All The Tropes Wiki Project, Part XVII

[Bob Schroeck]

Speaking of work pages, I dug out some old notes and blended in info from Wikipedia to finally do up one of the infamous "Banned on TV Tropes" titles, F³: Frantic, Frustrated, and Female. This is what happens when I stumble across a 2-character redlink in a random trope and say to myself, "Didn't I once...?"

[Labster]

Noticed something that made me wonder: Who used a novel-length password, to made it necessary to put a maximum size on them? And why is the maximum set to 4096 characters?

Rhetorical question; no need to answer. It Just Bugs Me, is all.

This is a Denial of Service attack vector.  Logged-out users send large payloads, and the server spends a lot of time computing hash functions.

OWASP Authentication Cheat Sheet - Password Length

I didn't even have to look it up, it just seemed obvious to me.  Which is why I work in application security I guess.

[robkelk]

Anybody up to making a few bot runs? I've put together a few automated lists of pages that should have particular categories but don't. Too bad I don't have a bot.

[Bob Schroeck]

Which reminds me, I have to find the time to see if I can't make my old bot work again.

[Bob Schroeck]

Replying to an older post...

Welp, he replied.

I have just read your message, and I apologize for the legal issue I've caused with my uploads. You can delete my uploaded images for nowTranslation:  I can't be bothered with actually picking a choice off a dropdown or typing a dozen characters into an edit box right now.

Right. We want the UploadWizard extension. (No, that isn't a question.)

We want this extension because we can set it up (assuming we have the necessary permissions - we might need to get a Steward or a Sysadmin to set it up for us) to require particular information is provided when uploading files -- and we've been having trouble getting people to provide the license terms or the source URLs of their uploads.

How do we get this? And how do we configure it?

And I'm bringing this back up after six weeks because I don't think anything's been done about it.

[robkelk]

Replying to an older post...

Welp, he replied.

I have just read your message, and I apologize for the legal issue I've caused with my uploads. You can delete my uploaded images for nowTranslation:  I can't be bothered with actually picking a choice off a dropdown or typing a dozen characters into an edit box right now.

Right. We want the UploadWizard extension. (No, that isn't a question.)

We want this extension because we can set it up (assuming we have the necessary permissions - we might need to get a Steward or a Sysadmin to set it up for us) to require particular information is provided when uploading files -- and we've been having trouble getting people to provide the license terms or the source URLs of their uploads.

How do we get this? And how do we configure it?

And I'm bringing this back up after six weeks because I don't think anything's been done about it.

Sorry, I've been busy with other things. This has been a back-burner issue for me, not a front-burner one - do as time permits, not do right now.

[Bob Schroeck]

No pressure. I just noticed it in the old thread, and I thought I'd carry it over to the new one.

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm pretty sure we have a trope for getting a part-time job as a costumed mascot and standing in front of a store drumming up sales, but damned if I can remember or find it. It's not "Mascot", which doesn't link to anything close. Can anyone point me at it?

Thanks.

[Bob Schroeck]

On another topic, how many folks reading this thread are familiar with "Sailor Moon Expanded" fanfic project from the 90s? We've got a lot of references to it scattered across the wiki, and I was thinking maybe it's time we did up a works page for it. Only I never read all of it, so I couldn't do the whole of it justice. I'm soliciting trope entries, comments, snippets of text for incorporating into an article, if anyone cares to contribute.

Thanks.

[Mamorien]

On another topic, how many folks reading this thread are familiar with "Sailor Moon Expanded" fanfic project from the 90s?  We've got a lot of references to it scattered across the wiki, and I was thinking maybe it's time we did up a works page for it.  Only I never read all of it, so I couldn't do the whole of it justice.  I'm soliciting trope entries, comments, snippets of text for incorporating into an article, if anyone cares to contribute.

Thanks.

I don't have the emails because they were on either a university account or my Illuminati Online account, both of which have long since evanesced, but I actually corresponded with Mark Latus while SME was highly active (and even contributed an incomplete take on the story seed he published wherein Margrave is hypnotized into being a murder weapon and hires Magnesite to investigate). So I was there, and I might even be able to scrape together enough spoons to do something with the knowledge.

