Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openFolders/Sections on the Shonen Jump page Anime
I'm not going to mince words on it: I think the Shonen Jump page is a complete mess, namely all of the folders and sections in the middle of the page. IMO there's way too many folders, too many gigantic folders, a bunch of weird placements that don't make intuitive sense, a bizarre Adaptations section, etc. I don't know when exactly this happened (based on the Discussion page this has been sitting like this since ~2019) but I do remember the older version of this page from years back and while it wasn't necessarily perfect it was significantly more usable than the page in its current state.
I'm bringing this up here to at the very least draw some attention to it and get some responses and feedback on what should be done before proceeding on anything. Cleaning it up would be quite a bit of work for me to do by myself/on a single go so I would appreciate any help with it, and I'd like to get some consensus on a few things with it as well. Biggest part would be addressing some of the sister mags; while most of the folders are IMO superfluous I do think some are at least worth highlighting given the overlaps involved (for example Viz's Shonen Jump app pulls from Jump+, Jump Square, and V-Jump).
openOverhauling or deleting the Prince's Associates page Music
I noticed that Prince's Associates is in the complaining cleanup sandbox, and for good reason. However, looking it over got me thinking about how weird the whole concept of the page is. I don't know of another page with that many different creators listed on it that isn't an index, their only commonality being their collaboration with one artist. It was written a long time ago so I don't know the thought process behind its creation, but it appears the original writer wanted simply to tell a story about Prince (hence the entries being in chronological rather than alphabetical order) and didn't think the artists were interesting enough to warrant their own pages. But since There Is No Such Thing as Notability some of them have gotten their own pages anyway, which makes me wonder if we're better off breaking up the whole page and perhaps leaving it as an actual index or a redirect to Prince himself.
I'm not sure of the proper way to go about this, though. Making major changes to work and creator pages doesn't seem to require the same rigamarole as changing tropes, but I'm thinking that this is too drastic a change to just undertake myself. What do you suggest?
Edited by Camassiaopen The Issue of Snapdragon
So, in High Guardian Spice, there's a character named Snapdragon who struggles with their gender identity and was eventually confirmed in an external source to be Trans. Our page (and other wiki-based sources) only describes them with female pronouns as a result...
...But there's a problem here. See, in the show proper, Snapdragon was never actually confirmed to be Trans. Everyone calls them male, and it ended on the note of them starting to consider their options, with the biggest change being Snap starting to paint their nails. So there's a case that can be made that they should actually be called by male pronouns, to keep it consistent with the work itself even if it ultimately contradicts Word of God.
I brought this up here
, but nobody replied there and I didn't know if it was the right thread anyway, but it's been on my mind and I think we need to figure out the correct course of action. Similar to how we did for that character from One Piece people won't stop arguing about, or the Toaster from Brave Little Toaster.
openReporting an Edit War
So on YMMV.Girl Meets World reddieforthis added
this The Scrappy entry:
- Riley herself is often viewed as this retroactively. Especially when she forces her views on her friends.
I removed
it because Riley is not consistently hated like The Scrappy is supposed to be. She's a Base-Breaking Character though. reddieforthis then added
this nearly identical The Scrappy entry for Riley without an edit reason or discussing it anywhere:
- Riley herself has become this retroactively. Due to her pompous attitude on certain subjects, and her inability to see other points of view. Some have pointed out how exhausting it must be to be her friend.
This is an Edit War correct?
Edited by BullmanopenOdd edit reason
Nightwolf Gamer 03 appears to be a new account, with only one edit made today. That wouldn't be too much to talk about, but the edit itself is a bit... questionable. Specifically, on LGBT Representation in Media, they replaced
an instance of "agender" on a point about Craig of the Creek with "non-binary" with the edit reason "Agender does not equal non-binary. Agender equals agender. Non-binary equals non-binary." If memory serves, agender is indeed part of the nonbinary spectrum (it's the black stripe on the nonbinary pride flag), and nonbinary is itself an umbrella term for gender identities that fall outside the western "male/female" model, so the edit feels a bit gatekeep-y in a somewhat shifty sort of way. Thoughts on how to address it?
open"Cowboy BeBop at His Computer" misuse?
Common Knowledge states Cowboy BeBop at His Computer is a sub-trope where "Documentations of a work get their facts about the work blatantly wrong, to the point that people familiar enough with the work will know that they didn't do their research properly." My impression was that it only applied to professional publications, is that the case?
From Cupcakes (Sergeant Sprinkles):
- Common Knowledge:
- This story is very frequently cited as a Creepypasta. It was never intended to be one. It's a fanfic, or a Dark Fic more specifically.
