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openWhat an Idiot misuse?
WhatAnIdiot.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has a folder for general examples. They're redundant With Talking Is a Free Action and Forgot About His Powers. And there's these two suspect examples:
- Equestria is a land of magic. Since magic is so prevalent, it comes as no surprise that many of its villains have figured out various ways to corrupt and/or neutralize it. Given the wildly conflicting personalities present within the Mane Six, it's not always guaranteed that they will be able to utilize The Power of Friendship until after the villain has already thrashed them, destroyed the countryside, filed the paperwork, and picked out a throne to begin his rule over Equestria. You'd Think: Our little ponies would maintain a proper military instead of relying on the untrained Mane Six, and then develop and utilize both magical and non-magical weapons and defenses. For example, outfitting Canterlot with point-defense cannons to guard against attacks by airship. Or, seeing as how every single pony with the word "princess" in her name is a priority target, posting snipers and armed security guards to cover every major event involving them. Or rocket launchers (with triggers big enough for hooves to pull) to blow Anti-Magic villains to pieces. Instead: They only ever fight using magical attacks and defenses (at many points after they've already seen that magic has zero effect on that particular villain), and rely heavily on The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love to save the day after the bad guy's all but won. You'd Then Expect: For at least one villain to just knock one or more of the Mane Six out. Problem Solved, Series Over. Instead: The villains just incapacitate them or break their spirits, an impermanent solution.
The level of violence and military logic for the former to work would be impossible to implement given the shows target demographic. I don't know of any other examples where solutions too outside the tone of the show to realistically consider are considered idiotic. The latter has the same problem as...
- While the magic of friendship is incredibly powerful, Twilight herself (unlike Rarity) has little fighting skills or experience. She's the most powerful magic caster in Equestria, but she fits into the bill of Unskilled, but Strong. You'd Think: While Twilight is giving a speech about friendship, the current villain would just confront her physically, knock her out, and abduct her away from her friends and/or the Villain-Beating Artifact, leaving her completely defenseless. Problem Solved, Series Over. Instead: While Tirek, Starlight, and Sunset DO confront Twilight physically, none of them bothers with the "abduct Twilight away from her friends or instant-win artifact" part. The only ones who do capture Twilight at different points are Queen Chrysalis (who also captured everypony else of importance) and Tempest Shadow, and even then only Chrysalis actually bothered with knocking her unconscious. Even then, refer back to the above passage to see how she failed to do the same with Starlight.
Nearly all those villains were those Locked Out of the Loop who didn't know who they are or their powers worked that way. Those who did know were those with the cunning or power such they successfully dealt with them all at once rendering that irrelevant. The described examples can go under the individual episodes/work.
Should those be removed? I also asked What An Idiot cleanup
but it looks fairly inactive.
openQuestionable Deletions
Troper/Eggyolks deleted examples from Ed, Edd n Eddy and HBO Storybook Musicals. The examples deleted were everything under Accidental Innuendo and Self-Fanservice on the Ed, Edd, N' Eddy page, and Evil Is Sexy on both pages. They also removed a line referring to Double D as a Chick Magnet.
The edits to the Ed, Edd, N' Eddy page have been reverted.
My concern is the possibility the nature of the tropes had anything to do with their removal by the troper in question.
Sorry to bother you if this is nothing important.
Edited by fraggleloveropenChristopher Priest
Found this when cleaning Boring Invincible Hero off the wiki:
Christopher Priest (comics) has a really weird example section that just flat out tropes his works as if the page itself is a work's page; it's not common tropes he uses or anything, just tropes that appear in at least one work he's written ever.
I know Creators Pages can sort of do this if the works don't have their own pages... but these works have their own pages.
