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openAnother work page for, uhm, a page that doesn't exist.
Yeah, found this at random: Greetings From Magical Los Angeles
Originally I was going to send this to the ZCE Cleanup thread (because seriously, try counting the ZCE on thr page itself) but after some checking, the last update was exactly a decade ago. And the link on the page leads to a "[[
https://comicfury.com/webcomicerror.php
Webcomic Error]]" something something.
Anyone aware of this thing's existance? Or just cutlist the work already?
openWhat Could Have Been use?
I have a question about this I found on a characters page.
- LoveTriangle: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Had the series continued]] he would have eventually found himself in one of these.
Is What Could Have Been not allowed under character pages or non-Trivia tropes as it doesn't happen in the actual work? Or is it allowed if the series never reached the point to contradict it (the notes the author revealed it in are effectively the continuation of the work as opposed to something they changed their mind about, or does it not count as they might have changed it in the final product?) and/or only allowed if it provides important context for what is there (like what it was building to)?
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtopenCan someone please explain these two terms to me?
- There was a forum thread for cleaning up "hindsight tropes", and I asked why "Funny Aneurysm" Moment was listed as one despite not having the word "hindsight" in its name, but the only explanation I got was that it was a hindsight trope, so I still don't know what a "hindsight trope" is.
- What are "special characters"? Often, text turns into gibberish in the TLP and people explain that that's what happens when people type "special characters", but what are they?
openNoRealLife Quotes?
I Reject Your Reality is NoRealLife.Too Controversial, so I assume RL quotes are thus not allowed for the same reason, right? I'll cut it unless I hear any objections.
I've seen No Real Life quote pages use RL examples discussing the trope as opposed to giving specific examples. Are those allowed?
openBlank Recap Pages
So when checking the "new page" edits for today, I stumbled upon a troper named Sabrinamichelle4ever and their apparent hobby...of just creating dozens upon dozens of blank recap pages for the show 6teen.
I'd list them all, but that'd be an exercise in insanity. I sent a stub notifier for a random one of them, but it's probably best if you just see for yourself.
openACI misuse?
AlternativeCharacterInterpretation.SCP Foundation:
- SCP-447 may do something unimaginably horrible when brought into contact with dead bodies... or it may simply have a memetic effect that makes people think it does.
I think this is misuse as 447 is not a character so what's being interpreted alternately isn' character related. I’ve seen Ambiguous Situation used for another non-character SCP that was intentionally ambiguous. This sounds more like Wild Mass Guessing as it’s the first I’ve heard it as opposed to the common speculations I’ve seen for 447.
AlternativeCharacterInterpretation.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic:
- The "Screwball" pony flying around with a propeller hat could be like Pinkie: a pony that would be happy if Discord's reign was permanent ("Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain!"). Then there is the idea that she was created by him.
- When she first appeared there were interpretations that she is a normal pony, possibly a baseball star, who only seemed unusual due to Discord screwing with everything.
- Celestia and Luna being Physical Goddesses is itself an ACI; there are numerous hints for it, most significantly their dominion over celestial bodies, the aspects of nature they represent, and their extensive lifespan, but the actual word god/goddess has never been used in the series. Less common is the interpretation that they are "merely" extremely powerful ponies, or two of the few remaining alicorns after their race was nearly rendered extinct. With the introduction of "Age Spells" in "Magic Duel", spells that can alter the age of the target but can only be cast by the most powerful of casters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's immortality may not even be inherent but the product of repeated self-cast Age Spells (which would also explain Luna's difference in appearance between her first and second appearance).
- This is further complicated by the presence of Princess Cadance. Is she also a Physical Goddess? We are told that she is the niece of Princess Celestia, but she couldn't be Luna's child. Luna spent the last thousand years in the moon. So who are her parents? Is she also immortal, and will she outlive her husband Shining Armor? Does she even have a blood relation to the Royal Pony Sisters? (It should be noted that Cadance was originally conceived as a unicorn but made an alicorn because of Executive Meddling.) Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell expanded on Princess Cadence's backstory and where she came from: It is revealed that Cadence was originally an orphaned pegasus that was adopted by an earth pony village. A Wicked Witch by the name of Prismia attacked the village by draining all their love for each other. Cadence somehow defeated her and was magically transported to the same "interstice" that Twilight went to when she completed Starswirl's unfinished spell. She met Princess Celestia there and was turned into an alicorn, adopted by Celestia, and made a princess herself. Whether this is canon or not is up in the air right now, but this is the closest thing to a backstory she has so far.
- Then Twilight became an alicorn, also making her a princess, bringing another whole host of questions. Do all alicorns "earn" their ascension this way? If so, how did the other three do so? Can it be given as some sort of reward or a Enlightenment Superpower? Is Twilight now immortal? And if she is, is this a way to give Celestia some more company for her eternal life?
The first is a very minor background character with only two scenes and seconds of screentime. This sounds more like WMG or O.C. Stand-in as ACI seems misused for one too minor to have primary character interpretation for fanon to deviate from. The second is Fanon/speculation over how alicorns work in the setting and backstory. These seem misused as ACI as they have nothing to do with characterization or character motives/actions.
