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resolved Fanfic self-recommendation on FanficRecs/RWBY Web Original
(Why do the RWBY pages get so much attention here?)
Skybrigadier, the author of The Reactsverse, recommended Weiss Reacts (the verse's first entry) on RWBY's Fanfic Recs page.
I've removed it from the page, under the assumption that any following recommendations are in reaction (heh) to the illicit self-rec. Allowing Weiss Reacts to stay on the page despite initially being self-recced would set a very bad precedent for fanfic recs pages.
Edited by bwburke94resolved Collaborative Works and Auto-Erotic Troping
I think it's time for me to finally face the music on this one.
About ten years ago, my fellow Dino Attack RPG players and I created the RPG's page here on TV Tropes. In addition to cataloging many tropes from the RPG itself (across four trope pages and multiple character pages), we also created YMMV pages (including awesome, heartwarming, tearjerker, and nightmare fuel subpages) and a Trivia page. Back then, most of us had simply browsed TV Tropes for fun and weren't aware of all the rules and policies.
Recently, I've had to take more time to better familiarize myself with TV Tropes' rules. One such policy that I've seen brought up here in Ask The Tropers is Auto-Erotic Troping for works that you've created. Basically, the key point here is "No Audience Reactions" and "No Trivia that can't be individually researched". The latter seems easy enough; just make sure there's a public source that can verify whatever is added to the Trivia page. But the former... where does it stand with a collaborative work, such as an RPG with Loads and Loads of Writers?
Even before seeing this policy, I tended to be mindful of any YMMV entries that I'd add. Essentially, I would only add my own reactions to things other players had written, or other players' reactions to things I had written. For example, Dr. Michelle Glados is a character I wrote, but her entry under Complete Monster is based directly upon a comment
from another player. Meanwhile, I added entries for Kotua as That One Boss and Plastic Serpent as Unintentionally Sympathetic, which are my own personal reactions to characters written by other players. However, this is not always the case, especially in older YMMV entries from ten years ago, or with Hilarious in Hindsight (where I confess that I've been adding some entries based on my own writings without other peoples' reactions, largely because the actual "audience reaction" aspect of the trope is loosely applied at best).
I am willing to cull the RPG's YMMV pages if they aren't outright cut in order to meet TV Tropes policy. But first, I just want to know whether my "only trope writer reactions to other writers" rule of thumb is kosher under Auto-Erotic Troping collaborative works, or if I've been doing this all wrong for the past ten years. Please advise.
resolved How to suggest a rename for a trope?
Ever since I saw the Everything Has Rhythm trope existed, I've been thinking it should be renamed to Rhythm And Brooms.
The reason for this is because the stereotype involves brooms being used as a makeshift dance partner, and is a pun of “rhythm and blues”.
I haven't suggested it, because A) I don't know where one would go to do that. And B) I don't want to do it myself, as I'm pretty sure that changing a trope name without consultation is tantamount to vandalism.
Anyone willing to give me a hand?
Edited by Trogdor7620resolved Strange, complainy creator page
I just noticed that the creator page Creator.Ake Ohlmarks is, to say the least, a bit unusual. It starts as a normal creator page, saying that he was a Swedish scholar and author, and briefly lists some of his works and that he's infamous for his translation of The Lord of the Rings.
Then it launches into a long, detailed list of why this translation is so bad. This makes up about 95% of the page.
One take is that all this is pure complaining. The criticism is not unfair: he took far too many liberties with the source material and committed many outright translation errors, and Tolkien himself was not pleased. But, still, spending 95% of a creator page blasting one of his many works seems like complaining to me, no matter how deserved the criticism is.
You could argue that all this should just be cut as complaining. But the analysis is somewhat interesting, so I'm wondering whether it can be salvaged in some way, perhaps as an Analysis page. Or is it OK to have this on the Creator page? That's why I'm not taking this directly to Complaining cleanup.
Edited by GnomeTitanresolved Trope Launched Before It Was Ready
On the draft for Peculiar Penguin
, both Booplesnoot and myself expressed concern over the scope of the trope, both saying it was too broad and that the page needed work before launching. Bedford took some of our advice, but also ignored large parts of it and went ahead and launched once the trope drifted off the front page.
Is this kosher? The page had just barely passed the minimum wait time and had its launch announced prior, but to my understanding the launch announcement is to be delayed when there's an issue.
EDIT: Changing some of my wording, the draft had more hats than I remembered.
Also, is there a dedicated place to discuss recent launches?
Edited by MurlocAggroBresolved Verifiable source for character name? Film
The Characters/SonysSpiderManUniverse page gives the name "Corinne Wan" for the Malaysian EMT that the Riot symbiote takes over in Venom, but to my knowledge her name is unrevealed in the film itself (she has a name-tag but I personally can't make it out) and Michelle Lee is only credited as "Malaysia EMT/Riot Host".
