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Archive / Lost and Found

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So, you've got this trope sticking in your mind. You can remember the general idea, and maybe an example or two, but you'll be damned if you can remember what the thing's called, and the search function turns up nothing relevant. YKTTW would probably get you answers, but that's not what it's supposed to be for. Same goes for Ask The Tropers. Who You Gonna Call??

Enter the Tropers' Lost And Found. New questions at the top, please. If it's been a long time — two weeks or more, let's say — since you posted the question and you still haven't found the trope, you may want to think about proposing it to YKTTW, since there's a good chance that it does not in fact exist.

If you're looking for a work instead of a trope, you want to head over to You Know That Show.

If you're looking for answers about the wiki itself ("How do X work?"), you should go to Ask The Tropers.

Don't forget to check the list for your request, once you have an answer remove the entry so we can keep this place sort of organized

Lost

  • A sub-trope of Epic Fail, perhaps: What is the trope for when a group of characters set up a test run (often with an elaborate scale model) that is meant to instill confidence in their plan, but instead goes horribly, horribly wrong? Examples include Marty Mcfly`s scale Delorean bursting into flame and crashing in Back To The Future and when Bart Simpson tosses his backpack to his father's car before he himself jumps, only to have it bounce off, fall beneath the car's tires and burst into flame in "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming".

  • Do we have a trope when several characters sing one song but divide the lines among each other?

  • Is there a trope for when a character basically repeats verbatim what the narrator just said?

  • I realize that PerverseSexualLust refers to crushes on fictional characters, but is there a trope for a person who tends to get romantically interested in people who aren't the usual objects of lust? For example the person who would turn down a Brad Pitt for a chance to be with Danny De Vito. But it doesn't have to be a consistent preference, necessarily. I was thinking about the episode of Rome when Polly Walker's character remarks that she finds something perversely erotic about goaty little men.

  • Trope where one character writes a song to tell another character how they feel?

  • What is the name of the trope where the show or series happens to be it's own show within itself? A Show Within a Show that shares the same title as the series it's being shown in. "Hey, Turn the TV on. That show is about to start."

  • What is the trope where a Serial Killer or similar develops a fixation on another character? Note: Not Love Makes You Crazy or Love Makes You Evil because they could already be considered that.

  • Any trope about a show's which has pot so confusing that whole show looks like one long Gainax Ending?

  • looking for tropes about people who faint is response to danger instead of the more sensible fight or flight response

  • Any tropes on snake people? e.g Naga, Lamia
    • Snake People, which was just created recently.
    • Thanks. Odd that that didn't turn up when I did a search.

  • Looking for a trope to describe this: basically the character is eating (alt. chewing ice cubes from a drink) in an exaggeratedly casual way, with lot's of open mouth, smacking, and smile-talking throughout. I think the idea is to show how down-to-earth and regular and grounded and comfortable-in-their-own-skin a character is or whatever, but I usually just find it annoying. May or may not be slightly flirtatious, but it's definitely not erotic. Think of that obnoxious brat Mouse eating the protein paste in the original Matrix, or Tom Cruise and Demi Moore at the seafood restaurant in A Few Good Men. Anybody know what this is called?

  • We Will Speak Modern English In The Future. Oh, sure, there might be a bit of future slang to show that it's futuristic, but there will be basically no difference. This is done mainly for the sake of the viewers/readers.

  • How bout when a character does a long string of profanity that's all bleeped out except for the ending. I.E. You son of a—! I'll *very, very long bleep* WITH A SPORK!

  • I've checked all of the tropes listed on the Creators page, but I can't for the life of me find a trope related to an author believing in their own characters. The mildest form seems to occur when authors refer to characters as their own entity, and on the other end of the continuum there's full-on Daydream Believer-like thinking applied to their own creations. Sorry for the dose of TL;DR- I just wanted to specify in case there's a trope that applies to only one end of the spectrum. Also, do we have a trope related to creators who seem openly smitten with their own creations in a way that extends beyond normal Author Appeal? I wouldn't ask in the same entry, but it seems related to the above trope.
    • You might have already found it, but would Literary Agent Hypothesis be of interest? The article mostly talks about fans, but I think it should be applicable to authors too.

  • Do we have a trope covering a test that is so rigorous that it usually kills the hopeful candidates, making simple survival one of the primary criteria for passing? Examples: The series of traps tests at the end of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, which had a pile of severed heads at its entrance to show how many had tried and failed; the test of succession to First Prime in Wars Of Light And Shadow, which at the time of Curse Of The Mistwraith had already claimed the lives of forty candidates; the tower in Diamond Dogs which offered harder and harder puzzles to solve, and harsher and harsher penalties for a wrong answer.

  • How about when the developer of a game does something that would normally be a game breaker, but cleverly subverts it to where it's useful, yet doesn't break the game? Like giving someone the ability to fly an helicopter in an exploration game, but having certain areas where either the rotors will freeze or you'll get shot down, so you have take a ship there in the first case, and have to either take a jeep there and take out their AA battery, or send in some troops to take out the AA battery. Basically, they do something that, simply by describing it brings the term Game-Breaker to mind, but does it so well it's neither a Game-Breaker nor Forced.

  • any tropes for two legged characters running on all fours when it should be impossible? (Not Primal Stance)

  • Is there even a trope for someone refusing to let someone do something but then being rebuffed? Like in Mulan where Mulan says her father should not go to war, but he then goes and gets the paper anyway?

  • Somebody wants to summon ancient gods, demons or any other otherworldly creature. For that, he needs a summoning circles, candles, the blood of a virgin and any number of other mystical items. The heroes are not powerful enough to beat the summoner himself, so they switch out some of the summoning components, which result in the ritual going horribly wrong and hilarity ensuing. Anybody know what that trope is?

  • What's the trope where a good guy loses a fight, but only because he was struck by lightning / the bad guy cheated / the timer ran out one second too soon? Basically, the good guy technically lost, but really, everyone knows that the good guy should have won, and would have if it hadn't been for that random freak occurrence that stopped him.

  • Two characters continuously blame each other for some misdeed, only to discover that there's a third party involved who is responsible for the issue. A variation is two character blaming each other for two seemingly independent things that happened to each of them, then discovering there's a third party involved responsible for both cases. Often, upon finding out none of the two is to blame, they'll join forces to find the person who really did that.

  • What's the trope for the gag where one person asks a "left or right" question, and the other person replies "right" as in "correct"?

  • Do we have a trope for when a camera continuously switches between two separate scenes to show how different they are? Lets say Alice and Mary (friends) are roommates and so are Bob and Charlie (enemies). So we get a montage like this:
    (We see Alice and Mary laughing at a movie together)
    (Cut to Bob and Charlie strangling each other)
    (Cut back to Alice tossing a pillow at Mary)
    (Cut to Bob smashing a chair over Charlie's head)
    (Cut back to Alice and Mary braiding each others' hair and talking about The Power of Friendship)
    (Cut to Charlie and Bob having a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. WITH BAGUETTES.)

  • I know we have Nuke 'em, for when people resort to nukes really fast, You Nuke 'Em, for when the player of a video game is given the chance to deal untold damage via nuke, and Deus ex Nukina for when nukes and only nukes can save the day, but do we have a general trope for nuclear weapons? Or does "subversion of Nuclear Weapons Taboo" suffice?

  • Is there a trope for hate directed for new characters that arrive on a show? This is not Replacement Scrappy, they don't have to replace anyone, just upset a set-in-stone dynamic of a group.

  • Is there a trope for when someone has been injured somewhere on their back or some such, and has someone (usually a partner in UST) patch them up? I guess it might also be a back rub, or something like that, but some kind of nursing from behind (sometimes in front of a mirror). I'd guess the symbolism is that they're allowing the person to help them, but not without a barrier of distance (ie facing away from them). I guess it'd also be related to Zip Me Up. Related might be something like that scene in Dollhouse with Echo and the governer guy (which kinda looked like a sex scene).
    • Intimate Healing?
      • That's a nice overall, I guess, but I'm looking for something more specific, I think. Hm.

  • When someone in a story mentions the name of the villain, and the villain appears, usually in the very next scene? I've heard this referred to as "The Wolf in the Story" or "Lupus in Fabula" but is there a trope for this?

  • No offense to tropes, but is there one for when the existence of a trope has unintended negative Real Life consequences? For example, when little kids who've seen too many flying superheroes jump off the top of the jungle gym, or when idiots who take cartoons too literally try to "open up" a live turtle's shell to see the little rooms inside. Not necessarily Too Dumb to Live, as even otherwise-intelligent people can fall prey to misleading tropes (e.g. dragging an accident victim from a car wreck in the movie-inspired belief it's going to explode, thus injuring them further).

  • Racist person. Without any added specification (like Racist Grandma, Mighty Whitey or such), just a person whose main characterisation is that he/she hates other races. Usually a white male, aggressive, makes rude derogatory comments... Does it even have a trope?

  • Looking for a trope about unexpectedly sudden endings. Examples include Fallout3 (before broken steel), The dark river (book) and at least one webcomic. The closest metaphor I can think is running into a invisible brick wall or suddenly running out of road with no warning.

  • A character (usually a guy) that is insensitive. He doesn't mean to come off as rude or ignorant, but he does because he happens to mention things other characters are generally sensitive to, like age or sexual orientation.

  • Two characters are actively arguing over something — maybe some valuable object they got. It might not even be an argument over who gets to keep whatever they're talking about, maybe just how to treat it better or something. Then, during the argument, the two of them get emotional and end up ruining the object in question due to this. Maybe they were arguing over an expensive figurine — and end up accidentally dropping it, causing it to shatter. In any case, the entire point is rendered moot, and both feel extremely stupid and disappointed. Is there a trope for this? I seem to have seen it enough times for it to exist...
    • Might be related to Why We Can't Have Nice Things, not to mention Judgment of Solomon, kinda sorta?
    • Might be. The difference from the latter is that the damage here is done on pure accident caused by the characters' own stupidity. The result is, as I can guess after some search, is kinda like No Macguffin No Winner, but the situation like this doesn't always apply to inanimate objects: two guys getting into a fight over a girl and accidentally hitting her when she is trying to talk them out of it would sometimes have a similar effect (have a specific example of that, also). In this case, nothing is destroyed, but still shows the "fighting over something is stupid" moral.

  • When a husband watches TV (usually soccer) and his wife trying to persuade him to other things (sometimes because she wants to watch the TV). Mostly used to make point that the husband is lazy. Usually found in sitcoms and advertisment, though I would think this is pretty much a Dead Horse Trope now.
    • Bumbling Dad is kind of a supertrope here. I can't find anything specifically related to TV watching, and it seems odd that we don't have a Couch Potato trope or something similar. May be worth YKTTW.

  • I keep finding broken links to a trope called "Like The Character Hate The Show", did we have a page like that in the past?
    • Yes, and it was placed on the Cut List for being too subjective. Please remove any links to it if you find them.

  • The character is meditating and they are just about to attain enlightenment, but they get interrupted by a character. This has occurred in Avatar The Last Airbender and The Simpsons and probably a few other places.
    • I don't know if we have this; if there are enough examples to make a trope out of it I suggest the title 'Nervanaverted'.

  • Is there a trope that is used as an initial plot device wherein the protagonist is living in their perfect world, or has anything they could ever wanted, (their significant other, family, or are just in a good place in life) and then there whole wold is destroyed (every thing is taken from them) be it by the antagonist or otherwise? Such as in Sweeney Todd, when Todd has his life stolen from him by Judge Turpin.

  • Do we have a trope covering character reacting with wonder or even fear to things that most of us take for granted? Examples: the kids in the Stargate movie being amazed by O'Neill's lighter, the people of Rathain reacting with fear to the sight of a clear sky for the first time in centuries in Curse of the Mistwraith, and the children in The Others reacting to sunlight?

  • What is the name of a trope that involves creatures which are comprised of the bodies of many of organisms. Be it naturally occuring or the work of Mad Science.

  • Do we/Should we have a page on trucks in fiction? The only reference to one I could find on Vehicle Tropes was Molotov Truck, which isn't quite the same. (A page on trucks (and therefore their owners) as the incarnation of virility and strength is what I'm talking about).
    • Might be a subset of Cool Car, at least for works that focus on specific vehicles. Take it to YKTTW, see if you get examples.

  • Is there a trope for when two characters who'll become significant to each other later meet offhandedly, possibly not even speaking, or just bumping into each other. They could be future Nakama, enemies or just close acquaintances with a large place in each other's life and destiny. They could meet properly the very next day or years later. Like a cop who arrests their future partner for speeding, or a band that tours with someone who'll ultimately end up joining their band.

  • What's the one where a character/place's name is exactly the same as an ordinary word, but spelled with so many apostrophes, redundant letters, etc. as to make it look like a totally different word, though it becomes obvious if you say it out loud? For example, The Medic's name in Guided Age is Syr'nj (Syringe).

  • Is there a trope for where a character walks into a room, takes in whatever's happening and then immediately walks back out?
    Eg: Bob trips and lands on Alice, just then Charlie walks in. He sees the compromising position Bob and Alice are in and quickly leaves the room awkwardly, embarrassedly muttering, "I'll come back later."

  • Is there a sub trope of Tempting Fate, where every of the character's friends are wishing him well and says "I'll see you soon"... and of course the guy suffers a horrible accident, so that nobody ever sees him again? Like Zack in Crisis Core?

  • A specific type of a Career Killer that always ensures that his victims die with as little pain and emotional distraught as possible. Examples include the Operative from Serenity, V to Doctor Surridge in V for Vendetta, Dwight in Sin City's opening sequence and Ezio in Assassins Creed. It's not Apologetic Attacker, because the killer doesn't feel any guilt or remorse for the kill itself, and just wants to make his victim's last moments as comfortable as possible.

  • Is there a trope for the ubiquitous Asian newscaster?

  • Something happened One Thousand Years Ago, and is going to happen again soon. I can't tell if it's a Vicious Cycle, and thus believe it could be a one-shot. While I'm concerned about the arbitrary number, the associated one-shot is also acceptable.

  • How about one for when the monster is about to eat the hero, who sticks a branch/bone/pipe/etc into its mouth so it can't bite down? Used in everything from Return Of The Jedi to Primeval, and subverted in the Doom movie (because the monster bit down anyway, drove the pipe right through its upper jaw, and kept on coming).

  • Do we have a trope that's the opposite of The Wesley? As in a character that the audience likes but the writer hates?
  • I am trying to find a trope that I can't imagine HASN'T been made yet. The trope where if a main character dies in an RPG the game ends. The rest of the party members can't revive him/her even though they can revive everyone else.

  • Is there an author-level version of Actor Allusion / Mythology Gag for titles/series/properties by the same author, but that are otherwise unrelated? For example, when Allen Heinberg wrote an episode of Greys Anatomy, he introduced a character named Teddy Altman, the name of a character in the Marvel Comics book Young Avengers, which he helped create.

  • Name that trope.....in a Three Stooges short, Curly is hiding inside a large console radio. To make others think that the radio is working, he pulls out a harmonica/pitch pipe looking instrument and begins blowing it. He augments this by using the innards of the radio like other instruments (playing the tubes like a xylophone, strumming the wires like a harp, etc.) Of course, it is blatantly obvious that he is miming to a prerecorded musical track. So, here's the very brief "fourth wall" gag that follows...at one point, we see him miming like he's finishing the song with a flourish. He pulls the pitch pipe from his mouth with a satisfied smile, does a "take" as he realizes the music is still playing, and quickly puts the instrument back to his mouth and resumes miming as if nothing has happened. Definitely an element of Medium Awareness here, or perhaps related to Sorry, I Left the BGM On, but it doesn't quite fit either of those tropes. Ideas?

  • Alice and Bob are dating. Charlie tries to seduce Alice, and pushes her into a compromising position. Bob walks in and assumes the worst. I found Mistaken for Cheating, and I don't know if this is The Same But More, or qualitatively different because, depending on the set up, there need not be an Idiot Ball in play, for example if Alice and Bob are already in a situation that induces doubt... say Bob walks in because he's just returned from an 18 month tour in Iraq.

  • Do we have a HSQ-like page for WTF's? 'cause we should.

  • A trope for a tendency of villains to get defeated in the end due to failing to collaborate — as opposed to the heroes, who work as a team. Think Sailor Moon anime — many villains in the end wind up killed by each other, and whenever a mook is putting plans into action, the rest of them seemingly just hang around waiting for said mook's failure to get the opportunity to take his/her place.

  • Is there a trope when a joke or a gag becomes indecipherable or at least very bland due to the march of time? A good example would be the scene in the movie Clueless where the protagonist, her dad, and her step-brother sit at the dinner table. Suddenly, a cell phone begins to ring, and all three of them pick up their phones, thinking it's his/her celly that's ringing. When I saw the movie in 1995, people at the cinema laughed hysterically at this scene, because back then cell phones were still considered yuppie toys, so the idea that everyone in the family had one was considered funny. But if you watch the movie today, the joke in the scene is completely lost, as most teenagers do have their own cell phones, and the sort of scene where everyone thinks it's their phone that's ringing is actually very common. Basically, this trope would be the opposite of Hilarious in Hindsight. It's not Harsher in Hindsight or "Funny Aneurysm" Moment though, as these tropes depict scenes that become harsher, more ominous, or ironic in hindsight. This trope is about something that was once considered funny losing its humour because the context where the joke worked is lost in history.
    • Sounds like either Seinfeld Is Unfunny or Aluminum Christmas Trees or possibly both. Or good old Values Dissonance, I'm not sure that always has to be political correctness marching on.
      • I'd go with "inversion of Aluminum Christmas Trees" myself for that example — rather than something appears more ridiculous because of the passage of time, it appears less so.
    • Technology Marches On in this instance, and/or Science Marches On. (FWIW it might still be funny for a different reason - back in the olden days of cell phones there wasn't as much (or any) opportunity for individualizing your cell phone ringtone, so everybody had to check their phones whenever anyone's phone rang.)

  • This is a bit specific, but is there a trope for someone acting immature, only to immediately lampshade it by referring to their age, credentials, or awards? The most recent example I've seen is from a Charlie Brooker column ("That or it pulls out to reveal it all took place in a cat's bum. A cat's bum doing a poo. I am 39 years old."), but I'm certain I've also seen it in The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.

  • Do we have a trope covering sequences where anticipation of Something Bad makes the ultimate shock that much more terrifying? Sort of along the same lines as Nothing Is Scarier, only in that seeing the Bad Thing isn't a disappointment.

  • Is there a trope for someone who's the Butt-Monkey and/or Chew Toy but it's their own damn fault? Example: Black Mage of 8-Bit Theater

  • Is there a trope for, simply enough, two people deciding to settle their romantic problems via violence? (Often because of the fact that they love the same person.)

  • Is there a trope for something best describes as a "Noodle Curse"? It's a curse word never actually heard (or translated), but the ramifications of hearing it are stated to be severe, and the context where it is acceptable is scarce. Such as Stitch's alien swearing in Lilo And Stitch, causing a robot to vomit.

  • Do we have a trope for when several characters all scream at the same time? Like, say a bus plummets off a cliff and then we get a shot of everyone in the bus screaming as it falls?

  • I know this- or something similiar- is around somewhere... Alice, Bob and Charlie are together. Alice needs to tell Bob something and takes him ten feet away into the next room. When she tells him, he repeats it at the top of his lungs... but Charlie doesn't hear, because despite being less than ten feet away, they're out of the room.

  • Is there a trope for when the heroes of a work are basically Those Two Guys, except, well, in the foreground?

  • I figure there has to be an official name for this: when the last word of a line in a song turns into the the first of the next line. Mostly seen in Bawdy Songs and Getting Crap Past the Radar (Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass, Miss Suzy sat upon it, and cut her little Ask me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies...)

  • What is the trope for when a character mentions something, and then the television just happens to show an ad, or a news report, about the very thing the character was talking about, often word-for-word? No matter what I search for, I can't find it, and I know we have it!

  • Is there something for when a character believes that they're dreaming or halucinating, but it's real? Particularly cases where someone actually tries to convince them that they're real but the person refuses to accept it? (I've already found Or Was It a Dream? and That Was Not a Dream, but they're not quite what I'm after, because they're about a character's reaction afterward, whereas I'm thinking of reaction during.)

  • Do we have any tropes about missing time? where a scene jumps from one point to another and the character doesn't remember what happened in between.

  • Let's say Bob Kicks The Dog by treating a minor character in a callous manner. Normally we'd be just like "yeah he's just a bad person." However, for those paying attention, this action - despite in general not jumping out as un-Bob-like - directly contradicts the way the character acted toward a similar (or same) character previously. Is there a trope for this situation, or is it just Kick the Dog, The Same But More? If either option is invalid, is it Tropable?

  • Trying to figure out this trope: One scene where the hero shows off his/her chops in a very entertaining, but otherwise, unnecessary self-contained action sequence. These scenes normally have little to no dialogue, plot development, or suspense, and the story will always continue unhindered. Similar to a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, but fits within the story's events and has more in common with an intermission that showcases butt-kicking. Examples include: Legolas vs. the Oliphaunt in ROTK, Hulk fighting the tanks in "Hulk," and Indy shooting the swordsman in "Raiders."
    • The Cast Show Off??
      • Cast Show-Off sounds close, although this variation would apply more to the characters than the actors, and it's often a centerpiece included at the director's insistence. I suppose a "Character Show-off" would be a more fitting term in this case.