Thoughts?
openNo Title
Troper Curiousice
edited Ambiguously Gay
to change the pronouns on the trope description and inserted some lines that imply deliberate lesbian erasure (when the first example, posted by myself as a queer woman, was clearly meant to be a hypothetical case not meant to speak for all instances of this trope, and the page itself has plenty of female examples). The edits strike me as Righting Great Wrongs. A bunch of their
other
edits
also have elements of editorializing when it comes to LGBT issues as well. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but not in line with troper etiquette on style conventions of neutrality, and the edit reasons are either lacking or quarrelsome.
openEdit war on Characters/MyHeroAcademiaSchoolFacultyAndStaff
Courtesy link: My Hero Academia - School Faculty and Staff, history
The following entry has been removed and re-added multiple times:
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: She is completely forgotten about almost immediately after her death, with no one shown mourning or even acknowledging it. Even Aizawa, her childhood friend, bluntly states that it doesn't matter and they have "more important things" to worry about.
- It was first added by Some New Guy on April 24, 2021
- It was then removed by Bio Yu Gi on June 24, 2021, with the edit reason "She is very visibly mourned by the students"
- It was then promptly re-added by Some New Guy the same day, with the edit reason "Yeah they mourned her for about a single panel before the cast and the story itself acted like she never even existed."
- Then removed by jdixon0151 today, with the edit reason "Her death was acknowledged by present mic, and it has not been that many chapter since then, so we really can't just say she has been forgotten or that the story is acting like she never existed in the first place"
So in addition to the edit war they are holding a discussion in the edit reasons.
Edited by SynchronicityopenBad history in OlderThanDirt
I believe I asked about this a year or two ago, but can't find the old thread.
Someone has added highly contentious statements about the oral traditions of certain cultures to Older Than Dirt - claiming without any hedging that they accurately record memories of events from tens of thousands of years ago. While of course this is possible, the truth of these claims is fundamentally unknowable, and for this reason the vast majority of relevant scholars don't take these ideas terribly seriously. As Older Than Dirt itself notes:
"Note: Tropes originating in mythologies/religions that aren't Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Anatolian, Vedic, or Chinese are never indexed here, as we have no idea whether those stories even existed in 800 BC, or what form they had, centuries or millennia before they were first written down. [...] Early folklorists often started with the assumption that folktales and myths were primordial; more research has shown that people can and do modify all sorts of tales for any purpose."
I think we should generalize the above statement to cover oral traditions as well. Otherwise, we'd need to list every single culture with a flood myth, as it's at least conceivable that such myths retain a memory of some Ice Age-era deluge.
openDewicking help?
Is there an appropriate place to ask for wick cleaning help? Famous Last Words has 4000+ wicks that need cleaning post a TRS decision, and Last Words itself (which is an index, and therefore shouldn't be listed as a trope) has a similar amount.
openUse Of The R-Word
I was reading one of the trope pages for American Dad! and came across an entry for a minor character. The character was described as “mentally re***” (uncensored on the page, but I refuse to type it in full), which I really must question. I know that phrase used to be used as a medical term, but it just seems... really not polite and kind of shocking on the page itself.
Sorry if this sounds whiny, I have a big thing against slurs.
openExample on Lost Aesop is questionable in more ways than one.
There's a Lost Aesop example featuring Star Trek: Insurrection that I think fits the trope, so it isn't misuse, but it has two problems:
- It uses the term "American Indian", which I'm a bit concerned might be offensive (though I'm not Native American myself).
- It claims the Maquis were all Native American, and while some certainly were, there was also one half-alien-half-Hispanic and a fair amount of full-blooded aliens (most of whom were Bajorans).
openReadding incorrect entries Web Original
On Characters.Death Battle Season Eight, this entry was added:
- Adaptational Wimp: Not Link himself — who puts up a strong fight against Cloud before losing — but his much-hyped Fierce Deity form, which gets hit almost immediately by Cloud's Omnislash V5 Limit Break and then dies seconds later without even so much as landing an attack.
I removed it with the reasoning that it was less about Link being nerfed and more of Cloud simply being stronger, as seen in the animation itself
.
Then Gf93, a troper that I have brought up multiple
times
for reinserting entries before, readded the entry under Clipped-Wing Angel, which again, does not count since the Fierce Deity is never shown as a detriment to Link.
Is it okay if I remove this entry?
openGeneral rule of thumb for providing context for adaptations?
What is the generally accepted practice when it comes to providing context to trope examples of an adaptation that has deviated from its source material just enough to warrant a separate page? Is it preferred that an editor divorce from their knowledge of the source entirely while writing out context, or to use a bit of it with some measure of discretion?
