Unfortunate Implications: In one of the new endings for Full Body, Catherine goes back in time so she can place herself in Vincent's high school and the two end up dating. An unclear number of years later, at Vincent and Catherine's wedding, Erica is then seen pre-transition with Toby, who previously only became friends with the rest of the cast after Erica's transition, in order to make another joke about Erica's attraction to Toby. Outside potentially inadvertently removing Erica's identity and agency, this was mainly seen as Atlus doubling down on problematic Unsettling Gender-Reveal jokes in the story by a number of fans, especially in the trans community in both the West and Japan. It even got to the point where several people refused to buy the game or support Atlus in the future. The English voice actress for Erica, Erin Fitzgerald, explained shortly afterwards that the localization team would try to adjust the ending for the Western release. (Sources: Kotaku
, Daily Dot
, Dualshockers
)
I'm not really sure what to do at this point because the edit reasons for removing don't seem to have anything to do with the actual entry? Honestly, if the entry should go for the sake of Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment, I understand, but feel like their strawman Mis-blamed and Overshadowed by Controversy should go too then.
Edited by ashlayopenMore YMMV/StevenUniverseFuture issues.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst, even with the fact that Steven is growing up, continue to treat him like they did at the start of Steven Universe. At several different points, they are seen glossing over his emotions, such as during "Together Forever" when Garnet doesn't give Steven help when he asks (and claims that "there was no future where he didn't propose despite Ruby and Sapphire directly egging Steven on to propose to Connie), and Amethyst glossing over Steven's concerns in "Guidance" when he pointed out they were treating the newly-immigrated gems like they did on Homeworld (though she turned out to be mostly right, Both Sides Have a Point). And "Snow Day", when they repeatedly ignored the many signs that Steven did not want to play with them, as well as the fact that they never directly apologized to Steven while he was himself onscreen (like he did to Cactus Steven in "Prickly Pair") in "I Am My Monster" or "The Future" over their Parental Neglect or how he was their Living Emotional Crutch, instead just acknowledging it while he was in his Kaiju form. Or acting "tough" in "The Future", without considering how acting like they didn't care their child was leaving may have affected Steven emotionally. Steven may have not brought it up most of the time, but is it any wonder he's angry with them?
1. It fails to explain why they were supposed to be sympathetic despite the circumstances. 2. It outright states they realized they were in the wrong in "I Am My Monster", the point of the series was showing how they treated Steven hurt him. The "never directly apologized to Steven while he was himself onscreen" seems too minor and nitpicky to count when at least 90% of this was intentional. This is the second case of UU issue on the page
.
I also asked UU cleanup
but this seem an easy fix and bigger issue so I'm asking here as well.
openOdd "Self Demonstrating" Page
Wild Teen Party (the self demonstrating one) doesn't seem to be particularly different from Wild Teen Party. Is there any particular reason why it's considered one?
Edited by FlorienopenNo Title
So since Examples Aren't General, should everything under the "General" folder on ContemptibleCover.Literature be allowed there:
- Twilight's popularity (and its habitual referencing of literary classics) has led to a series of "Twilight-ized" covers of the books mentioned in the series — including Wuthering Heights
, Pride and Prejudice
◊, and Romeo and Juliet
◊. Yes, now you too can be reminded of trashy vampire romance while reading Shakespeare. And that sticker on the Wuthering Heights cover? Yes, that does in fact read, "Bella and Edward's favorite book!"
- Jane Eyre
and again
- Wuthering Heights
◊ again.
- Jane Eyre
- Twilight's popularity (and its habitual referencing of literary classics) has led to a series of "Twilight-ized" covers of the books mentioned in the series — including Wuthering Heights
- A lot of Pulp Magazines, naturally. For instance, the issue of Planet Stories that introduced Eric John Stark has Queen Berild riding a steed that resembles a giant purple googly-eyed seahorse, although she actually wears more clothing than she does in the text.
- Although a few specific series are mentioned here, it's safe to assume that EVERY Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance book will have a hideously embarrassing cover. Because they all do.
- Averted to an extreme by many Canadian publishers who not only manage to (usually) avoid putting any objectionable cover onto their books, but due perhaps to a desire (or a requirement) to double up on promoting Canadian culture, it's very common to find works of Canadian art gracing the cover of CanLit books that rarely correspond to the subject matter of the book. For example, a novel about urban life might have a painting of a prairie countryside on the cover. In other words, if you're a CanLit author, you can't always rely on the covers to sell your books.
