Where do you go to read the latest about new tropes?
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.
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.
Trope Report is a monthly newsletter that intends to showcase works and tropes from all corners of this website. It also aims to keep the troper hivemind updated with pertinent trope changes and discussions.
Guess what? It's gonna be May
, and we're on issue 5 of the Trope Report revival!
One of the reasons we restarted Trope Report was to bring attention to some newer tropes, and this issue delivers on that front — there are a whopping five baby tropes in the New Tropes section that can use your examples and wiki magic. We also have a couple of big-ticket items in the Changelog that I hope you pay attention to — in particular, Up To Eleven as we know it no longer exists. And as always, check out the works that have been curated for this month's issue, and consider joining the forum discussions linked here.
Happy troping!
~Synchronicity, Chief Trope Report Officer
open/close all folders
Tropes and Works
Trope Spotlight
Obscure Tropes
This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.- You need to take a week of vacation from work to go on a secret mission to save your town. However, there's no way your conniving, verbally abusive boss will let you take even a day off. But you have to ask, and... he granted your vacation request immediately. Huh. That worked out much easier than expected. Your boss just held the Kindness Ball. Perhaps he's in a good mood, or he learned about your mission and knows his priorities, or he felt nice for no particular reason. The plot had to advance, and he temporarily Took a Level in Kindness to move the story forward. The opposite trope to the Jerkass Ball, Kindness Ball is one of the obscurer tropes on the Ball Index.
New Tropes
This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.- March 10th. April 13th. May 4th. These may be unremarkable dates to the general public, but if you're a Super Mario Bros. fan, a Homestuck fan, or a Star Wars fan respectively, you may recognize them as holidays. Pop Culture Holiday is a YMMV item that launched in March to record the dates that fandoms — and sometimes even the creators themselves — hold significant. Whether it's the work's release date, an Arc Number, a character's birthday, a punny number, or just a date mentioned in the work that became a meme, this page serves as your unofficial calendar to those days of the year.
- We celebrate our mothers in May, but we can't forget that sometimes (especially in media), mothers (and fathers) can get a bit nosy, especially when it comes to who you're dating. The new trope Parent-Preferred Suitor, launched in February, records cases where someone's parents push them to date a certain person. Maybe that person is very wealthy, maybe they're the "safest" option available, or maybe they always wanted a child like that person. Either way, there's bound to be drama when this parent's child decides to date someone else instead.
- During the COVID-19 Pandemic, you may have paid more attention to stories about contagious plagues breaking out. If so, the new trope Plague Episode, a subtrope of Sick Episode launched on April 6th, may interest you. This covers episodes of serialized works where multiple characters get sick with a quickly-spreading disease and other characters try desperately to stay healthy. Ironically, this trope needs help spreading across the wiki so it can become healthy, as most of its examples haven't been crosswicked.
- Spiders. Some find them scary, some consider them sneaky pests... and apparently, some find them sexy. Seductive Spider was launched on April 9th and covers the trend in media of Spider People and spider-themed characters being sexually alluring. Factors in this trope include the way spiders ensnare their prey, the hourglass shape of a spider's figure, and the feminine appearance of Tsuchigumo and Jorogumo youkai. It may not be accurate to that tiny thing dangling from your ceiling fan, but as the page demonstrates, fictional arachnids can be quite attractive.
- Punctuation changes the meaning of all our newly launched tropes. This one is the biggest stickler for grammatical correctness. ... Oh, wait. Sorry! That didn't come out right. Let me restart.
Punctuation Changes the Meaning: of all our newly launched tropes, this one is the biggest stickler for grammatical correctness. If a line has a misplaced comma, or you add an apostrophe here and a period there, the entire statement could mean the opposite of what was originally intended. Something really bad could happen as a result. Or really good. That's the power of language for you.