- Everyone "knows" this fic started the trend of Pinkie having a violent, stoic alter ego that goes by "Pinkamena Diane Pie", inspired by a disturbing scene in "Party of One" where a flat-haired and schizoid Pinkie has a conversation with various inanimate objects. Not only was the fic released before "Party of One" premiered, but Pinkie is her usual curly-maned and cheerful self despite torturing ponies to death, and this supposed "Pinkamena" alter ego never appears at all. A lot of the unease of the fic comes from the fact that Pinkie, as her normal happy-go-lucky hyperactive self, is either unaware of or apathetic to the horrors she's committing; an evil and murderous alternate personality would defeat the whole point. The blog Ask Pinkamina Diane Pie probably didn't help.
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
- Many people believe that it's "Pinkamena Diane Pie" (flat-haired, depressive-to-psychotic Pinkie) who does all the slaughtering in Cupcakes, something that fan art frequently supports. Not only have they clearly never read the fic, but they don't know either that Cupcakes was released before the premiere of "Party of One", the first episode to have Pinkie turn back into Pinkamena. So when Cupcakes was published, let alone written, Pinkamena didn't even exist yet.
- When "Party of One" premiered, many thought they saw disturbing parallels to Cupcakes. In fact, however, they only saw parallels to what they believed Cupcakes is about without daring to verify.
- Pinkamena is complicated. Straight hair equaling Sanity Slippage comes from Party of One, Sanity Slippage equaling basement torture chamber comes from Cupcakes, "Pinkamena" as the name for straight-haired Pinkie comes from the fact that she always had straight hair back on the rock farm where she went by her whole name. Put it all together and what do you get
?
I believe Cowboy is misused here as it's fans/fanon that gets these facts wrong as opposed to documentations of the work. Should it be cut as it's already under the more fitting Common?
Also, CowboyBebopAtHisComputer.The Mysterious Mr Enter is all examples that were cut from the disambiguation Critical Research Failure. Cleanup
said to just cut them which I will per that, and due to misuse as it only applies/goes under the works that have the errors made about them, not the works making the errors. Any objections?
And if CBAHC is about professional documentations of the work, do web reviewers/personalities not count? Or can they if they have sufficient notoriety?
UPDATE: Asked Is this an example?
openCut, move, or issues?
riddlerfan added this to YMMV.The Sith Resurgence:
- Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Lily Orchard has made two
videos
on why Aliana's ideology of doing "dirty actions" for the greater good is important and morally correct, and upholding your morality and ideals when other's lives are in jeopardy is selfish and egocentric.
SANTBD is now a redirect to Anvilicious, which is just about the Aesop being heavy handed not how liked/disliked it is. I believe this is not an example as the message is not heavy handed if it's not in the work proper.
I believe this page had issues prior so I'm bringing here first. What to do?
openPro-Heard edit
- Johnny Depp was fired from the Fantastic Beasts series in the middle of production of the then-upcoming third film when he lost a libel case against a tabloid in the UK in November 2020. The tabloid had run a headline calling him a "wife beater" in the context of talking about him remaining in the series despite allegations of domestic violence against him by ex-wife, Amber Heard.note He was cast sometime in 2015 for the first film in the series but his role (which in that film was really just a glorified cameo) was kept secret until the film came out in November 2016, by which time Heard had filed for divorce and been granted a restraining order. The judge in the lawsuit ruled in favor of the tabloid, saying the tabloid's (and, by extension, Heard's) allegations were "substantially true", with twelve of fourteen instances used by the defense meeting the civil standard for domestic violence. Supposedly, WB had done its own investigation into the situation that came to a similar conclusion as the court case and had just been waiting for some sort of legally binding ruling to cut him loose.note A case in the US directly against Heard, in which Depp alleges that he had been defamed and that damages have occurred as a result of an op-ed that Heard had posted in the Washington Post in 2018, had its trial by jury commence in April 2022 (Same month as the film's release). Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen was very quickly cast to take over the role. Depp later won a defamation suit against Heard had better luck in 2022.the trial in the US but an inconsistent ruling by jury note They found she defamed him with the allegations but also she was defamed herself by his lawyer when he called her allegations a hoax on top of serious questions about the fairness and venue of the Commonwealth of Virginia for the trial did little more than kicked it up to the appeals level.
queenhippolytas
accuses the verdict of being inconsistent, despite the fact that due to the trial being a suit/countersuit it's perfectly possible both parties could be defamers. This also ignores the context behind Amber's win, Depp's former attorney made a highly specific allegation that was hard to prove.
open Problem with TheSquad
I come across this example on SCP: Overlord.
- The Squad / The Team:
- Lambert: The Leader.