  • Do we have a trope where, when characters are exposed to a mutagen, the men become mutants/superheores while the women just give birth to mutants/superheores? I realize this could be Double Standard, but do we have a specific trope for it?

  • What's the trope name for a fictional universe where the solution to every problem becomes whatever the theme of the show happens to be i.e. Yu-Gi-Oh with Card Games, or Glee with Music. I was thinking Thematically Consistent Universe, but that doesn't seem to be a thing.

  • Do we have one about how a woman accidentally reveals she's cheating by yelling out the name of her lover when engaging in conjugal relations with her husband? I thought it was Oh, Mr. Grant!, but that's more a variant on Sexy Discretion Shot.

  • Do we have a trope where a work loses a lot of its replay (or re-readability, or re-watchability) value because the draw of the story is a riddle or unanswered question? Like, rading a murder mystery, or playing an Ace Attorney game, or watching a movie that starts In Medias Res and uses the viewer's lack of knowledge for dramatic tension. Going back and repeating the experience, you find that it's not quite the same anymore, because you know the answer this time.

  • What's the name of a trope that describes this comic - two conversations are happening at the same time and the scene cuts back and forth between them; in each cut, the next sentence could have easily followed the pre-cut sentence but is part of a different conversation. I remember the same thing happening in the first Kingdom Hearts and at least one Robert Rankin book. I thought it might be One Scene, Two Monologues or One Dialogue, Two Conversations but neither is about this.

  • Is there something for when a young and/or naive character is speaking to a more experienced, mature, or jaded character, and the more experienced one says something like "I once thought as you did"? This is usually said in a condescending manner, although not always.

  • Do we have a trope covering the tendency in stories for a plain or unimpressive example of a weapon, instrument, tool, etc., to be greatly superior to an ornate, flashy, or jeweled example of a similar item? Examples include Carrot Ironfoundersson's sword in the Discworld stories (which is not an impressive sword, but it is very good and being a sword), Arithon's choice of a plain lyranthe with exquisite sound quality over the jeweled instruments in Curse of the Mistwraith, and Susan Boyle's singing blowing every other contestant out of the water in Britain's Got Talent

  • How about one for times when someone is killed in a crossfire, under circumstances where nobody knows (or, usually, will ever know) who killed them? Examples would include Dumbledore's little sister in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Grag Hamcrusher in Thud!, or the undercover cop whom McGee shot on NCIS.

  • Do we have a trope for weapons that get more powerful for every kill? (I'm not sure if any game besides League Of Legends has these.) ~slvstrChung
    • Experience Points. It just happens to be applied to weapons rather than characters.

  • This might be less a trope than a sort of trend, but is there a name for the escalation of complexity of villains' deaths? In Die Hard, Hans falls to his death from a high place. In The Last Boy Scout, Milo falls to his death from a high place into a helicopter's rotor blades. The ultimate example is Cyrus's multipart death in Con Air: I don't remember the exact sequence, but it's a ridiculous Rasputinian Death.

  • Trope for when someone goes all "Look into your heart and you'll find the right answer" sort of thing (usually to some not-so-nice person) in a situation of danger (usually in order to use that person's resources for free since everyone in the village is starving or whatever) in order to try to persuade them into helping the askers?
    • This reminds me of the subversion in Miller's Crossing. ("Look into your heart." "What heart?")

  • Looking for a trope about seeing the world though other peoples perception, mind-o-vision if you will. Recent example, Bioshock 2, where you can see the world as the little sisters do.

  • Do we have a trope for when an iconic image of a work is associated with an iconic quote, except they're never associated in the work? The best-known example would be Hamlet holding Yorick's skull while saying "To be or not to be" (I thought Alas, Poor Yorick was this, but I was wrong).

  • I'm pretty sure Command And Conquer:Generals had its own page at one point. What happened to it?

  • I think it's a sadness/ending trope common in Speculative Fiction where the ending is supposed to be sad, but it could be so totally bizarre that people who aren't as receptive to scifi might end up scratching their heads. One of the examples was the end of AI: Artificial Intelligence. And the picture on the page was a dead whale on the moon from South Park.

  • We've got Amazingly Embarrassing Parents and Over-Enthusiastic Parents. Is there a trope for the opposite, as in parents the kid thinks are awesome? Maybe kid and parent are Back-to-Back Badasses, or he's just a Badass Old Guy. Maybe they're both massive nerds, or he's a master swordsman.

  • Is there a trope for where someon lists off all the dangers involved in X and still goes along with it?
    Alice: You want us to cross a river of death, climb a mountain made of razor sharp rocks, and fight a horde of ninjas with chainsaw-nunchucks?
    Bob: Uh huh.
    Alice: Okay, where do we start?

  • It's similar to Shouldn't We Be At School Right Now? Instead of just waving it off, the characters will return to class. There they will receive some sort of punishment for skipping classes, but they'll be rewarded for saving the world as well. I remember it clearly in Harry Potter and even Jimmy Neutron. I think it's common in adventure stories where the heroes are kids.

  • What is the trope that takes place when there is a love triangle and one of the three, usually the one the audience is meant to root for, is looking for the individual of their desire, sometimes to tell them something that'll show their close friendship or even sometimes to profess their love for that person, and they turn the corner to see their unrequited love kissing the third point of the triangle? Usually they will look crestfallen and quietly slink away, unnoticed by the embracing other two. I saw this on Castle the other day and thought it had to be here somewhere.
    • Might be Derailing Love Interests.
    • Could be a by-product of that, I suppose. I was thinking the specific type of scene was somewhere on the site.

  • Is there a trope covering beings with the ability to give a character anything they want, but with no concept of what the character may actually need? Examples I can think of are the Other Mother in Coraline (who offers Coraline wonders and sweets and can't understand why she wants her mundane parents back) and the Fairy Queen in one of the Tiffany Aching books, who gives Tiffany's little brother all the candy he could ever want, while Tiffany understands that was Little Bro needs is a warm and caring mother who is willing to set limits.

  • is there a trope where two lovers meet again after many years? one of them hurts the other really badly and breaks their heart,but when they see each other again, the heartbreaker tries to repair their relationship? like a Second Chancebut with a relationship?
  • What's the trope where one character lists some things as if the subject of the list was great, and the other participant in the conversation lists negatives in response? Just spotted this in Red Dead Redemption:
    Nigel West Dickens: Wasn't that fantastic? The cheers of the crowd! The thunder of the wheels!
    John Marsden: The falling rocks. The homicidal maniacs.

  • On Expy, it says "Also note that a fictional counterpart to a real-life person would not be an Expy." The page doesn't say what such a person would be, though. What trope would that be? I'm specifically thinking of two thinly-veiled characters (one in the movie My Favorite Year, one in Howard Chaykin's Blackhawk comic) who are clearly modeled on the real-life Errol Flynn, but under different names.

  • Please remind me of the name for an ending that's emotionally satisfying, but doesn't actually wrap up all the loose ends. I think one possible example is the ending of the Fruits Basket anime.

  • Here's a scenario; Bob is the leader of some sort of organization, and Chuck is the second-in-command. Bob is rather clueless, usually coming across as incompetent; Chuck usually has to reel him in before he goes too far off the deep end. The recurring joke is that we never get an explanation as to how or why Bob got promoted above Chuck, it's just the way it is. Off the top of my head, the only exqmple I can think of the principal and the head teacher in Ladies Versus Butlers. Is there a trope for this?

  • Is there an index of pages ending with stingers? It seems we have just Statler And Waldorf.
    • The Repeatedly Used On This Very Wiki folder on the page.

  • Is there a trope for that girl (usually pops up in anime) with an overbearingly optimistic attitude that eventually thaws the heart of the show's Bad Boy/eternally pessimistic male character? Similar to the PowerofLove, but doesn't grant superpowers, kind of like a successful LoveMartyr, not quite a MoralityPet?

  • Is there a trope that talks about villans who use people as a staircase? 300 is an obvious example of a movie in which this happens.

  • looking for a trope where a guy is accused of commiting a crime of some sort and may be arrested. Other people try to find proof of his innocence and eventually they manage to clear his name....only at the end it is revealed at the end the guy actually IS guilty of the crime.

  • Is there a trope for the words "How do you know my name?" (and what happens after these words are said) ?

  • When a couple, usually young and in the stage of Will They or Won't They?, gets close and is about to have a romantic moment, only for it to be derailed by someone commenting on how cute they are.

  • Do we have the stock phrase "my house my rules"?

  • Do we have something for buttons that don't do anything important in video games? An example would be in Luigis mansion, the button that makes Luigi yell marios name.

  • Is there a trope where something happens to a character that doesn't seem like it will have a lasting effect, but then a few episodes later it turns out to give them a useful ability? Like Xander's military knowledge coming from the Halloween spell in Buffy or Aeryn's Pilot DNA in Farscape?

  • Is there a trope where a character is in line at a supermarket/retail outlet etc., and when the total is brought up, the character reaches into their pocket and pulls out exact change with little or no time spent actually counting coins? Or when a character demands payment from another character, and the character then pulls exact number of bills required and hands it over without double checking the sum?
    • That could be just a result of The Law of Conservation of Detail. If it's not important for a character to stand there counting change, it's probably going to be skipped.

  • A spell that requires an activation phrase so long that it seems to only work just because of how time works in fiction and probably would've been completely useless in real world due to it.

  • Is there a trope like The Illegible, but where a character's handwriting is incomprehensible not because it's bad, but because it's overly stylized and fancy? Or would it be a variation?.. or inversion?.. or what?

  • Would there be a trope when an adaptation of a work deliberately leaves out less important (but still noticeably missing) details in favour of keeping itself shorter and more comprehensible plot-wise — under assumption that the audience could always refer to the original work for additional info?

  • I'm looking for a videogame trope about invasions. Many games, particularly real time strategies, start with full scale invasions that seem to be one side throwing everything they have at the other. Because the game starts with the invasion however, the player either leading or defending against it is only using/facing very weak units, like a scattering of basic infantry and maybe a couple of rocket troopers/archers. Sometimes handwaved by giving the player control of some backwater, but often done completely unrealistically by, say, having a few dozen conscripts try to take New York. What's the trope?

  • Is there a name for a trope where a host proves to be too insane or evil for it's parasite and in effect traps it? Or would Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth cover this?

  • Do we have a trope for when a poem or a piece of Real Life fiction is intentionally mentioned within the plot and then later is revealed as the device (motive/inspiration or more importantly a clue) for the characters? Not just an Epigraph and Shout-Out for the reader/viewer. I can only think of Diana Wynne Jones examples. In Deep Secret the heroine and her brother come across the nursery rhyme "How many miles to Babylon/Three-score miles and ten...." and this proves later on very relevant to the plot. And in Fire and Hemlock Thomas keeps feeding the heroine old ballads and fantasy fiction especially Tam Lin which is also very much relevant to the plot. And of course Howl's Moving Castle and John Donne's Song(Go and Catch a Falling Star).

  • Do we have a trope for a character who really doesn't know how to do something despite being forced into it, points out his different education/profession several times, doesn't pay much attention to what he does, and tries to leave one or more times, before being pushed back or guided back into place?

  • Not sure how to phrase this — is there a trope for, simply, a character who "grows the beard" of failure? It's not Flanderization — it can just be that they get more and more stressed and the stress leads them to screw up, making them more stressed?

  • I'm not sure how to describe this one, but is there a trope for when a character does something monotonous in a certain job for years so he can get one specific chance — and when he gets it, he fails. There's only one chance, though, so he keeps doing what he did before getting the opportunity?

  • This one is kind of hard to explain. Is there a trope for when a character makes a scale or reference point, but then their actual statement has nothing to do with the comparison or scale they set up? Take this example from Llamas with Hats 2:
    Unnamed Llama: Where are the other lifeboats, Carl?
    Carl: Well, judging by the trajectory of the moon and the sun, probably at the bottom of the ocean. I bit lots of holes in them.

  • Do we have a trope for, simply enough, a simple-minded or not-very-used-to-fancy-text reading a writing out loud, and having a hard time pronouncing a certain word? (This is typically played for laughs, and can read—sorry, lead to the character so stressed they mess up words they would have been able to pronounce in regular cases.)

  • Is there a trope for the simple visual of a mirror held up in front of another mirror, resulting in mirror images Into Infinity?

  • Is there a rough equivalent of Black Dude Dies First for other racial/ethnic categories, especially when it seems they're specifically targeted for death in order to leave the white characters around? Recent events in some pop culture ( Lost and Brightest Day) made me wonder, and the Death Tropes list was so long it made my eyes glaze over while trying to look for it.

  • I'm looking for a kind of generalization of the Bumbling Dad. This is any male adult who is depicted as a helpless moron, opposite a female. This guy shows up in a lot of TV (especially advertising) and can be Dad, but also husband, boyfriend, boss, whatever. He's a complete idiot and needs to be coddled by the long-suffering, patient but patronizing and eye rolling got-her-shit-together female character who, for reasons neither she nor the viewer can quite understand, is stuck with this bozo.

  • Is there an "All Concealing You," the "you" counterpart to The All-Concealing "I", in which a character's identity (or perhaps quality) is concealed by the use of "you," either in second person narration or the classic you're-about-to-be-murdered line in a mystery TV show "Oh, it's you"? I think it used to be under Pronoun Trouble until it was changed to actually fit what I thought it was.

  • Some characters are escaping from a dangerous situation, like a bombing, fire, flooding, or some other natural disaster. Suddenly, one of the characters turns around and goes back to retrieve some small object of purely sentimental value, something that is not a MacGuffin or otherwise relevant to the characters' goals. Often, this is a photograph or other keepsake of a departed loved one. As a result, the character either dies a tragic death themselves or requires a dramatic rescue from the other heroes. Do We Have This One? If not, I suggest "But You Went Running Back" as a title, after the line from the 1960s song Teen Angel. (In the song, a girl goes running back to a car stalled on railroad tracks in order to retrieve her boyfriend's class ring. And dies, of course.)

  • Is there a trope for a character who enters a specific business to fill a specific purpose, but is asked to fill another purpose for the time being and isn't able to get out of that purpose? Like, say, Bob enters a television show to act, but is asked to host the show and do the announcements for the time being, because the announcer didn't show up — and he turns out to be either so good at it or they simply don't want to hire anyone else that he becomes stuck. Do we have that, or it is unnecessarily narrow?

  • Do we have a trope for characters whose Peek A Bangs seem to be moving around on their head? It's primarily a visual trope. For example, Alice has hair that falls over the left side of her face, normally covering all of it from a side view. Then, when it comes time for a left-side side view of Alice, the Peek A Bangs are on the opposite side of her face.

  • Something often related to Arranged Marriage, though it might also come by accident from "marriage for love." I'm thinking of the political effects of marriage, like when a marriage brings rival nations or houses closer together, perhaps even as a new, unified, entity. Do We Have This?

  • I was so sure this was an actual fictional trope that I started to reference it in a scene of something I'm writing before I realized I couldn't think of a single specific example. It's the one where the hero facing a firing squad refuses the blindfold and/or cigarette to show just how defiant/badass he is. It's probably a Dead Horse Trope, because aside from the parody sketches on You Cant Do That On Television, most of the uses I vaguely remember of it date to the early 20th century. Even looking on Google, the only specific reference I can find to it is a Straight Dope question about why anyone offered the blindfold in the first place. But clearly at one point it was a popular enough image that they parodied it on a 1980s kids' comedy show. So what the hell is it? It's driving me nuts.

  • What is the trope called when a cowardly character facing his fears is referred to as braver than the person who has no fears? Specifically remember it relating to Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable.

  • Are there any tropes to describe someone who likes poetry, but is not a Warrior Poet, nor a Cultured Bad Ass... and in fact has nothing Bad Ass to speak about them? Just your average guy who enjoys reading and creating poetry? I think the closest I can find is Gentleman and a Scholar.

  • Is there a trope for instances of Executive Meddling where a scene is cut because what is depicted is deemed too disturbing, only for the truncated scene to imply something far worse has happened? Examples: The birthing scene in The Brood, Frankenstein's Monster playing with the little girl (and accidentally killing her) in the 1931 movie.

  • Do we have a trope covering characters with perfect pitch?

  • Do we have a trope for when a character tells another about someone they knew in the past, and then reveal it was them. E.g.: "I once knew a little girl who also wanted to play tuba, but she was too caught up in avenging her father's murder to practice. Don't repeat her mistake." "How did things turn out for her?" "Alright, for you see, that little girl... was me."

  • Is there one for the inverse of Mundane Utility, the use of a very minor/weak ability to devastating effect? For example, a girl with short-range telekinesis on small objects becomes an untraceable assassin (she pinches her victims' carotid nerve from afar).

  • Is there a trope for this sort of exchange: "You don't know how to do X?!" "They don't teach you how to do X in the Y!" Example:
    Alice: You don't know how to break an egg?
    Bob: (grumbling) They don't teach you how to break eggs in the army!

  • Is there a trope for when someone does something just because they were told not to do it? It's not Reverse Psychology, since in that case, the other person told them not to do it, knowing that would make them do it. This is just the character being contrary or a big jerk, or whatever.

  • Is there a trope for when a musician breaks his guitar on purpose, just to show how crazy the show he's playing at has gotten?

  • Is there a trope where a character proposes to another character on the air, radio or TV?

  • I'm looking for a trope in which two or more people, brothers, sisters or simply close friends, speak the same words at the same time.

  • Looking for a trope along the lines of 'disposable stepfather', a stepfather whose only real role is to convince the kids' real father to get his act together. This done, the stepfather/replacement husband will dissapear with little complaint or die off, leaving the family to get back together, seen in {{2012}} and Liar Liar.

  • I am sure about this and yet I can't find it. Wasn't there some sort of subtrope of Hurricane of Puns, only with references instead, called something like Hurricane Of Shout Outs or Hurricane Of References? Please, I want to know I'm not going mad...
    • Cliché Storm?
    • Not exactly; the OT was talking about references to other stories, not clichés. I can't think of any trope like this, though, so you may just need to say "Shout-Out: a lot".

  • I dont think we have this one but i'm posting here before I YKTTW. this has to do with pregnancy. anyway its similar to Chekhov's Gun but it's when a woman is pregnant: two things may occur. A The Heros WILL be there for the birth and it WILL serve as a sortt of moral booster for them. or B that baby is going to be important later or at least certainly show up later. Please tell me if this is too much People Sit On Chairs to be a trope.

  • A badass protagonist (for example, Taken's Bryan Mills) has spent his entire career (and part of the movie) killing and maiming people. But when some mook gets hit by a truck, he averts his eyes at the last second as if it's really going to bother him if he watches some random guy's death. Does this happen often enough to have its own trope?

  • I know we have Stupid Jetpack Hitler and Soviet Super Science, but what's the trope for how Nazis were always involved in occult experiments (summoning the Norse gods, demons, Super Soldiers/doomsday machines etc.) as seen in Hellboy?
    • Ghostapo should be what you're looking for.

  • A situation where the protagonist(s) are attending a play or otherwise nearby when one of the main actors falls sick/gets killed/loses their voice, and they are roped into taking over the role. Hilarity Ensues. Do We Have This One?
    • Something dramatic happens that renders an actor unable to play, leaving only the protagonist(s) to replace them, possibly despite a lack of theater experience? Well, regardless, TheShowMustGoOn!

  • In video games with multiple playable characters, is there a trope(s) for a boss/level who is only fought by one of the characters, when the rest of the game is generally the same? Final boss examples include the last Dracula in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (who is only fought if you play as Alucard) or the Doomsday Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles(which only happens if you play as Sonic). A more generic boss example would be that archer boss in Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, whom you only fight when playing as Ayame. Thanks!

  • Cliche sexy suburben teenage boy gardener (triming hedges/mowing lawns) with toned abs of whom all the teenage girls (and some times house wives) fawn over

  • How about when the characters in a film or show have supposedly been working outdoors in the hot sun for days, yet the Caucasian cast members are all still pasty-white because it's a cheapass production and couldn't even shell out a few bucks for fake tanning lotion?

  • Is there a trope where a character does something or is in a situation which would normally be deemed impossible, and they actually realize that fact as they're doing it? Like, someone's flying and they realize that this should be impossible because no one else can fly in their world.

  • A character is good at a particular activity, but he can't do it right when he has an audience. It might be that he is generally nervous or that he gets nervous in front of a particlar person, usually the love interest. ("Did Ron save anything?" "He would've saved, if he didn't kept thinking everyone was looking at him...")

  • Is there a trope for when people refer to each other by their occupation/character class/species, most often to indicate how little they think of them? For example, a darf consistently referring to the ranger as "elf", or a warrior never calling the mage anything but "sorceror", both in as curt a tone of voice as possible?

  • Is there a trope when the writers try to portray the villain as not commpletely evil by having them spare someone's life becuase the person reminds them of somebody they use to know (or love) before they turned tino a bad guy?example: in underworld, viktor spares Selene's life because she reminds him of his dead daughter even though he killed the rest of her family
    • Pet the Dog?
      • kinda but not like that. not because they feel like it, but becaus e they specifically remind them of somebody they loved and lost?
      • You Remind Me of X?