Some context as to why I bring this up: There's God Eater 1 (the source) and God Eater (the adaptation), which covers only about a sixth of the original's narrative and takes notable liberties with the events it does cover as well as some of its worldbuilding. Enough to be considered its own take, if anything. In the latter, the last episode has a few Sequel Hooks which allude to storyline events that occur afterward to appeal for a second season that probably won't come in the foreseeable future and/or needle the viewers into buying the game to see what happens next. A few trope examples revolving around these hooks have been written from the perspective of someone who's either only seen the adaptation and is going only by the information provided within, or was going with the aforementioned "divorce from the source" approach. I was tempted to edit to correct any speculation that's objectively wrong or otherwise add in further details as someone familiar with the original game, before I stopped myself and began wondering whether or not I even should since they both have their own pages.
Edited by BakazukiopenNo Title
Godscar Chasm deleted a lot of the examples
on Nick Fury, so now it just looks like a list of tropes with no context.
openDawalk86 is... worrisome
Dawalk 86 was released recently, and has some issues.
There's a bit of Zero Context:
- Eye Pop: Killer upon seeing Charlie and Itchy have returned.
- Black Face: "Little Dutch Mill" briefly features a black shoeshiner (or rather a shoe shaver-and-painter) who is designed in this manner.
The Black Face one also doubles as misuses, since it's a black character who looks like that. Racist old trope, but not this racist old trope.
Then there's Word Cruft (bolded part):
- Color Failure:In "Little Black Sambo", the titular character turns white with fright upon encountering a tiger, not noticing at first that there's a real one behind him as his dog tries to warn him.
- The Dorothy from ''Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz". Dorothy's skirt billows from the front up to her thighs when there seems to be an earthquake in the cave.
Finally, there's a whole lot this kind of troping:
- Marilyn Maneuver: Dorothy's skirt billows from the front up to her thighs when there seems to be an earthquake in the cave. [This is a shoehorn, that seems to be here only so Dawalk can write about an underage child's thighs. The scene is HERE
and doesn't qualify, in my opinion.]
- Panty Shot: Dorothy, whose skirt billows up from behind and gives a white panty peek as she and Billina flee from the Wheelers.
(I forced myself to look this up. HERE
is the so-called panty-shot. It's not really a panty-shot as much as it's just panties being briefly visible, and it indicates that Dawalk just wanted to write about a child's panties.)
In itself not a problem that someone tropes those things as long as they're done correctly. Still, even disregarding that "Dorothy, whose skirt billows up" should read "Dorothy's skirt billows up", I'm just not sure that this is an intentional example of the trope. Also, Dawalks seems eager to trope panty shots, and again, it could just be an innocent interest so I don't want to assume. But it seems, well, one-handed. So to speak. And it seems as if he's looking for any reason to write about children's panties.
EDIT: Also, I've gone through all his post-release edits, and these are his basic trends:
- Posting Shes Got Legs every time a woman's legs are at all visible, regardless of whether it's meant to be sexy or just is a couple of legs existing.
- Posting Marilyn Maneuver every time a skirt lifts a bit for any reason.
- Calling every glimpse of visible panties a Panty Shot.
openStock Parody Jokes
I think Stock Parody Jokes may need a cleanup. Some of them are just making comments about the quality of a work (such as "the Super Mario Bros movie is bad" or "the later SpongeBob seasons are just mean-spirited grossout") instead of specific kinds of jokes parodies do.
Also, some of the examples are getting redundant (nearly every work with anthropomorphic animals has a "the show is furry bait" example), and there's even an example related not to the work, but to the author ("HP Lovecraft was racist" is listed under the Cthulhu Mythos in the Literature page, even though that's a joke about Lovecraft himself, not the Cthulhu Mythos).
openUrban Hellscape description edit concern
On the description for the Urban Hellscape trope, Tropers.Shadowgazer removed a link to Lower-Class Lout.
Their reason was: "Unfortunately there is too much truth in the Lower Class Lout trope to be dismissed as just a lie used for the persecution of innocents."
The problem with this is that within the context of the crack epidemic (which was the IRL impetus for the Urban Hellscape trope), it was used as an excuse. This isn't even being political: it was the entire point of the trope.
The point of Urban Hellscape was to portray lowlife criminals as savage animals that needed to be put down by violent police or vigilantes. Even the description of Lower-Class Lout itself states: "While these stereotypes are Truth in Television to some degree, it's debatable whether the stereotype comes from Real Life, or said real-life examples are imitating the stereotype." This makes it even more weird that they would use Truth in Television as a justification for removing mention of the trope in the UH description. Lower-Class Lout is exactly the proper trope to use in the description within that context.
At the very least, that aspect in the description of the trope just feels extremely disingenuous, IMO, but I've invited Shadowgazer here to give their perspective.
Edited by NubianSatyress

I originally raised this on the Moments clean-up thread, but it was suggested I flag it in ATT as well. The full clean-up thread post is here
.
The summary for ATT purposes is this:
The troper Bellaboo2 has added back two Tear Jerker entries (removed from YMMV.RWBY Chibi), with original wording intact. The edit reason
is long, but basically makes it clear that:
Edited to add a link to the YMMV page the edit occurred on.
Edited by Wyldchyld