What about old tropes with new names?
How can you find the best but least linked tropes out there?
Worry no more: Trope Report is here.
Hello and greeting! You are reading the first edition of the new Trope Report, the wiki newsletter of TV Tropes! Our attempt at this is so far going smoothly and we hope to provide all you Tropers with the latest information. But enough of my yacking, on to the articles!
Forumwatch:
Our forum is an ever growing community and we are always welcoming new members! This week we are pleased to extend warm welcomes to Mythsage, Lilly S, Frankomatic, Nightwire, Cable, The Sh33p, Sunshine Duk, X 1 Kyriaki, Jolie Faux, Perseus, Yarou, Giantspot, Rottweiler, Minnie Gunn, Katsuun, and Tropers/lucky58! On behalf of the Troping community we wish you all enjoy your time here!
Onto the news then. As many of you may now have noticed, the Media section has gained a new subforum, VISUAL ARTS/GRAPHICS. This subforum owes its existence to several Tropers, but the main credit can be attributed to harmattane for taking it up with the Administrator, Fast Eddie. A quick request, a couple of enthusiastic cheers of approval, and there it was.
VISUAL ARTS/GRAPHICS is for the artistically inclined among us. Sort of like Writer's Block for visual arts, but it also for discussion of the visual arts media, like painters, sketcher, and whatnot. Feel like gushing about the Norman Rockwell painting you saw? Want to share your artwork or get tips from your fellow Tropers? This is the place for you.
In other news, Tropers may have noticed that the “Search Forum Titles” option bar has been added to the top center of all forum pages in addition to the bottom. This came at the request of melloncollie who argued that the search bar at the bottom was annoying to use and was likely to be unseen by newer Tropers. The “Search Forum Titles” option bar allows you to search for a word or words that appear in the names of Forum threads. For example, if I wanted to find a subject on Shakespeare I would type in “Shakespeare” in the bar, click, and it would bring up a list of all the threads that have his name in them. This enables Tropers to find a topic much more quickly and hopefully discourages duplicate threads. The “Find Post By Troper” option bar remains at the bottom of the page.
And a happy birthday to Leanan!
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes:
Tropers are a meddlesome bunch. They see something and feel an almost instinct-like urge to fix it or make it better. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Trope Repair, the subforum dedicated to the oiling, greasing, fine tuning, total overhaul, or total demolition of Tropes in order to make the wiki better manageable and sensible (What the hell are they smoking?).
- Concerning the wiki itself, Getting Crap Past the Radar now has its own icon
◊. Cute, ain't it? This icon will appear for any work or media group that has a Getting Crap Past the Radar page. Since this is a trope rather than a Just for Fun page, thiis icon will not appear on the Main Page.
- Our most recent changes have come as early as yesterday, with Earn Your Anvil being turned into Choose Your Own Aesop on account of the former being misleading.
- In an interesting turn of events Lava Is Red Hot Water is currently in the process of being renamed and merged with Lava Is Kool Aid. The two practically go together anyway so expect a Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid trope to appear instead of those two.
- The Character Page for The King Of Fighters is experiencing difficulties. That page as well as the main entry are in the process of being split according to the games storyline sagas.
- Similarly, Phantasy Star I-IV now have their own separate pages.
- In what has to be some kind of record, Wiki Talk is renamed into Derailed Train of Thought. Seriously, five days? Though it was a confusing name that did happen to be already in use by a subforum.
- Fantasy Gun Control has been limited to subversions, aversions, and otherwise non-played straight reasons only.
- YKTTW Flaming Combo Attack no longer exists. One has to wonder if anyone even knew it existed to begin with.
- I have some good news and bad news. The good news is I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico! The bad news is that Switching To GEICO has been switched with its redirect; Bad News, Irrelevant News.
- New Rules as the Plot Demands is the new name for Screw the Rules, I Have Plot!. Which as you make recall was the new name for The Catapult Turtle Flying Castle Gambit. Bets are on for how long until a fourth name is in order.
Spotlight Stealing Trope:\\ "The book awoke something dark in the woods, something evil. It took Linda. Then it came after me, it got into my hand and it went bad, so I lopped it off at the wrist." — Ash Williams, Army of Darkness.
Today we give our attention to Evil Hand, a Speculative Fiction and Horror Trope, and a subtrope of Organ Autonomy. The Evil Hand is basically a transplanted limb, usually a hand or arm, which does two things. One, act independently of the rest of the person’s body. And two, act totally against the person’s will, usually attempting to do something evil, hence the name. Just as often played straight as it is played for laughs.
The idea of your own limb suddenly acting independently is creepy enough; you are basically loosing control of your own body. Then to top that is usually acts maliciously in which case not only have you lost control of yourself, your body is actively trying to do you harm. Depending on how severe the evil of this hand one may be forced to take extreme measures like Ash Williams up there.
On the other hand, there are few things funnier to watch then a guy smacking himself around. In less serious works, or moments of comedy in serious works, an Evil Hand often provides a dose of silliness. The most famous example of this would be Dr Strangelove’s hand which regularly hit him in the face or did Nazi salutes. Similarly Fry and the Devilbot of Futurama found their switched hands doing… uncomfortable things to the rest of their bodies, much to the audience’s amusement.
The earliest example of this trope in action is in a Grimm fairytale where several brothers switch limbs with animals and a criminal to disastrous effects. As this Trope is of the more specific variety there really isn’t much more to say. Well, now you know!
Edits From The Editor:
And now a word from Fast Eddie! After a problem was brought up on one of the Troper Tales pages Fast Eddie said:
Troper Tales. Who really cares?[evilgrin]
Needs More Wiki Love:
Above The Ruins is an Action Adventure and Ending Trope which is, in its own words, "After a big, property-damage-causing event, most often fighting the Big Bad, the main characters are seen on a cliff or plateau overlooking the ruins that resulted. Naturally, Scenery Gorn is heavily used."
And that’s it. Seriously, two sentences worth of description and that’s all. Not even a picture. The trope has about 40 examples but a lack of a good description is just laziness. As Tropers it is our responsibility to give every trope the love it deserves. So if you have the time please take a look at Above The Ruins and flesh it out a bit. A picture would be nice as well.
Add More Here:
That’s a wrap folks. We sincerely hope you enjoyed our hastily-put-together-at-the-last-minute First Edition. Any praise or complaints can be directed to this thread or the Chief Editor’s PM box. Speaking of which, this edition was put together by myself but starting next week expect articles and columns from Morven, krrackknut, Gelzo, and Freezair For A Limited Time. Thanks for reading and see you next week!