  • Is there a trope for when a character's parents turn out to be more than they seemed? i.e. A character leading an otherwise normal life has received the Call to Adventure and been sucked into some kind of mystical secret society or has gained some kind of power; they later find out that their parent(s) has/have been involved in the same secret society/had the same power all along? Note, this is not Luke, I Am Your Father, where an existing character is revealed to be another character's parent. Although I wouldn't necessarily rule Star Wars out as an example. Some other examples (all of which are potentially spoilers): Bleach (possibly the poster child for this trope), Chuck, Wanted, Harry Potter. (Will probably propose this to YKTTW soon.)
    • Not exactly this trope, but it could possibly overlap with Open-Minded Parent.
      • You're right, there is some overlap. Not exactly what I'm looking for though.

  • Do we have a trope to name the situation where only ONE character appears in a work of fiction? No supporting characters at all, it's just a 1-Man-Cast...
    • Any examples? This troper can't imagine how on earth that would work.
      • Well, this is something I have seen in quite a bunch of classic cartoons. Since they're 7 minutes long or so and wacky hijinks ensue, it works quite well. For instance, this Donald Duck cartoon. I do wonder if this is something that has been featured in other media; I guess it could work if you approach it from a psychologic perspective...But I disgress. Oh, just remembered! The movie Cast Away is another good example; Hanks is alone in the majority of the film. Likewise in the the first episode of Twilight Zone "Where is Everybody?"; again, for the most part.
      • I don't know if there is a trope for this, but it also exists in theatre. They're called "One Man Shows".

  • Is there a trope for when a franchise of decent to good quality has a particularly bad entry (single episode, movie, etc), yet despite the nearly all the fans hating it, it has one single awesome redeeming feature (character, scene, element, idea etc.) that everyone admits is worth recognising, even to the extend of preventing fans from Dis Continuity-ing the entire entry?

  • Is there a trope where one character blames another character for something that took place in their Imagine Spot as though it was real?

  • The trope where Character A is placed in Character B's shoes as a form of horror. An example is an event of The Pitt addon in Fallout 3, where the Lone wanderer reads about a man who trapped himself in a factory utility closet with a protectron pacing outside the room on a computer which spawns a protectron just outside when you finish reading.

  • Trope for when the Villain is mocked for having a small penis (and assumed to have started doing bad stuff to begin with to compensate) while The Hero has a considerably large one and high sexual prowess?

  • A trait someone has reminds someone else of someone they knew long ago, which causes them to act unexpectedly to the person. For example: Bob starts to hate Alice because she has a hyenna laugh that reminds him of his sister, who he doesn't get along with, or Eve trusting Carol the moment they meet because Carol has a soft voice and personality like Eve's old childhood friend, who she was very close to. Bob and Eve don't even need to realize that's why they had that reaction, as long as the work makes it explicit.

  • This is a common trope in anime, but I don't know what it's called. Basically, whenever a character has some sort of sudden brilliant idea, they cup one hand and tap it with the other. The sound of a taiko drum hit is ALWAYS accompanied. It's a "Hey! I remember now!" type situation.

  • This troper is sure she's seen this one: a trope for when two people sing a song and argue at the same time? As in, the arguement is in the song itself? Like the song, "Anything You can Do I can Do Better":
    Alice: Anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you!
    Bob: No you can't.
    Alice: Yes I can.
    Bob: No you can't.
    Alice: Yes I can!
    Bob: No you can't!

  • It was some kind of math humor page (mostly involving formulas), and there was one (link to an) example I remember really well—it involved comparing Gandalf pre-Balrog vs. Gandalf post-Balrog, vs. Balrog, vs. Saruman, etc., etc., all using formulaic math. It was pretty darn funny. (and no, it was NOT Gandalf blocking the graph)

  • Do We Have This One? Somewhat related to The Ghost Bob sees Alice with something strange or hard to find he may or may not have been looking for it before hand. Bob asks Alice where she got it to which she responds "I know a guy". another one i'm lookign for is a rumor that was long spread within the context of the story leading to the teller that we are hearing saying "I Know this guy who knows this guy who knows this guy" etc so we can't be sure if he's relyable

  • What's the term or trope for when fans stick with a series despite acknowledging that it has jumped the shark, hoping that it will Grow The Beard soon and the Seasonal Rot will just have been a Dork Age?

  • Engendered by this YKTTW: that one is for "no accents for the main character." Is there a similar trope for "no haircut for the main character?" Like, Tom Cruise in Top Gun didn't get a military style haircut, but the rest of the cast did.

  • Is there a weapons trope for characters who wield a chain (not a metal ball on a chain or a whip)?
    • Those are still listed under Epic Flail (Ex. Gogo and her Metor Hammer from Kill Bill is listed there).

  • What is called when a character's power/ability is to control/manipulate shadows and/or darkness?

  • "You're hot when you ______"
    • Similar to "You're beautiful when _____"?
    • "Geeky Turn-On", or less specific?

  • Is there a trope for the "fact" that any woman who wants to be a homemaker or enjoys staying home must be a complete pushover and unable to function outside her home?

  • Is there a trope for, sort of, the opposite of the Animation Age Ghetto? That is, just like a cartoon must be aimed at children, a live action film must be aimed at adults, leading to Barneys such as Snow Dogs, The Squeakquel, and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

  • Is there a trope for something that is rated as "For Adults," but not for profanity, nudity, or violence. Rather, for the fact that it is designed for a mature person. I'm think like The Dark Knight or Myst. Little to no swearing, nudity, or Gorn, but The Dark Knight is a very dark movie and Myst is incredibly challenging, thus rated as "For Adults."

  • Is there a trope for when someone believes they are fighting on the good side, but are being lied to (not brainwashed) by someone evil and are actually doing horrible evil things without realizing?

  • Is there a trope for a character who exists in the past, present, and future all at the same time? Like Dr. Manhattan.

  • Monkeys using a typewriter

  • Is there a trope for how the practice of excluding a police officer from an investigation, or a judge or lawyer from a trial, because of personal connections to the case is never portrayed as simple routine? If it's a trial, having someone recuse themselves is always treated as some sneaky underhanded ploy. If it's an investigation, telling a cop to stay out it only causes them to defiantly disobey the order; either that, or the cop's personal agenda is an excuse for unfair treatment (e.g. the sheriff who disregards evidence and tosses an innocent hero in jail just because he knows the hero's been flirting with his daughter) that no one else on the investigation seems to notice is biased.

  • Whats the name for the trope where a teenager is the main hero; even though an adult would be much more suited for the job (Not something like Child Soldiers, more like Kid Hero but in this specific case its like how mecha animes typically have teenage protagonists even though it would be much more realistic for adults who are trained to do so to do the same)

  • Is there a trope for when a character continues to take a viewpoint that has been proven to be false simply because they don't want to admit it? For example, General Varana in The Belgariad refuses to admit that sorcery exists even when he sees it in front of him, since Tolnedrans don't believe in sorcery.

  • Is there a trope which you call a mentally retarded person with some significant to a character developing plot? Like Too Dumb to Live or Too Dumb to Fool. Which one is it? P.S.: The character died even before the story starts.
    • What's special about this person that makes them anything other than a Dead Little Sister or the equivalent?
      • She (Yes, the person's a girl) affects the personality of one of the main characters and her death kind of gave that character some nightmares as he grows up.

  • Is there a trope that's, basically, "Women Are Humourless?" Closely related to Closer to Earth, but not quite covered there (judging from the desription, anyway). In many shows, the male characters are more fun, more carefree, and have more of a sense of humour than the female characters. The women will always be the one standing to the side, looking at the men acting like fools; this shows how Closer to Earth they are, but also implies that they don't know how to have fun. A story ark might be such a character learning to be more carefree (sometimes with unfortunate consequences). I'm sure this is covered somewhere, even if it isn't its own trope (though it probably should be), but Closer to Earth doesn't quite get this idea across, and I can't find what does. Halp plz?

  • Is this a trope? It feels like it should be...after someone has apparently died, in this case by being buried under a rockfall, building collapse, or other colossal bit of destruction, they are revealed to have survived by having one hand push (or punch) its way out from under the rubble.
    • No One Could Survive That! ?
      • No, this is specifically about the image of the person punching or pushing their hand out of the wreckage to prove they did, in fact, survive. It's probably akin to the idea of someone crawling out of their own grave after being Buried Alive, but it's not that trope either since they weren't buried in a grave, just caught in an explosion or collapse.
      • Hmm... While the intentions may differ, the image seems to me to be much the same in "rising from the grave" (see: The Mummy (the Arnold Vosloo version)) and "They actually survived!" cases - my impression is that the image is very similar in either case (hand and wrist, perhaps with forearm, thrust up from the ground, fingers half-grabbing the air, as if to grip freedom and life, or those foolish mortals who awoke them). The idea, I suppose, is that reaching, grasping for some external goal while escaping a place of imprisonment (whether a collapse or the grave).

  • Is there a trope for where a work is based on actual events, and the writer adds racial diversity to the cast when, in reality, there shouldn't be any? For example, an Asian living in colonial America. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I seem to remember this trope from somewhere.

  • Is there a named trope for when a writer, either through self-censorship or honest naivete, omits mention of something too raunchy/vicious/dark from their work, even if it diminishes its plausibility? HP Lovecraft did this in The Hound, where his self-proclaimed debauched reprobates never engaged in sexual escapades. Likewise, Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide glosses over topics (defending your terrified children, working up the will to put down infected loved ones) that would seem inherent in a Zombie Apocalypse scenario, simply because there's such a thing as too morbid in a comedy.
    • Don't know if there's anything that actually lists such cases, but if the work is meant to be a comedy, you could probably get away with describing it as an awareness of Dude, Not Funny! — that page describes it more from the point of view of the audience, but it could also be pre-emptively employed by a creator. Wouldn't work for non-comedy works, though.

  • How about when a group of people are standing over the camera, similar to and may even overlap with Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You. An example is the theatrical poster for the movie The Losers.

  • Is the bridge-jumping car a trope? In the sense that a car that jumps off a ramp or off a higher area lands with no damage whatsoever to its structure, with the passengers at most being shaken as on a badly-maintained road?

  • Do we have a trope when someone (usually a Ted Baxter) tries to assume leadership of a group, only to find that no one wants to listen to them because the person is too bossy/egotistic/unlikable/etc?

  • Infodumps Are Boring? True, any examples worth mentioning are aversions, but it stands to reason that there should be a page for it…
    • Well, it doesn't contain any examples (even aversions), but the page just called Infodump does mention the various ways in which an infodump can be annoying, including the possibility of them being boring. I'm not sure there's any separate page that focuses specifically on their boringness.

  • Is there a trope for when you've heard a song so many times that it's no longer enjoyable in the same way? This isn't talking about popularity, it's talking about how when you hear it on the radio you no longer enjoy it because you've already heard it fifty billion times.

  • Do we have a for trope a character is drinking something stronger than Frothy Mugs of Water and sees something strange that actually happens but react as to thinking it's because they're drunk possibly with the statement, "I've had enough," and stop?

  • What's it called when a character is always assumed to be a "he", even though no one had met him yet, but then it turns out to be a "she" when they actually met her?

  • Is there a trope for when there's a flashback or flashforward that goes WAY into the future or the past, meaning decades (and a different actor), but the hair, make-up, and costume department made it their life's mission to make the character look exactly the same as they did 50 years ago or in another time. This is meant to make the viewer instantly recognize the character, because, you know...viewers are idiots...and to keep disbelief suspended, but for this troper, it actually makes it all too painfully un...suspended... When movies and TV are about character development at their core, who wants to jump back (or forth) decades and find out the character will never, ever change? It turns them into a caricature. You'll see what I mean in the examples.
    • Examples: In Atonement, we jump ahead 60 years and Bryony is in her seventies, but still has that cute, cropped haircut she had in her tweens. She still bends over awkwardly and shyly like she did when she was thirteen, and both actresses even met with a vocal coach so the character would have the same vocal pitch six decades later. It's actually oddly inverted in the middle of the film when Bryony is now seventeen, but instead of making Saoirse Ronan look just four years older, they got a completely different actress to play the part, and all of a sudden the character is this rough-looking lady who could pass for a thirty year old. Of course, she still has that same damn short, schoolgirl haircut.
    • An episode of Nip/Tuck begins with a flashback to 25 years prior, when Sean and Christian first meet in medical school. Of course, Christian's features are exaggerated: his hair spiked-up so as to achieve that square-face look he'll have 25 years later, so, you know, we'll believe it's him in a flashback; his collar's popped, and surprisingly had the exact same cynical attitude that would be the trademark of his character two-and-a-half decades later. Sean, on the other hand, is still intentionally boring, but the hair department certainly went to great lengths to make him resemble his 40-something counterpart.

  • What's this trope? Two (or more) characters become one when the work gets adapted into another medium.

  • Is there are a trope for when a character can't hear another character because they put in earplugs (or a similar reason), so when another character talks to them, they're all "What? Speak up?" Can also take the form of
    Alice: Are your earplugs in yet?
    Bob: I can't hear you, I just put in my earplugs.

  • Do we have a trope for when a character says something and is immediately contradicted? For example:
    Bob: Trust me, there are absolutely NO penguins in that closet!
    (Closet door opens, revealing a dozen penguins stashed inside)
    • Or:
    Alice: I'm sure there aren't any spiders in here.
    (Millions of spiders begin to crawl up her shoulders)

  • Is there a trope for when a character's name is the reverse of someone else's? I can think of two examples, Elan and his twin Nale from The Order Of The Stick, and Krad and Dark from DN Angel. Help?

  • There MUST be a trope for serials that keep upping the stakes without ever getting to a resolution, usually inventing new roadblocks every time it looks like things are close to resolving. I call this 'Infinitely stretchable rubber band syndrome' because that's how it treats the attention span and suspension of disbelief of viewers. Example that comes to mind: Bones and the romantic plot between Brennan and Booth. The writers have spent five years pushing them together, but refuse to bring this to the logical conclusion of actually getting them together (and have stated that they are convinced people would hate it if it actually happened) so viewers are now subjected to increasingly out of character reasons and behaviour to justify the characters not beginning a relationship.

  • Is there a trope for a specific type of fridge logic wherein people are banished to some extra dimensional space for "eternity" except that they would logically die of starvation first?

  • Do we have a trope covering very lifelike behavior from a theatrical puppet (hand puppet, marionette, etc, but NOT animatronics)? In-universe examples include The Puppet Master movies (where the marionettes are actually alive) and a bit in the short cartoon "Wackiki Wabbit" where Bugs Bunny controls a marionette made of a roast chicken to fool the castaways who want to eat him, while the marionettes used in Team America World Police were capable of such subtle behavior that the puppeteers were getting wierded out.

  • What do you call a plot where one of the villains comes to realise that he is working for the wrong side after all — possibly after the Big Bad commits something particularly nasty — but doesn't explicitly switch sides? For example, if he's told to fight the heroes, he'll fight — but mostly to see if they're strong enough to face the Big Bad himself, not to actually get rid of them.

  • A trope about a trip inside of the Big Bad's dominion, such as the trip Gordon Freeman takes inside of the Citadel in Half Life 2?
    • At its most basic, this is Storming the Castle.
    • Not exactly. Maybe I wasn't explaining well, or I just need another example. (Kane during and after the Stroggification process, where he's brought there by the Makron in Quake IV, for another example) The trip is taken since the heroes have entered (Storming the Castle may be a subtrope of this) or they were brought to the Big Bad's castle.

  • What's the trope name for the situation in which a curse is placed upon a character in some form or fashion, which is later lifted by killing or significantly damaging the villain who's responsible for the curse in the first place (sometimes to the point where the characters and viewers more-or-less take it for granted that this is what will happen)?

  • Do we have a trope for this situation: Bob and Charlie are at odds with each other, Bob being the hero and Charlie the Smug Snake. Cut to Bob beating the everloving crap out of Charlie, escalating to extreme methods including guns, axes and explosives, only for a voice to come out of nowhere and ask Bob what he's thinking about (sometimes by Charlie himself), who will usually snap out of it and respond along the lines of "Oh... Happy thoughts..." as he goes back to his little fantasy. A variant is how Bob's accuracy at the firing range improves tenfold if you replace the bullseye with a picture of Charlie's face.

  • Do we have a trope for creatures or monsters that have musical instruments coming out of their body?
    • At the most basic level, Our Monsters are Weird. I assume you're not talking about Body Horror.
      • I was looking for a more specific trope about instruments as body parts.

  • In some strategy games, you control certain heroes from the storyline as regular or better-than-average units, and must make sure that they don't die. Often, "<hero> must survive" is in your mission objectives to indicate this. Examples are Starcraft (Jim Raynor, Zeratul etc.), Heroes Of Might And Magic IV and Warlords Battlecry.
    • This happens all the time in tactics RPGs as well. Most examples there seem to link to Escort Mission, but there may be a separate trope in here.
    • This is probably We Cannot Go On Without You.

      • It differs from Escort Mission because you have control of the hero and you can choose not to send him into the danger zone. It's also not precisely We Cannot Go On Without You - that one has the hero constantly in focus and there's not much in the game besides that, while in "hero must survive" the hero is just another "unit" between many that you have to protect.

  • A videogame quirk when a game has a scripted, completely inavoidable tragic event, usually somewhere close to the final battle, that seems to exist for the sole purpose of being undone by the good ending if you manage to achieve it. Might not neccessarily be Plotline Death, but it would be a good way of doing this. Two spoileriffic examples, both worked as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming for me:
    • In Little Big Adventure II, it's impossible to save the Twinsunian kids during the final showdown, so you will get to see them getting dropped into lava — you can't do anything about this. In the very last scene. Defeat the Big Bad, and you'll find out the kids were saved by your inventor buddy Jerome Baldino.
    • Towards the end of The Neverhood, there's a Player Punch cutscene where, thanks to the villain, you ally Willie Trombone falls into nothingness along with Big Robot Bil. Get the good ending and watch both of them come back thanks to Hoborg's awesome godly powers.

  • An episode that's sort of like an Idiot Plot, but instead of a story that can only happen because one character has turned stupid, it's a story that can only happen because one character is missing from the episode entirely. May be remarked upon by other characters, but mostly you notice when Fridge Logic sets in and you realize that if Alice had been there, her extensive knowledge of stamp collecting would have provided the solution to the mystery right away.
    • Deus Exit Machina?
      • Hrm, ish. Doesn't feel quite like what I'm thinking of, but I might have to chew over the differences for a while before I can articulate them.
      • Worf Had the Flu?
      • Absentee Actor happens for this particular reason a lot.

  • Is there a non-JFK version of Who Shot JFK??

  • Single. Word. Sentences. For. Emphasis. Arbitrarily. Ending. With. An. EXCLAMATION POINT!

  • Do we have trope for monsters/ minions that are assembled out of whatever is available? For example snow, sand, dirt, rocks stick together to make some kind of monster. Example here - a snow golem.
    • If they're made out of snow, they're Snowlems. The closest other tropes I could find that is possibly related is Blob Monster and Muck Monster.
      • Thanks for those, I wonder if its worth making a new trope for other 'improvised' golems?
      • Oh, definitely.
      • Done

  • There's Delayed Reaction, where a character doesn't realize what is happening right away. Does this apply to situations where he does realize, but the reaction is still delayed for other reasons (doesn't know how to react, is too angry and busy thinking bad things of the matter in question, etc.)? Often the reaction will happen when the event that provoked it is already forgotten about by everybody else.
    • Late to the Punchline? Beat Panel? Dull Surprise?
    • ...I don't think so. A common form of this would be when, during some group conversation, a character hears something that he doesn't agree with or dislikes, starts mumbling to himself angrily about it, then finally shouts something related to it well after the conversation moved to another topic already.

  • When, in a performance of any sort, a character gets to play a role that is so much against his real personality/position/beliefs/whatever that he gets angry at the very thought of this, despite other characters assuring him it's just a performance and not for real.

  • When a character considers himself a monster or otherwise freaky, and thinks that "normal" people should be squicked by touching him.
    • What Have I Become?
    • Not exactly; the character was never a "normal human" to begin with, is perfectly aware of this and is just convinced that everyone should be avoiding him because he's not normal. Also, he doesn't view himself as a potential threat to regular people, just unnatural and squicky.
    • I Am a Monster

  • Is there an existing trope for where the hero, when totally beat down by the villain, removes/loses their shirt and turns into a total badass? Seems common enough that there should be one...

  • Is there a trope for when a villain outright tells the heroes they won't be able to succeed in their mission for whatever reason, attempting to break their motivation? As in — this reason exists, not just something the villain made up. Possible outcomes are the heroes finding an alternative way of completing the mission, or, if they're less of Determinators, getting a Heroic BSoD. But a villain must be involved, and must be purposefully trying to break the heroes or at least to mock them.

  • Do we have a page for the North American equivalent of Mayincatec, like Plains Indians with eagle-feather headdresses, horse-raising, totem poles and sand paintings all in one generic tribe?