I checked the edit history for the page and the editor who added it cites the SSU wiki as their source, which doesn't provide any sources for that being her name... so is there an official reliable source for the EMT's name being Corinne Wan?
EDIT: Her nametag does say Corinne Wan, but it's hard to make out since her full name is only briefly visible at the beginning of the movie.
Edited by Arawn999resolved Self-recommended fanfic at GoW: Ragnarok, remove or hide?
Was cleaning up the FanficRecs.God Of War PS 4 and while checking through the history, Cisco The Soto had self-recommended their own fic
in 2023. On the one hand, that's in violation of the "No Self-Recommendations" rule at Fan Fic Recommendations. At the same time, there's already a Trope page for the fic created by Darklightprince in 2024. Should I remove that entry, or hide it?
resolved Possible edit war, spoilers on headers Videogame
Yuusha Fan has added a spoiler tag
on a header in this character page. I removed the tag
and then he added back in anyways
. The thing he added is literally a big time spoiler. Also there is no edit reasons, already DMed him about it. Can I undo that thing? I've already undid it once and I do not want to risk an edit war myself.
resolved Question about pages of works that you authored.
I have written a book, it is currently in the process of being published.
Once it is published, there are the guidelines of The Fic May Be Yours, but the Trope Page Is Ours.
But one thing in particular struck me as odd about that policy: specifically, the trivia section:
"You may not add any examples marked as Trivia that contain information not known to the general public"
What exactly does this mean? That I need to write about it somewhere first before being allowed to put it on Tv Tropes? I do not have a public online presence, I am not a professional author, but I am here, a troper. By definition I am one of you. Would Tv Tropes itself not count as being "known to the general public"? Or do I have to make a twitter account that no one follows, write it there, and then link to it when writing a trivia entry?
resolved "Stealing" someone else's edit?
I know this wiki isn't actually about credit for providing examples, context and such but is it actually possible to "steal" and edit of a page, i.e. delete the entry and then add it yourself in a way it doesn't show in page history?
I don't remember every single thing I wrote here but still have a disturbing suspicion that I was the one who wrote this entry
.
resolved Is my grammar good enough with Grammarly?
So I posted my Get Help With English forum like the one below two days but no one checked it so the next day I reposted it again but still, no one checked it. Is it because it doesn't need to be fixed because of Grammarly or because I was punished for my past actions? Here's the post that I was talking about.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: In the end, when Brittney and her presumed dead mother celebrate their victory, her mother takes a slip of the drink that Brittney hands out to her, she says that the drink is strong. Brittney gives a smug smile and quote "They do make them strong here, don't they?", implying that Brittney poisoned her mother to get the money for herself.
- Food Fight: Combine with Cat Fight. When Emilia refuses to move while Ivy politely tries to leave during the family dinner with The Ardiente Family, Ivy grows impatient and shoves the cake (that Emilia was holding) to Emilia's face and an enraged Emilia starts fighting with Ivy while the cake smears on them.
Is my grammar good enough to send?
Note: Yes, I am aware that there are other volunteers and I shouldn't rely on one person but two days ago and probably today they were not available. And I am a changed person so I didn't beg in a post nor I do send a pm complaint about something anymore.
Edited by Bubblepigresolved ZCE re-commented out
i was looking over the YMMV.Charlottes Web page (mainly trying to find an edit I made, but not important to this query), and noticed that the Ensemble Dark Horse example just simply listing Templeton and nothing else had been already back-and-forthed over by different users:
- originally added as a ZCE in 2017
- jamaicanst01 commented it out in 2019
- and Pamina uncommented it in 2022 without expanding on it
i was going to re-comment it out again, but i don't want to fumble myself into edit-warring over it...
resolved Is this comment contradictory?
So I was editing Inside Out and came across this comment below a obvious ZCE for All-CGI Cartoon stating: "The above trope's page says it allows zero-context examples since the title is self-explanatory. So, please, don't comment it out." Site policy demands that ZCEs should be commented out or have added context. This appears to have been added
by Asterlix last year. I did check the page for All-CGI Cartoon and found no notice at all supporting this. Is this the troper trying to get away with adding ZCEs by making up their own rules?
resolved something wrong with the Baldur's gate 3 Origin Characters page? Videogame
Specifically this one. Checking the history of the page or the edit page, i can clearly see there is content here. But when i try to look at the page itself... it's blank.
resolved What's the line between Bad Boss and Mean Boss? Web Original
In response to a previous query
, I recently moved all the examples of Bad Boss on Not Always Working's page to Mean Boss due to trope misuse. Now I'm considering moving the Mean Boss examples to a new page, but I'm wondering now if some of the Mean Boss examples counted as Bad Boss examples after all.
