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resolved Loved Dead Fridge Brilliance
Over on "The Loved Dead", there's a fridge page with a Fridge Brilliance entry that refers to the singular line "[...] others who knew something of my ancestry called attention to the vague mysterious rumors concerning a great-great-grand uncle who had been burned at the stake as a necromancer." in "The Loved Dead".
I don't ever use Fridge myself, so I might be off, but I believe there's no Fridge Brilliance here, just speculation. The premise doesn't loop back to anything relevant to the story.
I also question the claim about the USA being burning-at-the-stake free. I am not well-acquainted with the subject matter, but I gather that there is a history of enslaved people getting killed this way, such as happened during the New York Conspiracy of 1741 or a 1805 case in Wayne County.
I would like permission to delete the entry if necessary, but since I do agree with the fridge's essence that this particular execution method here invites theories, I was wondering if the entry can be preserved under another header. Like, for instance, is it WMG material?
Edited by Pfff133resolved Easily Forgiven, now complaining magnet.
Easily Forgiven was recently made YMMV, and it's now attracting a lot of complainy edits (despite cleanup saying they should be neutral
) that seem redundant with Unintentionally Unsympathetic (worse, UU without explaining why their forgiveness wasn't seen as earned as intended) and other issues reading as bashing forgivenesses they don't like rather than why it came of as (too) easy. Some examples.
- Steven Universe: This was how the fandom saw the resolution to the original series with the Diamond Authority's "redemption". Most people expected Blue to be redeemed, but were critical on Yellow and especially White, as due to executive restraints, the pacing of the final few episodes made the ending resolution feel rushed. This is mitigated by the movie and sequel mini-series showing that just because Steven solved matters peacefully with the Diamonds doesn't mean he forgave them for their horrible actions and the three of them (mainly White) still hold a few of their toxic mindsets, but for many fans this was not nearly enough and they should have stayed villains to the end. Would be valid but doesn't explain what they did for those unfamiliar with the work. Also said movie was in production before fan complaints so not an after the fact fix, so if they weren't as easily forgiven as first implied is it not/no longer an example? (YMMV cannot be subverted or played with).
- Jedi Academy Trilogy: The New Republic decides to place the fate of Kyp Durron, who, under the influence of the ghost of the Sith Lord Exar Kun, had first assaulted his master Luke Skywalker, then stolen an Imperial superweapon and blown up an entire star system, in the hands of Luke himself. Luke chooses to forgive Kyp and welcome him back into the Jedi Order. This proved extremely controversial in the Star Wars Legends, fandom, which was reflected in later works: In the P.O.V. Sequel I, Jedi, Corran Horn rage quits the order over it, while a story in Tales from the New Republic portrayed Kyp as The Atoner. Other readers suspect that the New Republic considered the population of Carida to be Asshole Victims since it was an Imperial system whose governor had just attempted to assassinate Chief of State Mon Mothma with Grey Goo and then kidnap the infant Anakin Solo, and Kyp had subsequently helped win the books' final battle for the New Republic after Exar Kun was destroyed, so they weren't that inclined to prosecute him. Argues with itself noting there were those who though otherwise/mitigating context. If it explain why critics felt this wasn't enough, would it be redundant with UU?
- WandaVision: Many fans criticized Wanda for being this at the end of the series. With her having kidnapped an entire town and forcing them to play roles in her weird meltdown, including not letting some of them see their children. And after beating Agatha, Wanda suffers no consequences for MindRaping the people of Westview beyond being shunned by them and simply leaves to live a relatively peaceful life of solitude and self-discovery. Making her seem less like a grieving victim and more like an insane, sociopathic Karma Houdini who should've been thrown in prison or received some kind of punishment instead. Deleted this as she was not forgiven, Westview was noted justifiably still hated her. Even if EF was just getting off light (the TRS said it still requires in-universe forgiveness), this seem to be getting bashy. This is the kind of ill-faith edits being attracted.