Edited by WarJay77open Bloody excessive adverts on tvt Web Original
As of today, there's a banner advert popping up at the bottom of the page that wasn't there yesterday - this is new. Seems to be organised by something called "PROPER<>" and however often you hit the X to whack it down and get rid, it keeps coming back and appears every time you switch to a new page. Click on whatever's being advertised, you get "ad closed by Google". Is this new to tvtropes, and how do you get rid of it completely, as it's annoying and intrusive? I mean - ad at the top of the page, ad on the right hand side, no problem, tvt has to get revenue - but ads spilling over into the actual content of the page itself - not acceptible.
openAdd the Misadventures of Sonic the Hedgehog? Webcomic
Are we able to make suggestions for new works? If so, do you think add the fan webcomic, The Misadventures of Sonic the Hedgehog by Fallen Angel Cam 7? Fallen Angel Cam 7 himself said that No Context Sonic does the Sonic related stuff.
Edited by AutisticPhantomOtaku620openNeed Help With A Consensus Anime
There's an issue that needs some help with clearing up on Characters.Seton Academy Join The Pack. specifically, whether or not a character, Yena, should be troped as transgender vs a tomboy.
I favor transgender, for reasons I'll give in a moment. The_Spanish_Inquisitor favors tomboy, for reasons I'll let them explain. The disagreement has caused tropes like Transgender being removed in favor of The Lad-ette and Lady Looks Like a Dude. This happened once before with another troper. I replaced the tropes at the time, but now worry I'll stray too far into edit war territory, or spark one myself, if I just change it. As a result, I'm hoping for a consensus to be able to point to on the matter.
A discussion was started
but, three days later, the two of us have been the only participants.
To keep this OP from being too wall of texty, I'll give my reasons for favoring Transgender in the first reply and PM Inquisitor to let them know I started this discussion
Edited by sgamer82openPhantom wick still indexed despite removal
So, now that Hair Decorations is a disambig, I have been stripping it off indexes and pages. I removed one of its indexed wicks off TruthInTelevision.G To I but on the HD page itself the page looks like it is still indexed on that page.
openNot sure where to ask about pages with weird grammar
I've noticed that this page
contains some grammatical errors.
I was wondering if there is some sort of place specifically for reporting pages with odd grammar.
I thought about trying to fix it myself, but there are quite a lot of mistakes, my own grammar isn't all that great, and there are some sentences which I found... confusing (For example: Is he a person who secretly works as a CIA operative and pretends to be a tourist or simply as a result of being delusional from his experience in war?).
Edited by PowogaopenA small correction to Useful Notes' Argentina
I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question, but I have to note a small correction to the article of this post's title: The current Argentinan president (as of December 10, 2019) is not Mauricio Macri anymore, but Alberto Fernandez of the "Partido de Todos" coalition (in english the name would be "Everybody's Party", i guess).
If this topic/post/question is wrong for any reason, feel free to delete it, but I think that the article should be updated (I would update it myself, but I don't know how, and I don't feel like a proper troper to do so, though I am argentinian and I know my country) or the detail removed (because that information changes overtime, and pretty much the rest of the article's information is set in stone).
openNot Really Memes? Videogame
Reposting my question here because I have the Discussion page isn't trafficked all that frequently enough to get a prompt response.
Marikusu recently made a bunch of additions
to Fire Emblem: Three Houses that I feel violate the nature of what constitutes a meme, because they seem to be expressly partisan polemics that just happen to be delivered in a cheeky/sarcastic way, rather than the kind innately self-perpetuating humor that usually constitutes a meme. Plus there isn't any meaning to them beyond the face value statements themselves. Also, memes are generally supposed to have broad appeal because of their self-perpetuating nature, hence being about a matter this controversial already limits their ability to appeal to a wide audience.
In the past we've already had to carry out major repair on the YMMV entry for Edelgard under Base-Breaking Character because it was getting too full of these polemics both for and against her, so needless to say anything regarding the grayness surrounding her morality is enough of a delicate matter that the additions are in violation of Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement. Not to mention there was a fair amount of discussion in the game thread that found the fascist label to be inaccurate (the Memes entry admits as much, but goes on to add it anyway with a handwave) and a case of Ron the Death Eater, as while she's certainly a lot of things that aren't exactly good, fascist expressly is not one of them.
