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.
Welcome, welcome everyone to the Trope Report Spooktacular! It's October, the month of pumpkins, scares and dares, and we've prepared a very special program for you tonight. As usual, we have done a horror-themed newsletter for this time of the month, so be prepared to feel your blood curdling.
But before we start, we'd like to announce some very important changes that happened the past month, namely that the engineer position is now up and running, and that we also have a new mod by the name of Mrph1. Other notable changes that have happened over the course of last month are major TRS decisions that have completely overhauled well-established tropes like Three Amigos, Incorruptible Pure Pureness, and The Beard; as per usual, more info regarding those changes can be found in our Changelog section. Lastly, as you've probably heard, the moderation thread has been revamped into a wiki & policy thread
as concerns about mod actions can now only be voiced via the contact form.
So grab your comfort blanket and some candy, and treat yourself to some Halloween fun! Happy troping!
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Tropes and Works
Trope Spotlight
Obscure Tropes
This section highlights older tropes that need a boost.- On October 20, we honor the cooks in our lives for International Chefs' Day. Of course, homecooked meals don't always go as planned. So, we give a special shout-out to the professionals that have got us covered with Last Resort Takeout. The trope was launched in 2018, but only 31 pages have been served. Any new meals would be greatly appreciated.
- Powder Gag is an old comedy trope: take powdery stuff (often flour) and create a situation where your victim gets covered in it— could be an accident or some prankster's practical joke. The result is that the unlucky target gets a faceful of powder or is even covered head to toe. Sometimes it's used for further gags (flour: a ghost!). This trope is probably about a century old, and our page has existed since 2008, but it's lacking in examples, even those from the old animated shorts era pointed out in the description.
- This Halloween, you may find yourself being surrounded by ghosts and spirits of all kinds. If you choose to chase them, however, be careful. A Treacherous Spirit Chase is known to lead otherwise sensible characters into danger while they're in pursuit of their lost loved ones. People have chased this trope onto 78 pages since 2010, but why not go further? Just check for traps along the way.
New Tropes
This section brings attention to recently-launched tropes that could use a little help to really get rolling.- Alice and Bob were walking in a dark, rainy forest, when suddenly they got ambushed by goddamned bats and demonic spiders. They were so shocked by these creatures that they dropped the Stopped Dead in Their Tracks trope document. Despite being a fairly common trope item in the wild, our duo only managed to get their report on it done on August 16th. The document categorizes instances in media where a character experiences something so shocking or horrific that they stop all forms of movement.
- So, you just moved to this nice, idyllic small town. Your new house is nice and the neighbors are friendly, so everything is all dandy, right? Welp, as it turns out you're very wrong, as you see all sorts of weird things, ranging from ghosts haunting your home or Bigfoot popping up in the local park to all sorts of monsters rampaging through the town. By the looks of it, you just moved into a Supernatural Hotspot Town! Launched on September 9th, it documents cases of towns that just keep attracting the strange and extraordinary to them, in the event that you're looking to move to a place where the unexplainable constantly happens.
- It's the night of Halloween, and trick-or-treaters ride the streets collecting candy from neighbors. Most of them must keep to their parents' words of "Don't eat candy before bed," but what will happen if one of them disobeys? Enter Sugar Causes Hyperactivity, the notion that the consumption of candy and other sweets high in sugar results in hyperactive people, and sometimes a very long Halloween night. Launched on September 13th, this trope could use a little more attention.
- You're high up in a Death Mountain, as a soldier in the military of a nation surrounded by mountains, valleys, and plateaus for miles on end. You're tasked with stopping an advancing enemy invasion force of elite infantrymen trained specifically for trekking through the mountains. Fortunately, you, having grown up in the mountains you're currently standing on, are an expert in Mountain Warfare. Because of your Home Field Advantage, you manage to tear through the enemy's ranks, with the larger invading force suffering massive casualties thanks to your stalwart defenses and being forced into a retreat. It doesn't help that the invaders have never been in the mountains of your country prior, with many dying from avalanches, rockslides, falling to their deaths, or hypothermia.