[robkelk]

Never read SME, myself...

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, just to kick things off, here's the fragmentary page I worked up last night:

-----------------------

{{work}}
{{Workstub}}
{{Needs Image}}

''[[Sailor Moon Expanded]]'' was an impressive [[Fan Verse]] project from the 1990s. The writings of over a dozen authors were combined with the goal of adding new and interesting characters, stories, and information to the ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' universe without contradicting established [[Canon]] (as defined by the original animated series). In many instances, particularly in the works of Mark Latus, the expanded material is more interesting and concise than the original source. Its stories ranged from before the fall of the Silver Millennium to the Crystal Tokyo era.

It demonstrates a few idiosyncrasies that can be linked to the era it was written in, a few of which resulted in some of the most inspired writing in the series. For instance, while the writers knew the basic outline of the early ''Sailor V'' manga (not to confused with the later [[Adaptation Expansion]], ''[[Codename: Sailor V]]''), they had precious few details and created their own villain for Sailor V to have fought -- Calcite, the human-appearing youma leader, who turned out to be not nearly as evil as he appeared, and the leader of the Dark Kingdom Renegades.

There are several main arcs to ''SME'':


# The Dark Kingdom Renegades
## Bogosity
# Magnesite
# Trenchcoat Mask





The ''Sailor Moon Expanded'' project is sadly long dead. A [[Wayback Machine]] archive of the stories can be found [http://web.archive.org/web/2005041810594...o.net/SME/ here].


{{tropelist}}
* [[Alien Lunch]]: In the Crystal Tokyo era, humanoid youma Titanite (aka "Sailor Polaris") runs a restaurant that specializes in the cuisine of the Dark Kingdom. (Which is based around various alien fungi and arthropods, ''very'' heavily [[Fire-Breathing Diner|spiced]].) While originally intended as a "home cooking" place for the few other survivors of the Dark Kingdom, it unexpectedly becomes popular with humans, mainly because of the [[Bragging Rights Award|bragging rights]] earned from eating food even Klingons might hesitate to consume.

* [[Alternate Universe]]: The Dark Kingdom Renegades discover how to travel to various parallel worlds, including a [[Mirror Universe]] and the world of the original ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]''.

* [[Ambiguously Human]]: "Humanic" (human mimic) youma, who externally appear completely human. The are an incredibly tiny minority among the typically monstrous and demonic youma. {{spoiler|And, it is strongly implied later in the stories, usually the illegitimate or disavowed offspring of one of Beryl's generals.}}

* [[Anti-Villain]]: Margrave.

* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Trenchcoat Mask.

* [[Battle Couple]]: Calcite and Sailor Venus in the Crystal Tokyo era, depending on what phase of their cyclic relationship they're in (they periodically break up and get back together over the centuries).

* [[Break the Cutie]]: Reluctantly done to the [[Mirror Universe]] version of Titanite by the other Renegades because she was too young to understand the need to keep up the [[Masquerade]] they needed to maintain just to survive. To save themselves they broke the mind of an innocent, loving girl and turned her into a [[Complete Monster]].

* [[Cat Girl]]: Margrave, a felinoid youma who managed to survive the fall of the Dark Kingdom.

* [[Coat, Hat, Mask]]: Trenchcoat Mask.

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: From the incomplete side story ''[http://www.oocities.org/tokyo/temple/1810/zeongene.txt Zeon Genesis Bogosity]'', Titanite/Sailor Polaris smashing [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Matariel, the ninth Angel]] with a giant [[Hyperspace Mallet]]. For [[Bonus Points]], she does it while [[Teleport Spam]]ming to keep it from targeting her, while chanting:
{{quote|[[Slayers| "Brightness beyond dawn,
Turquoise beyond blood that flows,
Servant of the Eternal City,
In Serenity's name,
I pledge myself to the light.
All the evil that threatens earth will be punished
By the power of the Senshi.
MALLET SLAVE!]]}}
:One hit, and it's flattened.