Edit: I see that Marikusu nuked
a YMMV entry that explicitly explains how Fascist Edelgard came to become a Discredited Meme to the point a voice actor got involved; whether or not it still sees use in some remaining circles, I do think that treating it as a contemporary meme of worth after that incident definitely comes off as in bad taste, especially since as someone with friends who are fans of all three of the various house lords, the ones who express a liking for Edelgard are the ones who receive the brunt of harassment and personal attacks due to the way modern fandoms behave.
openTroping Tropes Before and After a CosmicRetcon
Question: how do we handle tropes that have different outcomes before and after a Cosmic Retcon?
I ask because of Mortal Kombat 11. Two games prior, the series Soft Rebooted itself via Time Travel. While ostensibly, it is the same universe it was before the point time was changed, the writers decided to take several liberties with the source material. Even prior to the point where time is changed, character personalities have changed, backstories have changed, rules about how the setting works have changed, etc, etc.
Of note, someone went around not long ago and started deleting tropes like Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me because while it was stated in the old continuity that the character Sindel was stolen by the local Evil Overlord and forcefully became his queen, in the new continuity, she describes this as a lie she told her followers so that they would remain loyal to her. In reality, she was happy to kill her "weak" husband and gain a stronger one. This is absolutely NOT how her original pre-Cosmic Retcon personality was, as in the old continuity, Sindel was absolutely a hero.
Edited by NubianSatyressopenQuestion about The Southpaw
So I have been working on the The Southpaw TRS effort
for a while and I am nearing the final stage of the project which is wick cleaning. It was brought up that it might be better to turn it into a disambig instead of a supertrope since lefthandedness by itself isnt a trope. If it turns into a disambig, I would have to cut the Laconic and Quotes subpages.
But thing is the old crowner voted to make it an exampless supertrope and I don't want to get in trouble for going against something that was already sided by crowner. Should I make another crowner? Granted, people don't pay much attention to the thread besides me but it seems like the proper way to do things
Edited by MacronNotesopenDr Adler and Master Org are two different characters Live Action TV
Okay, this is the first time I've done this and I wasn't sure at first and though just speaking with the troper who kept doing it. However, doing some research I found this troper has a history of changing or altering things based more on their perception rather than what actually happens and wanted other to know of this.
It regards the characters section of Power Rangers Wild Force. There are spoilers for this season so if you hadn't watched it, be warned.
The Big Bad of the series is not the original Master Org by Dr. Victor Adler. He was friends with the Red Rangers parents and fell for his mother, but she was unaware of his feelings and she married who became Cole's father. Resentment turned to hatred, when they discovered seeds that were the remains of the original Master Org, and this is important to note, he swallowed them.
Now, the troper in question, TV Lubber, insists Adler was possessed by Master Org from the start and made him do terrible things. However, as someone who watches Wild Force once in a while, I can tell you this is not true in the slightest.
Adler has full agency over his actions, it's one of the reasons why in the YMMV section he, not Master Org, is given the Complete Monster entry. Until the episode The Master's Last Stand, it's repeatedly stated by himself that he's not the original or at least the original isn't in the driver's seat.
For example, one episode has him send his henchmen steal his tombstone built for his supposedly lost body. Upon reading it, how he supposedly died, he laughs about "So that's where they think I am..." Note that the wording clearly shows this is Adler, not the original, who is in full control of his actions.
This is why the original Master Org was given his own, albeit short, character entry to show he's the Greater-Scope Villain and could be influencing Adler, or influencing him.
Even to give TV Lubber the benefit of the doubt and assume Master Org has been in control of Adler the whole time, he still has full agency over all of his actions, including murdering Cole's parents, outright rejects his one chance at redemption towards the end of the series and clearly enjoys committing his evil deeds.
Anyway, I just wanted to ask what should I do about this? I don't want this to be an edit war, especially when the show itself makes it clear Adler isn't a good man under evil's control but genuinely evil himself.
openArguing-against-self Narm entries?