- Detractors of Elsa in Frozen cited this trope as one of the criticisms levied against her. While it was already implausible enough for Anna to forgive her so easily after being shut out for so long, even more implausible is the fact that the entire citizens of Arendelle happily accepts her as their queen in spite of accidentally unleashing the Endless Winter that followed beforehand especially considering that unlike Anna who believed and eventually vindicated that she didn't mean to do so (and we the viewers know that she didn't even realize this until Anna pointed it out), they have no reason to believe that it was an accident (especially given how reclusive she was prior to her coronation) so the fact that they welcome someone who in their eyes, intentionally unleashed an Eternal Winter upon their land and abandoned them to their fates rubbed them the wrong way with fans citing this as another example as to why Elsa would have worked better if she actually freezes the kingdom on purpose. Notes it's just detractors. Character extreme popularity means it's likely not a widespread opinion.
- The Owl House: Even though Eda and Luz both make a point to not forgive Lilith straight away for her actions in the Season Finale with the latter doing her best to make amends, there are a number of fans who still think they let her off way too easily for cursing Eda, keeping her in the dark for 30 years and trying to forcibly abduct her into the Emperor's Coven as well as using Luz as a Human Shield in order to let her guard down with her redeeming actions being to help Luz save Eda and sharing the latter's curse not being enough to make up for it. Besides noting she wasn't forgiven until they did all this redeeming stuff and arguably not even then, doesn't explain why critics found it insufficient to redeem them as intended (UU needs that level of objectivity). This could be worked into a valid example, but comes of as Never Live It Down without the requirement (why fans exaggerate/ignore mitigating context) that keeps it from pure complaining/bashing.
I've asked the EG TRS
about coming of as redundant with UU, but it's coming along so slowly I feel the need to bring to attention what I find a disturbing amount of toxicity, lacking the constructiveness/objectiveness that makes other negative audience reaction item valid, for something that while contentious isn't supposed to be a inherently negative reaction, and seems overly complainy even if it was.
resolved Question about Image Pickin'
If I open a new thread on Image Pickin', do I need to post an image myself as a suggestion on that thread or is that something I leave to the forum team?
resolved Team Fortress 2 characters edit
On the tf2 npcs page the trope Entertainingly Wrong was changed from
to
With the reasoning "Natter, also disputes canon." Firstly the new text is longer and makes what I feel is pointless use of footnotes, but also I fail to see how it disputes canon; Miss Pauling is canonically a lesbian, and when Scout (who was also staring for the 'weird to see naked people in honey' reason) tries to pull her away she says with a slightly awestruck expression
"You go ahead. I'll catch up," which I feel pretty decisively implies that she was Eating the Eye Candy.
So just wanted to check with the chorus before editing it back.
Edited by Biggbyresolved Unilateral subpage description changes
So back in March of 2021, it looks like user Fishious Rend changed the descriptions of all the subpages of {Tsundere} over the course of about 15 minutes. All of the changes were from simple explanations like
I cannot find any discussion on this. Should these be reverted?
Edit: Links to the edits:
Live Action TV
Tabletop Games
(I did revert this one when I saw it, before I realize this was on all the pages, and I do apologize if I shouldn't have)
resolved Edit war on Characters/MCUWandaMaximoff
A new troper liberty3
removed the following entry
:
- Womanchild: Despite being in her late twenties/early thirties, Wanda acts much like a teenage girl in most of her appearances. She's often seen brooding or is otherwise antisocial in most situations, and she watches old sitcoms like she did as a child to comfort herself in her lowest moments. Justified, given how Wanda hasn't exactly lived what one would call a normal or happy life.
I am not the one who added it in the first place, but I restored it since I believe it is perfectly fine. They removed it again. I sent a message to them and received no reply.
The trope is lampshaded in Captain America: Civil War. Steve Rogers calls her a "kid"
and she is 27 there (born in 1989, the film is set in 2016). And she dresses and behaves like a teen, too.
What should be done about it?
Edited by Asherinkaresolved April 1st joke
Good day.
I had an idea for an April 1st joke where I would add a folder for a meme-"character" to the character page of The Stormlight Archive with tropes written in a way to play into that meme. I would have it stick around throughout March 31st (GMT) to the morning of April 2nd to ensure anyone could stumble upon it (and maybe even add to the joke for themself), no matter what time zone they live in.
But before I prepare it, I would like to ask whether something like that is even allowed.