  • I recall seeing this one, but maybe I'm mistaken: the hero saves the day, only to have someone else show up at the last moment and get all the credit. I think this might be related to Fake Ultimate Hero or Miles Gloriosus, but it's not the same thing. An example of the trope is here.
    • Glory Hound?
      • Glory Hound is a character trope of someone who wants glory, and is willing to sacrifice others to get it. What I'm referring to is a plot trope in which the heroes, whether they were motivated by the desire for glory or not, end up not getting any of the credit, which instead goes to someone who arrives at the last moment and didn't really do anything; bear in mind that the late-arriving character may not in every case have particularly wanted the glory himself, although that will be a frequent outcome. Do we have this trope, or am I imagining it?
    • This scenario is mentioned to an extent in Dude, Where's My Reward?, but that trope isn't exactly limited to "someone who arrives at the last moment".

  • We definitely have this one, but I'm not sure what it's called. It'e the trope for JRP Gs that don't have a Game Over when you lose a battle. Instead you're returned to the last town you visited with exactly half your money missing. Generally it's a church/temple/equivalent you go to, or else the inn.

  • I'm not sure if this does exist or if I've made it up. Something along the lines of an Overly Long Explanation. An example of which could come from Friends:
    Chandler: Our balcony? Seriously? That's so funny because I told Monica we should put lights on our balcony. And she said "No, no. It's too cold, nobody will go out there." And I said "Maybe if we put some light out there they will"

  • Young or very naive character fawns over an older/more streetwise and clearly troublemaking friend

  • Is there a trope for people in a show that involves a character that has a secret (ie, Clark's superpowers in Smallville and Merlin's magic in Merlin) who have actually figured out this secret? (For the former; the Kent parents, Pete and Chloe; for the latter, Gaius and Lancelot). I imagine it would be called something like "In On The Big Secret" and it would basically include those the characters chosen to be "the select few" that know the protagonist's secret, with the keeping of the secret being the major conflict of the show.

  • There was a quote in either Badass Boast or Badass Creed about a battalion called the prince's own (I think, definately the SOMEONE's own) and how they and the prince (Hal, I think) went through hardship (possibly in a jungle) together and at the end every man in the battalion would give their lives for him. It was long enough, at least four or five sentences.

  • We've got tropes for readers and creators living vicariously through characters, but do we have a trope for characters living vicariously through other characters? For example, someone in the hospital who gets regular visits from a friend who travels a lot?

  • Is there a trope where a villain reveals his evil plan to another person, expecting that person to reject it and him, only for the person to be completely on board with that plan and wanting to help? Or is that just the inversion of another trope?

  • A character needs to get to some destination in an unfamiliar area and gets lost. Another character, a complete stranger to them, runs into them by chance and offers to show the way. More often than not they'll reappear at some point later and end up getting involved with whatever the first character is doing. Is there a trope for this?
    • Pre-Meeting?
    • That would cover the "reappearing" part, but what about "showing the way" part (as a particular way of meeting for the first time)?

  • Is there a trope for a character who presents all the exterior signs of total badassery (tall, muscular, mtorcycle etc.), but when a display of phytsical toughness is needed, the characer is shown to be totally inept at best and a coward at worst, and will be shown to have been relying on his tough-guy appearance to stay out of fights.

  • Is there a trope for the sweet, cheerful, motherly kind of character who isn't a ditz? (For example; Sakai Yuji's mother in Shakugan No Shana; or Katsura Hinagiku's foster mother in Hayate No Gotoku!)

  • What is it called when a large group of prisoners, slaves, etc., suddenly turn on their masters, en masse? In our house, we call this "The Chickens Are Revolting", after this exchange:
Mr. Tweedy: Mrs. Tweedy! THE CHICKENS ARE REVOLTING!!
Character 2: Finally, we agree on something.
— Chicken Run

  • Do we have anything like "last in first out" or what some Power Rangers fans call "Sixth Ranger Syndrome," whereby the Sixth Ranger is usually the one that gets sidelined, less screen time, and left out of battles/important scenes?

  • I'm looking for something that's kinda-sorta an intersection between Retraux and Mockumentary. Something like "mock history," where the work pretends to be part of a long-running famous property that doesn't actually exist (but an extensive mock history does exist.) For example, Spinal Tap has an extensive "discography" of albums like Shark Sandwich that supposedly came out years ago. Or Bongo Comics' Simpsons tie-in Radioactive Man, where they do things like publish issue #600, which is full of editors' notes about previous non-existent issues. Or my own Ashley Porter Filmography. Is there a trope for this sort of thing? Retraux seems the closest, but not quite, as it wouldn't necessarily involve "retro" or "past" works.
    • I believe you're looking for Literary Agent Hypothesis, which is where the author claims to be describing a true story rather than writing a work of fiction.
    • That sort of gets into the right neighborhood, but seems distinct - the notion there is "Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are real guys; Doyle's just repackaging their stories." There's no pretense, even In-Universe, that Bongo Comics is telling stories about a real superhero named "Radioactive Man," just that Bongo has been publishing Radioactive Man comics for many decades. Maybe something like Publisher Hypothesis or Fictitious Publisher would be a name for it, if it doesn't already exist?
    • Fictional Document and Fictional Media also skirt around the edges, but they're basically In-Universe tropes. What I'm looking for is where the work is unambiguously fiction, but the origin of the fiction is made up. The Princess Bride would be another example (there being no actual "unabridged" version of the book.)
    • The Princess Bride is described under Literary Agent Hypothesis, IIRC. Your other option is Recursive Canon, where the story being told exists within its own medium - like Iron Man existing in the same world as the Iron Man comic book franchise.

  • Is there a trope for when two characters get caught in a cycle of repetition. Like, one says "After you," and the other says, "No, after you," so the other says, "No, after you," and so on and so forth.
    • I remember searching for this with no results; the closest thing I managed to find is No, You Hang Up First, which is a very specific version of this. It could be useful if you provide some examples — may help searching, and if it doesn't exist, you could YKTTW it. Otherwise, try filing it under Overly Long Gag.
    • This routine, an example of Weird Al Effect, dates back to the early 1900s and the Alphonse and Gaston (potential Trope Namer?) comic strip series from the New York Journal.

  • Is there a trope that describes when a person sleeps through a loud noise or series of loud noises in a Heavy Sleeper-esque manner, yet immediately wakes up to a much softer noise shortly afterward? A couple of examples are Patrick in the Sponge Bob episode "Band Geeks", and Donald Duck at the beginning of the cartoon "Donald's Off Day".

  • Do we have anything like the classic phrase "famous for being famous?" If we don't, I'm taking it to YKTTW.

  • Do we have a trope for when a series that's widely regarded as crap has one particular entry that stands out as actually pretty good (and is neither the first one nor a sign of more good things to come)?

  • When a book tends to have lots and lots of threads going on at once and chops between them. Characters form little bands, split of from some and join others to the point where several sub-stories are going on at once, but all get resolved in the end. Generally a Sword and Sorcery trope - Lord Of The Rings does it so much XKCD have parodied it (see http://xkcd.com/657/large/) and it's generally a hallmark of Brian Jaques to the point you can expect it in any new Redwall book. Also in The Subtle Knife. Not limited to Sword and Sorcery though, as Cherub does it, but only as an excuse to shove little stories that bear no relation into one large one.

  • Take My Hand!, but with a chain of people.

  • Is there a trope where a bonus item can be earned by pre-ordering a game? For example, TF2's Sam and Max weapons/hat, Left 4 Dead 2's baseball bat, you name it. So many games on Steam seem to be doing this that it's almost a trope.

  • Is there a trope that's the inverse of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, where a character is retconned into a story as though they'd been there all along? Similar to Long-Lost Uncle Aesop, but more important to the overall story. Also, is there a trope where a character is introduced, built up as sympathetic, and then killed off?

  • What's the one where a character refuses to eat meat because they would feel like they were eating a pet? The Simpsons did it in the episode where Lisa becomes a vegetarian and I remember this from the "Madeline" movie where she doesn't want to eat the chicken she rode back from hospital with?

  • Do we have a trope for where the shadow of a character or thing reveals hidden information about that character/thing? It could be a character in disguise, or a character with a hidden agenda. I thought of this while watching Wallace And Gromit in "A Matter of Loaf and Death": At one point, when there is a knock on the door, you see a shadow that looks like the Grim Reaper (complete with scythe) that turns out to be the bad guy who you think is sweet and innocent at the time. A very different example would be in Alan Moore's Lost Girls. A married couple is having a boring conversation (apparently), but the shadows of the characters show images of a strongly sexual nature. I tried searching, including checking the pages for these two examples, with no luck. This would be different from Living Shadow.

  • Do we have a trope for albums with their title being token from a song of it? Something like an Album Title Song, for example, Iron Maiden's Killers has a song called "Killers" on it, thus counting.

  • I'm sure this trope exists. It's when the sudden characterisation of a minor character indicates that the character is going to die. For example, at the beginning of the third/final book of a trilogy Charlie - who had only been mentioned maybe two or three times previously- is suddenly in a conversation with our main character Alice; during which we find out that he's engaged and his fiance is pregnant, he's having a hard time at work and he has a fondness for peanuts. Then twenty pages later he dies, and now it has an effect because the sudden characterisation made us like Charlie.

  • Do we have a trope for a situation when a hero is in reach of the Big Bad, and they could easily capture/kill them, but someone on the hero's side has to stop them and remind them that the Big Bad has more firepower, or more people, or connections that can get them out of anything, so the hero just has to watch the Big Bad escape?

  • Do we have a trope for when robots have human properties/behaviors, but have a non-humanoid form? These seem to be lumped into Ridiculously Human Robots at the moment, but don't quite fit there. I'm thinking of things like the AnthroPCs (and Roombas, to some degree) in Questionable Content, but there are probably other examples.
    • Personality Chip is closely related, and might be the justified version of what you're looking for.
    • Robot Buddy?
      • Kind of both of those. Pintsize (and other AnthroPCs) have mostly human personalities, but aren't physically humanoid. Maybe it's just me reading the trope wrong, but it seems like 'human personality, robot body' should be it's own trope or something. Also, in QC, Roombas (and maybe other robots) don't have personalities as such, but are capable of reproducing. This probably needs its own trope or similar, as well.

  • What's the trope for when you have one character speaking to another character about something, yet the camera is showing that exact thing as they're speaking? For example, Alice is talking to Bob and saying "Yeah, Charlie is a great guy. We went to high school together." *Camera cuts to Charlie killing people as the voice continues* "He's so nice, he would never harm a soul!"

  • Is there a trope for when characters with long ears treat them the same way real people would treat hair? e.g. Rabbit ears pulled into a ponytail.

  • Anime gasp: On an anime, a character will say something fairly normal, and the reaction will be a shocked gasp. Followed almost instantly by a smile.

  • Alice and Bob talk about something that they don't want Charlie to know. Charlie enters the room just in time to hear one phrase out of context, and either misinterprets it or simply doesn't understand what it means — so he asks about it. Since Alice and Bob don't want him to know the actual context, they quickly start making up a new one, and hilarity ensues.

  • Is there a trope for when two characters are talking about the same quantity, but one as too small and one as too large? For example, a work mentioned in All Women Are Prudes has the man complain they never have sex, "only 3 or 4 times a week"; while his wife says they're having sex far too often, "up to 3 or 4 times a week".
    • That particular example sounds like What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?.
    • Okay, other example: studious student and goof-off: goof-off says she managed to stay on task for an entire four hours, studious says she was tired and so only managed to study four hours. Often they'll say both it at the same time for extra comedic effect.

  • Is there a trope for movies that are set in a comic shop, and every comic you see is from the same company (usually Marvel)?

  • Is there a trope for a writer setting up a red herring which makes the work more brilliant because it is a red herring, then the next writer on that (comic series / movie sequel / etc...) comes along and decides the herring was true?
    • Fridge Brilliance.
      • I didn't mean it in a good way; I'm thinking about, for example, the Grandfather being a real vampire in the Lost Boys sequel (at least the comic - I haven't seen the movie); a new writer took a great idea, and undid it, making it much less cool.
      • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!?
      • That's closer, thanks!

  • Do we have a trope regarding the description of changing trends, expressed as "X is the new Y"? Examples that come to mind are "50 is the new 40" or, from Legally Blonde, "Whoever said orange is the new pink must be mistaken."

  • A pointless lock. In Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs the vault is locked, and the key is then hung on a peg next to said vault. Compounded by the fact that the Dwarfs don't seem to value the gems ("We don't know what we dig 'em for!"), so the existence of the lock in the first place is dubious, but making the location of the key increadibly obvious just compounds the problem.

  • What is the name of the trope for an anime effect where shock is represented by the picture getting inverted colors (like a color photo negative)?

  • What trope could apply to this: a villain finally gets tracked down by the heroes, and they keep attacking him to no effect because he has some sort of protection from whatever is being used against him. Just when the villain starts to mock them for their lack of power, one of the heroes suddenly attacks him with another type of a weapon that cuts through the villain's "shield", hurting him. Cue an absolutely shocked ("it can't be!") villain, and the hero then explains proudly that this is a special kind of weapon designed exclusively against the villain's powers. The villain will often escape the fight after that, realizing he's no longer invulnerable.
    • You might be looking for My Name Is Inigo Montoya
    • Um, not sure. My Name Is Inigo Montoya is basically about the heroes winning against the villain on sheer willpower. Here, the heroes win because they happen to have a specific way of neutralizing the villain which the villain believed to be non-existent since he thinks he's invulnerable; so the villain will get horrified at the fact there exist something that can be effective against his powers.
    • In that case, maybe you're looking for Kryptonite Factor?
    • Well, it does seem to fit, but I'm under impression that this article mainly deals with a weakness that is at least semi-permanent and therefore gets exploited regularly. In my case, this is often a single occurence; if it's not the final battle, chances are they'll never get to use the same weapon against the same villain again. The villain's reaction is also important — he'd never expect the heroes to be able to get such a weapon.

  • I'm sure this is a trope somewhere, but a quick search didn't find it. Basically, The Only One Allowed to Defeat You applied to someone who is a legitimate ally. While the page lists a similar example, it's clear that the person is actively working to defeat the guy in question, which isn't what I'm talking about. More like N-Word Privileges applied to being mean to someone. Example As Thesis : Someone's kid brother is getting picked on, and his older brother drops a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the bully. Instead of justifying it as brotherly love, his reason is that "I'm the only one allowed to pick on him." Not sure if I'm just missing it because it's under the umbrella of a trope I haven't thought of checking.

  • Is there a trope for when someone delivers a Take That! or something similar to a person who undeniably deserves it, but at a moment or in a manner so wrong that the impact is rather lost on the reader and it makes that certain someone look even more like a jerk then the person he called out?

  • Is it a trope when a person announces that the reason for his actions was to spark controversy and debate, so the issue could be brought to the front of the public conscience? For example, the guy who released a fake trailer for an upcoming Golden Sun game, in the hopes that Nintendo would take notice and start working on a sequel.

  • Do We Have This One A trope which applies mainly to RPGs where a weapon/skill/magic etc that does a ton of damage, but has an extremely poor hit rate?

  • What's the trope about the bomb being defused at the last second?
    • It's right there in the article you linked. Stop being lazy.

  • Is there a term for a character type who embraces both archaic and modern traditions equally? A perfect example would be a witch doctor from a tribal village who also earned a medical degree, thus allowing him to perform tribal rituals and practice in a modern clinic.

  • I know we have Narm, where a scene is played up as dramatic, but instead comes off humorous. Is there a trope that does this intentionally? Ex. Kung Fu Panda: "Po, there's something I should have told you a long time ago...The secret ingredient to secret ingredient soup..."

  • Is there a trope for a situation when an enemy knows that the laws of a nation don't apply to them for some reason, so they can pretty much get away with anything?

  • Do we have a trope to cover when someone or a group of people start to celibrate a victory without realizing that the problem at hand hasn't quite been completely delt with? Like the evil big bad has been defeated, but the party forgot about the time bomb still ticking away or something.

  • A character is on a quest, and he/she's reached a dead end. The veiwers don't know what the character should do next, and the writers seems to have written themselves into a corner... until the character makes his own conclusion on where he should go and what he should do. There's no reason for it, but the story goes on and the character's plan works out perfectly. I don't know if I explained it very well... but is there a trope or subtrope for a situation like this?
    • This is frequently known in troper circles as the Ass Pull.

  • Did there used to be tropes for "nukes never work" and "nukes always work"? I remember seeing them but I can't find them now.

  • A video game trope for when you are arbitraraly cut off from your allies and forced to go it alone. Used in every FPS ever. I should be able to find this but can't.

  • Is there a trope for: When the hero and heroine are involved in a fight against the minions of the villain and the hero uses his skills to fight off all but one of the bad guys, who then comes up behind him, and is floored by the heroine using a hammer/frying pan/crowbar/random blunt object- this is the only fighting move she uses in the whole film and is relegated to damsel in distress the rest of the movie.

  • All right, this would be more of Useful Notes On Japan than an actual trope, but since I've seen it in a couple of anime, it probably does have a generalized "pop-culture" version. That... Shinto purification ritual involving water. For one example, Momiji is seen doing something like this in the first episode of Blue Seed.
    • IIRC, it's called misogi harai and doesn't seem to have a page here. If it should, somebody is going to have to YKTTW it.

  • A trope where a child did something bad (or at least believed to have done something bad), and his parents will try to explain to him that it's bad — only in a roundabout way, without mentioning the issue in question itself: taking some general situation for an example, or through words like "you know, sometimes people/kids/whatever are...".

  • Is there a trope for a character who continually talks about the glory or the greatness, or is under a common delusion about something they have not experienced or know much about, who is informed the realities of the situation by someone who does know about it?

  • Is there a trope that's like Wrestling Doesn't Pay but covering other jobs that people may think as glamourous and assume are well paid but aren't to the point of people quitting for a more mundane job that actually does pay well.

  • Do we have a trope for when something is completely hilarious, even though it wasn't supposed to be? I don't mean Narm (where it's a dramatic action that fails) I mean something incredibly simple and meaningless that viewers find funny? A perfect example occurs in Seinfeld: while watching a piano recital with Elaine, Jerry takes out a duck-shaped candy dispenser and places it on his knee. Elaine immediately bursts out laughing even though she can't explain why.

  • What's the trope for the songs and/or albums which were composed to mourn the creator's dead parents/friends/fiancees/childs/etc? For example, Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven", or Dream Theater's "The Best Of Times".

  • Is there a trope for a case where a hero or group of heroes do something technically good- ie, solved a murder or freed a nation- but the things they revealed or the consequences of what they did makes them wonder if they actually achieved anything or if what they did was the right thing to do?

  • So you have a typical team of ordinary high school students or otherwise normal people who suddenly received some kind of superpowers. Except one of them wasn't really that normal prior to this, possessing some special ability not related to the newly-acquired powers. You'd expect such a character to be the most powerful of the team, since they now technically have more abilities than their nakama. But because the work is team-based, there'll always be something that effectively renders the character "equal" to the rest of the team. One example is Rei Hino from Sailor Moon: while her shinto-based powers that aren't technically directly related to her being Sailor Mars certainly are helpful, in later plots whenever the team gets upgrades one-by-one or faces power-coded villains (especially in the manga), she isn't really at any advantage compared to others.
    • It's part of the Eigen Plot. At least see that trope for some cross-references.

  • I'm sure this trope is here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it: an adult authority figure speaks to kids in lingo he thinks is "hip" and "current," but isn't, and looks all the lamer for it. Not quite Hippie Teacher; it's Totally Radical but done in-universe by a single person (and this trope as I understand has links in neither, as far as I can tell.)

  • Alice believes Bob to have stolen ten dollars from her (whatever clue she might have found). Because Alice loves Bob a lot, she doesn't really mind, but starts to think that Bob might be in some trouble, so she randomly asks him if she could be of any help. Bob doesn't understand what Alice means because he didn't take her money (Charlie did). Alice just thinks Bob feels guilty and keeps asking. Hilarity Ensues.

  • What's it called when a kid in elementary school likes an opposite sex kid and wants that kid's attention, but doesn't want them to know? I've seen that a lot in real life growing up, and in many kids' books, and I'm about to review the Ramona Quimby books soon, which are currently using that plot device. (Ramona likes Yard Ape and gets secretly annoyed when he only seems to notice her on the bus, not in school)

  • Is there a trope for when someone (Alice)is undergoing Character Development (such as the Ice Queen starting to defrost, and people (Bob and Charlie) are acting really confused/unsure/etc. It's not We Want Our Jerk Back!, as sometimes the changes are a good thing, but Bob and Charlie are concerned. It may involve Bob doing something that Alice normally doesn't like (such as a hug), and then cringing, expecting the worst. The only example I can think of is in the Teen Titans episode "Spellbound". Raven is acting oddly, and at the end she hugs Beast Boy. He reacts as though something horrible is going to happen, but it doesn't. Did that make any sense?

  • Is there a trope for when a character distracts another character specifically by saying something along the lines of, "Hey, look, a distraction!" The only example I can think of off the top of my head is from Red Dwarf, when Kryten distracts the Inquisitor by saying, "Excuse me, sir, but could I possibly distract you for a moment?"

  • What's that trope for when it looks like two characters are going to fight, but then they hug, revealing that they're actually friends.

