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openYMMV trope misuse question? Film
Recently someone added the Catharsis Factor regarding the 1990 American biographical crime film GoodFellas as seen here (click here)
, I'll cover it with spoilers just in case if anyone does not want to know the plot yet?
- Catharsis Factor: After a long time of bullying, sadism, murder and many other crimes, Tommy is unceremoniously executed during the trap that he believed to be his making ceremony.
I believe this is a misuse because Tommy was unexpectedly gets whacked from behind by an individual and he seems helpless to do anything to save himself. While I know and aware for sure that Tommy DeVito is a terrible (for the lack of a better term) villain himself and it seems like a textbook example of Tommy's well-deserved comeuppance but for some reason it doesn't feel very gratifying. I admit to not have much good reasons to defend Tommy or to protest against the YMMV trope in someway/or form but it somehow just does not felt right at all and I think this is probably an example of the Catharsis Factor has gone too far. In short, it just seems wrong to add Catharsis Factor on Tommy DeVito.
Side note: This is my personal opinion and I fully acknowledge that YMMV is an opinionated based trope page. And most if not all Catharsis Factor makes sense when it comes to Audience Reactions to the villains in fictional stories but still I think this seems worthy of attention. Any thoughts, suggestions and opinions on this?
Edited by YatasumujiSenpaiopenStrange wording for the Adaptational Nice Guy trope under Ranma Saotome Character folder
So, I checked out the Ranma ½: Ranma Saotome page and under the Adaptational Nice Guy section, the examples seemed to be showcase in a weird way. Like there's a lot of run on sentences and the examples seem to be all over the place. Here's what the entry says:
- Adaptational Nice Guy : Zigzagged. While the 89 anime cuts out most of his teasing to Akane, it also tends to add extra insults as filler, making Ranma rattle off whole lists of insults completely unprompted and doubling down on originally silly, short comments, so that it comes across like he genuinely means the insults he tosses Akane's way. The fact that the insults often come unprompted ironically makes Ranma look meaner in the end, despite there being less of them than in the manga.
- With the "you should learn to be half as sexy as I am" comment with the pictures Nabiki sold Kunō, the '89 anime adds a scene of him going "All I did was tell her the truth!" and later, "You're following me around hoping my good looks will rub off on you." This makes Ranma call Akane ugly on top of "unsexy" and imply he means it when he says Akane's ugly, completely contradicting how it's later implied the exact opposite (as he blushes watching Akane play sports right before denying she's cute, and then tries to talk himself out of it on the way home).
- In the filler episode "Pelvic Fortune Telling", Ranma rattles off an entire list of insults completely unprompted and even starts singing about it. Note that Ranma only lists off insults in the manga twice: when they barely knew each other and he was trying to convince Kunō he wasn't interested in Akane, and when he was trying to cure Akane's Shampoo-inflicted Laser-Guided Amnesia. The '89 anime has Ranma do this far more often.
Ranma: Akane... CONGRATULATIONS! You can't cook, you're not much of a looker — the one thing you do have is brute strength! Plus, you have got the biggest pair of hips in all of Japan! You're built like a brick... Your legs are too thick... You're singing the big hip blues...
openTropes used to be valid before, but not anymore... What to do? Videogame
In live-service games or those that keep on receiving updates. What should be done when an example that used to be valid or was applied in an older version suddenly got removed in a newer version?
- Keep the example but rewrite the context to state that it used to be the case until Version X removed it?
- Delete the entire trope example?
- When the game was newly-released, there was some fandom discussion on how Childe's name is supposed to be pronounced, because a very specific clip
from Paimon's English VA had the name pronounced like "child" at first, then like "chill-day" next, in the same sentence. I originally added it somewhere
as a trope example, but another troper deleted it
saying it was fixed in a newer version.
- A troper deleted some examples
from YMMV.Genshin Impact without providing an edit reason, though what can be assumed here is that they deleted examples that no longer applied to the newer versions of the game. One of the deleted examples was a Cheese Strategy that was so prevalent or known back in the day, it was widely believed that "miHoYo had to patch it out". The point here is that the cheese strat existed in the past and players were trying to re-create it
before and after it was patched. There were even discussions wondering why the boss arena's ceiling suddenly changed, and fingers were either pointed to this cheese strat with Guoba, another cheese strat with Klee, or it was a semi-related bug with the hole itself.
- Cheese Strategy: The Cryo Regisvine could be safely cheesed by using Xiangling to drop Goubas from a cliff directly above the arena, allowing players to chip off its HP even before it wakes up. The devs eventually caught on to the trick and patched it out in Version 1.1.