Work Spotlight
New Work Page Spotlight
This section covers newer work pages that could use a little help.- If you want a new book for the spookiest of months, consider The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things. A middle-grade book by Rob Renzetti—who has also been involved in the creation of other Spooky Kids Media such as Mina and The Count and Gravity Falls—it follows Zenith Maelstrom on a quest to save his older sister Apogee after she gets dragged into a world inside a strange handbag. With sights such as blood-eating floor stitches, a giant living ragdoll, reality-rewriting chalkboards, and a cult with a dark purpose for Apogee, it should be fun for any horror fan.
- Turn-On is a 1969 ABC comedy series that is infamous for being pulled midway through its premiere and then never airing on TV again. Created by Ed Friendly and George Schlatter, who had previously made a name for themselves with Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, the show took that show's signature Rapid-Fire Comedy style and tried to up it even further. Unfortunately, its hasty cancellation was caused by a combination of risqué humor that ticked off the executives and loud synthesizer sounds and rapid cuts that audiences felt were an an abuse to their senses. Nonetheless, interest in the show was renewed after the pilot resurfaced on the internet in 2023, with many citing it as being ahead of its time.
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.- Ruby Quest is an Interactive Comic by Weaver, originally hosted on 4chan. It stars Ruby, a rabbit who wakes up in a dark room and is later joined by Tom, a cat; the two have to solve puzzles to try to find a way to get out. However, despite the characters being based on the cast of Animal Crossing, the story soon takes a turn for the disturbing and descends into Cosmic Horror Story territory. If you dare, you can find an archived version here.
- For fans of Action RPGs, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails might be a title you would want to check out. It was developed by Falcom as a spin-off to the Trails Series and released in 2012 for the PlayStation Portable, with an official English localization released in September 2023 for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC (via the Epic Games store and Steam). The story follows Nayuta Herschel, an astronomer, and his tiny companion, Noi, as the two venture into a vast ocean filled with falling ruins and strange but beautiful worlds. The game being completely separate from the setting of the very connected mainline games also makes it a good gateway to the series without having to worry about Continuity Lock-Out. If you can, help clean the page of ZCEs and give it some much needed love.
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!- Mitoza is a video game created by Gal Mamalya. It all starts with a seed—you can choose to either plant it in a pot or feed it to a bird. And that choice will lead to another choice, and that to another, and so on, until you are reset back to the original seed. However, things will get odd very quickly; the game is best remembered for its Deranged Animation, which can lead to both funny and creepy outcomes. Originally made in Adobe Flash, the game was later ported to Steam and mobile devices, which added some quality-of-life features as well as a small completion bonus.
- There's a lot of horror anthologies that have gained pages on TV Tropes, but as of this Spooky Month, Uncanny Tales hasn't been one of them. While old comic series do tend to be on the obscure side of things, it also happens that the comic is currently being used as an image for a suitably spooky trope, leaving anyone curious about its origin left with a blank page. Who is brave enough to give these comics a fresh page?
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.- Fuan no Tane is a manga collection of horror stories from 2004. While many tales feature supernatural creatures with blank or misshapen faces, others include abduction by lightning, a QR code that resets your phone, a mysterious boy in the closet, people made of straw, and many more. The manga got a sequel in 2005 and a film adaptation in 2013.
- When people mention Suehiro Maruo, they'll usually think of his horror manga Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show first. But did you know he had written and illustrated another horror manga called The Laughing Vampire? Split into two volumes, the story is about a woman who, centuries after her death, is revived as a vampire, and tries to find an apprentice in Japanese high school student Konosuke Mori, so the two can turn other individuals in Japan into vampires as well. The work was cleared last year by the Content Violations thread for Maruo's creator page, and there are English translations that have been published, so helping the manga and its page flourish won't be too difficult.