Work Spotlight
New Work Page Spotlight
This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.- It Takes Two (2021) came out on March 26th, with its page first created on March 25th and then redirected to its current title on April 11th. This game's story follows Cody and May, an unhappy couple whose plans to divorce are interrupted when they get trapped in the bodies of dolls owned by their daughter Rose. With the help of a magical self-help book, they rekindle their relationship and try to get back to their daughter. This game is interesting in that it lacks a single player option, as it's designed for real friends and couples to play together as a team. To honor that message of teamwork, let's collaborate to spruce up this article by listing any video game tropes we find in the game.
- Do you like Friday Night Funkin'? Do you like yandere characters? Then you may be interested in VS Sky, a page created on April 12th. This Funkin' Game Mod, based off a TikTok parody account, pits the Boyfriend and Girlfriend against a fan named Sky, who enters the world of the game with the intent to force the Boyfriend to be Sky's boyfriend instead. If you're into rhythm games and parodies of Loony Fans, then check out the game and help flesh out its page.
- Speaking of fangirls, ever hear of the musical Fangirls? This 2019 Australian musical, inspired by interviews with hundreds of real fangirls and the way society treats them, follows a teenage girl named Edna who wants nothing more than to meet her favorite pop star Harry... and takes quite drastic measures to reach that goal. The work page was created on March 24th, but still needs help, especially since the initial description was plagiarized from two offsite sources. The cast album is out as of April 30th, and the show is set to begin another tour in 2021, so if you're a fan of this modern musical comedy or want to become one, give the page some love.
- Interested in action-packed gang dramas? What about one starring anthropomorphic animals? NonPack is a Furry Webcomic whose page was created on April 12th, starring an anthro dog named Karen leading a criminal gang in a fictional equivalent to Puerto Rico. While only the first couple of issues have been troped presently, there are 71 issues available to read on Webtoon, so if you're into the premise, check out the comics and spruce up the page.
Older/Obscure Work Spotlight
This section is intended to highlight works that may no longer be in the zeitgeist — but that doesn't mean they're any less tropable.- Around the World in 80 Days is a Match-Three Game released in 2008, based on the book by Jules Verne. Unlike most games of this sort, the goal in each normal level is trying to drop pieces of an object to the bottom of the playing board before the time for the day runs out. Every stamp level instead has you uncover every tile on the game board to reveal it. Matching four or more pieces at once also fills your power-up, which has four levels of charge affecting how potent it is, and there are things like bags of money and hearts that can also be dropped for bonuses. It's a neat adaptation for fans looking for a more original game of this genre, especially since some of the later levels are unforgiving.
- Push-Over is a Puzzle Game released in 1992. You play as G.I. Ant who (in most versions) has to retrieve Quavers chips for (then) brand mascot Colin Curvy or (in the SNES version) cash for the original character Captain Rat. During gameplay, he has to knock down all dominoes in a level and hit the three-striped one last, then exit through a door that opens once he does so. He can push a domino once, arrange their positions as needed and retry the level if he fails. Despite what the title implies, the game is no pushover, as there are several possible failure conditions, like dropping a domino and destroying it or falling down from too great a height; different domino patterns indicate different properties; and many of the late-game levels require complex solutions. Still, if you love trying to make an ideal stack of dominoes fall and thinking, this one is right up your alley.
- Talisman is a tabletop game by Games Workshop released in 1983. Each player controls a character based on a fantasy class, like a Barbarian, a Priest, or a Ninja, each of whom have different starting stats and abilities. Each character moves by the number of squares on the board depending on the dice roll. Depending on what they land on, they pick up Adventure cards that have items to take or enemies to battle, or visit other locations with positive and negative effects. Players collect items and improve their characters until one of them reduces all other players' life after reaching the Crown of Command in the middle of the board, but there are alternate winning conditions in later editions. There were many expansions to the game released down the line and even some editions themed after other properties, like Kingdom Hearts and Batman. If you lived in Poland, chances are you played this game in the 1980s as Magia i Miecz.