Other Genshin tropers brought this up too years ago in the Discussion tab
I'd like to know if there's a guideline for these kinds of examples here on TV Tropes, because there are several other live service games I know of here with trope examples that are "outdated" or "no longer applies in the newer version".
"Blind Idiot" Translation and Good Bad Translation examples also have this dilemma sometimes, as it's common for live-service game devs to fix translation/localization errors when pointed out by players in the game's online platforms.
Edited by DanteVinopenFormatting error on the Deadpool and Wolverine page - anyone know how to fix this? Film
Recently some trivia linked under spoiler tags are listed as invoked on the Deadpool & Wolverine page, but with the way it's formatted it breaks some of the example's spoiler tags (specifically under All for Nothing, Ambiguous Situation, and Self-Deprecation) - I've tried fixing it through editing previews, but nothing short of removing the invoked tags seems to be working.
openOvershadowed/commenting out misuse?
This is currently commented out under OvershadowedByControversy.Web Original:
- YouTuber and blogger Lily Orchard (formerly known as Lily Peet) was once known most for media analysis reviewing children's animation. However, she picked up an extremely negative reputation from controversies ranging from her extremely vitriolic coverage of the shows she reviews, her highly toxic behavior on-and-off platform—including her falling out with joshscorcher and the break up of her engagement to artist Lizzy Orchard—and a fanfic she wrote that contained explicit sex between adults and children. None of this would compare to the 2023 accusations by Lily Orchard's sister Courtney, who accused Lily of having sexually abused her when they were children. Orchard would release a video in May 2024 where she directly denied the allegations
and detailed her abusive childhood, including countering the incest arguments by saying it was Courtney who initiated the abuse, and also addressed some surrounding controversies about herself. Either way, the allegations of pedophilia, incest, and sexual assault have come to define Lily Orchard's online reputation far more than her actual content or opinions.
It was deleted Dec. 4th per cleanup
citing "Lily Orcahrd ultimatly attracts too many contraversies for one to outshine the rest". A separate troper added it back but commented out
citing "Looking at the cleanup thread, Lily still counts, its just unclear what specific controversy overshadows here. Commenting out until a consensus is reached"
I believe it was deemed misuse of commenting out to sneak in entires that violate rules like this does as written. So should it be deleted as misused as written and or replace with a not saying not to add them without forum approve (which would be required here given the connection caused)? Or what?
openEdit war on Ranma Saotome Anime
Okay, I didn't want to ring the alarm prematurely, but lately the page Characters.Ranma One Half Ranma Saotome is veering into an edit war between Midnight Star Hunter and Valentine Meikin, with some peanut gallery comments by Wandering Browser. (Myself, I'm only doing the occasional grammar edit on the page.)
The latest edit by Midnight Star Hunter includes an absolute Wall of Text of an edit reason accompanying an absolutely bloated trope entry; please check it out. I think that everybody needs to cool down and discuss it out before any further addition or removal.
openShipping misuse?
This was recently moved from Fanfic.Harry Potter And The Veil Of Mystery to it's YMMV page:
- Shipping: Fairly bog-standard, but there's a few surprises. Harry Potter dates Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley dates Pansy Parkinson, and Hermione Granger dates Neville Longbottom. It's mostly kept in the background, but the romantic trials and tribulations of the teenagers do occasionally provide fodder for the Moral Dilemma issues.
Shipping is YMMV, but I believe it is misused here as about fan reactions to the source work, so fanworks deliberately paring them are not examples themselves. So cut as not YMMV as about the work paring them not audiences?
On the subject, what about works where possible romance and love triangles are intentional? Does Shipping as an item not apply there as not meaningful/too common if intentional? Or is the only part there the ship names or the popularity.
My question is what is the line between Shipping and deliberately teased ships? (Unintentional ships might be Shipping Goggles which disallow examples, so I wonder if Shipping itself which is even broader is too broad?)
openPreventing an Edit War Western Animation
In What If...? S3E3 "What If... The Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier?":
- I added an trope
- palm529sw removed it
thinking it doesn’t apply to characters who also died in the source material.
I know this trope can be applied if a character dies sooner than in the source material as explained in the page itself. Can I get consensus to reapply it?
Edited by MaxyGregoryyyyopen"Semi-avoidance" on CrossDressingVoices
On a few pages (ex. Trivia.Unicorn Overlord and Trivia.Ranma One Half), troper Chef Cranky Roger has a weird wonk towards "semi-avoided" examples of Cross-Dressing Voices. As in, writing entry about whether a non-binary/agender actor in more masculine/feminine leaning.