- Not even self-published works are completely immune to this. Smashwords maintains a helpful list of cover designers for the aspiring writer, many of whom offer... drumroll please... "premade covers". They're cheaper than having one designed to order, but are inevitably the blandest and most generic combination of Photoshopped-together stock images imaginable. They're probably slightly better than nothing, but if you've ever wondered why a lot of ebooks seem to have such bland and forgettable covers, now you know.
- This site
is completely devoted to showcasing the most contemptible cover art on the planet.
openCover art of a fanfic
I was hoping to add the cover art for the Fanfic Fate/Magnus Bellum to the main tropes page, but the cover art itself is largely official Nasuverse art cobbled together into a cover page for the story (though it's set up in a way that I find aesthetically pleasing). Is it kosher for me to add something like that to a tropes page because of that? I read the rules regarding images and I didn't see anything that said anything against it so long as it lacks bugs, copyright marks, and watermarks, but I'm asking here for full clarity.
openReally long example
From YMMV/Arknights:
Applicability: (more accurate transcription in replies)
This is so long I wouldn't even know how to BEGIN to trim it dowm (doesn't help I haven't played the game itself). Does anyone have any suggestions- or is it OK as is? Edited by DefiantKitsune
openSophia127 Unilaterally Changing Images and Captions
Sophia127 has been making unilateral changes to images and image captions and I don't want to edit war, so I'm saying something here. Courtesy link
to edit history. There are other problematic edits.
Berrenta has already sent a PM
about one page, but there are multiple pages involved. And now another thread
has been made to correct the unilateral change.
Images and image captions (some of these might be better images, tbh, but they were apparently done unilaterally):
- On Attending Your Own Funeral, she changed the caption to pothole to Not Quite Dead, so now there's no link to Sesame Street.
- NightmareFuel.Battle For Dream Island: Unilaterally changed image and caption. (Caption has sense been unilaterally changed.)
- Assembly Line Fast-Forward: Changed caption.
- Screaming Tropes: Changed image from the famous Scream to... some kids' show.
- TearJerker.Inanimate Insanity
- Ugly Cute: She potholed the image to Real Life, which... seems like a sinkhole given our Real Life article is mostly just for fun.
- Added the image to Woobie.Inanimate Insanity, and I'm really only including this here because there's nothing woobie-like about the characters in the image...
Other issues:
- Characters.Inanimate Insanity: ZCE (Sarcasm Mode)
- Laconic.Nothing Left To Do But Die: Using the phrase "Kill yourself at the main page" is not funny.
- Laconic.Piss Take Rap: Undid the joke to be just "Troper gang" over and over again.
- Laconic.Im Not Afraid Of You: Unilaterally added a second laconic, which is a depracated practice. Moreoever, their added laconic matches the stock phrase without matching the trope.
- YMMV.Smile: Replaced a "Sarcasm Mode" pothole with an "I'm Not Afraid of You" pothole, using it like a troper verbal tic.
It's pretty much every other edit, tbh.
openPotential Ban Evader
I think Owah may have returned once again as Mixels Fan 1973, who is a new account primarily editing pages that Owah also liked, such as Brawl of the Objects. And, like Owah, they're changing images on pages, such as on Funny.Inanimate Insanity.
Mixels' history
for comparison with Owah's
.
Here's the previous thread about their evasion,
and the time they outed themself
.
Edit: Sorry, the links have been fixed.
Edited by WarJay77openDisagreement on Natter
obsidiandice has been removing references to individual chapters in Worm and its subpages out of the belief that it's natter, which I think doesn't track because they serve to contextualize when something happens and doesn't take the form of commentary on the work itself.
openDub Name Change mass deletions
Wayyyy mass deleted a vast majority of examples of Dub Name Change (especially on their newly-created subpage DubNameChange.Japanese To English) calling them ZCEs even as they were legitimate examples (most were "X in Japanese was called Y in English", which is sufficient context since it self-explanatorily demonstrates that a name change did occur).
Then he posted a big bold notice stating not to add every name change across different versions of a work. This baffles me, since it's not a trope omnipresent enough that straight examples should be banned (since not all works will change character names in translation and not everyone's name even if they did).
The folderization is appreciated but the examples deletion is way too far.
This was not the only time Wayyyy has wiped an examples section out of the blue.
openWayyyy too many empty lines (yes, pun intended)
Wayyyy has sorted examples in sevaral pages, which by itself is a great contribution to the wiki.