- The 15 Experience is a horror short-film and web series produced for a Swiss film contest in 2014. The early videos focus on a hacker watching a house that has bizarre haunted activity. When he decides to set up a live feed on the same night a group of teenagers go to mess around in the house, that's where the main event starts, featured in the short film. It's not just any short film, however; it's a series of camera feeds you can choose to watch at any time, giving you a variety of content to rewatch in order to see everything that happens. While the series has been on hiatus since 2017, there's still enough for any horror fan to enjoy.
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.- When you were a child, your first experience with horror media may have come in one of two forms: a genuine horror movie watched behind your parents' back, or a kids' novel with a horror motif. For the latter, one of the most prominent writers of children's horror is R. L. Stine, creator of Goosebumps and Fear Street. He has dabbled into non-horror on occasion, with a comedy magazine and a few gamebooks earlier in his career. With Goosebumps being a worldwide phenomenon translated into 35 different languages, are you in for a scare?
Image of the Month
This section brings you the best selections of the past month from Image Pickin'.
This issue's featured image is Troper-Made, and illustrates More Deadly Than the Male.
This issue's featured image is Troper-Made, and illustrates More Deadly Than the Male.
Everything the light touches is his kingdom, but everything that moves is her next victim.
We've said plenty about troper-made images over these last few issues, so we'll keep this one brief.
After we discovered (the very day after it was upvoted by the Image Suggestion Thread, mind you) that the trope's previous pic was a stock photo, a thread was made to discuss ideas, and frequent Trope Report contributor plakythebirb stepped in and produced an original drawing. Lions were an obvious choice, due to them being an example of this trope in real life and possessing pronounced sexual dimorphism, with the females lacking manes. The characters being cartoony and anthropomorphic was an intentional choice to make the trope more obvious. To finish it all off, the image features a nice color palette of reds and oranges. A killer image overall.
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!
- October is spooky season, but you can't have your ghosts, skeletons, and zombies without anyone dying. However, the process of actually creating a death in a story is a delicate balance of major emotions and narrative purpose. If you'd like to discuss how you've killed characters, get feedback for possible deaths in your story, or even just weigh in on the very subject of Character Death, visit the Character Death Thread in Writer's Block.
- On the night of Halloween, people roam the streets in designer costumes. But what if the owner is on a shoestring budget? Who and where would they go to? The variety store, that's it, filled with some unlicensed Halloween costumes labeled with very odd names on the packaging. But what if there were more unlicensed Halloween costumes? A new forum game, Give the above character a knock-off Halloween costume name, involves giving the character named in the above post a crazy rename, then signing off your post with the name of another character. Want to fill the walls up with such merchandise? Then come join!
Trope/Article Changelog
This section covers renames, removals, redefinitions, hard-splits, merges, and wick cleaning. We'll try to keep you alerted to 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 Beard was redefined to match how it's used offsite: a queer character dates someone to hide their sexual orientation. Before, it covered fake relationships, which is what Fake Relationship is for. TRS thread
- Genre Adultery was merged with Creator's Oddball due to redundancy, due to both involving works that are a departure from a creator's usual output. TRS thread here.
- God Is Evil has been clarified to be about villainous supreme deities, and an "evil god" trope will be drafted to be split off from Jerkass Gods. TRS thread here.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness is being redefined to refer to characters who are portrayed in-universe as untemptable/incorruptible, as well as renamed to The Incorruptible for clarity and to match the revised definition. TRS thread here.
- Legitimate Businessmens Social Club was renamed to Totally Not a Criminal Front because it was misused for criminal fronts in general instead of poorly disguised criminal fronts. TRS thread here.
- Pop Revival was cut due to redundancy concerns and an unclear description. TRS thread here.
- Three Amigos was merged into Power Trio and became a disambiguation between the merged trope and the film, as it often attracted examples that lacked context. TRS thread here.
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.
- This month, we celebrate the birthday of Dawn French, a British actress and comedian who is part of the titular duo of French and Saunders. For someone who is in comedy, her page is in quite a tragic state, with no tropes about her roles or even a list of roles.