As an example:
- Cross-Dressing Voices:
- In a semi-avoidance, Akane Tendō's English voice actress, Valeria Rodriguez, is genderfluid, using any pronouns, including her "assigned female at birth" pronouns of she/her.
- Another semi-avoidance is Azusa Shiratori's dub VA, Kayli Mills, who identfies herself as she/they feminine non-binary.
Aside from the fact that trivia tropes can't be played with and the grammar just kinda sucks, this hyperfixation on the actors AGAB kinda rubs me the wrong way.
What should we do about it?
openDouble-checking a potential sinkhole
Is it acceptable to pothole to Running Gag when something gets repeated on TV Tropes for humor? I checked the In-Universe Examples Only page and Running Gag isn't there, but I still want to double-check that this isn't one of those "annoying misuse of a trope" types of sinkhole that could lead to Trope Decay or worse.
I ask most specifically about this portion of the Leeroy Jenkins subpage for Tabletop Games, where I just added a pothole after the same thing was said for the fifth time:
- The GURPS team seems to love Leeroying, inasmuch as there are so many Disadvantages that can produce it:
- Berserk: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you take 3 or more hits in one turn, or under "Other conditions of extreme stress (GM's option)" — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
- Bloodlust: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you have a chance to kill a "legitimate enemy" — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
- Impulsiveness: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time the rest of the party are taking too long discussing something — i.e. pretty much before any combat.
- On the Edge: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you have a chance to deliberately put yourself in mortal danger — i.e. pretty much before or during (and possibly after) any combat.
- Overconfidence: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you feel yourself a match, or more than a match, for your opponent — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
openWhatMeasureIsAnIndex
I brought this up at Is This an Example, but got no reply so I am bringing the discussion here.
What Measure Is an Index? is about Narrative Disregard, but with most tropes listed the disregard comes from the characters which the story portrays negatively.
- What Measure Is an Alternate Reality? (Expendable Alternate Universe)
- What Measure Is Another Race? (Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide") Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide" involves in-universe covering up of Genocide, rarely if ever does the story itself disregard the genocide.
- What Measure Is Another Realm? (Up the Real Rabbit Hole)
- What Measure Is a Traitor? (Category Traitor) Usually the character declaring other to be a Category Traitor is portrayed as a hateful bigot
- What Measure Is a Humanoid?
- What Measure Is a Mook?
- What Measure Is a Clone? (Expendable Clone)
- What Measure Is a Non-Animal? (That Poor Plant)
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute? (Bambi Effect)
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?
- What Measure Is a Non-Magic? (Wrong Context Magic) Wrong Context Magic is rarely potrayed as bad or expandable by the story itself.
- What Measure Is a Non-Original Item? (Ship of Theseus) Theseus' Ship Paradox is a discussion of whether an item is the original or not, but rarely is said item treated as expandable due to not being original.
- What Measure Is an Infidel? (With Us Or Against Us) With Us or Against Us is a mentality portrayed in a negative light, with said individuals rightfully defending themselves.
- What Measure Is a Dissenter? (The Complainer is Always Wrong)
- What Measure Is a Non-Super? (Muggle Power) Rarely does Muggle Power involve genuinely oppressed muggles treated as just jealous by the narrative. Stories themselves disregarding the lives and views of muggles is a potential trope in and of itself.
- What Measure Is a Non-Unique? (Uniqueness Value)
- What Measure is a Unique? (All of the Other Reindeer) All of the Other Reindeer is about society shunning the character being portrayed in a negative light, usually learning an aesop about said shunning.
openAbout Franchise-wide example subpages and inconsistency
I've been really wanting to bring this up for years, but only had enough info to say it now.
If a trope or YMMV lists examples for the entire franchise and its installments... what's the best way to deal with examples that are already in the specific installments' pages? Take Memes subpages and the Memetic Mutation examples in this case, Should we...
- Duplicate the examples in both the specific installment's YMMV page and the series-wide subpage?
- Prioritize the series-wide subpage and simply leave a link towards it in the specific installment's YMMV page?
- Put the examples only in the specific installment's YMMV page?
- Make a Memes subpage for that specific installment and have it separated from the series-wide Memes subpage?
I've seen a lot of inconsistency when it comes to these pages, especially the Memes, Shout-Out, and Fan Nickname subpages. The problem is that one list may have entries not found in the other list, or that there may be redundant examples.