For instance (text copied from the article itself),
- This boss
expects a worker to clean up an active biohazard without any sort of protective gear, because calling the city about it would cost too much, yet loaning the worker equipment they're not trained in, or letting them buy the equipment themselves, would be illegal. The worker quits on the spot.
- This boss
tries to send an employee out for carts in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, and then screams at and fires them when they (rightfully) object. Luckily, Laser-Guided Karma kicks in right away when her boss finds this out, and, thanks to an extensive history of screaming in front of customers, she is immediately fired the next day for intentionally putting the employee's life in danger, and later gets thrown behind bars for assaulting her ex-husband over a lost custody battle.
- The bar owner in this story
refuses to reschedule a mandatory meeting (which turns out to be just an hour of patting herself on the back for the bar's performance during a busy period, ignoring the staff's efforts) despite a two-foot blizzard being forecast, and threatens to fire anyone who doesn't attend. Despite their obvious reservations, the poster manages to get in just one minute late... and gets a write-up for it. The poster quits on the spot. Those who failed to attend — most of the staff — are indeed fired, but promptly sue for wrongful termination and win; it also comes up that the staff weren't paid for attending the meeting. The Department of Labor gets involved, and not only is the bar forced to close, but the owner ends up having to sell her home and many of her possessions to cover legal fees, damages, and back pay. At the end, the poster notes that none of this would have happened if she had just taken their advice in the first place and rescheduled.
- The grocery store manager in this story
won't allow the poster, a lot attendant, to come in for a drink of water, despite being in the middle of a July heatwave in Florida. After four hours of this, a passing gentleman convinces him to go inside, offering to speak to the manager in person and even buy some water. The manager immediately spots the poster and fires him. However, said gentleman, who turns out to be the regional director, steps in, angrily berates the manager for her reckless endangerment of an employee and gives her a fourteen-day suspension — which soon escalates to her dismissal, as it turns out that she has been forcing underage employees to work longer than labor laws allow and denying them mandatory breaks.
- This supervisor
refuses to let the OP, whose Psycho Ex-Boyfriend is always waiting for her by the door at closing time, leave through an alternate exit, laughing in her face when she has had enough and threatens to quit. She does (sending her resignation to the "big boss" who completely understands), and even goes through the unemployment process... but the supervisor refuses to accept this and treats it as her going AWOL, finally calling her up and threatening to fire her if she doesn't show up for work, and ignoring her protests that she doesn't work there any more; the poster finally agrees to come in just to shut her up (but doesn't do so, obviously). After her number gets blocked, the supervisor starts sending employees to the OP's house to demand that she come in to work, though all they do is "chill" at her house (and get paid for doing so). The poster eventually moves (and the ex is dealt with legally).
The impression I get from Bad Boss in my last query was that BadBosses are willing to kill or let serious harm befall their underlings. Would you guys say these examples count?
Edited by DancouMaryuuresolved Can Hypocrite apply to the author of a work or just its characters? Web Original
For instance, say the author of a work clearly in an author's note expresses contempt for a certain trope or story beat, but then in the work itself they use that same trope or story beat straight without irony or deconstruction when necessary to suit the narrative.
EDIT: If not, is there a more appropriate trope to use?
Edited by Raxisresolved Possible Edit War in YMMV Page for Elemental? Western Animation
I only realized after my last edit
on YMMV.Elemental 2023 that I might've accidentally been part of an edit war on whether or not Fireboy and Watergirl should be linked despite not having a page yet. I was the first one to make the deliberate redlink here
, but The Jayman 49 removed it here
without explanation. Hqami then added it back
, explaining why it should remain redlinked, but then Matthew Guy 6131994 removed it again
without explanation, and that was when I accidentally re-added it without checking the edit history. Is this still an edit war even if it doesn't follow the ABA user pattern of adding/removing? And should there also be a commented-out note not to remove the deliberate redlink because of this? I sincerely apologize for accidentally getting myself into this, and will make sure that I read the edit history before making any changes.
resolved Rewriting Walkthrough Mode Page Videogame
Here's the summary of Walkthrough Mode:
For example, let's say Alice adds the Puppy Stomper 3000 to That One Boss. Bob follows this up by stating, "Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z." Then Clara comes by and adds, "To be fair, you need Sven in your party to use the Ring of Puppy Protection. It's easier to use the Stick of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to bring the Ring of Puppy Protection to the Ring Transumation Fairy in Scary Town."
Using the example from the above paragraph, here's what it looks like on a page.
- That One Boss: Puppy Stomper 3000 is hard because of blah blah.
- Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z.
- To be fair, you need Sven in your party to use the Ring of Puppy Protection. It's easier to use the Stick of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to bring the Ring of Puppy Protection to the Ring Transumation Fairy in Scary Town.