- The comic Eldritch! (2010) injects Lovecraftian horrors into the ever competitive rivalry of the Sobczek siblings, sending them into a comedic, dramatic (and deliciously horrific) adventure. Its work page is in a dire state, just barely making it over 3 examples with context, resulting in an almost complete lack of wicks. The description could also use some fleshing out. Sure, eldritch horrors tend to be indescribable, but would it hurt to try?
- Death Equals Emotion is when someone who has been completely stoic and lacking emotion during their life finally starts to show emotion as death occurs. The trope is almost at death's door itself, being a few wicks shy of a healthy state. Some more examples would also be appreciated, while some existing entries could use a little more context.
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.
- Online horror comes in many forms, one being Creepypasta, the internet's take on spooky campfire tales. How they are troped can bring their own kinds of horrors, such as eerie examples (and woeful weblinks) that lack context, and "hyper-realistic" amounts of complaining. With some work pages troping derivatives like part of the canon, and the Creepypasta page itself listing story-specific examples among the tropes common to this horror subgenre, troping creepypastas can seem as confusing as the stories themselves. Luckily, the Creepypasta Cleanup thread is open to help draw the lines, such as by making the work page examples confined within their own respective stories. All those links and titles are ripe to make new work pages from if you're looking to stay creepy!
- While big moves and changes need community discussion to some degree, some tropers do things by themselves and leave a trail of messes behind. If you want to help fix unilateral changes, please visit the unilateral changes cleanup thread.
Know the Contributors
- FernandoLemon writes for Work Spotlight, Forumwatch and Image of the Month, and helped spookify this issue's introduction and logo. For Orc-tober, he's dressing up as his favorite green-skinned Proud Warrior Race Guy.
- War Jay 77 has become the void she stared into. When you see shadows in the corner of your eye, it may just be her.
- 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.
- 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕤 wrote for Trope Spotlight and the Changelog this month.
- Spooky Scary Skelebird plakythebirb wrote for Works That Need a Page.
- callmeamuffin is one of the vampires who wrote for this month's Trope and Work Spotlight, as well as Forumwatch. Outside of Trope Report, you can find him hanging upside down in a large cave with his vampire pals.
- MacronNotes contributed to the New Trope Spotlight and the intro for this issue. She spends most of her time on Wiki Talk, TRS, and other parts of the site.
- Berrenta is constantly in the shadows and tends to sneak by. She has silently made her mark in Obscure Tropes, Non-English works, Creator Page Spotlight, the Changelog, Pages Needing Help, and this month's sponsor.
- GastonRabbit contributes to the Changelog, since he mostly moderates TRS, and adds changes after giving the go-ahead to make them.
- PurpleEyedGuma wrote for Work Spotlight.
- Cardboard Bot draws art for Trope Report and designed the mascot. He occasionally pops up.
- Twiddler is the lurking presence ensuring that our grammar is in order.
- Rmpdc, who wrote for New Tropes, mainly contributes to the Trope Pantheons, but also writes a number of work pages and has done at least four tropes. His main specialty is Works Set in World War II.
- Cutegirl920fire has attempted to resurrect her favorite author pair but ended up with stuff to write for the New Trope section and got possessed instead.
- Black Faith Star emerged from the shadows and wrote for Project Spotlight and Pages Needing Help this month. She drew Monster Clowns last Halloween and they've been haunting her mind ever since.
- Ayumi-chan entered the waters of the Trope Report and wrote for Older/Obscure Work Spotlight.
- Trope Reporter (real name Taylor Von Trope) is the mascot for Trope Report whose TV head is used as this edition's image.
This edition of Trope Report is brought to you by the Ghostbusters. Are the Halloween festivities getting out of hand? Do you have unwanted paranormal guests? If so, who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!
Interested in becoming a contributor, or have suggestions for works or tropes to feature? Pop by the thread and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)
and let us know! We don't bite. (Much.)