Works That Need a Page
This section takes a page from the List of Shows That Need Summary. It is intended to spotlight works that people have been talking about enough to link around the site, but don't have a page yet. If the work page link turns blue after this, then we know we've done our job!- There are several television stations (both major and cable) from around the world that don't have a page! Many of these are from non-English-speaking countries, such as the animation channels Spacetoon (Arab world), 2x2 (Russia), and the defunct Locomotion (Latin America), as well as major channels such as Mediaset's channels (Italy). TV channels are often used to contextualize overdosed tropes such as Bowdlerize and Germans Love David Hasselhoff, so it's worth having pages on them.
Non-English Work Spotlight
The wiki may be in English, but that doesn't mean non-English media are any less important! This section focuses on works that may have a language barrier to deal with — but are worth it if you do.- Franko: The Crazy Revenge is a Beat 'em Up by the Polish studio World Software for the Amiga and ported to the MS-DOS two years later. The two playable characters are Franko and Alex, with the former seemingly dying but still appearing as a playable character, versus a guy named Klocek and all sorts of weird enemies (like ZOMO troopers, a software pirate, and exhibitionists). The main highlights are the sheer brutality, usage of large images loaded in chunks for level design (this results in less repetition compared to using tiles, but also Loads and Loads of Loading), and a cool soundtrack as well as Polish voice clips in the audio department. Still, if we got everything that was planned, the game would have taken up twelve disks.
- OS-tan is an Moe Anthropomorphism series for Microsoft Windows systems originating on Japan's Futaba Channel. It started with Windows ME-tan, a clumsy maid, based on the fact that the original Windows ME was a glitchy OS that removed real mode DOS. Afterwards, other Windows systems and other system lines have received an OS-tan representation, and even Microsoft Japan decided to join the fun with OS-tan-like mascots for Windows 7, 8, and 10. It can be fascinating to see how your favorite or most nostalgic system is portrayed as an anime girl, who all have designs and personalities that reflect the systems that inspired them. If you want a more in-depth list of them, you can see a wiki dedicated to them here.
- Food Fighter Clicker is an Idle Game by the Korean developers at Fffungame. It has you play as a teenage-looking boy who initially becomes full from a single boiled egg, but with upgrades purchasable for money from food, gains the ability to eat much more filling dishes than that. However, he can't bite off more than he can chew, and even if he chews, he still needs to digest. To unlock new dishes, he has to beat timed challenges involving eating a certain quantity within the time limit. There are also Unlimited Refill challenges where he has to eat a lot fast enough to infuriate the owner so he can throw him out, as well as clothes and furniture that can be won by gacha. Overall, it's a well-made idler that is balanced in a way so that you can play for free as long as you're willing to watch ads, despite a few bugs here and there.
Creator Page Spotlight
Works would be nothing without the people who make them. This section highlights authors, artists, actors, musicians, and everyone else responsible for trope creation and proliferation.- Interested in works that explore the Indian-American experience? Check out the works of Mira Nair, who's done quite a few well-regarded works in that direction, like The Namesake and Mississippi Masala. Queen of Katwe is by her as well, and she's just been tapped to create a spinoff of National Treasure for Disney+.
- No discussion of African musical history would be complete without mentioning Fela Kuti, who without a doubt is a very cool guy. A Nigerian singer and multi-instrumentalist credited with the invention of Afrobeat, he was known for his politically outspoken lyrics and rebellious attitude. The world is beginning to catch up to his music, though, and he's just been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Image/Image Caption of the Month
This section brings you the best of the recent selections from Image Pickin.
This issue's featured image comes from Green Arrow, and illustrates Master Archer.
This page had quite a difficult time finding an image. It was a bit tough to find a character having a bow and their target be in the same image without making it unwieldy. However, this image proves to be a much more succinct variation of it. On top of that, it even rhymes! Granted, bow and how is a bit tortured, but it still fits. Image Pickin' definitely made the mark on this one.
This issue's featured image comes from Green Arrow, and illustrates Master Archer.
This page had quite a difficult time finding an image. It was a bit tough to find a character having a bow and their target be in the same image without making it unwieldy. However, this image proves to be a much more succinct variation of it. On top of that, it even rhymes! Granted, bow and how is a bit tortured, but it still fits. Image Pickin' definitely made the mark on this one.
