another thread about our grievances with a website, this time, it's about TVtropes.

personally, I used to be a troper in TVtropes.org itself before I got banned for my possible lack of self-restraint back then, I also pitched a Tropology of my mega-crossover fanproject into TVtropes only to got deleted by TVtropes mods and admins, as response of TVtropes rejecting my mega-crossover, I make this Downfall meme video even when it attracts people that harassed me much like someone from HTFSocial harassed me for my ideas and my worldviews earlier, albeit that harassment took place around same time Wix bought deviantart.

a Troper explained to me about my mega-crossover fanproject have flame bait-y subject matters, making it unfit to have it's tropology archived in TVtropes.org

TVtropes itself also can't see Anti-sues as bad writing trope(unlike the rest of Mary Sue tropes) for finding anti-sue too "Relatable" to be bad character

also, TVtropes did groupthinks to assume even the most evil of unpowered normal humans are magically incapable of eating sapient beings, everytime they share the world with any Superpowered Beings

[Admin Note: The link to the Youtube video was removed as the video breaks our No Proselytizing rule.]

My biggest beef with TV Tropes was how a couple of DYOSers became so obsessed with it in '09–'10 that you could barely go a page without a character making a direct call-out. Then when a contributor casually dropped they'd made a dedicated page for DYOS, certain parties started contorting their plots to justify adding specific tropes to the index. It read as ham-handed as it sounds.

I never contributed myself so I have no clue what the user experience is like (apart from the questionable UI redesign); it's made for fun browsing and has been a useful reference, though I gather it's subject to the usual pitfalls of militant fandom, and general administration is ruled by playground politics. I do recall they had their own Adpocalypse that provoked a split over new editorial policies, but so far as I can see, the splinter sites aren't serious challengers.

Personally, I don't think it really matters since Mary Sues and Gary Stus don't exist in the industry, and professionals will laugh in your face if you actually bring up these tropes unironically. I'm personally starting to question whether they even really exist at all, because while it's supposed to mean a character that is perfect (easily bends the narrative, boring lack of personality, no motivation, etc.), I saw the most flawed of flawed characters being called such, so if it ever was legit, I think both terms have been redefined to mean "a character I just don't like" depending on the gender of said character, a lot of people even consider the term "Mary Sue" to be sexist since female OCs tend to be targeted by Mary Sue Culture a lot more than male ones. I've even had my character called a Mary Sue back in the early days by people who didn't like me. Meanwhile, I've taken every single test in existence for my character, including her old counterpart, and every single result came back with "not a Mary Sue". Not helping was the fact that I was a kid back then, which a lot of independent artists being targeted were, so if it ever did apply for any character, I don't think it does anymore because of all that.

Mine is when they started going after independent artists on DeviantArt and treating them like they're big-name animation or comic companies like Disney or Marvel (when it's really just one or a few people) all while picking apart their comics, half of them were kids at the time. I know most wikis are heavily biased, and TV Tropes is obviously no exception, but when they're usually the ones doing the call-outs against the characters themselves or the artists that made them, it starts to feel like a diet coke Bad Webcomics Wiki. I can't forget when they criticized Off White over one of the female wolf characters having eyelashes, which like all mammals, gray wolves actually have.

Least favorite things: Mods are strict and assume the average person can perceive what their ideas of courtesy are well, people don't get credit for their stuff (not really an issue for me, I have clever ways of leaving a mark), hyperlinking is strongly regulated, you need to be approved to join the site, and you'd sooner submit a bill to congress than you would successfully submit a trope

All that said, I do like it there. I don't mind the admins and functionality and whatnot. As I say with DeviantArt, it's their site and their "castle doctrine" to do as they want to me. As long as I watch my step, I've had a smooth ride there.

I think whether or not they're friendly is determinant since there are rare cases of an editor getting snippy with someone. I can understand if they're paranoid after the Encyclopedia Dramatica raid, but not everyone new to the wiki has bad intentions.

the Word Mary Sue or Gary Stu did misused to call anyone that more powerful than a normal person, particularly in certain settings, even when whoever accused for such are canon characters in any fanfics(notably when those canon characters are powered-up, people accused them as Possession sue)

Editing has a very different process from trope creation which has a different process from threads.

For mere editing, you just go to the page you want to contribute to and it's like Wikipedia except for the fact you must assure the change is useful. I'm on both there and Wikipedia and have had better luck on the former.