Thank you and have a nice day.
resolved Troper continuing to be uncooperative/edit wars/downright rudeness
As mentioned in a previous ATT thread
, Slothed has a habit of complaining and doubling down on their complaints when called out on them, even being hostile towards me and other tropers (to the point that the ATT thread in question had to be locked). Today, I sent them a ROCEJ notifier for an edit
where they not only referred to multiple real-life content creators as if they were fictional characters, but calling them "toxic", "narcissistic", etc., which is quite a ROCEJ violation. Not only that, I reported
the page in question for being a ROCEJ nightmare (to which the other tropers on the thread largely agreed with me), and I even sent the other tropers who made similar edits on the page notifiers to show I wasn't singling anyone out.
Just now, Slothed has sent a reply not unlike the one they sent me for the previous notifier I sent weeks ago, in addition to doubling down on their edit again, they continued to be hostile towards me, saying that I'll "just accuse them of rudeness again", even though their edits and replies to notifiers certainly don't help matters.
And now they're edit warring
, accusing me of bias for deleting an edit of theirs
that was full of complaining (it began with "Notoriously and ridiculously used to extreme levels") and argues with itself (the other half of the edit began with "However, considering that...").
resolved Neglectful Precursor Trope Quesiton
I noticed that the trope description for Neglectful Precursors is formatted as a court trial. In addition, I also noticed that about 99% of the examples are also written as court cases. Does this trope actually require that examples be written that way? I wanted to ask because I couldn't find anything on the page itself indicating that.
resolved "Wasted" removal, valid?
Mariofan99 removed these from YMMV.Shadow Generations citing cleanup
and "Character cant be wasted if they never show up." But the cleanup said to cut the "Plot" examples, not the "Character" ones they also removed. The removals I have questions about.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Even though Shadow is sent to Sunset Heights and Infinite is a major villain in that game who despises Shadow, Infinite makes no in-person appearance. Instead, Infinite is only shown and mentioned in the concept art and backstory logs within Shadow's Collection Room. My impression was that even a small reference to them means they're in the work enough to qualify as "Wasted". Does this not count as not an in-narrative ref (the Collection Room is fuzzy on if in-universe)?
- Mephiles, a villain heavily associated with time travel, being the Big Bad or at least a major antagonist in a game revolving around time travel would seem like a no-brainer, yet he plays no greater role in the plot outside of his boss fightnote it's at least implied he has something to do with the Corruption slime that Shadow needs Doom Morph to move around in, as it heavily resembles his shadow creep in both 06 and his boss fight here, but nothing concrete is ever said He does show up. So was he removed as the narrative never hinted he's have a bigger role in the story than just a boss fight? Would this be wasted "Plot" as unused narrative potential, or not as the plot of the boss fight was to stop him before he could become such a threat meaning it was used?
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- While the game does a good job of representing Shadow's history in the series over the years (even going so far as to bring back Black Doom and Mephiles), there's a notable lack of a stage representation from Shadow's own game. Considering how much the remaster takes from Shadow the Hedgehog (such as bringing back Black Doom as the main antagonist), it's particularly jarring that the game doesn't get its own stage like Adventure 2 and Heroes do. It's even more jarring because Sonic '06 (which erased itself from existence), Sonic Forces (which takes place later in the timeline) and Sonic Frontiers (which doesn't feature Shadow at all) get returning stages, yet there's no stage from Shadow the Hedgehog despite there being a lot of creative and memorable onesnote For example, Digital Circuit and Mad Matrix, Circus Park, Sky Troops, G.U.N. Fortress, Lava Shelter and Cryptic Castle that could have easily fit the bill. Even the final battle against Devil Doom simply takes place in Radical Highway rather than somewhere like Black Comet, Final Haunt or The Last Way. Since the game is otherwise unashamed about the era Shadow the Hedgehog comes from, it comes across like it's still treated as a lesser entry. Get the criteria for "Characters" needing to be present/alluded to in-work, but what counts as setup for "Plot"? Is the Returning Big Bad and work being the sequel to Shadow not enough setup/allusion for the plots to be considered ignored? If not what is?
- A small point of contention for the story is that the future stages — the ones that take place after the events of Generations from Shadow's perspective — aren't really explored in detail. Shadow never questions what these places are, the only explanation given to their existence is an easily-missed Hand Wave from Gerald, and there's no cameos from those games to go along with them, with many citing Infinite's absence as an especially missed opportunity. Most of the game's stages don't really affect the plot much, but the future stages still give the impression that they were tacked on in comparison; it can't even be justified as representing the games that released between the original Generations and the re-release, as there's no stage for Sonic Lost World to go with them. Misuse because they do get mentions, so they aren't wasted just not used in the way fans wanted?