  • Is there a trope for when in tv shows people go to the movies and everyone in the theater is really into the movie. Like if it's a "scary movie" everyone is shown really scared. If it's a comedy everyone's laughing, if it's a drama everyone's crying, if it's a romantic everyone is all lovey dovey with their date. Obviously it doesn't work like that in real life and seems to be the fantasy world movie execs live in

  • In First-person Shooters(and sometimes Third-person Shooters), when you're watching through bulletproof glass as the enemies break through a door and kill everyone on the other side. They usually don't notice you at all, but sometimes are simply unable to get to you because the glass stops them. I've seen this one in Halo 1, Half-life, Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2. Often takes place when the Justified Tutorial is interuppted by All Your Base Are Belong to Us

  • A character has some job, maybe working for somebody, but it's pretty much the only thing he sees as a purpose of his life: it's not neccessarily that he can't do anything else, but he's just devoted to this job. Then, something happens that makes him unable to continue with it, or maybe he fails to do something he was told to do, so he goes all "I'm useless now and have nothing to live for".
    • A version/subtrope of Married to the Job perhaps?
    • Mmm... not exactly, I'm afraid: Married to the Job seems to be primarily about such devotion to the job starting to affect the character's family life or other relationships like that; I'm talking just about a character who doesn't see any purpose in his life apart from doing what he does, never questions whether or not he likes what he does because he just doesn't care about his own feelings. It's not Workaholic either: the character isn't obsessed with the job, he just does it... normally. But if it's taken away from him, he'll pretty much see it as the end of his life.

  • Turning on the lights one set at a time (dramatic Kthunk! optional) to slowly reveal the new/upgraded base/vehicle/other tech? Right now the only example I can think of is Normandy Reborn but I know it gets used more often.

  • Something where someone thinks he's Jesus?

  • Is there a trope for cartoon/sitcom plot, where a character is just trying to get a good night's sleep, but things keep preventing that?
    • Probably just a Running Gag or Excuse Plot
    • Another example (a kid's book, incidentally)is "Good Night, Owl".

  • Is there, or was there ever, a trope known as The Benson?
    • I remember it being on YKTTW. Don't remember what it was about, just that everyone thought it was a bad idea for a name if only because there were so many "Benson"s that it could refer to so it was an especially non-indicative name.

  • Is there a trope for when a character, in a state of euphoria, kisses the nearest individual, regardless of who that is (and often said individual reacts with disgust)?

  • Is there a trope where the character has a jerkass mom's boyfriend/stepdad? Who treats the kid and in most cases the mom like crap Which is a ridiculous trope in of itself as it implies that the mother after breaking it off with the child's father (or him dying) could never find a good man and just settled for somebody even a jerk and the child's father is usually portrayed as a good person too (before he died). Examples: Rob Zombie's Halloween, Percy Jackson and the Olympians (film adaption at least), Radio Flyer etc. Note it's not First Father Wins because the first father doesn't win back the wife in these cases because he's usually dead

  • A trope about people shouting "Curse you, [name]!" upon defeat?

  • Is there a trope for the absolutely staggering number of "Detroit is a pisshole" jokes out there?

  • OK, so, in this trope, a character, for whatever reason, is poised to kill someone. Maybe the object of their revenge is finally in front of them, maybe their military superior is telling them to execute a traitor, maybe they have to kill to keep up a masquerade or to keep up appearences, whatever. In any case, they have the weapon in their hands, and the would-be victim is right there. But see, what happens at that critical moment is that the character finds that they just don't have it in them to kill this person. Maybe it goes against their morals, maybe the traitor is a former friend of theirs, maybe they find they don't have a stomach for revenge after all. In any case, they just freeze up, and can't deliver the killing stroke. The character muttering "I can't do this" is very frequent, their hands trembling or the weapon clattering to the ground is not uncommon, crying optional. Do we have this as a trope?

  • Is there a trope somewhere when when you watch/play something and something happens that's a big plot twist the first time you see it, but loses it's impact upon subsequent viewings?
    • Unless you have the ability to somehow forget a plot twist the second time you watch something, I don't think this is a tropable concept.
      • Well, what I mean is, the first time, it shocks you, but since you already know what's going to happen when you rewatch it, it loses it's impact.
      • It Was His Sled?

  • Is this a valid trope? Like a mix of Underground Monkey and Damn You, Muscle Memory!, when an enemy uses the exact same model as a previously encountered version (no Palette Swap), so the player automatically adopts the same strategy as for the version they know, but it backfires, because of different armor type, element, new spells/attacks, etc. Obviously more common in Game Mods (such as DOTA for Warcraft), where there is no manual to explain the new monsters' weaknesses.

  • A character loses his job but pretends to go to work every day anyway, but just sits in the park/McDonalds/etc. What's the trope for that?
    • If he's pretending to be employed but isn't, and has to come up with ways to hide it from his friends/family, it's Maintain the Lie.

  • You win an argument, not by explaining your point of view, but by very calmly asking questions and making the other person contradict himself. You may summarize what the other said (making it sound very stupid, while still accurately summarizing), or just let his answers speak for themselves.

  • The opposite of Took a Level in Jerkass: "Took a level in being nice" - Is there a trope for this, besides the more general Character Development?

  • Meet character A. He has archaic and/or formal speech patterns and sensibilities. Meet character B. He's a painfully hip teen. Character B proceeds to educate character A on the marvels of crappy teen music, pizza, slang and video games. It's almost My Fair Lady in reverse. Totally Radical and Time Travel are sometimes involved. Do we have a trope for that?

  • Okay. Do we have a trope for gun propulsion, or gun-propelled flight? The best examples I can think of are one, in Pirates of the Carribean 3, where the midget pirate fires a handheld "cannon" after emerging from a hole, and is propelled back by the force of the blast. Two, in Cave Story, where one can fly by shooting the machine gun at the ground, propelling you into the air. I've seen it plenty of times, but don't know if we actually have it...

  • So, a character is trying to be funny and describe some sort of event. He uses some number of "hint" words followed by straight up stating it. Take this conversation between Alice and Tom.
    Alice: What are you gonna do to Bob!?!
    Tom: Oh, he's going to have a shocking experience. He'll be struck as if by lightning. He will be electrocuted...to death.

  • Is there a trope that describes when a child has to take care of his parent? Like if the parent is an alcoholic or ill or something and the child, in effect, becomes the "parent" to his parent?
    • Promotion to Parent ought to cover this, but it's written as "older sibling becomes parent to his younger siblings".
    • That's the only possibility that I found as well, but it doesn't quite fit.

  • Do we have a trope for songs that the artists make claims about the meaning of that can't be pulled out of the lyrics? Men At Work's "Land Down Under" being about the exploitation of Australia's natural resources, Modern English' "Melt With You" being about nuclear war, REM's "Shiny Happy People" being about Tiananmen Square, etc.?

  • This Troper just watched Indiana Jones, and was wondering which trope covers the part where one of the characters holds out something valuable over a bridge, lava or whatever, and yells "I'll drop it!"? Like Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean?

  • what is it called, when a character is Older Than They Look, but not for fanservice / crush justifying reasons, but no reasons are given, except "in this anime/comic everybody looks young, except when they are very old, then they will look old". like, you look like 20 your whole life, even when you are 40, and when you turn 80 - hopp - you look old.

  • What's it called when Florenceis called "Doggy"?

  • It's the sci-fi trope where they list three examples of people renowned for something and while the two first are known to viewers, the third is an in-universe example, z.b. in Star Trek it would be: "You're a disgrace to the human race, just like Hitler, Stalin and Kahn." It does exist, but I just can't find it.

  • Is there/should there be a trope for a comically large series of books? Not Doorstopper, for huge individual books, but with individual titles that end in "Volume 29c, Part Three, section B-Be".

  • Is there a trope about using Xanatos-like elaborate planning during fights? Related to Awesome by Analysis.

  • Is there a trope for various implausible, neat-looking flying machines, particularly the sort you'd see in Steampunk fiction? This would not be Cool Plane, since that focuses on Real Life, and since such machines don't really look "cool"... in quite that sense. It also wouldn't necessarily be an Airship. I'm thinking of, say, the giant wing-flapping steam-powered warplanes from Howl's Moving Castle, or the improbable and amusing early Real Life designs you'd see in any montage of the early history of flight, or, you know, basically anything that's powered by a steam engine, has flapping wings, has a giant corcscrew instead of a rotor, etc., etc. I can't seem to find this, and it seems like it should be a trope, yet it's so common that it's hard to believe it's not already covered somewhere...

  • Is there a trope for when a character is informed that somebody of high rank is going to pay a visit, so they spend time preparing for this (cleaning up, getting a makeover etc.), only to discover that the person in question is one of their friends/close relatives or otherwise somebody they don't consider to be worth of spending so much effort for their sake?

  • Is there a trope for a comedic episode where much of the humor comes from characters' sudden inability to communicate with each other properly?
    • Poor Communication Kills is the supertrope.
      • Whoa, that's a whole bunch of stuff... but I think I could try to fit it somewhere. I'm basically talking about a situation where characters have some relatively minor argument that could be resolved with a couple of straightforward questions, yet the issue gets dragged across the entire episode simply because nobody seems to know how to start the conversation.
      • Try Three Is Company.
      • Cannot Spit It Out?

  • Is there a trope about a character, villain or no, who is always called by his title rather than by his name? Like 'The Count', 'The Professor', 'The King', 'The Master', 'The Overlord', et cetera...

  • Do we have a trope for when characters debate who would win in a fight? (The hypothetical variety, not one that's about to happen.) And if we don't, should we?

  • Is there a trope for when a character with an accent writes a letter (or something) and it has the accent built in, or would that just fall under Funetik Aksent?

  • Somebody thinks of a plan that is sure to work, but when they try to execute it the other side counters it easily. StarTrekTheNextGeneration's "Best of Both Worlds" and Yu-Gi-Oh are the main examples I can think of.

  • Is there a trope for situations where the stodgy government is wrong and the plucky heroes are right, and the heroes have to work around government interference however they can? Notably seen in Robotech, the first Mass Effect, and the Honor Harrington books.

  • Do we have a page/forum thread for identifying tropes on an image? I found this, but can't figure out it it should go under The Stoic, The Unfunny, Stiff Upper Lip...

  • Bob pretends to be a love interest for Alice because he's paid for it. Then he develops true feelings. Then the truth always comes out, he always try to explain that he really loves her and always inevitably fails. What's this?

  • What's the term (if there is one) when some facet of a fictional setting/series is proclaimed to be off-limits permanently by Word of God, so far as revealing the truth about them is concerned? Like how George Lucas throws a hissy-fit if writers even hint about revealing information about Yoda's species. Or how the designers of the Ravenloft D&D setting deliberately refrained from detailing that game-world's mysterious Dark Powers, because defining them would detract from their spookiness.

  • This (new) troper is editing a page for the first time just to add this, so have mercy if I screw up. Is there a trope for the fact that in media that aren't live-action (comics, video games, animation, etc.) there are almost no lefties, despite the fact that about 10% of people are left-handed? I know there's one for The Southpaw, but is there one for the complete and utter lack of lefties, even in scenes with lots of people (battle scenes, etc.)? Also, is there a trope for horror stories in which a few people are trapped in a small area, and one of them kills off the others one-by-one while the rest try to figure out which of them is the killer?

  • Is there a trope for a former military officer who continues to behave as if he's still in the military? (e.g. He runs his household like a boot camp.)

  • how is it called, when two manipulative bastards fight each other, like, they try to manipulate each other, read each others feelings, gamit on certain reactions they will have, etc? i don't mean I Know You Know I Know, that would be more the Chessmaster duel. i mean more spontaneous stuff. needn't even be two manipulative bastards, can also be "normal nice people who really want something". i do not mean Duel of Seduction, either, but this would be a subtrope of what i mean, and would be strongly related. but what i mean is not restricted to seduction, every form of manipulation should be included. people manipulate each other and in the end, you don't know who's manipulating and who's manipulated.

  • Is there a trope for when the Hero or the returning victors of war or something or other is riding/driving through town, flanked by an escort of children, usually dirty-faced, laughing street urchins? I've seen it in 3 movies in as many days, so there has to be a trope.
    • Hmm, a videogame version is 100% Heroism Rating...
      • No, I'm referring to the specific scene with the kids. For an example, watch the end of Black Hawk Down, when they are running back to base.

  • I read a book where the narrator is a paranoid schizophrenic, and the voices in his head often interrupt him to make snarky comments. Their more nonsensical lines are also written across the bottoms of the pages in a different font, e.g. "Squish-wish! Squish-wish! Don't you wish you could squish a wish?" First, what role do the voices serve? They're not representing the audience, so they're not a Greek Chorus. Second, is there a trope for the unusual marginalia?

  • What's the trope for when a character mentions something, the scene cuts to what they mentioned, and then cuts back quickly. I thought it would be Description Cut, but it's not. Not a Cutaway Gag either, since it's not a joke, just a cut.

  • What's the trope where a guy who's in danger of becoming a werewolf/being turned by a vampire/turning evil/something else comparable to those, ask someone on his Nakama to kill him if he does turn?

  • What's the name for someone who is a "popular loner" or well-liked by everyone but has no close friends/ is lonely?
    • Sounds like Informed Loner or Cool Loser.
      • No, this is someone who actually is well-liked and popular, or a leader, but doesn't have anyone he's really close to, so he feels lonely — or, at least, is aloof and independent from his peers. Keeps his own counsel sorta dealio. Like Ender in the middle part of Enders Game, kinda. (After he's ruthlessly bullied, but before he goes to command school.)
    • Well, you also have Lonely at the Top, The Chains of Commanding, hmm...

  • Should there be a trope for when a character goes "With your X and my Y..."?

  • Is there a trope for band nerds/geeks?

  • Is there a trope for 'foreigners' automatically slipping into their native language unconsciously without intending to- for example, when they're under stress, or when someone speaks their native language to them?

  • People are able to conciously influence parts of their physiology that normally would be regulated unconciously, like: blood pressure, hormone production, etc. Can be the result of training (Bene Gesserit from Dune), of genetic engineering in Sci-Fi (the citizens of Iain M. Banks' Culture), or some sort of super-power, or whatever.
    • It's listed under Psychic Powers but not given a specific definition. It's related to Healing Factor and discussed a bit under Required Secondary Powers. However, I don't think it's been YKTTW'ed as a specific trope.
      • Thanks! Remember what it was called on YKTTW? Cause I can't find it... "Bio-PK" from the Psychic Powers page comes the closest (though I was more thinking of people able to control only their own physiological processes, not those of other people); but I wouldn't put it exclusively under "Psychic Power": as my examples show, it can also be the result of Charles Atlas Superpower (Bene Gesserit) or Bio-Augmentation (Sci-Fi stuff) (thus not being supernatural). Healing Factor is related, yes, but Healing Factor is about fast healing, not about it being conscious. It being conscious would exactly be the point of this trope, though. Of course, we are able to control certain physiological processes (like breathing), so it would only refer to processes that normally would be unconscious. "I consciously control my physiological processes" (or whatever you may call it) wouldn't even necessarily lead to enhanced healing (though it would probably help). (same goes for Required Secondary Powers).

  • Show-Off Driver/Biker/whatever: Instead of slowing down, he will accelerate and then make a crash stop and stop exactly where he wanted to.

  • Is there a trope for someone who insists on being referred to by their full title?
    "CAPTAIN, Jack Sparrow, if you please."

  • A trope about how women (supposedly - this troper finds it disgusting) find facial hair to be attractive. Not just a Badass Beard or some Perma-Stubble to make a character easily identifiable (or just cooler), but about the fact that women really really like a man with hair on more than just the top of his head. Like a Carpet of Virility for the face. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is an episode of Dexters Laboratory where Dexter decides that to win a girl's affection, all that's needed is a beard, but I know I've Seen It A Million Times and it's definitely got some Truth in Television to it (this troper's entire college English class liked hairy men...except for this troper. She felt very alone).

  • Is there a trope for a sympathetic character who is manipulative, but on a much smaller scale than the Guile Hero, and often for "the greater good" or "people's own good"? He's not the High-School Hustler, because he endears himself to people and stays on the good side of authority, using his natural charm, flattery and insight to get what he wants out of people. But he does this for what he thinks are unselfish reasons.
    • I think you might want Manipulative Bastard or Magnificent Bastard; neither trope is restricted solely to evil characters.
      • As soon as the good folk in Trope Repair work their magic, we should have Hakuna Matata to cover this attitude.
      • Not quite the new Hakuna Matata either; Bob isn't happy go lucky with everything in his life, he just doesn't mind lesbians (or whatever) and treats them exactly the same as everyone else.
      • Hakuna Matata got renamed to Sidekick Song.

  • Is there a trope when two lovers are together for a while, and only one of them genuinely misses the other, whereas the other doesn't care much and gets another lover, but the first one can't do anything to get back to the second but wait it out, probably getting wrapped up in whatever he's doing in the process — so when they returns back, starting to think about the other again, and find that they're lost — either forever or temporarily — to someone else, it strikes them that much harder.

  • Is there a trope for a character who is in a Terrible Trio, but wants to genuinely help along the plan — except he's turning the other two characters against each other (Bob saying Alice wants to rule it all to Charles, saying Charles wants to rule it all to Alice, and so on, but both Alice and Charles are so arrogant, they don't say who suggested the idea to them), so they'll have knocked each other out by the time the plan comes into action, leaving him to reap the benefits? A bit like The Mole, I suppose, but not on the side of the heroes or villains.

  • Is there a trope for when people either simply say 'quote-unquote' or make the — quote-unquote — 'bunny ears' gesture? Seen It A Million Times, I'm sure, but I can't seem to find it on the site...example:
    Report Sith: Well, he's a great fellow...well, maybe not, but he has a lot of money, and he doesn't really look like he knows what to do with it. And in that case, you can always quote-unquote 'help' him with that.
    • I'm frankly really surprised that we don't have a Quotation Fingers trope and I recommend you YKTTW it immediately.

  • Is there a trope for when violence is kept off-screen by cutting away to something non-violent that still gives the audience an idea of what happened? For example, the villain is about to hit someone on the head with a large blunt weapon, and it cuts away to somebody hitting a nail on the head with a hammer. Or somebody's about to get their head cut off, and it cuts away to somebody in a kitchen chopping something in half with a cleaver.

  • Is there a trope for ridiculously ineffective threats? Kind of like Bob repeatedly planning to get epic revenge on Alice... after Alice defeated Bob in one battle that lasted about 3 seconds, by stripping Bob of all his magical superpowers and turning him into some tiny harmless creature.

  • Is there a trope about some scenes in a movie being sped up? Like in the British film Sex Thief and many fight scenes in silent movies, especially slapstick comedy ones?
    • Undercrank: "Undercranking involves filming at a slower frame rate so that the action is sped up when played back."

  • Is there a trope for an intentional invoking of Expansion Pack World? Basically a world that is intentionally left vague about it's size and what it contains. The characters only explore a small region of the world only making vague statements about surrounding areas, with the intention of someday expanding the world for future installments. So in essence, it's a world that can be as big as the writers need it to be.
    • Sounds like exactly that trope. Just call it an Invoked Trope example.

  • A comedy plot where a group of characters tries to hide something from another character, inevitably resulting in said character popping up nearby at worst times possible to be able to hear them discussing the matter, with them having to come up with some cover-ups or false explanations of what they were talking about.

  • What's the trope where, basically, a foregone conclusion is subverted - for example, in Family Guy, where a Japanese man in Nagasaki has lots of terrible things happen to him in 1945, but not the bomb that the audience is expecting?
    • Might be a version of The Un-Twist depending on the context.

  • Do we have a page on characters who fight with long strips of cloth (sleeves and such)? Most recently seen in the Alice In Wonderland movie, but also House Of Flying Daggers and Hokuto No Ken.

  • Do we have a trope to describe what is clearly a mascot character on a show, but is NOT an effective mascot? An Anti-Mascot, if you will. Take Mesoussa from Pani Poni Dash for example. This cute little bunny rabbit-ish creature is the main character's pet.. yet his reason for existence is never explained. He's just there. Also, despite being so cute, he takes The Chew Toy trope Up To Eleven and Beyond the Impossible. It doesn't help him that he doesn't have thumbs, and the only moments of happiness he ever experiences are fleeting moments at best. Even God hates him. May or may not qualify as The Wesley, but is basically a cute adorable creature who fails at being Team Pet or Weasel Mascot.

  • This is the thing I often call "automatic puzzle solving". Suppose we have a fact (usually a plot-important one) that the hero doesn't know. Over the course of the story, the hero is given a number of "clues" to this fact, but fails to see any meaning in them. Maybe the "clues" don't make sense outside the context, so he won't catch on unless he knows what exactly they're all about. Maybe the "clues" are just vague enough to be interpreted as some general statements or metafors or to simply stay unnoticed. Either way, the hero doesn't catch 'em. Then, at some point, he learns the fact in a more explicit way, which prompts him to look back at all these "clues", finally able to put them together (typical reaction would be "oh, so that's what it was all about..."). May be explicitly "illustrated" by flashbacks to the "clues" as the hero is putting them into context. It's not simply Foreshadowing — the key part here is finally "solving" the puzzle after being prompted with a full "picture", not the puzzle pieces themselves; the matter is usually here from the beginning, not following the "clues", but preceeding them — just unknown to the hero; the audience may very well be aware of the matter from the start, making it an Internal Reveal. Or is it just Lampshade Hanging on Foreshadowing?