For trope creation, you need to know some huge expertise, master some level of understandability, submit it and have it go through a large congress-like approval process, and put it through a trial run. I've only succeeded a few times. You also cannot delete tropes, and yes these are what I was referring to when I said people don't get credit for stuff (tropes are supposed to be communal). But this is a double-edged sword at most, not an outright con, and people are constructive and people are friendly.

Meanwhile, with small differences, the forums are just like these forums (though on opposite ends of the size spectrum).

I just meant editors as in the users of the site. I wasn't sure what to call general users, but I haven't had very good experiences with that site, maybe I just ran into the wrong people or something.

That can depend. Both the trope sections and the forums there are so large and so active (in fact they're the largest and most active on the internet if you subtract social media types and Reddit-esque types) that they can be divided into their own cultures, similar to subreddits though not as an initial design expectation. So experiences there are relativistic. Things are honestly better there than they once were though. Though take me with a grain of salt, everyone here knows from the DA complaints thread that I tend to be optimistic when it comes to sites, even when I'm banned from them (except for Inkblot, their site is basically a living weapon for its own sake with their art scene being a ruse, things I found out through nothing but the same optimism), and I know everyone else is more bent to complain about the sites they're not on. That said, TV Tropes does tend to be for a very media-oriented, often autistic (not in a bad way) audience. If you're just there for a smaller purpose, the motivation to participate will be smaller.

Aye, I originally interpreted it to mean a (fanfic) OC that acts as a black hole to the story by sucking up all the attention, but it's basically been eroded into a scare-chord à la "SJW" that shuts down meaningful discussion. Over on CivFanatics' arts & culture board there's a Star Wars containment thread, and the perennial fights over "rEy Is A mArY sUe" was a depressingly accurate barometer for a user's social outlook. :/

I wrote an op-ed several years ago reflecting on how trying to quantify absolute power levels is largely irrelevant against the character's role within the actual story. I noticed a tendency in a lot of these OC creation guides (and the "Mary-Sue Tests" they engender) to put the cart before the proverbial horse, spending so much time worrying about balancing individual traits that they completely neglect whether this serves a narrative purpose. As I sum up toward the end: "Don't write a character like you'd solve a math problem."

Imagine the reception if they were camels. ||||||:^{3>

Thorvald:

Shadane:

I'm personally starting to question whether they even really exist at all, ... I think both terms have been redefined to mean "a character I just don't like" depending on the gender of said character, a lot of people even consider the term "Mary Sue" to be sexist since female OCs tend to be targeted by Mary Sue Culture a lot more than male ones.

Aye, I originally interpreted it to mean a (fanfic) OC that acts as a black hole to the story by sucking up all the attention, but it's basically been eroded into a scare-chord *à la* "SJW" that shuts down meaningful discussion. Over on CivFanatics' arts & culture board there's a *Star Wars* containment thread, and the perennial fights over "rEy Is A mArY sUe" was a depressingly accurate barometer for a user's social outlook. :/ I [wrote an op-ed](https://www.side7.com/content/5bMNLwd2re) several years ago reflecting on how [trying to quantify *absolute* power levels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6M4SViDE0) is largely irrelevant against the character's role within the actual story. I noticed a tendency in a lot of these OC creation guides (and the "Mary-Sue Tests" they engender) to put the cart before the proverbial horse, spending so much time worrying about balancing individual traits that they completely neglect whether this serves a narrative purpose. As I sum up toward the end: "Don't write a character like you'd solve a math problem."

Shadane:

Off White

Imagine the reception if they were camels. ||||||:^{3>

They probably wouldn't care since it's common knowledge that camelids have eyelashes twice as big as the ones humans have, and it's understandable because they need bigger eyelashes to protect their eyes from sand, wolves have them to protect theirs from dirt and snow, humans have theirs for dust particles, etc. I just don't get why some people think only humans have eyelashes when they're important for all mammals. That can be a trope in and of itself.

Are non-sapient animals even a thing? The definition of sapience means to be wise or self aware, which all members of the animal kingdom are on different levels, both in real life and in fiction, especially kaiju, Pokemon, or certain species of zombie depending on the media franchise they're from. I think it would make more sense to specify whether they have human-like sapience or greater since most people nowadays don't bother to look into what "sapience" means, and just conclude that it means "talking, thinking, and acting like a hominid", and that any animal that can't do this is daft.

I mean the trope where all Superpowered Beings can't even have Human-level intelligence or above, everytime they exist

I've not heard of that trope to be honest. It sounds to me like a new one, but equally just as harmful.

TVtropes did even groupthink to assume Only Superpowered Beings that can eat people in any setting with Superpowers, regardless of the moral spectrum