- Maria (and to a lesser extent, Gerald) never actually get to have any meaningful interactions with Shadow's friends that he's made. While it does make sense given the whole ordeal with the Time Eater's happening at the same time with Black Doom, and the game does try to Hand Wave this by Gerald not wanting to create a paradox, neither of them being able to at least introduce themselves to the likes of Rouge or E-123 Omega could've led to some interesting and heartwarming moments that the story never got the chance to explore. The absolute closest the game gets to featuring any characters interacting with Maria and Gerald is through the optional hub interactions, where Big reveals that he spent time with both of them for a little while, and Omega protecting them off-screen during the final battle. See above two questions.
- Some fans were disappointed that, while there's a cutscene showing Shadow's side of his boss fight with Sonic from the base game, there isn't an actual playable rematch from Shadow's perspective. Not even a simple flip of the original fight's mechanics. Seems like it was setting up a boss fight, only to pull the rug and make it happen in a cutscene. Or was this misuse as wasted "Gameplay", not "Plot"?
resolved SnowPatrol = Similar_Set_6582?
Per this ATT thread
, the troper zombies4eva made a report trying to get another troper in trouble for "un-reverting ban evader edits", only for it to turn out that zombies4eva was ban evading themself. While their edits have been taken care of, one question remains. A troper by the name of Snow Patrol started the discussion post
that zombies4eva replied to and took to ATT, and seeing that zombies4eva was apparently ban evading with at least two other accounts around the same time,I was just wondering if Snow Patrol is another sock of theirs. Even if it isn't, Snow Patrol's discussion post is near-identical to the one that Similar Set made on Reddit
, meaning that they're engaging in drama importation/exportation, if nothing else. The fact that they've made no edits on this wiki and only seem to have made the account to add the discussion post only fuels the point.
As the mods have said, while there's nothing they can do about a Reddit (or any other website) user stirring up trouble on this wiki, they can do something if the person also has an account on TVT.
Edited by UFOYeahresolved Image Caption Pickin'
Is the Image Pickin' thread the place to talk with other Tropers about adjusting the caption of a page image? Let me be clear; I'm not talking about changing a page image itself. That is very clearly what Image Pickin' is for. I'm talking about suggesting a change to a page image caption; while I'm quite sure that there's no policy against unilateral caption tweaking (and I've done so in the past — for instance, I was the one who added the caption
for the Mistaken for Racist article's page), in the instance I want to do right now, I think it is best to ask for community feedback before going ahead.
Specifically, what I want to do right now is add a note to the caption for the page image for That Came Out Wrong. The image and caption in question entail Leo of VG Cats being perceived as a weirdo for loitering around a school with the intention of "meeting kids" — with the caption being "He should have clarified that he wants to "meet" them on StreetPass." However, I had a bit of a Fridge Logic moment about this — most schools wouldn't want their students using a Nintendo 3DS for the same reasons they frown on cellphone usage (basically: it's a distraction from learning). So I felt like I should add a note to the caption to the effect of "It's not like a school would be the best place for StreetPassing anyways.", but I have a few reservations on whether or not this actually enhances the caption, so I figured I should ask for advice first.
Edited by Bomber-Boiresolved Should these be Creator or Useful Notes?
A few months back
, someone suggested moving Karl Marx from the Creator namespace to the Useful Notes namespace, arguing that his writings are not tropeworthy but the man himself makes enough appearances in media (as a Historical Domain Character) to warrant coverage on Useful Notes. I made a similar argument for Cicero.
There seemed be some support for a move, but I think I would like a greater consensus. In addition, I know how to change page type, but I'm not too sure what to do after that (aside from culling the trope lists).
resolved Self Demonstrating Character Pages
Do Self Demonstrating Character Pages require unanimous agreement to create or are they like Work pages and anyone can make one?
resolved Should FUSION FALLS: TAKE TWO! have a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome page?