For context, this is what I observed in Memes subpages alone:
- Memes.Persona exists (which includes memes for specific games like Persona 3 and Persona 3 Reload), but YMMV.Persona 3 and YMMV.Persona 3 Reload have their own lists of Memetic Mutation examples.
- Memes.Resident Evil groups the memes found in the original games and their remakes. There's already a list there for Resident Evil Village... and yet another Memes subpage, Memes.Resident Evil Village, exists for that game.
- Memes.Castlevania lists memes for the games, and yet there's a separate Memes page for the Castlevania (2017) Netflix adaptation, found in Memes.Castlevania 2017. Notice how Memes.Castlevania does not even link the adaptation's own Memes subpage.
- Memes.League Of Legends lists memes for the main LoL game and its E-sports scene, but at least the intro immediately tells the reader that there's a separate Memes.Arcane page for the Arcane show.
- Memes.Metal Gear also lists memes for the entire franchise, the YMMV.Metal Gear Rising Revengeance page links there, but there's a redirect
implying that Revengeance used to have its own Memes subpage. The edit history confirms it did
, and a discussion about it was posted via an ATT query
(a troper named GRD made that game-specific subpage, but discussion agreed to have troper Amonimus turn it into a redirect to the series-wide Metal Gear memes page).
- Memes.Devil May Cry has been the "centralized" page for all memes of the Devil May Cry franchise. The Page Info says it existed since November 2018 and several DMC tropers (including myself) have been adding and updating meme entries in just that page to maintain consistency. However, it seems like some tropers already, pre-emptively added a Memetic Mutation entry for Adi Shankar's upcoming Devil May Cry (2025) show in its YMMV.Devil May Cry 2025 page. Shouldn't it be moved to Memes.Devil May Cry instead?
There may be plenty more questions that I'd still like to ask (such as "When's the right time for a specific installment's examples to be separated from the franchise-wide subpage?"), but at this point, it's disappointing to see how TV Tropes is very inconsistent when it comes to listing Memes and handling franchise-wide subpages, especially when you now have installment(s) with three pages for its Memetic Mutation examples... (Looking at you Memes.Persona, YMMV.Persona 3 and YMMV.Persona 3 Reload).
openAsshole Victim misuse re-added, salvageable?
This was added to Mephiles under Characters.Sonic The Hedgehog Modern Era Antagonists 1 Mainline Games
- Asshole Victim: His fate in Shadow Generations is rather horrifying as he wants nothing more than to be free from the non-existence the Cosmic Retcon at the end of '06 did to him, but even Shadow, who has no recollection of him, knows that he's a murderous destroyer who cannot be let free in any capacity. In fact, he tried to completely wipe out all of time after reuniting with Iblis, so if anything being Ret-Gone is a fitting punishment for him.
This was previously deemed misuse
as he was trying to kill Shadow who only retaliated in self-defense, so not a Victim.
I realized there is an argument for Victim in that Black Doom set him up to be defeated in Generation as part of his Evil Plan, and Shadow didn't know about his atrocities/omnicidal ambitions that would 100% justify stopping him regardless of just being in his way, thoughts?
openMaking a Private WiP Page
So I'm a busy man, which means I don't have much free time to add or make pages. And I want to make a character page, but since I don't have much time for myself to work on it, how do I make a page private to myself so I can work on it when I do have the time and post it when there's much more to the page besides red links?
openVery poor quality edits from Tropers/SubZero008
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/EldenRingDemigodsTwins
They changed the Full-Circle Revolution entry from this,
"Somewhat Downplayed in that his Age of Compassion is halted before it comes to fruition, but Miquella has always sought to end the oppression of the Golden Order and made the Haligtree as a sanctuary for the shunned. Shadow of the Erdtree sees him attempt apotheosis to bring a more peaceful world, yet in doing so, he leaves the fate of the Haligtree uncertain by using Mohg to get him out and let him enter the Land of Shadow. Along his journey, he sets aside everything that he has, including his restraints and capacity to love, which is dangerous when combined with his ability to hypnotically convert others. If St. Trina and both Soreseal descriptions are to be believed, in that becoming a god would only be a guilded cage, Miquella's goals would leave him in a similar state to that of Marika in the Erdtree. Furthermore, it's implied that anyone who would oppose him (like the Tarnished during phase 2 of the Final Boss) would be forced into cooperation via his powers. The Circlet Of Light he leaves is described as the "foundation" of his Age Of Compassion, and a symbol resembling it will appear above anyone caught by the Promised Consort's heart-stealing grab. With a loyal musclebound champion at his side to reinforce his all-controlling era, as both Godfrey and Radagon did for Marika, Miquella offers a system that's just as uncaring and with as many flaws as the original Golden Order he sought to supplant."