* [[Defector From Decadence]]: The Dark Kingdom Renegades.

* [[Exclusively Evil]]: Subverted. The youma of the Dark Kingdom initially ''appeared'' this way, but as stories were written it became clear that there were clear gradations of "evilness" among them, from [[Complete Monster]]s to some whose "evil" was more an [[Informed Attribute]] than anything else. And then there were the "sports" like the Dark Kingdom Renegades, who were born with a more human sense of morality.

* [[Expanded Universe]]: A rare fan-driven and fan-written example.

* [[Fan Verse]]: One of the very first and a prime example.

* [[Fan Boy|Fangirl]]: Titanite is a ''serious'' Sailor Senshi fangirl.

* [[Fisher Kingdom]]: When the Dark Kingdom Renegades begin exploring other universes, they discover that there is an "adaptation effect" which forces extraplanar visitors to take on the characteristics of an existing native of that universe, usually one who is already similar to the visitor in some way.

* [[Half-Identical Twins]]: Calcite and Titanite, despite Titanite apparently being five or more years Calcite's junior. It was revealed late in the ''Dark Kingdom Renegades'' series that the two were born twins, but their youma mother put the infant Titanite into [[Suspended Animation]] until Calcite was old enough to look after her himself.

* [[Hyperspace Mallet]]: Humanoid youma anime fan Titanite figures out how to use her psychoplasm powers to create and dismiss mallets as needed.

* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: It's eventually revealed that Calcite and Titanite's father is {{spoiler|Nephrite}}.{{verify}} It's not ''too'' traumatic, because by that point he's long dead.

* [[Mirror Universe]]: One of the first universes the Dark Kingdom Renegades discover when they first begin exploring parallel worlds is one where their counterparts led the Dark Kingdom to victory over the Earth. Subverted in that most of their counterparts ''aren't'' "evil reflections" -- they were simply a little more pragmatic and a little more desperate to save themselves, and thus were [[Slowly Slipping Into Evil|willing to take ''slightly'' more extreme measures]] than the DKR had felt comfortable taking in their universe. The only one of their counterparts who was actually evil was their Titanite -- and that was because she had been too young to maintain the [[Masquerade]] that kept them alive, and the others had been reluctantly forced to [[Break the Cutie|break her mind and turn her evil for real]].

* [[Private Eye Monologue]]: Magnesite lives to embody this trope. While a mid-ranking baron in the Dark Kingdom, he had his agents bring him earth video equipment so that he could watch old videos of [[Humphrey Bogart]], to whom [[Rule of Funny|he bears a remarkable resemblance]]. He was eventually trapped in a crystal prison by the Sailor Senshi and his former subordinate Calcite, and the only way for him to pass the time for the next 800 years was to replay every Bogart movie he's ever seen. Line by line, scene by scene, from memory. After he is released and placed on parole by Neo-Queen Serenity, he seeks employment in his idol's footsteps as a seedy detective. Unfortunately, Crystal Tokyo is a utopia, which clashes with his desired dingy atmosphere. In addition, because of his prolonged confinement and means of passing the time, he constantly thinks to himself in terms of the Private Eye Monologue. Sometimes, though, in accordance with the [[Rule of Funny]], he will accidentally monologue out loud; usually when the "dizzy dame with legs that could wrap around my waist with room to spare" standing in front of him is a Senshi looking for a reason to inflict harm.

* [[Slowly Slipping Into Evil]]: The [[Mirror Universe]] versions of the Dark Kingdom Renegades.

{{Needs More Tropes}}

{{reflist}}

[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Categoryages Original to All The Tropes]]
[[Category:Fan Works]]
[[Category:Fan Works of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Sailor Moon/Fan Works]]
[[Category:Fan Verse]]

[robkelk]

As requested, Bob: one disambiguation page. Including a mention of the Herbie Hancock album.

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, wow, thanks. That was mostly supposed to be a reminder to myself.

[robkelk]

It was an easy page to make - took me all of a quarter-hour, including category cleanup of the page moved to make room for it.

[robkelk]

Bob I saw (and support) your message to New XanderMartin98.