  • Do we have a page for Yu Gi Oh the card game (as opposed to the manga/anime)?
    • No, the redirect on Card Games goes to the anime's page.

  • What do you call it when a guy and a girl are in a cold place (it doesn't have to be FREEZING; just a mildly chilly fall evening will do), and she says she's cold, and then he puts an arm (or half his coat, or whatever) around her? Usually played for some sort of Ship Tease. Sort of like an awake version of Comforting Comforter, I guess. The only examples I can think of are once in Sailer Moon, where Serina attempts to invoke it (I think with Darrin?) and is disappointed when he goes to make her hot cocoa instead, and one episode of Ghost Whisperer where Melinda wears a very light dress and gets her husband Jim to share his coat with her.

  • Is there a trope for people having ridiculously contrived conversations about the presence or absence of romantic relationships? (Alice saying to/about Bob and Carol "gee, you/they make such a fantastic couple", and either having this be the case or having Bob immediately say "Oh no, we're not a couple".) Might be a subtrope of Romantic Plot Tumor and/or Strangled by the Red String, or possibly as As You Know Bob. (Or Author on Board, which is what it tends to read as—the writer(s) either trying to show that Bob and Carol are completely in love despite having no chemistry, or trying to sink the Bob/Carol ship, depending on which sort of conversation it is.) I've been through practically the whole indices for Love Tropes, Bad Writing, and Mary Sue Tropes, as well as everything linking off of the possible supertropes, and I can't find it anywhere, but it feels like we 'ought' to have it already.

  • Is there a trope for groups of people (Don't have to be related so- not Feuding Families) which are at each others throats most of the time. But if an outsider tries to mess with them, they bring the wrath of the entire group?

  • Is there a trope for this? Alice is singing and dancing alone and closes her eyes. While her eyes are closed Bob comes in and starts dancing with her, holding hands and everything, but Alice doesn't notice until her eyes open. Essentially it's when a character's eyes are closed all their other senses seem to disappear like touch and hearing. Usually this happens when the character is singing because that means they're distracted and that they're so focused on their song that they don't notice anything else. This can be accepted but sometimes it breaks Willing Suspension of Disbelief for some things like the sense of touch. For example Tanya in An American Tail: Fievel Goes West is singing and dancing by herself when Cat R Waul dances with her with his hand, then picks her up, carries her into the next room and only when he opens his hands to show her to another cat, she stops singing and is shocked.

  • The exact opposite of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, where a list starts off with two innocuous items, and the third is horrifically contrasted, usually to say something about the character speaking. E.g. latest Order Of The Stick:
    Tsukiko: All [paladins] do is boss you around and tell you what you can't do. "Don't walk on the grass, don't litter, don't rape the cycle of life with your unclean power." Blah blah blah.

  • What's the trope for a response to something minor that is amazingly major?

  • There was some sort of a trope, which undoubtedly has (or at least had) a page, that had an image of Yoko Littner from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and in the caption of that image (which was pretty long), there was something like "...she is 14 years old..." and then "...when she's XX..." (the "XX" represents a number, which I cannot remember, I thik it was ~25). The trope itself, if I remember correctly, had something to do with the age of the characters. Originally, I remember it being the Younger Than They Look page, but obviously, it is a faulty memory.
    • The page image may have changed. check the history. also check the Image Pickin' forum to see if it was done recently.

  • Is there a trope about a character whose actions would normally seem very sadistic, but because he or she is cute and supposed to be the "hero" is identified by the viewers as merely being mischievous and playful? These actions are usually without provocation, but when there is provocation, the character doles out Disproportionate Retribution.

  • Ok, there just has to be a trope out there where a woman sends her boyfriend/husband (or in some cases her father if she's younger) to go buy her tampons. It doesn't have to be tampons, but anything that will cause the guy to panic or be embarrassed like weird food items if she is pregnant as another example. There is usually a sense of urgency where the woman absolutely NEEDS the item at that moment but can't get it herself for some reason, which is why the guy must go in the first place. There would be bonus points if the checkout clerk makes a comment or calls for a price check or if he sees another guy there in the same situation. I know I've Seen Ita Million Times but I can't come up with a specific example.

  • Is there a trope for when a non powered character gets powers same (or similar) to that of some member of the cast and then for whatever reason ends up being better at using them than their original owner.

  • Is there a counterpart trope to Super-Persistent Predator, for implausibly-sneaky predators? I'm thinking of how monsters in B-movies, no matter how stupid, seem instinctively aware that they should avoid being seen by humans (or even TV cameras!) for the first half of the film. That way, the director can tease the audience with brief glimpses of the monster, and the hero's attempts to avert the Attack of the Town Festival can be laughed off because nobody else has seen the thing. It's already a You Fail Biology Forever, as large predators in real life only bother with stealth when they're hunting, but it's such a common pattern that a subtrope seems warranted.

  • Is there a trope for when cartoon villains set up a trap for the hero, but the trap doesn't seem to work on the hero, so the villain tries it himself and gets blown up? For example, a lever that's meant to release a boulder that crushes the person who pulls it. The hero pulls it and nothing happens. The villain pulls it after him and is promptly crushed. Another variation is that the hero gets something good from the trap, such as receiving a pile of cash. The villain pulls the lever hoping to get the same thing, but is promptly crushed.

  • Is there a trope where a stereotypically nerdy character hangs out with "cool" friends (which usually means one douchebag friend, one Everyman friend (usually the hero) and one random stock character friend) {although he's often the butt monkey it's still hard to believe that the other guys would actually be nice enough to hang out with him) Examples : Jamie from Eurotrip, Finch from American Pie, Stu from The Hang Over

  • Is there a trope a particular form of Fan Dumb, where fans will confuse the actor portraying a character as the character itself? Ex: Fangirls mistaking Robert Pattinson (actor) for Edward Cullen (fictional character).

  • So an advertiser has got a big-name celebrity to endorse their product. They've made some interesting and inventive spots, but now the contract is over. The ad agency want to keep the campaign going but the celebrity is no longer available. So they produce new ads featuring a cartoon version of the star, or their presence just off-camera is implied. An impressionist is used for the voice. They're never quite referred to by name, that kind of thing. Do We Have This Yet?

  • Do we have a trope covering someone talking with a potential rival or enemy (or troublemaker) in a very calm, reasonable tone of voice about how he doesn't want any trouble, he thinks the two of them can be good friends, why don't we start off on the right foot here... while doing something startling like slowly ripping a phone book in half?

  • What's it called when Alice thinks she's a loser and looks up to her super cool/popular/successful friend Beth...but little does she know, Beth's only confident enough to be so awesome because shy little Alice is always supporting her?

  • There's a discussion going on over in the discussion for Avatar: The Last Airbender concerning a case where An Aesop was pretty clearly meant but they never actually got around to giving a moral: they showed a character with a bad attitude have a change of heart but never come right out and say why he had it. It's not really a Broken Aesop (because the moral was never given to be contradicted) and it's not really a Lost Aesop (the moral they were aiming for was pretty obvious and never contradicted, it's just that it never actually materialized). So what is it?

  • Mysterious man (or woman, although all examples are men) who, despite occasionally aiding the protagonist, seems to have his/her own agenda. Refers to "my employers." Think the G-Man in Half-life or Arlington Steward in The Button.

  • What do you call it when there’s a character who comes across as middle-class or poor but is actually really wealthy? (Like a billionaire who seems hard-up because all his clothes come from K-Mart or something.)
    • The Scrooge
      • Not quite. I’m thinking more of a character that is secretly wealthy (whether they intend to be or not).
    • King Incognito is the trope.

  • Is there a trope for when a characters thinks of himself as rather handsome, but he really is a Gonk?

  • Is there a trope for a criminal who starts on a rambling threat toward the hero the instant the cops drag him away?
    • That's listed under Other Stock Phrases ("You're a dead man! You hear me? A dead man!") but there doesn't seem a separate page for it. (Probably way too common)

  • Is there a trope for kissing the ground? Like after a harrowing near-death experience in a car, plane or boat.

  • Someone in the show is smoking a cigar and then get's so angry they have to draw in a deep breath (Possibly to yell something) resulting in the cigar being sucked dry and collapsing into pieces. Happens in One Piece and Hercules (The Disney version).

  • So our group of heroes are captured by the authorities and thrown in prison, but for some reason they're not in prison garb or have been processed the way you'd expect a prison to process prisoners. Is this a trope?

  • Is there a trope for how people in costumes (like Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles) move around like crazy when they talk?

  • Is there a trope for how in (particularly Asian) anime and cartoons, characters make a whole lot of what I like to call "Mouth Noises", that is, noises of exclamation and expression - excessive grunting, panting, sighs, and otherwise unnecessary emotive sounds?

  • Is there a trope for how people don't say goodbye when they are talking on the phone? I noticed this very explicitly in the TV show The Wire.

  • Is there a trope for when Alice attempts to threaten or blackmail Bob, but Bob [attempts to] misdirect her by feigning indifference to the threat? (Eg, if Alice threatens to kill Bob's love interest, Bob claims to have broken up with her; if Alice says she has top secret information on Bob, Bob says he doesn't care if people know it.)

  • Is there a trope that describes a character or group of characters who absolutely refuse to believe something could have happened because it's illegal, immoral, etc... (for instance, the only example that comes to mind is a police detective character in a series of sci fi books I read years ago, who would absolutely not believe that the main character was a clone [and therefore all the evil things she thought he had done were actually perpetrated by his clone] because human cloning was banned.)

  • What is it called when a work of fiction is mainly set in country A, but country B is worked in so that people from country B are more likely to watch it? For example, Blue Water High, which is set in Australia, had a character who's from Germany, because the show is a German-Australian co-production, and they want Germans to watch it.

  • What's the situation where a bunch of kids are exploring a cave, until hear either heavy breathing or a loud roar, think it's a monster and run for their lives, setting up The Reveal that it was just the wind blowing through holes, or a far-off geyser?

  • Is there a page for whatever the opposite of a Magic Knight (warrior who learns to cast spells) is? One that's primarily a spellcaster but can also hold his own in melee if need be.

  • Is there a revenge trope in which the hero succeeds in accomplishing his vengeance, but now has no idea what to do afterwards because he's dedicated his life to revenge?

  • Do we have a trope for a character's shoelace breaking to indicate a bad omen? It shows up a lot in anime.

  • Do we have a trope covering a character's ability to perform amazing feats of apparent strength (like cracking a huge boulder with one hit, or taking down an opponent with a single blow) except their skill comes from knowing where to hit rather than how hard they hit?

  • Is there a trope for when a character who's kicked a bad habit is driven back to the habit by something traumatic? It seems to be most prevalent with characters going back to smoking.

  • Is there a trope for how an animal/monster/machine will be referred to as "it" when it's acting hostile, yet suddenly becomes "he" or "she" when it undergoes a Heel–Face Turn or is belatedly treated with sympathy? A good example would be on animal-attack-footage shows, where an aggressive wild animal is called "it" when it poses a threat to humans, only to get promoted to he/she when the danger is past and the animal needs to be captured without injury.

  • I'm looking for a trope that's not exactly Completely Missing The Point, but more like the character makes an observation about a Point that's not exactly the first thing they should have thought of, but still relevant. Kind of like I Take Offense to That Last One, but not about insults.

  • Is there a trope for someone saying/doing something completely out of character (usually out of character in a positive way), and then immediately saying/doing something that proves the previous action wasn't really their idea? For example:
    Hero: I can't think how to escape!
    Cast idiot: Accelerate to 15,000 and make the hyperspace jump.
    Hero: (stares at him)
    Idiot: (shrugs) That's what it says in Piloting for Dummies, anyway.

  • Ok, I would call it: "Psychology works" or "good psychological knowledge equals mindreading" or "good psychological knowledge equals mind control". In people who do not have supernormal abilities, but are just that intelligent/well trained. Frank Herbert does that a lot, in nearly every book (not only Dune). You are just so implausibly good at reading body language, interpreting the way the others speak and formulate things, at smelling their fear, and so on and so forth.... you also know how the human brain/psychology works (and other than in real life their will be some absolute rules, like a->b oder a=b). You will therefore be able see right trough somebody and/or manipulate him at will. When two or more try to do that to one another, it would be "psychological kung-fu" ... (Other example for that trope would be Ender's game, but Frank Herbert is the master of it). How is it (really) called?
    • Awesomeness by Analysis
      • Mhm, interesting trope, but not exactly what I meant. I didn't mean calculations, but more a) observation skills and b) inprobable psychological knowledge/implausible empathy. Can be Charles Atlas Superpower , but I'd like it to be more focussed on the whole psychology thing. Will make you able to make the perfect Hannibal Lecture or makes you the perfect Manipulative Bastard, but it's more than that, first you don't have to be evil, it's more an ability that you have, and not about how you use it. You can use it to help, too, making you an inpossibly skilled therapist, for example.

  • Not a trope, exactly, but what is that page where you can post story ideas and other people rate them? I think it's a talk page...

  • Are there any tropes along the lines of "You can see that, right?" where a character tries to confirm what they are seeing, by asking others. Usually the something is inexplicable or just plain weird.
    • There's Pinch Me, which is when the character thinks they are dreaming. Not quite, but close.
    • maybe worth making a new trope?
      • Subverted in Star Trek where the other person says "No, and neither did you!"

  • What's the trope for when the Fandom of a show takes a completely inconsequential Background Character or even a random face in the crowd, and procedes to give him a Back Story, characterisation, role, etc.? Specifically, the guy in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann who is considered by fans to be an anti-authoritarian guy who threw the rock at Rossiu, despite not even having a voice or being animated.

  • What is the trope called when someone new in school, say the New Student comes to school and everybody founds him creepy on the bus and every seat he wants to sit is already taken?

  • When two characters argue about a specific parking spot what is it called?

  • Is there a specific trope for when a well-intentioned, reasonable character jumps the gap to Well-Intentioned Extremist? It doesn't seem like Face–Heel Turn to me, because they're not turning evil and their morals have not changed, they've just gone from rationally trying to achieve their ends to the point where they'd do anything to achieve their (legitimately good) goal. Maybe the cutie was broken, maybe they became drunk with power; whatever the reason, they've crossed the chasm to what they're willing to do to further their aims, which are still honorable.

  • If characters spend the whole story searching for something of value (treasure, lost city, hidden jewels, etc), only to find out at the end that their objective had been found/destroyed/taken away long before they had even started looking, is that a trope of its own? Or is it just an aversion or subversion of a trope for successful treasure hunts?
    • Sounds like You Are Too Late or a variation.
    • Not really the same thing, though. You Are Too Late implies that a villain is to blame, not chance, and that the villain is gloating about it. Also, what I'm thinking of isn't necessarily a Downer Ending, as it could be that the sought treasure has actually fallen into the right hands, just not the protagonist's hands (e.g. in The Twelve Chairs, the hidden jewels were found years ago and used to sustain a poverty-stricken community).

  • Seen this a couple of times in anime. When a character gets enthusiastic, but there's somebody who interferes with their need to express their emotions, they'll shove that somebody aside by pushing them in the face (causing them to fall over). Is there a trope for this?

  • What's the one when kids grow up looking exactly like their parents? Not Generation Xerox, that'swhen they behave the same.

  • I know I've read this one, but I forgot the name. In a video game, if a person who was a villain does a Heel–Face Turn and joins your side, he's never as strong as a good guy as he was when he was a bad guy.

  • Do we have the trope where a Fish out of Water gradually adjusts to the setting as a series goes on? I thought it was called "Amphibian Out of Water" or something like that, but now I can't find it.

  • There's a scene in In The Line Of Fire where Frank takes a gun from Mendoza, puts it to the head of his partner, Al, and pulls the trigger. CLICK. Later, Al asks how Frank knew the gun wouldn't go off and Frank never answers him. (Did he know or didn't he? If he knew by the weight that the gun was unloaded, then he's a badass. But maybe the magazine was full but the chamber was empty. If he'd been wrong, it would have been very messy and hard to explain. Was he just willing to risk it?) Figure It Out Yourself sort of fits, but not exactly. I Did What I Had to Do?

  • YKTTW there's some kind of potentially disturbing content, usually in an educational video or a video for funeral services, and they play "soothing music" in the background? Supposedly to keep you from freaking out? There has to be a trope for this, especially when the "soothing music" actually makes it more creepy and freakout-tastic than it would have otherwise been. (Example (eye surgery-possible squick warning!

  • A language trope. The original work is in Language A, and later translated to Language B. But somewhere in the work, Language B is mentioned, or Language A is referred to, and the audience have to somehow pretend that these languages sounds different in the work's universe. Example would be when a bunch of, say, Japanese tried miserably to converse with a, say, American in English — in a work that's translated to English! I'm pretty sure it's been done before, just don't know where to start.

  • Is there a trope, similar to That Poor Cat, where instead of hearing a yowling cat, we hear glass breaking when something is thrown offscreen?

  • Is there a trope for when the leader of a Five-Man Band (or some other group) is giving out tasks for whatever their upcoming mission is, and when he gets to one person, gives them an absolutely useless job (or at least, not as good a one as the others get)?

  • Is there a trope for that character who's never really surprised or impressed by anything? A snarling monster standing in the door? He walks past it without a flinch. Zombies reaking havoc on the town? He's striding as though nothing's happening. Jesus Christ himself ascends from heaven to bring him salvation? He kinda expected more pizazz.

  • Is there a trope in which a character does a tiny, seemingly insignificant thing that ultimately triggers an event at a cataclysmic scale? For example, a criminal mastermind seeks to take over a city simply by mixing up bus driver schedules. It doesn't seem that important or devious until you realize that the city relies on perfect transportation. With the schedules mixed up the public transport drivers are completely out of whack, commuting is thrown off, businesses fall, and the city is in ruin.

  • If a game features Loads and Loads of Races and you have a party, it will be very ethnically diverse, to the point when you'll have only one member of each race. Do we have a trope for that?

  • A cartoon/anime trope for when wind/air is made "visable" so it can be seen. I'm thinking specifically the airbending in Avatar The Last Airbender, since air is see-through, but they color it with white sometimes. I tried searching "Highly Visible Wind", but that didn't do anything...
    • See Sword Lines for an effect related to moving blades, and Razor Wind for when the effect itself can damage you.

  • Must be a trope already: the bane of Alice's existence is away, or has decided to take the day off. Great! Now she has time to ... do whatever it is she does when not involved with that problem. Then she realises that she's doesn't have a personality outside of opposing her arch-enemy, probably leading to her either trying to poke them back into action or taking on their role themselves. Example: Phineas And Ferb decide to spend the day doing nothing, sending Candace into a frenzy, telling herself "You can't do anything unless you're busting them for something. So if they're not doing anything ... then who is Candace?"

  • I haven't been able to find that old stock "long walks on the beach," either as a dating trope or as a Stock Phrase. Is there a page I haven't thought of?

  • Mostly an Anime trope (methinks). Is there a trope for when a girl really likes a guy to the point of blushing every time they meet (think Hinata from Naruto), and he thinks she has a fever, so he checks her tempature thereby causing her to become even more embarressed, and wither run away or faint? I'm sure I've Seen Ita Million Times, but to be honest, the Naruto example is the only one I can think of off the top of my head...

  • A comedy trope where someone is presented with an absurd and implausible amount of evidence for something. Like in Black Books, Fran, about Bernard's unexpectedly alive ex: "Here's a picture of me and her. And here's her dental records. And her birth certificate. I keep it in the same envelope as the picture of her holding up yesterday's newspaper and wearing an 'I Love Life' t-shirt."

  • Specific subtrope of Training from Hell: a character trains with some sort of major voluntary handicap — usually wearing heavy weights, but high-altitude cardiovascular training would also qualify — only to remove the handicap when things get serious. Prominent examples include Master Roshi's turtle shells in Dragon Ball, Samurai Jack's training to gain Not Quite Flight, and Rock Lee's arm and ankle weights in Naruto.
    • I Am Not Left-Handed.
      • I Am Not Left-Handed seems to refer to when the voluntary handicap is in use during a fight; the trope I'm thinking of is when it's used specifically and (usually/mostly) exclusively as a training device.
    • Restraining Bolt?
    • No, Restraining Bolt is involuntary; the boltee wants to get rid of it but can't. This is voluntary and can be removed at will. It's also not:
      • The Fettered. This is physical rather than spiritual/ethical, and taken off in real (non-training) combat situations.
      • Power Limiter. This is not restraining dangerous power, but rather trying to create even greater power.
      • Deadly Upgrade. Fighting unhandicapped isn't dangerous to the user.
      • 11th-Hour Superpower or Power Nullifier. The character fights unhandicapped in any real fight, not just boss fights, and if they do only use it for boss fights, then that's probably I Am Not Left-Handed.
      • Disability Superpower, though related. Essentially, the character deliberately gives themselves a temporary disability in order to get the superpower, then takes it off when training is done. Daredevil has a Disability Superpower; a sighted character who trained with a blindfold to sharpen their hearing and then took the blindfold off whenever they got into a non-training combat situation would be this.
    • Well, it's definitely tropable. Try running it through YKTTW.