To this
"Averted. Despite the absurd conflating from tropers who fundamentally misunderstand the most basic moral dilemnas whenever a story writes a conflict or dilemna that doesn't easily fit into existing tropes or isn't constantly recycled over and over in popular media...Marika's order was founded on and repeatedly enacted genocide for cultural, religious, personal, or even purely racist grounds. Constantly saying Miquella is "just as bad" or "will be just as bad" or "was just as cruel" or all that other idiotic nonsence that blatantly disregards the actual writing in the game is unbelievably wrong. It's like trying to teach three-year old children out of black and white thinking. Miquella spent the vast majority of his life and career trying to directly address the consequences of the multiple genocides and literal world-destroying wars his mother AND his fellow siblings waged - and because he used immoral tactics or used violence as a tool himself, he's suddenly conflated as being "just as bad" as his mother? It's amazing to see how Ranni is being worshipped as a "good counterpart" to Miquella on this website despite literally causing the entire war with no regrets, motivated solely by her personal liberation, and Radahn is likewise worshipped as being a "heroic" lover of war who also enacted mass violence (including flame weapons and torture machines) to pursue his personal goals, and Mesmer who LITERALLY ENACTED GENOCIDE is mourned as a "tragic villain" who "didn't really want to do it"...yet Miquella ALSO using violence for a benevolent end goal is condemned as being the worst of them all? What a fucking joke"
It's not being done on a YMMV page, but the character page. Barring its general inflammatory nature, the spelling mistakes, and the fact they use a lot of unnecessary capital words and swearing, I feel like it just reads like a rant. Should I revert the edit back to the original.
openQuestion about spoilers for tropes;
If the fact that the trope applies is a spoiler in and of itself, could it potentially be worth spoiling the trope name and example separately so that if someone wanted to know, they could reveal the trope name first and then decide if they want to see the example from there?
openUsing swearing when describing tropes - permitted or forbidden?
I know gratuitous profanity in examples is listed as Word Cruft while also being a Bluenose Bowdlerizer is discouraged, but as far as TV Tropes' generally accepted and striven for writing conventions in articles, does using terms like "fucks it up", "being an asshole", or "being his dumbass self" go against any of the Adminstrivia policies when editing articles? I know we have more lenient POV guidelines than Wikipedia or Fandom like allowing the generic "Tropes that apply" or "Visit the unabridged version HERE" being allowed to be written to reflect a quote or theme of the work documented, but I don't know if the same applies to asterisk-preceded examples.
I'm mainly talking about pages on works in any medium rather than Tropes themselves, as those are usually written from a subjective and generalizing standpoint with some humor thrown in at the beginning paragraph and/or folders if it's comedic or imitating the character subject of the trope. But from my experience, examples on a work's page are described more seriously, but I'm not sure what the line is for occasional allowances of language in example descriptions that wouldn't change the meaning/point either way if they were changed into something more informal (-> being an asshole -> being a jerk -> being arrogant/selfish/rude). Even if such a rule were in place or preferred, tropes that already have profanity in the title like Asshole Victim or Bitch in Sheep's Clothing would obviously be exceptions whether following the asterisk or being mentioned in a sentence after the colon of another trope, since Sinkholing is forbidden as a format regardless of the trope name.
I'm also wondering if it depends on the target demographic of the work and/or the subpage the profane descriptions of an applicable trope is used? What may seem like conventional description on a South Park example feels a bit out of place on a SpongeBob one.
Edited by TacoyogoopenProblem troper
Urania 1204 re-added ZC Es without actually adding context to the entry itself on at least two separate occasions (here)
and here
. They've also misused tropes
, and added aversions as an example here
. I've sent notifiers and reverted edits where someone else hasn't already done so, but given that and their prior conduct (including in a previous ATT query thread
), what should be done next?

The page source for Awesome.Devil May Cry has the following commented-out note on top:
%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1640963102083542200 %% Please see thread to discuss a new image. %%
I wonder why that says an image was "selected"... because when you look at the link
it provided, the image was actually pulled out by the Image Pickin' thread.
Now I don't know if either 1) the note should simply say the image was "removed", or if 2) there was indeed a replacement image approved somewhere by Image Pickin' but the reference link pasted in the page was the wrong one. I think the first option would be the easiest fix, but I don't know if I'm allowed to edit that note myself, or wait for a mod to do it instead because AFAIK, Image Pickin' notes on pages are added by mods.