Looking at the Fusion Falls Take Two page, it feels like this should be moved into some type of "deconstruction" label since it feels like a lot of these aren't immediate outcomes. For some examples
The fact that Equestria's royal guards have a history of being utterly useless, not even bothering to show up for major crises and letting the Mane Six handle it, is used by Sunset as an excuse to disband them in favor of human police who are actually trained to handle problems. Meanwhile, she also has to start seizing assets from the nobility and selling off the treasury to stabilize the economy until she can convert Equestria into a tourist destination, since it can now no longer support itself purely as an agricultural society when their magic-based agriculture no longer works.
Dee Dee's antics have much more serious consequences in a world without Toon Physics, ultimately resulting in her being arrested after causing a massive explosion that kills hundreds of people and causes millions in property damage, and then being institutionalized when she tries to laugh off her actions as joke.
And some examples feel more tied into the whole The Magic Goes Away deal.
Without magic to hold it at bay, the Wizarding World actually has to deal with the consequences of the extensive inbreeding that it relied on, causing many of them to die within a year of the Merge.
Without magic to maintain them, Storm King's fleet of airships are destroyed by the simple fact that keeping lava pools onboard wooden ships means that the latter will naturally be destroyed.
At the very least, the page probably needs a clean up.
Edited by JustaUsernameresolved Concerning conclusion to a Role Ending Misdemeanor example
In the Tabletop Games folder on the Other subpage for Role-Ending Misdemeanor, I found that this edit
by Schlub_life from late last August (the added text is in bold italics on the end of the example):
- In the world of Tabletop Games, Zachary Smith AKA Zak Smith AKA Zak Sabbath was an influential designer, blogger, and podcaster in the early days of the Old-School Renaissance scene, with credits on several big-studio productions, including as a consultant on the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Then several former girlfriends came forward with allegations against him of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, including former adult film star Mandy Morbid. This opened the floodgates and an increasing number of OSR bloggers came forward with stories of harassment and other abusive behavior from Zak. After Zak filed a number of unsuccessful defamation lawsuits against several of his critics he was widely considered persona non grata in not just the OSR community but the Tabletop industry as a whole. The final major holdout was Edward James Raggi, publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess (who is himself a controversial fellow), but even he ended up cutting ties with Smith in 2019. It should be noted, however, that several of his accusers later admitted to exaggerating or outright lying simply because they disliked Smith for his smug and confrontational attitude.
The lack of sources for the note at the end and the sudden pivot from documenting the accusations and role termination to noting that the accusers supposedly admitted to lying has set off a few red flags in my mind, both in terms of if this is true (given the subject matter), and whether or not this is necessary to add.
But on the other hand, I don't want to jump to the conclusion that there was an agenda behind this edit. I'd like to hear what others see before I decide whether or not to do anything with this added sentence.
Edited by Akriloth2160resolved Mistaken gender error
The author itself mistakes a character's gender.
In the Left 4 Dead campaign Death Toll, a character let someone else into his safe room but bit them because they were infected; however, he says, “I can’t believe HE bit me”, and inside there is the corpse of a female zombie.
resolved Cutting Oddity RPG pages Videogame
Folks, it's time to face facts: Oddity is never coming out. It's been five years since the initial announcement trailer with no major updates afterwards, over 17 years since the project started development as Mother 4, and the hype for this game has all but dried up. Since all of the Mother 4 pre-release material has been made obsolete and mostly deleted from the internet, we only have one trailer and a Twitter page that is barely updated to go off of.
When I did a second clean-up (the first clean-up was mostly to remove gushing) removing anything that went off of outdated (pre-rebrand) material or Word of God (which isn't allowed), there was barely anything left. On the Characters page alone, many of the folders were blank and that was before I touched them.
Also worth noting that there were a ton of commented out examples on the Characters page which I removed (there were also a bunch on the main page too before I cut those during my first clean-up). Commenting out examples on an unreleased work in anticipation for the work's release is also not allowed.
Yes, there is gameplay footage in the trailer but it barely tells us anything other than "it's a Mother-inspired RPG." Not much of a premise, and certainly not enough to warrant a page, especially when no information regarding the story, setting, and characters have been revealed afterwards. Literally the only information we have about the setting is "It takes place in a small town in 70s America." There are ten tropes on the main page but half of them are about the Modern Mind enemy instead of the game itself or the overall setting of the game. There's no release date, and at this rate there never will be.