I've noticed on entries for Narm across the wiki (I may even be guilty of it myself, not sure) that they occasionally include lines of explanation. For example, "It's hard to take (insert scene here) seriously when Alice's face is so goofy-looking. Though considering she was just drugged, this might explain why."
Would this be considered arguing against a listed trope? I usually see them added by the original editor, and it seems to have less to do with arguing that "Alice's face" is unintentionally funny and more about it being Justified.
Edited by iamconstantineopenCyberJudas trope page Videogame
Should there be a separate work page for Cyber Judas instead of grouping the sequel’s works along with Shadow President on the page?
(I don’t really know how else to add to this, I’d make the work page myself but I’m not entirely familiar with Cyber Judas aside from watching Joel’s gameplay of it.)
openI'm not sure where to put this? Videogame
Mother 3 has a Player Punch entry that is way too long for its own good.
- Player Punch: A lot.
- In Chapter 1, in a series built around the protagonist usually having a close relationship with their mother during their adventure, it goes against the series expectations that Hinawa, Lucas's mother, is killed very violently.
- You then play the first chapter as Hinawa's husband, Flint. Upon finding out about her death, he goes into a terrifying Heroic BSoD, lashing out at other people in the village until he has to be knocked unconscious in order to be subdued. You then get the lovely experience of becoming Tazmily Jail's first prisoner.
- Claus, Lucas's twin brother, then goes out into the mountains to try and avenge Hinawa. He fails.
- As it turns out, the animal responsible for killing Hinawa was a Drago, a perfectly harmless creature Lucas used to be friends with. It's been "reconstructed" by a strange group of men wearing pig masks, making it aggressive and mindless.
- Oh, and who's in charge of all these Pigmasks? Why, Porky Minch, naturally.
- In Chapter 2, you play as a thief named Duster. And, let's just say, his father is not very satisfied by his thieving abilities.
- In Chapter 3, you play as a monkey named Salsa. He's getting routinely abused by a member of the Pigmask army named Fassad. He spends the chapter being forced to help them with their evil deeds, since his girlfriend is being held captive for leverage.
- In Chapter 4, three years have gone by. Let's just say, one of the biggest RPG cliches of all time has been... horrifyingly subverted.
- Then, at the end of the chapter, when the DCMC sing their goodbyes to "Lucky". It's for the greater good, but you'll feel really terrible for finally getting your last party member.
- Chapter 6. Lucas chases Hinawa's ghost through a field of sunflowers, which are associated with her. It ends with you essentially making Lucas attempt suicide.
- In Chapter 7, you find out about these Plot Coupons called the Seven Needles. Only Lucas and the commander of the Pigmask army, The Masked Man, are capable of pulling them. If Lucas pulls them, the world will be reborn anew and everything will be good and pure. If the Masked Man pulls them, the world will cease to exist.
- And, in that chapter, you manage to only pull three. The enemy ends up getting the rest of them.
- Then there's Tanetane Island. After washing up on the shore during a wreck, your party is weak, starving, and incapable of healing themselves. Since you lost all your items, you have no choice but to eat some funky-looking mushrooms off the ground. Let's just say, it ends very, very badly.
- Then, when you get back home, the town is almost completely empty. Everybody's gone to the big city, save for a few individuals.
- In Chapter 8, we meet up with a fellow named Leder. He was the bell ringer in Tazmily Village, and he never spoke a word to anybody. Now that Tazmily is gone and he has no other purpose in life, he reveals that pretty much everything you thought you knew about the world is a lie. The human race destroyed this world long, long before you started playing this game, and the tiny island you've spent the game on is the only habitable place left on Earth. There is hope, but now the entire world is resting squarely on your shoulders, and the odds aren't looking very promising.
- Then you meet the Pig King himself, Porky. He essentially gives the entire human species a "Reason You Suck" Speech. And considering what you just found out, it'll strike a few chords.