- Reyes:
- Kolinski:
- Designated Point Man: He becomes this after finding the anomalous camera.
- The Hero.
- Jansen: The Hacker.
- Besson: Combat Medic.
- Cicero: Plucky Comic Relief (Downplayed).
I removed it
citing tropeslasing, ZCE, and indentation problem (I also sent the tropeslashing notifier to the troper who added it, but neither ZCE since they already got one from another edit nor indentation (I just forgot that)). They added it back later
, without tropeslasing but otherwise the same.
At first, I was about to report them as problematic troper. But as noted, I didn't sent them the indentation the first time. And for ZCE, I'm surprised that even The Squad page itself is so light on context that none of the examples there explain how each of the members fit the roles. So I'm willing to assume that the troper just learned from bad examples and think it's good enough.
So I'm going to send them a second ZCE notifier after this post. But really, The Squad's example section looks pretty bad (and consider how TRS never actually fix the problem for its cousin "The Team but more specific" Five-Man Band, I have little faith in that).
openFound a 4chan forum story, is Literature the right place for it? Literature
Luke: The Plague Son of Nurgle
While doing some cleanup work, came across the above which appears to be an unstructured forum story told by multiple people in 2009 and interspersed with comments from anonymous posters. It's not referenced anywhere else on google besides tvtropes and the forum links themselves.
What is the criteria for a web original forum work being listed? Does it need to have an attributable author? Does it need to have evidence of a reader base? Is there some other criteria we use? Does it need to be something someone can actually pinpoint and consume with a clear line between the work itself and people commenting on it? Is there any kind of minimum length requirement?
When I came across this one, it didn't really seem to fit the "Literature" media space to me though I know WebSerialNovels do get classified under literature.
However, I'm not sure this forum story can even be classified as a novel so that's adding to my confusion.
The work page has 1 wick under "The Pig-Pen", 171 total inbounds, and looks to have been created on November 20, 2021 though the original 4chan threads look like they were all from November 2009.
openToo Bleak misuse
- The Joker is often criticized for being too bleak a villain. Many writers treat him as less a person and more of an unpredictable, seemingly unstoppable force of chaos who commits acts of gruesome torture (of both the physical and psychological formats) and mass murder, with an ever increasing body count that's often in the four to five digits, often forgetting the comedic angle that made him such a Love to Hate character in the first place. This renders Batman's no-kill policy absolutely pointless and a little Secretly Selfish, as it becomes less about him keeping Gotham safe and more about him staying true to his personal code no matter the consequences.
TBSC is about stories that cause such, so it seems misuse to apply to a specific character, especially one who's remained iconic and popular despite. I say cut as while this might apply to some specific stories it doesn't apply in general/overall as it's too successful to count. Any objections?
Asking here as TBSC cleanup hasn't had any activity in over a month.
open Tropers Policy Discussion
There's an ongoing discussion regarding contributors adding Fetish Fuel and other kink-related self-troping on their Tropers/ pages. Click here
if you want to join the discussion.
HoMM Fan
open Possible overcorrection by Troper
I know natural-strap is already being discussed in another ATT, but I felt this one was worth talking about separately.
they removed
this note from Evolving Trope under portrayal of Germans in media.
"Members of the "Wehrmacht", the actual German military in that time period, need not even be Nazis in a political sense. Saying a German soldier is a Nazi is like saying an American soldier is a Republican or Democrat based purely on the party in power at the time."
with the reason
"the Clean Wehrmacht Myth is just a gussied-up form of soft Holocaust denial and has no place in a wiki that isn't explicitly about German self-justification""
Except... this isn't exactly an example of that. Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht means asserting that the Whermacht did nothing wrong, its commanders in particular. This entry just states that there may have been individual low ranking soldiers who may not have been Nazis in a political sense, which feels like a fair thing to say to me.
In addition, it's about portrayal in media, and there is definitely the presence of the "honorable non-nazi Wehrmacht solider" in media, whether or not it's historically correct.
I am holding on changing it without more feedback.
Edited by TonwenopenSelf-reporting an edit war
I just realized that I had accidentally edit warred, and wanted to self-report just to be safe.
I was on Monochrome Casting yesterday, and made an addition
; it's one that I knew I had thought about making before, but as it wasn't there I assumed that I hadn't. But then I realized today that I had made that addition before
and just forgotten, and it had since been deleted
. I've now gone back and at least addressed the issue that got it deleted
.
openToo Long?
Hello again. In Characters.Star Wars Imperial Navy, someone added
a Rousing Speech entry complete with a quote. However, I feel the quote is too long. What do you all think?