Taking all of this into account I feel there is no longer a viable work page. I propose a cut of Oddity's pages and the material in Oddity's main page be moved to Release Date-Less Work Descriptions in the event the game does get a release.
Edited by supernintendo128resolved Fair whodunit according to van dine.
I'm looking for examples of works that follow the twenty rules for a good detective story written by SS Van Dine, apart from the mysteries he wrote himself. There are many examples of knox's decalogue in the trope Fair-Play Whodunnit, but none about these other rules.
Edited by luigirovatti

here's a post on reddit explaining my point a little better : Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show I can considered to be a classic. It's shaped TV and pop culture in a very unique way, in way few does trough the history of medias. Hell, even today, there are articles saying "this is the new "Buffy"" or "this could be a worthy "Buffy" descendant". One of the many aspects that made Buffy so iconic and memorable were the characters. The characters of Buffy are what I can considered to be iconic. I don't really like that word because I think people like to use it a bit too much but I think it applies here. Let's dive into the characters I think had the more impact on pop culture :
Angel : The brooding hero, lurking in the dark who ends up being the good guy the girl fall in love with, I'm obviously talking about Edward Cull... No wait, not at all, it was Angel. Let's admit it, from the first moment Angel turned into a vampire in Buffy's bedroom, it was the beginning of a common theme in teen dramas. Edward, Stefan, Bill, all take their inspo from Angel. They also happend to have a dark side hidden all along. The romance between Angel and Buffy inspired generations of writers, I mean, Scott and Allison in Teen Wolf (especially at the end of season 2 when Allison happen to become one of the bad guys while season 2 have been bulding the tension between them...). The secret circle have this curse that stops Cassie and Adam to consume their love. Same thing with Legacies when the main girl's love interest become mud because...They slept together, like girly, what is this. The end of Becoming : Once More With Feeling season 5 finale remind me of it, same thing with the end of Chilling adventures of Sabrina season 2, with this episode of Legacies season 4 and I know some of y'all will comes to my neck saying but it just a coincidence, main love interests die sometimes...I'm aware and I know thank you but also, I'm not sutpid. I know a certain character's death in The O.C. has nothing to do with Buffy, I know that the death of another certain character in Teen Wolf (despite the MANY connections between the 2) has nothing to do with Buffy. The reason I'm giving those exemples is because, well, the similarities are there. Anyway, I'm done talking about Angel. Let's talk about his arch-rival now.
Spike : Spike is an anomaly. He's a character that shouldn't hold such a big place in the show, because Joss didn't attend him to but I'm glad he's here. I was asking questions around my high school about if people knew Buffy and, despite most of them not actually watching the show, they knew the name and were saying stuff like '"isn't the show with the cheeleader slaying vampires" or "isnt it the original Twilight with the girl falling in love with vampires" and during those interventions, a lot of them mentions Spike, trough his hair, but also by his name sometimes. I think Spike is a character many have tried to replicate but very rarely succed. Characters like Damon Salvatore are fun for a while before it becomes clear that the writers have no intentions to change him or do anything meaningful with him on the long term. Eric Northman tried it and almost succeed before season 5 and beyond. Crowley from Supernatural shares some similarities but those characteristics are used in kind of a superficial level. Hook (Once Upon A T Ime), Luki from MCU etc.... Plus, the tv tropes "Badass Decay" directly comes from Spike, as it was named Spikefication for a long time. There's an article about how Spike open the gate for bad boys getting redemption for the girls they love and along the characters he might influenced was Jess Mariano (Gilmore Girls), Chuck Bass (Gossip Girl)... I mean there was bad boys before Spike, like let's be for real, but characters like Dylan from Beverly Hills helped built the "bad boy" archetype as wikipedia and articles are telling about but not really expend it further.
Cordelia Chase : I already wrote a whole post about the influence of Cordy on the mean girl archetype feel free to read it : https://www.reddit.com/r/buffy/comments/1ifd02a/the_impact_of_cordelia_chase_on_pop_cultures_mean/
Also there is this video explaining her impact : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Nt4lgzREk
But without Cordelia Chase, characters like Summer Roberts, Brooke Davis, Katie Fitch, Cheryl Blossom, Lydia Martin, Caroline Forbes,Lizzie Saltzman etc....