Projects and Discussions
Forumwatch
Hey guys! Welcome back to Forumwatch! In this section, we'll be telling you about what's going on in the forums — interesting discussions that may be going on in Wiki Talk, some fun forum games, or lively debates going on in On-Topic Conversations, you name it!
- On this site, Works' Pages Are a Free Launch, but that doesn't mean they should have shoddy quality in the first moments of their existence. After all, there are rules that work pages must follow in order to keep the overall wiki quality up. If you need help constructing a work page, then pay a visit to the New Work Page Workshop Thread. The people there will be glad to help anyone without experience at making work pages make something of acceptable quality.
- When you are writing a story, you might want to add a villain. Making a good antagonist can be hard work, and you might not always know what the best choice is for your story. After all, there are many different kinds of villains, and they are not always evil. For those of you who want to show off villainous characters that you have personally created and/or get advice as to how to improve on writing them, take a look at the Villain Critique Thread, where you post a profile for your villain for others to review and critique.
- Do you like falcons? Do you like soldiers? Do you like two superheroes barely cooperating with each other to take out a terrorist organization that spawned from the fallout of a big purple alien grape man's hunt for glowy rocks that he can use to kill life to save resources? Then visit the thread for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier! Hopefully you had just as good of a time watching this series as the rest of us.
- Dinosaurs are cool. They stomp around and rule everything. At least that's what a three year old would think of dinosaurs, not understanding the carnivore vs. herbivore nuance or that some dinosaurs are small or that pterodactyls are not dinosaurs. If you actually are a dinosaur nerd (or maybe a bird nerd as well), then you would love the Dinosaur nuts emerge! thread. Roar. Om nom nom. Other dino actions.
Trope/Article Changelog
This section covers renames, removals, hard-splits, merges, and wick cleaning. We'll try to keep you alerted of any major changes to the site, including perpetual projects and Wiki Talk decisions that you may have missed, but if you want to be a part of the process that affects so much of our wiki, then head over to the Trope Repair Shop on the left-hand side of the forum.
- The Reptilians has been merged with Lizard Folk because both tropes were largely about the same concept (a race of lizard humanoids). Reptilian Conspiracy has been created to catch the "reptilian conspiracy theories" examples that were left over. Check the TRS thread here for more info.
- Surprise Pregnancy was broadened and redefined as per this TRS thread. The old definition (a woman not realizing she is pregnant until late in the pregnancy) has been transplanted onto the newly created Late Pregnancy Realization.
- Up To Eleven was merged with Exaggerated Trope per TRS since the former is used as a Pothole Magnet to mean the latter. Since Up To Eleven is growing at a rate of ~7 wicks a day, changing every wick to Exaggerated Trope was deemed impossible, so no concentrated cleanup effort will take place. However, it's still advised to clean up unnecessary wicks as you see them.
- Shocking Swerve has been merged with Ass Pull since many of the examples used it to mean "Ass Pull but worse". It started out as a complaining trope about "inserting a twist for twist's sake", and the (unilateral) redefinition a few years later didn't really help it. Thread here.
- Several of The Con's many subtropes are getting merged back to The Con for lacking examples and/or having unclear names. The cuts include: Short Con, The Roper, Big Store, One Born Every Minute, Quick Change, The Tale, Massive Multiplayer Scam, Beat Bag, The Con Within a Con, Pig in a Poke, The Shill, Real Estate Scam, Spanish Prisoner, Delayed Wire, Good for Bad, The Mark, and Landmark Sale. See the TRS thread for details.
Pages Needing Help
This section highlights articles indexed on the Pages Needing Wiki Magic policy page and sub-pages. Such articles are, at best, under-performing and below wiki standards. At worst, these pages are in violation of the wiki's rules against stubs. If you're an editor, try checking out some of these under-performing trope and work articles to see what improvements you can make to the page.
- May's birthday is Robert W. Chambers, one of the most influential writers of Eldritch Abominations. Despite his long list of published writings, he only has a few titles on his page. Remember that the Red Link policy requests wicks be made even when we don't have pages yet. Despite being a Trope Codifier, Chambers has no tropes listed. A reminder that short works go in "quotes" and long works (such as novels) go in italics.