- Rousing Speech: Delivers an impressive speech at the start of the Battle of Jakku in Empire's End.
Rax: Loyal soldiers of the Galactic Empire, madness is at our door. Ruffians and barbarians of the Rebel Alliance have claimed for themselves a government of no legitimacy, a government given over to corrosion, chaos, and the corruption born of alien minds and radical terroristic teachings. It was our own Emperor Palpatine who showed us the weakness that presents itself when a Republic becomes sick with the disease of craven politics and the illness of elite oligarchs who force their agendas upon us. With the death of our beloved Emperor, our own Empire was cast into disorder. It gave strength to the illegitimate, and emboldened them with a fraudulent claim of bringing peace and justice to the galaxy—and yet, for so long, who have been the champions of peace? The only war visited upon the galaxy has been the one brought by the criminal Rebel Alliance. Scattered and lost, we could have perished. After attacking Chandrila and injuring the fraudulent politicians who seek to steal the sanctity of our galaxy, I brought us here to Jakku, unifying our people and our powers in this faraway world—a hard world that has tested our mettle and forged us and sharpened us into a stronger blade. A blade with which we will slit the throats of the traitors that crawl on their bellies toward our door. Soon they come! Soon they try to finish what they started. They want to end the Empire. They want to set up as a tumor on a healthy body, leeching the blood while growing fatter like a parasite. They deny our legitimacy. They lie about the stability and sanity we created for the galaxy. For those are their truest weapons: deception and delusion. We must not give in. We must not believe that they are right. We must see them as they are: Brutes and barbarians! They are subhuman. They are alien to us in the truest sense of the word and are deserving of no mercy from us. This is our zero hour, and I call you now to do your duty by the light of the glorious Galactic Empire. The battle to come is not a fight for Jakku or even a fight for the Empire. It is a fight for all the galaxy. If we fail here, we fail everywhere. We fail our loved ones. We fail our children. We fail all who crave constancy and light in these dark times. We pursue no other aim than freedom from oppression, liberty from lies, emancipation from depravity. Today is the day we fight back and reclaim our galaxy. Today is the day the New Republic dies at the Empire's hand. Today we take our future! The battle is upon us. Go! Go and drag them down to the ground and break their necks with your boots! Take their heads! End their tyranny!
openSelfDemonstrating/SiivaGunner
SelfDemonstrating.Si Iva Gunner has been cut a few days ago, because it redirected to AwesomeMusic.Video Games, and that was misleading...
Well, SiIvaGunner makes misleading music videos, so obviously his self demonstrating page would be a Bait-and-Switch, and the troper who cutlisted it (VmKid) must have missed the joke. Should I restore it? That page was very funny. Thank you.
Edited by PiterpicheropenDoes This Violate No Real Life Examples? Web Original
I added an entry into Police Are Useless for The Last Podcast on the Left, but only afterward did I realize that the trope is in the No Real Life Examples, Please! index. I now have two questions: does the following violate NRLEP? If so, do I take it off the works page, too?
- The Last Podcast on the Left:
- The hosts often note times when police ineffectiveness is a major factor in how long a serial killer goes without getting caught. For example, in the Dean Coril series, they note the Huston police were underfunded and understaffed so much that, as a result, they actively avoided investigating things like homicides and shut down a victim's family when they provided a letter written by their missing son that they suspect was faked, but which Missing Persons took as evidence he was no longer missing.
- They also note occasions when a killer was caught by dumb luck or mistakes rather than anything police did. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, for instance, were only found out when Lake was held for questioning for an act of compulsive shoplifting by Ng, and police never suspected anything serious until Lake killed himself while in custody.
The trope is discussed on the show, but on the context of real life events (which I included so they wouldn't be purely general examples).
If this does violate NRLEP, could I rewrite the example to state that the hosts hold this view and then describe a character they created, Detective Popcorn, as a way to mock them?
Edited by sgamer82open User-ish conflict
I'm a bit concerned with the Critical Research Failure section on this page
. Now, first things off, I'm not calling it inaccurate, the poster is entirely correct, but I feel as if the troper who posted this, The Nerf Guy, is being needlessly vindictive and Nattering on; even if these weren't understandable errors to make (lord knows I used to get confused about the first, and the second used to be a thing before the rules changed).
Is that just me?
And yes, to clarify, I was made aware of this by the now-banned Maedar. Since editing on behalf of a banned user is grounds for banning, this is why I have not edited the page myself (which would technically have been strike two for me, I believe), and instead sought another opinion to (hopefully prevent bias).

A Place of Greater Safety has a lot of tropes... on its character pages. The work page itself has a full description but no trope entries, not even commented-out entries.
What to do here?