- Actually, the Puppy Stomper isn't tough if you have the Ring of Puppy Protection, which only requires you to do X, Y and Z.
The first two paragraphs basically describe a videogame mechanics-themed version of Thread Mode, which... editors shouldn't do either, but if all the page has to say is "don't thread mode about game mechanics", it probably doesn't need to exist — just point to Thread Mode instead.
To my understanding, what Walkthrough Mode should tell readers is that they should avoid cluttering examples with numbers, niche mechanics, and long-winded guides that are only tangentially relevant to how there is an example of a trope — this is suggested to me by that last paragraph. Here's a version I think could work, which emphasizes that:
For example, let's say Alice lists the Puppy Stompertron as an example of That One Boss, engaging in Walkthrough Mode to do so:
- That One Boss: The Puppy Stompertron appears at the end of the Puppy Factory and presents a massive roadblock to the player. It's got a massive 70,000 HP health bar (by the end of the factory, you'll be dealing 300 DPS at best), has immunity to Bleed, Stun, Dizzy, Confuse, and Love, and all of its attacks are That One Attack. Puppy Squishing deals 10,000 damage and can only be survived with the Anti-Ten Thousand Medal from the Numbers Swamp, Puppy Flamethrowing is supposed to deal only 40 damage to the player once but a bug with the level geometry can cause the flames to deal 400 damage if the player's standing on the many hills around the arena, and the Dog Food Ingester will heal it back to full unless the player has done the sidequest to obtain Dog Food Poison, which is easily missable at the start of the game. The only thing that can make this easy is the Puppy Stompertron Control Device to cut its HP in half, which is only available to builds that use the Dagger of Air Vent Entry, a 37 Charisma build to take it from the Puppy Factory Foreman (you can't go with any other level of Charisma, he starts liking you too much if you do), or a glitched maximum Speed character to clip through the northeast locked door and access the room where it's stored.
As you can see, this entry is hard to read because it's loaded with tangents on whole-game strategies and numbers that mean nothing to an outsider, when all that's needed is to explain how the Puppy Stompertron boss is harder than the rest of the game. Let's see an example that does just that:
- That One Boss: The Puppy Stompertron appears at the end of the Puppy Factory and presents a massive roadblock to the player. It has massive HP for that point at the game, immunity to many of the useful status effects, and all of its attacks are That One Attack — dealing massive damage or healing itself to full. The only ways to get past it painlessly involve highly-specific strategies and/or exploiting glitches, neither of which are available to every character class.
This entry is much more succinct in stating why the Puppy Stompertron is an example of That One Boss: it has high stats, immunity to statuses, powerful attacks, and the mechanics to make it easier aren't universally applicable. By cutting out details, the example becomes easier to read and digestible, yet the non-Walkthrough Mode entry still manages to communicate key points on why the Puppy Stompertron is this trope.
As a side bonus, when talking about games that are receiving post-launch updates, avoiding exact numbers gives a degree of futureproofing. In many games, if a change needs to be made, the numbers are usually first to be adjusted, so if the Puppy Stompertron ever has its HP or damage values changed this way, the example doesn't suddenly need an update to correct those parts.
While it is understandable why Walkthrough Mode happens, wiki articles are not walkthroughs for how to beat That One Boss or That One Level. Trope examples should be generic enough that those who aren't familiar with the game can understand them, and shouldn't be cluttered with something like the exact attack strength of a weapon or helpful asides about which two of the three Superbosses can be affected by the Game-Breaker. This isn't to say that you shouldn't list your example with little to no information, which is the opposite problem; you just need to explain why your example is that of the trope in question in a way that's digestible to the average reader.
See also Word Cruft, another writing element that makes examples bloated and indigestible by adding too many unnecessary words.
Does this look good to use on the page?
Edited by Pyhrrous

Hey! So I have a question. I found one of the early illustrations in the Joker playing card (not Batman's Joker; the playing card itself) of some sort of demonic jester or jerster-like demon who's laughing his a$$ off
◊ and I want to put it in one of the tropes (I was thinking it would go perfectly in the Monster Clown trope, but maybe it could also be in the Our Demons Are Different and/or the Playing Card Motifs trope). The thing is that I don't really know the ORIGIN of that same illustration in the first place. I tried searching on Google but I didn't find any info., and then I asked in Quora (https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-an-image-of-a-demon-devil-laughing-in-one-of-the-many-illustrations-in-the-Joker-card-not-in-Batmans-Joker-cards-but-in-the-real-Joker-playing-card-itself?ch=10&share=5d54e8c2&srid=FTX7M
), in which one of the users gave me a POSSIBLE explanation (I hope (s)he didn't erased it), but I don't know if it's the right answer and I don't wanna take risks. Could you tell me please what's your opinion?
Edited by UzarNaimBer15