  • Is there a trope for when a character in a movie or TV show is shown reading a book that's pretty pertinent to their situation (or will be)? For example, a poster for The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya showed Mikuru with the book "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time."

  • Is there a particular trope that describes how the ability to use magic specifically skips a generation or two? Like a child who can use magic will have a grandparent who can use magic but their parent cannot. I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head right now but I know that I've encountered it a lot. I've looked but have only found ones where powers are inherited, but not inexplicably skipping a generation.
    • Example: Gwen and her mana-using alien grandma Verdona from Ben 10 Alien Force. Verdona left Earth because neither of her children with Max had "the spark" (ability to use mana), but was overjoyed when granddaughter Gwen could.

  • Alice has a secret: she's a lesbian, or a half-breed, or a vampire. Whatever it is, she has legitimate reasons to fear that people will hate her or treat her differently based on this label. So when she comes out of the closet, she's naturally apprehensive. Bob, however, is so thoroughly unbiased that he can't comprehend why she's nervous, and thinks she's talking about something minor. Happens in El Goonish Shive when Ellen's parents immediately accept that they have a brand new daughter out of nowhere, and think the incredulous reactions are about what they'll allow her to have for desert. Happens in Kate Daniels when Kate learns someone is a shapeshifter, and doesn't understand why they expect her to make a big deal about their species when she could be talking about something that's actually important. Usually played for drama.
    • Try Freaky Is Cool or But Your Wings Are Beautiful.
      • Those are close, but in the trope I'm thinking of Bob doesn't think Alice is freaky at all. He accepts her as totally normal and doesn't devote any additional thought to the matter.

  • I know I've seen this trope, but I can't remember the name for the life of me. Hero goes on a mission and for reasons beyond his control it either fails, or some people die in said mission. One person after that decides to blame the hero and swear revenge for a person dieing in that mission (usually a young family member) because for him, the hero is to blame for the deaths, even if there was nothing he could do about it.

  • What's the trope where a character is told something and then replies, "I knew that! I just wanted to see if you knew it."

  • What's the trope for when Alice is burdened by a significant handicap (let's say blindness) that normally puts them at a serious disadvantage in a fight, but then the situation turns so that both her AND Bob, whom she is fighting, cannot see, thus putting Alice at an advantage because she has more experience fighting without sight?

  • What's the trope that would describe this exchange:
    Alice: Hmmm, I need a plan...
    Bob: What is it?
    Alice: I have this really good trope I'm thinking of, but I'm not sure if we already have it.
    Bob: How about posting it on Lost And Found?
    Alice: No, no, that's a terrible idea...wait, I've got it! I'll post it on Lost And Found!

  • When very young kids are shown to have an interest in (finding out why everyone's so into) sex. Not Kids Arecruel, but...

  • When an actor is so popular at a certain time, that his movie characters naturally overshadow other characters who generally should be more prominent. I'm thinking of Jim Carrey at his height (Batman Forever) and Johnny Depp (CHARLIE and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland). Is this Spotlight-Stealing Squad, or is it something else?

  • A comedy trope where someone tries picking on a wimpy-looking fellow, only for the fellow to reveal his entire, muscled body.

  • Is there a trope for when a person reads/watches a work and loves it, then years later goes back to it and doesn't like it nearly as much? Applies to both fiction and real life. Note that this isn't Seinfeld Is Unfunny; this trope should apply even if the work in question wasn't popular/has never been imitated.

  • Is there a trope to describe when too much plot and exposition is thrown into a film, which ends up just being confusing because it jumps around so much? Spiderman 3 comes to mind as an example by trying to throw in 4 separate plot points involving 3 different villains, with Venom only getting 15 minute's worth of screen time.

  • Is there a trope for when a character is stuck with something, either an object, person, or quirk, until they learn a specific lesson at which point it magically disappears? For instance, in Liar Liar he has to speak only the truth until he learns his lesson about lying.

  • What's the trope for when the establishing shot of a spaceship is done from underneath? Seen in Star Wars (Trope Codifier), Spaceballs (which parodies it whit the sequence lasting at least a minute long) and SMBZ.

  • What trope would describe someone who actually likes being miserable? As contradictory as it sounds, this is a character who actually can't stand being happy. Said character would probably complain about how much their life sucks, but can't imagine living any other way. And if said character actually DID have a happy moment, they would do everything they can to blot it out of their memory.

  • Is there a trope for when the Quirky Miniboss Squad or a Joke Character is revealed to have been the Big Bad all along?

  • Do have any tropes where a character (usually the good guy) lets another character die (usually the bad guy)because they offered help before but where betrayed. The key thing is the good character is firmly against killing but in this case they have little problem with letting someone die.

  • How about one where a character insults or accuses another character, but it turns out that it's not for the reason that the other character (or the reader) expects? Like when Vlad Taltos is surprised to get hassled by a Dragaeran for being a Jhereg rather than an Easterner. Or when Morris in Sewer, Gas and Electric thinks that his Oxford-reared Palestinian foster siblings are about to tear into him for being Jewish, only they start razzing him for being American instead.

  • Is there a trope for when two people are asked the same question and they both give each other as the answer? Like, for instance:
    Carol: So which of you two is more inventive?
    Alice: Bob, of course.
    Bob: Alice. Duh.

  • Do we have a trope for when you have a group of people who wear some sort of suit/uniform/armor that includes a fully or partially face obscuring helmet, but anyone who's a leader or important character tends not to ever wear the helmet?

  • Is there a trope where the general public thinks all Asian martial arts are the same thing? Karate, Judo, and Tae-Kwon-Do people tend to get this a lot, and to a bigger extent there are people who think Karate and Kung Fu are the same thing.
    • I Know Karate is the closest thing I can recall.
    • That trope is about an unassuming character using martial arts against a big dumb bruiser who assumes martial arts suck. I'm talking about someone who can't differentiate between different Eastern martial arts because to most Westerners they all look the same. Like saying, "Hey! It's those monks who do Karate!" to the Shaolin Temple.

  • In House of Stairs by William Sleator, a bunch of kids somehow find themselves in a building with no visible walls, floor, or ceiling, containing stairs that wrap around on themselves so you can't reach the lower ones without taking a fatal drop. A device dispenses food pellets if they do certain actions, with the actions in question slowly being "molded" via the positive reinforcement of food into a gradually more elaborate dance. Then it switches to rewarding them for doing physical harm to each other. This is revealed in the end to be a deliberate attempt to both make them obedient and destroy their consciences, with the goal of determining whether an ordinary person can be turned into a government assassin. What tropes, if any, describe the training and its outcome? It's not quite The Spartan Way or Break the Cutie, and its products aren't quite Super Soldiers.

  • Is there a trope about how traditional sayings are almost never completed anymore? Such as "When in Rome..." or as seen in YKTTW right now, "You say Tomato..." I think it originally started out because the sayings were so well known, you didn't have to finish them, but I'm finding more and more people who have no idea that these quotes are part of larger phrases.

  • Situation: A character introduced in a theoretical reality later appears in the actual reality of the story, in a fashion not quite the same as he/she was originally introduced. I'm sure there's a trope for this, but I can't think of it...

  • Is there a trope for the opposite for Writers Cannot Do Math?

  • A character in an animated series that cannot fly nevertheless ends up in a situation where they are somehow up in the air. Because it's a cartoon, the character will not fall... at least not until either they realize on their own that they're airborne or someon points it out to them. At that point, they will fall, though perhaps not before briefly flailing about in the air, training to remain airborne.

  • The Alicean Empire's capital is the planet Alice, from where the race Aliceans comes. The same for the Bob Federation of Bobans from planet Bob.

  • Character (usually a detective) has a bottle of scotch (or some other alcoholic beverage) stored in his desk drawer at work. Classic to any detective/police drama. Seen it in CSI, Batman and a few others. This trope has to exist...

  • Is there a trope where a string of huge descriptions are immediately followed by an understatement? "That was marvelous! Stupendous! Amazing! Fantastic! Unbelievable! Mindboggling! Jaw-dropping! Humongous! Shocking! Exhilerating! And it's pretty good too."

  • Characters who are entirely superfluous and are only there because the writers couldn't think of anything else to do with them. I'm thinking of the kid characters from the late third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender — Teo, The Duke, etc. — who escaped on Appa with Aang et al at the end of "Day of Black Sun" because the writers didn't want to send them to a Fire Nation prison — but the writers didn't have anything else to do with them, so they got consigned to the background until they could be Put on a Bus a few episodes later.

  • Do we not have anything like Built To Last or something, things that are well, built to last

  • The longest arc ever - like Endless Eight, long string of filler episodes, or really long period of plotless sidequests. Even if it's not really that long, to the reader/viewer/player, it sure as hell feels like forever. (Also found out that This Troper can't pothole.)

  • Is there a trope covering weapons that only have one shot, and from time to time the character gets in a situation where he needs to fire that shot but realizes he's already shot his bolt earlier in that episode?
    • We have the general It Only Works Once. If you apply that to weapons Once an Episode, I think it fits what you're looking for.
      • I don't think that really fits, though. It Only Works Once is, as written, for things that almost work but are forgotten about or useless forever after, and Once per Episode is for things that have to happen once per episode. Neither one really fits Detective Conan using his tranquilizer needle, then a few minutes later needing to use it again but realizing he's shot his bolt already.

  • Weirdness Magnet, and Unusually Uninteresting Sight and Arthur Dent tip on this but don't quite cover it. Do we have a trope about how characters are able to get used to and accept pretty much anything, o matter how weird, as normal? Usually with a lampshading later, where they note how weird it is that the incredibly abnormal is just the everyday for them.

  • Okay, I searched, and I don't even know what a trope would be named, but it's so omnipresent in anime that I'm basically pulling a Do We Have This One. Basically, The Protagonist is in the ultimate battle against The Dragon, The Big Bad, or some other Story Arc-bearing antagonist. Things have reached their conclusion, and one of the fighters unleashes a Kamehamehadoken, SphereOfDestruction, or other such death implement. It impacts full force, and in addition to whiting out the surroundings, the character's silhouette slowly dissolves. Seems to be a fairly Final Death unless you're watching Dragon Ball Z, in which case No One Could Survive That!.

  • Do we have a trope in which one character begins with an irrational fear and another character keeps mocking that character for that fear. By the end of the episode, the first character has gotten over the fear, but the second character ends up acquiring it?

  • Is there a trope for when someone takes something non-human (such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and draws them as humans? (Like turning aforementioned turtles into hot ninja guys). It's kind of the opposite of turning people into furries...
    • Humanity Ensues
      • I wasn't thinking of it as a plot point, I was thinking of it more as an art style.
      • It's called "Personification" in fanart circles.
      • Oh god, I saw a smutty personification of a loaf of bread once. AUUUGH.
      • Alright- so it's called personification, but there is no page here? No worries. X3 By the way- I'm sorry about the bread, that mush have been horrible. Brain Bleach?
    • I think you want Funny Animal.
    • No, wait, come back! There is a trope: Moe Anthropomorphism

  • I'm pretty much certain this has to exist, but for the life of me I couldn't recall what it was. Anyway I was reading a review of "Reptilicus" the other day when it got the scene where a hand held flamethrower horribly injuries and drives off his monster the size of a building. So you think "well damn let's get some flamethrower tanks and some napalm and we've got this *** beat!", but no the weakness to fire is never mentioned or exploited again. The reviewer mentions this himself sums it up as: "Monster Death Trap Proviso (n): This stipulates that any stratagem to destroy a monster, once it has failed, may not be attempted again, even if it only failed because of some bizarre fluke. Nor can the same plan be refined and tried again. Instead, a completely other plan must be formulated." Review is seen here here Like I said I'm sure this must exist, but I can't for the life of me recall what we called it here.

  • I'm looking for something like No Celebrities Were Harmed but for facts, not people. Things in a show that were inspired by real-world events or facts, but changed in a particular way to fit the universe. (example: sucking on frogs for cold relief in Avatar The Last Airbender was likely inspired by the urban myth popular in the '70s that kids were getting high by licking a certain kind of toad that secreted a hallucinogen through their skin)

  • Is there a trope for when something is funny because it's not funny? Like when Data tried to tell jokes in the holodeck?

  • Is there a trope for when the hero is largely indifferent to the villain's Evil Plan and is after him for some other reason?

  • Someone asked about a trope for "kicks an invisible can" here. Do we have it? Quoting:
    palehorse864: I really would like to know if anyone can identify this trope. A character who is somehow disappointed or otherwise downtrodden puts his hands in his pockets, lowers his head sadly and then kicks as if he's kicking away an invisible can, usually before walking off. I'm imagining it might have become popular through Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character, or perhaps The Little Rascals?
    • I've seen it turn up on The Simpsons, wehn Abe falls in love with Marge's mother, when a lawyer comes up and says he can't use that walk as it's copyrighted (possibly to Chaplin).

  • I know we have this one, forget what it's called? Monsters just stand in a room waiting for you to show up. Different monsters may even stand around in different rooms without interacting. Video Game trope (with a few horror movie examples.)

  • Is there a trope for characters who always seem to be just outside the group? Like, they all hang out together, party hard, fight crime, whatever, but when it comes right down to it, they don't quite belong?

  • If this has already been listed, I can't seem to find it. Is there a "time" equivalent to Eiffel Tower Effect? You see this in Flashbacks or shows that take place in a the past. Various products, fashions, even phrases that were popular in that time period or famous events that took place are prominently featured as a way to establish the time period. This is often subject to Hollywood History or even You Fail History Forever. Could also be combined with the Effiel Tower Effect, e.g. a shot of the Eiffel Tower being built. Possible sub-trope (which I also can't find) is one that points out how naive people were about a particular place/person/thing in the past. The Simpsons uses this a lot, to the point of Lampshade Hanging:
    • Marge, as a 17th century Puritan, chewing tabacco leaves and exclaiming: "It has colored my teeth a healthy brown".
    • Mrs. Krabappel, as a Depression-era schoolteacher: "Here children. Have a cigarette to calm your nerves."

  • Seen It A Million Times. Generic chemistry is benzene. Every time chemistry comes up in a sitcom, anime, or cartoon, somewhere on the chalkboard is benzene. Too common to not be a trope. (Opening of The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, anyone?)
    • Sounds like a sister trope to E = MC Hammer.
    • So we don't have it? Of course, that is because Benzene looks cool. But of course, buckminsterfullerene is even cooler. But then again, lots and lots of organic compounds have benzene rings, so maybe this is just Truth in Television.

  • Do we have the "gun" equivalent of the Law of Inverse Fertility, in which guns will be handled in the most careless manner without ever going off until it goes off in a loved one's face? Often done in Anvilicious fashion for a "Guns are bad" Aesop. Also it's perfectly illustrated by this Mark Twain quote: "A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his grandmother every time, at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations."

  • What trope describes a situation in which a regular guy is considered the genius because everyone else around him is beyond stupid?

  • I'm sorry, but we must have this one. I just can't find it. Way too perfect dates. That's it. A date so magical and witty planned that it is anything but Truth in Television. Doesn't has to be a date, just a really impressive romantic gesture, like falling from an airplane parachuted along with a string quartet while the airplane's propulsion system writes "Would you marry me?" across the sky. I think both dates and proposal deserve their own trope but I can't find them anywhere.
    • Personally, I don't see proposing by jumping out of plane to be all that romantic, but it and similar grand gestures would go under Wacky Marriage Proposal. Anything about how fictional romance is perfect is generally excused away by the Rule of Romantic.

  • Is there a trope on how adding a cape instantly makes the wearer look more intimidating (or at least, that's the intended effect)?

  • I looked at Double Standard but can't seem to find where it would go. I doubt it is its own unique trope either. Basicly while the use of the word Black is either Taboo or a complement the use of the word White denotes all things un-cool and mockable.
    • I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean like when someone is too "vanilla"?
      • As in "Man if his dancing was any more white he would be invisible."

  • Seen It A Million Times. The story features a black protagonist working with white protagonists against a black bad guy. Typically the black protagonist is a cop and the black bad guy a criminal of some sort. In the end of the story the protagonists have captured the bad guy, and he tries to evoke racial solidarity with the black protagonist, so he shouts "Hey, brother!" to him. But the protagonist doesn't take the bait, he just replies "I'm not you brother!", and walks away with the good white guys. It feels like this sort of scenario has been done a million times in movies and TV shows, especially during the 1980s, but I can't think of any examples. Is there a trope for this?
    • Sounds like Not So Different.
      • It's not Not So Different. That's when the bad guy points out to the good guy that their personalities are not so different. What I'm talking about is when the bad guy tries to evoke the good guy's solidarity for extrapersonal reasons (most commonly race, but I guess gender, ethnicity, or nationality can do as well), but the good guy refuses to take the bait exactly because he judges people based on their personal merit.

  • What's the trope for when the girl that the entire male population is drooling overdoes fall in love- with the only guy who feels nothing for her, or even worse, is in love with the heroine?

  • What's the trope for when a character wakes up from a wild party and discover's he's joined the Army?

  • Is there a trope that believes there's no such thing as charity and that everything is powered by money? It doesn't matter how generous or selfless your actions may seem, ultimately the end result either feeds your ego or gives you more money. Good for goodness sake doesn't really exist, so stop pretending that it does.

  • Do we have a trope for a secretary who sleeps with her boss?

  • What's that trope that's like Brown Note, but isn't harmful and instead just inspires terror when you here it because you know where it is Cthulu, or something just as horrible, isn't far behind?

  • So, how about Mermaid's Song? I can't find it anywhere. By Mermaid's Song I mean anything with an attraction power so big that would hopelessly derail the Heroe from his main objective. Kinda like how flying bugs feel towards light bulbs.

  • In Halo, 343 Guilty Spark is a robot created by the Forerunners 100, 000 years ago for a specific purpose: to monitor and upkeep the fourth halo ring until activation by a "reclaimer." 343 Guilty Spark spent over 100, 000 years waiting. 343 Guilty Spark has an A.I. sophisticated enough to be capable of boredom. Ouch. This scenario isn't Who Wants To Live Forever because it's not really his immortality that's regretful, and neither is it And I Must Scream (because he isn't immobilized in any sense.) The closest fit I can think of is Fate Worse Than Death, and that's not quite right...

  • Is there a trope for committing an atrocious crime for some mundane reason? Example: Dr. Troptastic breaks into a TV studio and holds the workers hostage. He will only let them go if they put his favorite character (who was cut) back on the show. Or Electro Trope threatens to cut the city's power unless he gets enough money to pay his mortgage.

  • What's the term for something that is translated into one language, then retranslated into its original language but doesn't resemble it's initial source? An example would be the second opening for One Piece. It was initially an original eurobeat song in English, but then it was translated into Japanese for the show. Then when One Piece came to the US, it was retranslated into English. The resulting song, however, has completely different lyrics to the orginal version.

  • Is there a trope for when someone is dying and they tell someone that they love them, except they are already in an established relationship. May or may not be the first time they have said it. My guess is they probably haven't.

  • Is there a trope for when the author has a really, really random character get killed for no other apparent reason than to kill someone off? Like Ass Pull with deaths.

  • Is there a trope for the capable brother/son who's overlooked because he's the youngest? I'm thinking something along the lines of Kyouya or Manjoume.

  • Is there a trope for "Deadpan Ouch"? Rather than scream in pain at being smashed or impaled, the character just groans and says, "Ouch." Along the same line as This Is Gonna Suck.

  • Is there a specific trope about fairly but unconventionally handsome/pretty twentysomethings who have difficulty expressing themselves and are constantly self-conscious but in an extremely charming way? Charming, but awkward. Chawkward, if you will. Sort of a geeky Nice Guy, verbally confused, but in the end a pseudo-Woobie? Ned is a good example, as are Xander and Dr Horrible.

  • Do we have a trope for a couple that is in a definitively romantic relationship, but we never see them kiss or hug or do couple-like things on screen? No Hugging, No Kissing doesn't really work here because that trope is for series where there is no hugging or kissing because there are no romantic relationships.

  • Seen It A Million Times: Alice and Bob are walking through a hallway toward each other. They're both carrying books or papers. They bump into each other, and everything falls on the floor. While picking up their things, their hands meet, and they look into each other's eyes. This probably leads to Boy Meets Girl or maybe Love at First Sight.

  • Seen It A Million Times: Looking for a trope where a character (usually a child, but can be The Chick or for bonus points a particularly sensitive guy) is crying, is offered a handkerchief with which to "dry your eyes" and promptly blows his/her nose in it before handing it back, for example Olivia in The Great Mouse Detective.

  • Looking for trope about unmarried, fun-loving uncles. You know, the single uncle that loves to play, always takes the kids out and about for a little adventure, or gives them a new toy — usually against the parents wishes?

  • Tell me if there already exists such a trope where an Only Sane Man or just someone level-headed but bad-tempered encounters a Cloud Cuckoolander and gets all worked up explaining something that they think is important and downright evident just to find out their interlocutor wasn't really paying attention in the first place and would make a completely unrelated comment at the end of the rant. I would call it "Your face looks funny" (it doesn't exists under that name) and I have seen it many times, though I can't think of any examples right now.