- Hey, remember that Masked Man guy? The one who's been pulling all the other needles and striking you down at any given opportunity, hellbent on bringing the world to an end? It's Claus. Lucas's brother.
- You can't defeat Porky. During the fight, he reveals that his constant abuse of time travel has rendered him immortal. At the end of the fight, he locks himself in a machine called the Absolutely Safe Capsule. However, it's revealed that, once he's in there, he can never get out. Ever.
- The final battle in the game is against the Masked Man. It may just be the most heartbreaking "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight ever executed. With your party knocked unconscious, leaving you alone, you cannot fight him. A battle implies a conflict on both sides, but Lucas can't bring himself to hurt his brother. All you can do is guard against his attacks, while a terrifying boss theme that rivals Giygas's in intensity assaults your ears. Forcing you to just try and survive blasts from your own iconic attack, slowly watch as your brother gets weaker until he can't even damage you anymore. And it ends with Claus using your always-dependable Franklin Badge that protects you to deliberately blast lightning so it will deflect back at him, with every intention of committing child suicide. All you can do is hear him apologize for his mistakes as he says goodbye... so he... he can be with his mother...
- The ending. There are no words to say, just the ending.
It's just listing the entire game. I'm not doubting that the game pulls punches on the player, but I think we should probably just have highlights of this item, rather every single time the game has a depressing moment.
Edited by PlasmaPoweropenMore Spoiler Problems
I posted this issue a while back
, but Gideoncrawle is getting mad at me again. Here's his message:
"On the Predator and Prey page, you recently added an example of Saying Too Much that had the example text completely spoilered out (when spoilering out two or three words would have sufficed) in violation of this site's spoiler policy. Dude, we've been over this. Spoilering out all, or substanially all, of an example's text is NEVER allowed, because it defeats the purpose of adding the example in the first place. You know this, or should know it, so continuing to post fully-spoilered examples comes across as open defiance of this site's policies. Seriously, are you trying to get suspended? If you're really that concerned about spoilers, wiki policy allows for putting a warning at the top of the examples list, stating "You may encounter unmarked spoilers", or words to that effect. If we do that, though, then the page is not allowed to have any spoiler tags at all, because they would be redundant. We're here to trope works, not advertise them; and hiding all the details to shield people who "haven't read the fic yet" is an advertiser's mindset. The vast majority of people who read a work article on this wiki will never read/view the work itself, so those are the people you should be writing examples for."
Is this legitimately how spoiler policy works with fanfiction?
Rein this man in. He's running the fan works page like a tyrant.
Edited by MagnusForceopenCharacter Derailment?
Questions about these Character Derailment examples.
- Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite does this to Cody due to the authors having an immense hatred for the character. In canon, Cody was indeed a perverted dweeb with hopeless delusions of being a cool ladies man, but despite that, he was also a nice and friendly person who was very much capable of being respectful and gentlemanly when he wanted his beloved to be happy (as was the case when Gwen hooked up with Trent, which he actually helped with making happen). In this story, he has none of his redeeming qualities and is instead depicted as a dirty liar and a selfish Jerkass whose aforementioned I Want My Beloved to Be Happy moment was secretly a shallow attempt by him to make Gwen like him even more.
If it's a rewrite, that's Adaptation Personality Change. And how is Derailment different than Ron the Death Eater here?
- Along with mass Flanderization, Seasons 4-9 of SpongeBob SquarePants were hit by this very hard, until Stephen Hillenburg's return to the show:
- Patrick got progressively dumber as the series went on. He goes from average intelligence in the first season to The Ditz in season 2 and 3 to virtually brain-dead in season 4 and onwards. He also became more of a Jerkass on occasion.
- Mr. Krabs goes from greedy and selfish, but still good, to a Jerkass with little to no good qualities who often puts others and himself in danger just to get some cash, and even tortured Plankton until he tried to commit suicide. It doesn't help that he gets away with most of his crimes.