- Date A Live Ars Install is a 2014 installment of the popular Date A Live franchise, but our article only has a one sentence description. Most of the examples are victims of Fan Myopia, with an unhealthy spread of spoiler markup to white out what little context is present. Only one wick is from a trope page, most of the rest being references to the work. On the bright side, it has plenty of indexes and a good image of the box art.
- The trope Runaway Hideaway is an old wiki article, created in 2012. Plenty of the older wiki style problems persist on the page today, such as type labels, not being in folders (does this page predate the Itty Bitty Wiki Tools?), and Zero-Context Examples.
Project Spotlight
Looking for a project to dedicate some time to, but not comfortable jumping into large threads? Here are some smaller projects, or more recent discussions, in need of a few more hands.
- What could possibly be more fun and awesome than another set of misused tropes? If you're tired of seeing Snark-based tropes get misused and shoehorned all over the wiki, stop by The Snark Tropes Cleanup.
- A Trope-Talk thread for Guide Dang It! was recently moved to TRS. If you're interested in discussing and fixing up the trope, head over here and get involved.
- The Role-Ending Misdemeanor trivia item has attracted some examples where nobody even lost a role. If you're interested in helping out with cleaning up this trope, the thread is located here.
Know the Contributors
- Synchronicity writes Creator Page Spotlight and oversees this whole shebang. Likes tropes and works about comedy, slice of life, and sci-fi/fantasy. For some reason, also enjoys keeping the wiki tidy.
- Piterpicher is the head honcho of Older/Obscure Work Spotlight and Non-English Work Spotlight. Those are the kinds of works he's interested in, but he's primarily a gamer. When it comes to wiki philosophy, the priorities are making it fun for readers, encompassing, and well-performing in terms of SEO. (Editor's note: he also made our snazzy new logo!)
- crazysamaritan writes for the Pages Needing Help section, keeping an eye out for stubs and crosswicking.
- Kappaclystica writes for the Image of the Month. Hates unillustrative images.
- Satoshi Bakura writes for Forumwatch. Their passive nature and busy college schedule often leaves them watching pages and forums without actually participating unless their interest has been sufficiently piqued.
- Mighty Mewtron writes for the New Work Page and New Trope spotlights. She probably hasn't seen these works before coming across their pages, but she likes to be involved in the growth of the wiki. Beyond the Trope Report, she's most active in the forums, TLP, and the pages for whatever work she's obsessed with this month.
- MacronNotes writes for the Changelog section. She spends most of her time on TRS, Long/Short term projects, and TLP. She is also the herald of the Wiki Talk section on the forums.
- War Jay 77 writes for the Project Spotlight section. She is also the Herald of Projects: Long Term/Perpetual, and spends much of her time refreshing on the forums, ATT and TLP for new things to respond to.
- gjjones writes for the Project Spotlight section. He also frequently spends his time working on projects whenever they are necessary, cleaning up wiki entries and participating in the ATT and Trope Repair Shop threads.
- 𝕋𝕒𝕓𝕤 writes for the Obscure Trope Spotlight and Changelog sections.
- ccorb writes for Works That Need a Page, and spends a lot of their time on Image Pickin', Trope Repair Shop, Trope Launch Pad, and the Projects forums, and also Wiki Walks, searching for works and tropes they find interesting. They credit this very wiki for introducing them to anime and manga they had never heard of before but now watch/read (or would like to), such as My Hero Academia, A Silent Voice and especially Hunter × Hunter.
- Twiddler makes sure our grammar is in order.
This edition of Trope Report has been sponsored by MomCorp. This Mother's Day, Mom would like to remind her beloved robot children to purchase her friendly robot oil and other assorted accessories, all of which contain 10% more love than the leading brand. (MomCorp is not responsible for any violent robot uprisings. Please blame those on her idiot sons.)
Interested in becoming a contributor, or have suggestions for works or tropes to feature? Pop by the the thread and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)
and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)