Willow Rosenberg : Willow is one of the most important character in the LGBTQ+ community. The critics also appreciated the fact that Willow, was a proud Jewish and that she was good representation for girls. The impact of Willow goes beyond just her sexuality. The character of Willow and her journey is one of the most interting thing on TV ever. The sidekicks of the main characters in teen dramas owns a lot to Willow. I mean Josie Saltzman is a copy of Willow (especially her turn into Dark Josie). Willow is a character with a lot of depth : She start off as this shy, nerdy girl who had no so much respect towards herself. She's smart and really competant in a lot of things but it's obvious that she put herself down and that she don't believe in herself. She has a crush on Xander since years and never dared do anything about it, she always let people walk all over her without any complaints. However she seems to be all positive about and almost childish (which was something changed from the writers. Originally, the actress playing Willow was kinda moody and seems to mooping about herself a lot but the writers wanted Willow to be someone smiling and positive despite all the shit she was taking). Her meeting Buffy made her gaining confidence more. She doesn't want to admit it, but it's obvious that Willow wants people to see that she can be strong and powerful. I can't deny that Willow, especially in the early seasons, wants to help people a lot and she wants to be useful. But she also craves for people to see it and acknoledge it and when it happens, Willow get kinda cocky and arrogant, like Giles alread said once. The Dark Persona thing didn't start with Willow but a lot of characters wants to replicate what made Dark Willow an iconic villain of the show. Betty Cooper turn into Dark Betty is just Dark Willow without debt (because Roberto Aguirre Sacasa just wants an excuse to sexualize the character). Void Stiles from Teen Wolf is clearly a descedant of Dark Willow (even tho, done better on some aspects). Mac from Veronica Mars was clearly meant to the Willow of the show and we could go on and on about it. But let's move on.
Xander Harris : Seth Cohen, Stiles Stilinski, Matt Donovan... Please bffr, Xander was clearly a mjor influence on them. Like, the nerdy boy having a crush on the Valley/Mean/Popular girl, pinning over her for a long time and having a chance to finally get it. I mean Xander (Stiles, Seth, Sid from Skins), fall in love with Buffy (Lydia, Summer, Michelle) who kinda ignore him or consider him as a brother, and he doesn't notice that the girl, less "attractive" and "confident" or not girly enough, is pinning over him secretly (Erica, Anna, Cassie). Either way, while Xander don't end up being with Buffy, he's ending up being with Cordelia (who is basically the original Lydia and Summer). The popular/mean girl ending up with the nerd boy is it. In the 90s, the nerd boy could pin over the popular girl but never quite got her because he realized he worth better than that or someting. It was always the jerk, popular guy falling in love with the nerdy girl . However, I firmly believe Xander and Cordelia are the blueprint for (and almost every shows I'm gonna quote already talked about Buffy has one of their influence) : Stiles and Lydia, Seth and Summer, Dan and Blair, Sid and Michelle, MG and Lizzie, Naomi and Max etc.... He's the everyman. The normal man who is always questionning his place in the group being the normal one without special skills or powers (Cisco from The Flash, Matt from The Vampire Diaries and basically every shows on The CW with a supernatural setting has one of those).
Rupert Giles : While maybe the most subtle but Giles also had it's own fair share of impact on some characters on TV. Keith Mars was the Rupert Giles of Rob Thomas for Veronica Mars, Hopper from Stranger Things is this to Eleven, Alaric Saltzman is the wallmart version of Giles created by Julie Plec for TVD (as the father figure of Elena) and Legacies (for Hope Mikaelson). Lilith and Sabrina has dynamic similar to Giles and Buffy, while darker since Lilith is manipulative. Luke and Rory dynamic remind me of Giles and Buffy.
The Scooby-Gang : The Scooby-Gang as a whole is something that inspired countless of friend group setting in a supernatural world such as Stranger Things, every supernatural shows on The CW, Teen Wolf etc... We don't need to talk about the details.
How Sabrina Spellman, Kim Possible, Hope Mikaelson, Veronica Mars are not expy of Buffy Summers (and even more than them but oh well). The Scooby-Gang should've a trope named after it, same thing with the character of Giles. The romance between Cordelia and Xander should've also a trope after it and being acknoledge as an influence for shows after it. Like I just saw Lucrecia having Blair Waldorf as an expy (by the way, the character of Veronica Lodge is clearly a Blair Waldorf wallmart version.)