My reply includes this sentence:

Really big images have their place... but that place is DeviantArt, not a wiki.

[Bob Schroeck]

I saw. And laughed. Thanks.

ETA: Don't know if it'll do any good, he doesn't appear to be paying much attention to advice regardless of how we give it to him.

[Bob Schroeck]

Say, Rob... the method you used to restrict all manner of functionality to confirmed users... can you do the same for the "createaccount" permission? (Or tell me what I need to do to do it myself.) I figure since the only people who create accounts from their accounts have turned out to be spammers or vandals, we might as well block that avenue, too.

Or would that block anyone from creating an account at all? I'm not sure how that would work...

[robkelk]

It looks like there's only one "create account" permission, and baseline Tropers already don't have it... so this is something that we'd have to ask Miraheze about. I suspect doing this would probably make it impossible to create accounts at all.

[robkelk]

Do we have a trope for "this world has obvious video game elements in it"?

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, what do the other mods think about an author recommending his own fanfic on a fic recommendations page?

New XanderMartin98 has gone ahead and put his own fic on the recs page for Courage the Cowardly Dog.

I should have expected it seeing how much work he's been putting into writing pages for all his smutty fanfics. but for some reason I wasn't and this caught me by surprise. While I have no problem with a fic author writing pages for his own work (I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I did), a recommendation is something else entirely. Those should be made by readers who enjoyed the work, not the author trying to shill it.

I am tempted to remove it on those grounds, but I wanted to get a consensus of the mods first. (And I may repost this question on the wiki itself, just to make sure I reach everyone.) Should we permit authors to recommend their own works?

[Bob Schroeck]

Do we have a trope for "this world has obvious video game elements in it"?

We have something like "RPG Rules Verse" or "Game Verse", but I can't find the damned thing.

ETA: Well. I couldn't find it because there are two similar tropes with similar names: Role Playing Game Verse (a world running on tabletop game rules) and RPG Mechanics Verse (a world running on video game RPG rules). To the best of my knowledge we don't have something that is for a generic video game verse.

[robkelk]

Okay, what do the other mods think about an author recommending his own fanfic on a fic recommendations page?

New XanderMartin98 has gone ahead and put his own fic on the recs page for Courage the Cowardly Dog. 

I should have expected it seeing how much work he's been putting into writing pages for all his smutty fanfics. but for some reason I wasn't and this caught me by surprise.  While I have no problem with a fic author writing pages for his own work (I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I did), a recommendation is something else entirely.  Those should be made by readers who enjoyed the work, not the author trying to shill it.

I am tempted to remove it on those grounds, but I wanted to get a consensus of the mods first.  (And I may repost this question on the wiki itself, just to make sure I reach everyone.)  Should we permit authors to recommend their own works?

Hmmmmm...

When I find a page written by the creator of the work being described, I add this banner to it:
{{cleanup|The original version of this article was written by the writer of the work being discussed. [[Death of the Author|Other viewpoints are requested]].}}
Thus showing that there's a bias in play.

Since there is a bias in play, I would be hesitant to accept a recommendation by the work's author. That statement is essentially "Hey, look at what I did!"

So... while I think that a work page created by the creator of the work is okay as long as it's identified as such, a recommendation of a work by the creator of the work goes too far into Shameless Self Promoter, IMHO.


EDIT: And I see he overcoded the internal link again.

[robkelk]

Do we have a trope for "this world has obvious video game elements in it"?

We have something like "RPG Rules Verse" or "Game Verse", but I can't find the damned thing.

ETA:  Well.  I couldn't find it because there are two similar tropes with similar names:  Role Playing Game Verse (a world running on tabletop game rules) and RPG Mechanics Verse (a world running on video game RPG rules).  To the best of my knowledge we don't have something that is for a generic video game verse.

Thanks Bob. "RPG Mechanics Verse" is the one I was looking for.

[robkelk]

Last thread, I asked that somebody start a work page for Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

Never mind... I stubbed one. Have at it...

Could somebody else give the page a grammar and style sweep, please? I'm the only person who's added anything to it, so I'm too close to what's written there to see any errors.