- In the first three seasons, Sandy is a daredevil who is skilled in a variety of sports, including skiing, karate and weightlifting. Then in season 4 she suddenly became a scientist, and much of her characterization and humor started to revolve around her intellect and inventions.
I belive Flanderization is exempt from this trope as it is a gradual change based on existing traits as opposed abrupt and inexplicable. The last part about Mr. Krabs is irrelevant and shows it more about complaining than this trope.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle is a kind, moral and intelligent individual who is protective of her friends, to the point where she was willing to hand over godlike power to a malevolent demon so he'd let them go. In the IDW My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic, she's possessed of an extremely arbitrary and obstructive morality that she'd do things like not intervene when her friends were getting assaulted, or not intervene when a bunch of thugs were terrorizing a town, or scold her friends when they tear up a legal document that the aforementioned thugs were using to acquire a piece of property despite their blatant campaign of terror against the townsfolk that should get them laughed out of court, or concocting a plan that involves them kidnapping and impersonating the notary to commit fraud so she would have an excuse to use her magic.
- Iron Will during the "Siege of the Crystal Empire" arc. In the show, and previous IDW comic he appeared in, he's a pretty nice guy who left both times on good terms with the mane six and was generally a nice guy, if a tad aggressive. Here he's part of a Legion of Doom dedicated to helping resurrect King Sombra. Even assuming he was unaware of the King Sombra part, other members of the team up include the Changelings and Queen Chrysalis (enemies of state who have tried several times to destroy Equestria), and the plan involves him stealing the Crystal Heart needed to protect the Empire and keep it safe from harm. He does so proudly and openly enjoys doing so.
I'm inclined to agree, but these aren't unexplained (Twilight has the never before mention law against acting, Iron Will wanted to be feared to regain his reputation as an assertiveness teacher). The explanations are poor, contrived, unpopular, and inconsistent with everything else, but it tried to explain it. Since derailment is about unexplained changes insufficiently explained changes seems too subjective and better moved to Fan-Disliked Explanation.
- Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell derails Trixie in great length. Word of God claims the book is canon to the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic continuity after the season 3 final. However her portayal is rather jarring. In season 1, Trixie was a pretentious magician boasting that she's the greatest magician in all Equestria. At the end she has to flee Ponyville when her exploits are revealed to be made up. It's noteworthy to mention she was also a controversial example of Designated Villain and Unintentionally Sympathetic since many viewers feel like she did nothing wrong before Rainbow Dash started booing to her performance. She comes back in season 3 as an antagonist, we learned that after the event in season one, she became a laughingstock and was unable to go anywhere with her magic show without being laughed out of town. She goes back to Ponyville with a powerful artifact to seek revenge on Twilight. At the very end Trixie realizes her faults and makes peace with Twilight Sparkle. Comes this book, Trixie is again resentful toward Twilight, is described as a bully and teams up with Gilda to replace Applejack's cider with gloopy green gunk for the sake of it.
This would be an example, except it is consistent with her next portrayal on the show of still being a rival with Twilight Sparkle having similarly ignored her realization there, even making ignoring Aesops part of her character. That she had learned it then was speculation that was Jossed. What do we do in the case where "derailments" turn out to be Accidentally Correct Writing.
I'd say Character Derailment could use a cleanup. But since it's Flame Bait, why do we even allow examples when no other Flame Bait page does? I think they were added before we disallowed Flame Bait examples.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught

UnintentionallyUnsympathetic.Western Animation
I toned down some of complaining, but I question if it's an example given it's a notoriously controversial issue. I believe it's misused (at least as written) as this trope must explain why they were supposed to be seen as sympathetic despite the circumstances . Those traits are why they were supposed be be unsympathetic as villain until they begin to redeem themselves. It's just complaining about being Easily Forgiven. From my limited understanding of the series it sounds like it exaggerating their negative personality traits.
I've asked
Unintentionally Unsympathetic cleanup but it's been inactive for the last few days and this looks like a big contentious issue.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught