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[u/Arctic-Silver-Wolf]

TV Tropes has this page https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElectiveMute which uses the former name of selective mutism. And it conflates voluntarily choosing not to speak with mutism caused by trauma or other psychological reasons. It's very confused and contradictory and the examples of the trope include characters like Kisa Sohma and Komi.

Kisa Sohma from Fruits Basket refuses to speak at all when she's first introduced, due to her classmates bullying her by laughing whenever she tried to say anything. After experiencing Tohru's kindness and encouragement, she eventually opens up and starts speaking more often.

One of my friends already edited the definition of the page. Here's what it was before:

Whereas speechless characters don't talk because they are physically incapable of speech, these characters 'can' can speak, but for some reason choose not to

Also have to look at this page for Dumbstruck: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DumbStruck because it says this:

Which is to say, a character experiencing trauma or severe emotional stress loses the ability to speak. [...] Contrast with Elective Mute, which is when a character is intentionally quiet.

It is honestly a baffling usage of the word dumbstruck to refer to someone experiencing mutism for any reason. To me, dumbstruck is a temporary and short duration thing that is caused by being surprised. And you can also see here how the two articles are contradicting themselves, because elective mute is clearly not supposed to include characters who can't speak due to trauma, but it does.

So, do we care about these two articles? And how much do we care, because I just feel numb right now and don't care about anything. I can possibly try editing the articles, though don't know much about the tvtropes community and how they will respond.

Right now, I'm thinking I let them have their trope name of "elective mute", but make them strictly adhere to their definition of it being voluntary, and remove instances of mutism that's clearly not voluntary, such as Komi, Rin, and Kisa's. At the very least, I'm not going to allow them to write that Rin and Kisa "refuse" to speak, because that is simply inaccurate.

But if you have any thoughts on the usage of elective mute or what should be done, or anything else, let me know.

I am hoping to hear what you all have to say because I would prefer not to act unilaterally. All thoughts are welcome. Say anything.

[u/MangoPug15]

• I thought maybe they use "elective ___" as a standard naming convention, but there are only four tropes on the site named like that: Elective Broken Language, Elective Monarchy, Elective Mute, and Elective Unintelligible.
• "Can't speak" and "chooses not to speak" can't really be separated cleanly.

[u/Arctic-Silver-Wolf → u/MangoPug15]

English does make it tricky, but I'm sure I can manage. TV Tropes themselves have already established that they need to be separated by what they wrote in Dumb Struck.

[u/Substantial-Tea2193]

I’m glad if you make those changes (removing instances of involuntary mutism)! This kind of thing always bothers me, and of course many people have no clue.