However, there's a major issue that comes along with this sorting, and it's that examples are now spaced out by empty lines. I replied them asking them not to add these lines, but they refused to do so, arguing that it makes the examples "easier to read". These spaces are making the trope pages too awkward-looking and large, and the fact the troper won't stop doing this comes off as disruptive.
openMildly Concerning Attitude Anime
Joining Reaper recently edited the Isekai Quartet page. The edit reason they left is in relation to several weeks ago when an episode of the show came out and they insisted on adding a Early-Bird Cameo entry without confirmation from either Word of God or the show itself that it was the case.
The most recent episode confirmed they were right, but the edit entry they left read as follows: Oh, what's this? Did it turn out that it was Ristarte? Why, who could have told us so? Mayhaps, me', when I told you and you dismissed as speculation?!
This rubs me the wrong way and seems very aggressive. The reason we had the original entry hidden was because it wasn't confirmed.
openFranchise Original Sin for Harry Potter Literature
The Harry Potter saga has acquired enough space to fit its own page for the Franchise Original Sin trope. While some entries are understandable, this one feels kinda odd.
- One of the more common critiques of Crimes of Grindelwald was the titular villain's plan, where he wants To Unmasque the World with the purpose of taking it over and stopping the atrocities of the 1930s-40s. While his imperialist ambitions are undeniably bad, the invoking of Holocaust and Nazi imagery and Grindelwald's legitimate argument about how the Statute of Secrecy ultimately does a lot more harm than good for both Muggles and Wizards ended up striking a chord with a lot of audiences. As a result, it made the "good guys" seem extremely selfish, because when you read between the lines, it acknowledged that wizards could have stopped World War II, the Holocaust, etc., but considered staying isolated and segregated to be more important than saving millions of lives. To an extent, the implication that wizards value their secrecy and privilege over Muggle lives was always there in the original series. Even when Voldemort's supporters were pretty much declaring open season on Muggles during the final two books, none of the good-guy wizards ever considered informing them of the truth despite them finding out what's going on being the best way for Muggles to protect themselvesnote For one thing, the Muggle government could have coordinated with the Order of the Phoenix by combining their resources, and the Muggle Military and the Aurors and/or the Order of the Phoenix could have worked together to track down and kill/capture as many Death Eaters as possible. This could have given the good guys a major advantage over the Death Eaters; even if they don't have magic, Muggles can still fight and kill wizards (and given wizards' general ignorance of Muggle technology, it being used to combat the Death Eaters and Voldemort could have totally blindsided them), and the Muggle population outnumbers the Wizard population. Notably, Dumbledore reaches out diplomatically to a tiny enclave of murderous giants who hate wizards and kill each other for fun, but never considers reaching out to Muggles despite knowing full-well that the Death Eaters want to wipe all of them out. In fact, the only explanation we ever get for why wizards even maintain The Masquerade in the first place is Hagrid briefly claiming that they don't want to use their magic to solve Muggle problems in the first book. While the apparent moral was pretty ugly, the story never really dwelt much on the relationship between wizards and Muggles, which made it easy to ignore or handwave. Crimes of Grindelwald just made it explicit how far their callous indifference went and made it part of the central conflict, rather than a mere implication. It also didn't help that the 1990s were generally seen as a pretty stable era, which made a noninterventionist policy feel somewhat defensible to readers, while the '30s and '40s (and, adding in Reality Subtext, The New '10s) were not.
What exactly is the complaint here? Is the writer complaining that the wizards (and by extension, Rowling herself) chose not to reveal the existence of the wizarding world, even though that was never on Rowling's plans for the series? I'm no Harry Potter expert, but I'm sure the characters and Rowling have explained plenty of times why revealing the existence of the wizarding world to Muggles would be a bad idea. What should we do about this?
openOutside opinions on disagreement Videogame
Cutting off a brewing edit war at Fallout 3. I'd previously removed the Idiot Plot entry and a user added it back. Here is the entry:
- Idiot Plot: While Fallout 3 is high on the lists of many people for a myriad of reasons, the main plot generally is not one of them.
- The call to action is your dad leaving to jump start his water purifier in order to give the wasteland a source of water. The problem is that this is a non-issue for virtually everyone else living in the wasteland. Aside from everyone having been able to not die of thirst in the 200 years Dad’s device was inactive, the only people you meet in the entire game who are affected by the lack of water are two homeless people that live outside major settlements. This makes his decision seem brash and shortsighted, especially because it resulted in the deaths of many.
- Imagine if you never meet or fight any dragons in Skyrim and the only way you know they exist is because a single npc asks for health potions because of dragon attacks.
- Dad is accosted by the Enclave, who want the purifier for themselves. He decides that a device with unquestionably altruistic functions should be destroyed just so that bad people couldn’t have it. It’s the equivalent of destroying all blood transfusion research so that the Central Powers wouldn’t be able to use it.
- Granted, Eden wanted to use it to kill everyone, but Dad couldn’t have possibly known that at the time.
- You’re railroaded into helping out the residents of Little Lamplight because there is a huge door in your way and children are pointing guns at you. Your only recourse is to take a sidequest or have a perk that is literally useless anywhere else.
- What makes this an example of the trope is that the quest they send you on involves assaulting a fortified base. Forcing your way into Little Lamplight is a much less daunting task but it seems the only reason you can’t do that is because the writer said so.
- You can convince Eden to kill himself in what appears to be a Call-Back to Fallout 1. However, the first Fallout requires a damning amount of evidence to prove to the Master that everything he did has been to the detriment to humanity. Here, you resort to meaningless platitudes that make the President go “Oh well, may as well kill myself.”
- Prior to the DLC, you have to commit radiation-induced suicide to get the heroic ending. Nevermind that you have a handful of companions immune to radiation, even one who retrieved a Macguffin from insurmountable radiation. The DLC mitigates this but still calls you a coward for being intelligent.
- The call to action is your dad leaving to jump start his water purifier in order to give the wasteland a source of water. The problem is that this is a non-issue for virtually everyone else living in the wasteland. Aside from everyone having been able to not die of thirst in the 200 years Dad’s device was inactive, the only people you meet in the entire game who are affected by the lack of water are two homeless people that live outside major settlements. This makes his decision seem brash and shortsighted, especially because it resulted in the deaths of many.
A lot of these points are nitpicking ("no one needs water but the beggars", "the game pulls But Thou Must! at Little Lamplight") and full of natter (most of the secondary subbullets). The only thing approaching a legitimate complaint is Dad and Eden's decisions, but Dad doesn't destroy the purifier he floods its control room with radiation to keep the Enclave away from it, and the speech check with Eden is very difficult to make and the entire idea of the Speech skill is talking people into agreeing with you, so this is less a case of idiocy on Eden's part and more the developers didn't write good dialogue. And the Heroic Sacrifice ending has been retconned away so that point is moot.
Overall this is just a misuse of Idiot Plot and not applicable.
openFridge horror on Arthur Western Animation
Found this on Arthur:
- D.W. becomes much more disturbing as a character when you realize that her treatment of Arthur and her behavior in general, despite her being only 4, is actually eerily consistent with a sociopath. She tends to see anything she wants as good and anything she doesn't want as bad, believes she is entitled to whatever she wants, is a Manipulative Bitch (often tricks others to get her way), is known to have outbursts, and seems to be learning to do what is socially expected of her even when she herself doesn't think she needs to do it but shows a complete lack of genuine empathy (for example, her Backhanded Apology in "Arthur's Big Hit", where she apologizes to Arthur for breaking his model plane when ordered to do so but doesn't actually feel guilty for it and still sees it as Arthur's fault for building the model wrong, therefore seeing anything "bad" as the fault of anyone but herself), and in general actually seems to enjoy making Arthur's life a living hell. So if she's already this sociopathic at four, what is she going to turn out like as a teen and adult!? Not to mention how this easily makes her one of the, if not the, most disturbingly fucked up characters to ever grace an Edutainment Show.
- While it's not canon, the You Tube video series Adult Arthur by AOK takes the "what will she be like as an adult" part and runs with it. It's not pretty.
Is this allowed here or no?
Edited by fragglelover

Hi. I happen to have noticed that Characters.Skyrim Other Characters was on the Overly Long Pages list.
Having gotten into the relevant game recently, I posted a few ideas to split on the thread concerning too long pages
, from the perspective of my time zone, a couple days ago, and I have yet to get an answer. When something explicitly needs a consensus, I'm the type who'd rather drop the possible modification entirely rather than do the thing unilaterally if I don't get any feedback.
PS: please put anything directly concerning the page split itself on the "too-long page repair" thread.
Edited by Nazetrime