  • I need help identifying a trope. It's partially related to Schizo Tech, but rather than the technology discrepancy being part of a fictional universe from the get-go, it's introduced later on for no good reason at all. To clarify, an example: Glass Mask started in 1976, but is still ongoing. In the beginning the series was set in "present day", meaning 1976, and in-universe a little more than 7 years have passed, so it's 1984 at most. In the last few volumes, which have been published very recently, however, cell phones (camera phones, even) and the Internet are clearly featured, even though there shouldn't be any around. Do We Have This? And, if we do, what's it called?
    • Having the background details keep pace with the real world even though the same amount of time hasn't passed in-story is a feature of Comic-Book Time.

  • What's it called when a character has earphones in and isn't really listening to anything, but rather wants to be ignored? I've seen this an awful lot. Examples include the receptionist in the hospital in Series.Heroes and Mrs Tachyon from the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy .

  • What's it called when a character starts laughing, (perhaps because of some sort of unfortunate event that's also ironic or ridiculous) but then his laughter slowly turns into weeping.

  • A big animal chases a small animal off-screen. Then we see the big animal running the other direction—away from all the small animal's friends (or maybe an even bigger animal). Do We Have This One? One example is in Banjo Kazooie's intro. But I think it's a pretty common cartoon trope.

  • Character tries to pass off a shop-bought item, or something made by someone else, as his/her own work. Examples vary from food to school science projects. Do We Have This One?

  • What's the one where a particular installment of a franchise becomes so popular and successful that it actually damages the franchise, as no one is interested in the new stuff any more? Might be a variant of Franchise Killer but it's because the work was too successful, as opposed to being too bad
    • Please provide an example. I can't quite grasp the general concept enough for me to do an efficient search, and others might feel this way too.

  • The heroes depart on a mighty journey to find the mystical macguffin which ends up being buried right where they started.

  • Someone tempts fate by saying "I/we did it!" right after hitting a blow to the opponent; similar to No One Could Survive That!, but not the same. I figured that there would be a page here for that, since it's amazingly overused, but couldn't find it anywhere. Even if as a subtrope, that kind of trope is way too common to not have a page, so.. Did I miss it?

  • Is there a trope for when a character is faced with choices that aren't really choices at all because they are all unthinkable? May result in them having to Shoot the Dog. Probably doesn't leave room for Take a Third Option but I think this is possible. Like in God on Trial where one of the prisoners was forced to choose by a Nazi officer which of his three sons he could save from being taken away to the camps.

  • Um... Is there like, an "ambiguous tattoo" trope? You know, when a character has some sort of markings on their body (probably something to do with the Rule of Cool) that you're not sure if it is a tattoo, or if it's painted on or some other thing. For example, those purple butterfly shaped markings on Nabu's arms. Do you get what I'm saying?

  • What's the trope for when characters in a work discover a fictionalization of their own story? Not Who Would Want to Watch Us?—it's not a movie or play, nor are they involved in the production of it—and not Literary Agent Hypothesis, since no one in the work created the story. Is it a Sub-Trope of one of those, or something else? An example would be if it's a sequel, and the characters discover a fictionalization of the events from the first movie. It seems like an Leaning on the Fourth Wall, but I'm not sure.

  • Is there a trope for when a work directly recalls/references a previous incarnation or adaptation of that work? For instance, the casting of Kirk Alyn and Noelle Neil from the "Superman" film serials as young Lois Lane's parents in the 1978 Superman film. It may not necessarily even have to be actors- In the second Spider-man movie they directly reference the 1960s animated series when a street performer sings its theme song. Would all that just be covered under 'Shout-Out'?

  • What trope would have a character allowing his opponent to sock him in the face, knowing full well that it's not gonna work? Many times this would be accompanied by a line like, "Go ahead, just try it." or "What are you waiting for?"

  • Is there one for when someone has just received some bad news or has been cursed, but soon afterwards they receive another blow?

  • It happened in Seven Samurai and Firefly.

    In Seven Samurai, Kikuchiyo dresses up as a bandit, talks with another bandit and casually takes the bandit's musket during a conversation (exactly what Kikuchiyo wants). Then he gives it back to the bandit while still chatting. It would have been easy for a person to kill the bandit after getting the gun, but Kikuchiyo instead draws his katana and waits for the bandit to realize Kikuchiyo isn't a fellow bandit.

    In an episode of Firefly (to the best of my memory), Mal needs to stop a man from burning down Inara's friend's brothel. During a social gathering, Mal meets the man and asks if he can see the man's laser gun, and then gives it back. Repercussions aside, a person might have said "I got your gun, I'm going to kill you", but Mal realizes picking a fight with a guy who can afford an expensive weapon is a bad idea.

    So it's kind of like "Can I see that?", where the protagonist holds the antagonist's source of power temporarily, and knows that, and then returns it for some reason.

  • I am aware of the Cap and Arbitrary Headcount Limit tropes regarding the limiting of teams for balance, but they are primarily focused on RTS. I have noticed in a number of non RTS games that where one of the character selections is a team and others are individuals, some manner of limiting mechanic is put in place (not necessarily just a number limit) to prevent the team from being a Game-Breaker.
    • Super Smash Bros Brawl has Pokemon Trainer, who is forced to use Pokemon in a one way rotation, Olimar, who can only control 6 Pikmin when he should be able to control hundreds, and Ice Climbers, where when the partner is separated from you she is Too Dumb to Live courtesy of the AI. Zelda can switch but got Nerfed in Brawl, where she has an extended animation during transformation that leaves her open to attack as soon as it finishes.
    • Pokemon now has Vespiquen, who should be able to control a whole hive of bees to heal her completely and obliterate opponents, but her Orders only appear to command 3 to 5 bees (by the looks of her Wii animation, at least).
    • Ape Escape: Pumped and Primed has a restriction on two teams (Pipotrons and Saru Team) in which only one teammate can go in a game-round at a time (the player can control which one), and is greyed out from selection for future rounds until the rest of the teammates are used up.

  • Is there a trope that describes towns that are defined by one particular industry or aspect of culture? This is particularly the case in console RPGs, where you might have a town that specializes in magic, a town that specializes in recreation (a Vegas-type town with a lot of minigames), one that's located in the north (the "cold weather" town), etc. But you also might see it in other fantasy-based works like Fullmetal Alchemist. I guess it's sort of like Planetof Hats but on a more local level.

  • Is there a trope where a character creates an explosion by striking a match or a lighter because of the presence of highly flammable gases? Either by accident or on purpose.

  • Alice and Bob are best friends. They have a row over their friendship and decide to each find a new best friend. Alice's new best friend is just like Bob, Bob's new friend is just like Alice, and eventually Alice and Bob reunite and the "new" friends go off together. Drake And Josh did it and so did that Lion King spin-off, but I've seen other versions too. Might be a form of Suspiciously Similar Substitute but it's not quite the same thing. Do We Have This One?

  • Is there a trope where in sequels, fanworks, etc. the main point of the plotline is "The Guy Who Was The Main Character Is Dead"? I'm mainly thinking of the advertisements for Mass Effect 2 which tried to make you think that Sheperd is dead, and also of a flash game called "Alice Is Dead" where the point of the game is that you're in Wonderland and, well.. Alice is Dead. This seems like the type of thing that a Fanwork that wanted to be Darker and Edgier would do, but I know I've seen it used in more then just fanworks.

  • This would probably be more video game related, but is there a trope where you have music and whatever is taking place is so iconic or embedded in your brain that listening to just the music alone sounds weird?

    • Examples would include the Street Fighter 2 intro with the punch at the beginning, the beginning of Wing Fortress Zone in Sonic 2 with the lasers, World 1's map screen in Super Mario Bros. 3 when Mario does that sparkly thing to move from the life counter to the map, or Dhalsim's stage in Street Fighter 2 with the elephants.

  • What do you call the situation where you have 2 characters with alter-egos, and those two characters have the opposite relationship with each other when in their alter-egos and don't realize it. So two characters may be friends with each other, but one is secretly a superhero and the other is secretly a villain and they fight each other. Like how in Spider-man 1, Peter Parker and Norman Osborn have what resembles a father-son relationship, but Spider-Man and Green Goblin are mortal enemies.

  • Looking for somthing akin to Clingy MacGuffin excwept its an item that has a tendency to change hands it never stays with a single owner for too long for example the Deathly Hallows in Harry Potter or the Daedric artifacts in the Elder Scrolls

  • Is there a trope for putting a character who's Designated Intellectual (TV Genius, Insufferable Genius, The Smart Guy, etc.) in a couple with someone who is very definitely not, and usually tends towards Book Dumb? E.g. Ross and Rachel on Friends, Penny and Leonard in The Big Bang Theory, or Diane and Sam in Cheers. Often tends towards being a Sub-Trope of Strangled by the Red String, unless carried out carefully, and even there the viewer is often left wondering what the two would have to say to each other if they weren't lovey-dovey, or having relationship drama, or appeared to only know or ever hang out with the same small group of people. (By contrast with Genius Breeding Act, Geeky Turn-On.)

  • Is their a trope for people being turned to dust as a method of killing? No Body Left Behind and everything fades are about death, then powder, so its not them.

  • Is there a trope for this? Bob loves Alice, but thinks she is in love with Charlie. Because he just wants her to be happy he does not pursue her, but unbeknownst to him, she may actually be in love Bob, and she and Charlie are Like Brother and Sister or actual brother and sister. Something along the lines of Han and Leia in Star Wars, Han is willing to let Leia be with Luke because he thinks they are in love, then it turns out he is her brother.

  • What is that thing where two characters attempt to go through a door, but each decides they should be polite and let the other go first? The result is them just standing there waiting for each other to go; in particular cases they might end up attempting to enter the door at the same time and get stuck if it's too narrow for two people?
    • Also, I think this gag might apply to some other situations as well. Specifically, there's a dialogue version that goes someting like this:
      Bob: You know, Alice, I want to ask you something...
      Alice: Really? I, too, have a question for you, actually... What do you want to ask?
      Bob: No, please, what is your question?
      Alice: No, no, you started first, so please ask your question.
      Bob: No, you first.
      (This continues for as long as it seems funny)
      (Note: I wrote "Alice and Bob", but the characters in question do not have to be romantically involved or even to be of the opposite gender — these things are in fact quite good to be played for Ho Yay.)

  • What tropes could describe a tendency of characters not to confront their friends or other important people directly about what these people did wrong, but to speak entirely in vague hints so as to not offend them by a straightforward question?

  • Do we have a trope like Man Behind the Man, but there is no man in the first place? Basically, I'm talking about when the identity of the Big Bad is the Driving Question, such as Twentieth Century Boys or Broken Saints.
    • The troper who asked the question knows this, but for anybody else, we didn't but we do now: Hidden Villain

  • So... suppose you have Character A whose mission is to protect Character B. Character A is determined to do it at all costs — exactly like that: e.g. if protecting Character B requires hurting somebody else in the process, this will be done and any complaining about it from Character B is met with lines like "This is my duty" and "You're more important than they are". What tropes could describe this?

  • Does there exist a trope for a character having to dodge falling blocks and climb their way up as they pile? The best example I can think of is the Tetris level in I Wanna Be the Guy.

  • What's that trope where everyone gets an equal amount of screentime? It's like A Day in the Limelight, but more prevelant. I thought it was Ensemble Cast, but after checking that page apparently not.

  • A Chew Toy or Butt-Monkey but they totally had it coming every time.

  • In most superhero universes, the setting is such that, contrary to Like Reality, Unless Noted, the world is in chronic physical danger. Trains regularly go off the rails, plains crash, chronic gang attacks, et cetera...basically, if there weren't superheroes in this universe, the whole thing would be chronically self-destructing.

  • You've got an SF or sci-fi world with FTL spaceships - probably a "Navy" of them in fact, and they most likely have artificial gravity. You've probably got powered armor and starfighters. You've probably got very intelligent robots / computers. And when the sergeant barks at the Marines to get on the ready line, what are they grabbing? Pulse laser rifles? Masers? Gattling graviphoton cannons? No, they are grabbing submachine guns and assault rifles. Maybe they make a slightly exotic sound when they fire, maybe they have a bullpup layout, but they definitely do not reflect the same level of science and technology that put any of the characters in the situation they are in. What trope is this? Killzone 2, BSG, Firefly, Aliens, etc. Do we have a trope for this?

  • Okay, so we have Alce and Bob. Bob (mot often Bob) is doing something dangerous (like juggling knives) or stupid (like juggling eggs). He is doing completely fine until Alice comes up and tells him how dangerous/stupid it is whereupon he promptly fails what he was doing. Sometimes Bob will call Alice out ("I was doing just fine until you showed up), but other times, well, not so much. Any ideas o Awesomeness that is tropers?

  • So there's an epic fight that's occuring ontop of a train or a truck during a high speed chase. Always makes for a perfect final battle scenario, save for the fact that one low tunnel or one low trafficlight is enough to knock your head clean off. Is there a trope for those stationary fixtures that seem designed to kill anyone stupid enough to put their limbs outside the car? The actual object can range from signposts to trees to tunnels, so long as it's something that can smack into anyone on a high speed chase.

  • Bob loves Alice, but Alice doesn't know. Bob does something nice for her, and she jokingly says, "I think I love you," making him feel all and angsty or conflicted. I've come across this a couple of times now; is there a trope for this is it just a subtrope of All Love Is Unrequited?

  • Is there a trope for when one person is chasing another, and the prey puts a table in between them? They go left, the other person goes right. They go right, the other person goes left. The other person jumps over/under/through the table, and the chase continues? While I am on this, what's the (similar) trope for the silly dance people do when they both are going in opposite directions but keep moving in the way? My google-fu has failed me on both these :(

  • Is there a trope for when a character is so very angry the very rocks (and other assorted debris) about him suddenly float in the air? Seen in Dragon Ball and elsewhere.

  • Is there a trope for artists exploiting their real life and the people in it for the sake of art, often to the serious detriment of the people around them and their relationships to other people in general? Also, if really unlucky, they get alienated from themselves and their own experiences this way. May or may not involve serious breaking of confidences and trust. Not uncommon as a self-critical claim on the part of Real Life artists (writers, filmmakers, songwriters, etc. - Seen It A Million Times), though it tends to have a ring of It's All About Me and Wangst, but also very common, especially on the part of the Author Avatar, in fictions, often by the same authors.

  • Do we have a trope covering the tendency of characters in private detective fiction (probably most often in humorous depictions), to rattle off several synonyms/slang terms for something he's encountered? Lampshaded in one suitably-themed episode of Tiny Toons:
    Babs: So you're a detective. A shamus. A sleuth. A P.I. A peeper.
    Buster: And you must be a thesaurus.

  • Is there a trope for the fact that most people with psychic powers are female?
    • Under The Empath, it notes that "if The Chick (from the Five Man Band) gets a superpower, it's often this." Other than that, I can't say.

  • Is there a trope about how laws are almost never made with the assumption that people will not change? Example: a guy gets "Sexual Offender" stamped on his record for something in his teens, now at age 30, he can't get a job because the label is still there.

  • Is there a trope this? Bob has undergone Involuntary Shapeshifting or is in Mode Lock and has to meet his friends face to face. Alice and Charlie don't believe him until they get a close look at his eyes. For some reason, a person's eyes never change when undergoing shapeshifting.

  • Is there a trope for when all politicians, regardless of position or allegeance, are automatically and deservedly regarded as money-grubbing hypocrites? Didderent from Strawman Political, as it doesn't take one side over the other. Inspired by Disc World's Australia stand-in, where all politicians including the Prime Minister are thrown into jail as soon as they're elected, as it saves time.

  • Do we have a page for when a boss becomes weaker as he is wearing down? An example would be Mike Tyson / Mr. Dream in Punch-Out, who stops throwing one-hit knockdowns at the end of Round 1. Other examples are the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 bosses of Ice Cap Zone Act 2, Launch Base Zone Act 1, and Robotnik's penultimate machine in the Launch Base Zone boss rush. Like Clipped-Wing Angel, only it's really supposed to be wear and tear, not a false upgrade?

  • Propping the (usually wooden) chair closest to the door under the doorknob holds off pursuers just long enough to escape through another exit, even though in real life the chances that the height of the doorknob, height of the chair closest to the door, and the coefficient of friction between the chair feet and the flooring material are sufficiently in harmony for this to be even momentarily effective would fall somewhere roughly in the neighborhood of "And the Best Actor Award goes to... Ben Stein!" territory?

  • Is there a trope for when two characters are so close that no one can tell if they're together or just friends, and it's never resolved? (It's left up to the audience's interpretation, but clearly portrayed as 'could go either way'.)

  • Is there a trope for a situation where the protagonist/Lancer/side character is trapped in a situation where the only options they have will all result in the same thing, albeit in different circumstances?

  • Is there a trope for a particular kind of boss battle where, rather than fight the boss, you have to run away from it?
    • If there is, there's a good chance it's listed on the Boss Battle page. It might even be the very first kind listed.

  • What gaming trope describes bodies that are always intact no matter what you do to it? For example, you'd expect an enemy to have a huge gaping hole where you pounded a giant drill into his midsection, but instead all you see is a huge red splotch on his otherwise intact body. This goes double for any enemies whose bodies are still intact despite being caught in an explosion that should've torn the body to pieces?

  • I could have sworn there was a trope a while back about all pedophiles in media being child molesters/rapists, when in real life people often cope with their taste perfectly fine without sexual crimes.

  • Is there a trope for a character who basically views himself/herself as his/her masters' "tool" for achieving their goals — i.e. he/she never cares if he/she is constanly put down yet is equally indifferent to being praised; only concerned about being able to do something for his/her master, never about himself/herself; in extreme cases views this as his/her only purpose in life.

  • Is there a trope for where a character or a group of characters (e.g. a Power Trio) have get superpowers when they go to Another Dimension? Sometimes, a reason is given, sometimes... not. Examples: The Dark Tower, The Dream Merchant, Vision Of Escaflowne... Thanks! —La Merika
    • New Super Power counts overall, but I don't know if there's a specific subtrope for "Gets new powers in alternate universe".

  • Is there a trope for where a character lives another life in a dream, and as soon as he/she falls asleep in the dream, he/she wakes up in their "real" life? Examples: Dreamless, The Dreamer, Coo's World.

  • Is there a trope for somthing like "The Elephant never forgets" ?

  • Is there a trope for a situation where a character tells a lie to another character because he doesn't want that character to get upset over the truth?

  • What's the trope for a main character who's plot significance quickly fades? Example: Fumie from Dennou Coil, by episode 7 she's reduced to being a stand-in (or an Agent Scully if it's episodes 18-19)

  • Is there a trope for The Mole mutters something to him/herself after the other characters leave, something that would reveal his true alliances if someone heard them?

  • This is a trope for the Put on a Bus family that I'm not sure there's a page for. Sometimes a character stops appearing on a series (usually temporarily) but the rest of the characters continue to make references to him that indicate that he hasn't actually gone anywhere...he's just, for some reason, off-screen all the time. Sometimes there's an informal explanation ("Oh, Alice had to work a double-shift today.") but occasionally characters just drop his name, indicating that he hasn't gotten the Brother Chuck treatment, but without explaining where they are. Usually this is done when an actor is working on another project or temporarily indisposed, but all indications are that they'll be back.

  • I remember a trope that dealt with a villain doing something with the phlebotinum that makes it impossible for the heroes to get at it easily; usually this means they have to beat him or get really close to him to get at it. I seem to remember it being called "Eaten The Phlebotinum", and examples included King Piccolo eating a Dragonball so that the heroes couldn't get it without killing him first.

  • What's the one where most of the people in a fandom are there not because of the work itself, but because they liked the previous entry in the series or something else the creator wrote? I'm thinking of stuff like the people who rushed to fangirl Stephenie Meyer's The Host just because of Twilight; or Kamen Rider Kiva which was overshadowed during its run because Den-O was still being heavily promoted.

  • Is there a trope for being suspiciously well informed about something you're nominally against? Related to the Suspiciously Specific Denial. I was inspired as I wrote up an entry about Fred Phelp's granddaughter's obsession with Lady Gaga, although it could apply to fictional works as well - anytime a character supplies eyebrow-raising information, then stammers "I'm not sure how I know that".

  • Is there a trope for when someone in a group tells a joke that's pretty dark, and everyone finds it funny except for one person, who has a sense of humour and may not have any personal experience with the subject of the dark joke, but nevertheless just fails to see any humour in it?

  • Is there a trope for a story with no romance? It's not No Hugging, No Kissing where the writers specifically say there won't be any. I'm thinking more it could happen, but just doesn't. Or is that already covered in No Hugging, No Kissing?
    • I don't see enough of a difference to merit a separate trope.
    • From the page: "When the writers make it clear that there will be no romance between any of the lead characters." The description excludes any and all developing attraction between any of the leads but allows for the idea that romance is something that could happen, but doesn't. That seems to be exactly what you're describing.

  • Is there a trope for when someone that is not known for their humor makes a joke? Example- when Master Splinter in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tells a joke, and says "I made a funny!"

  • What happened to the The Cheese Stands Alone page?

  • Is there a trope for when a character seems to be a certain trope, like The Woobie or Ax-Crazy, or a situation seems to be a certain scenario, but the audience learns of a last twist that throws the whole thing into new light?

  • Is there an entry for the subverted 'on the count of three'? Where the person trying to coordinate an action says: "Ok, on Three! One.." [Action is performed]

  • Is there a trope for a character making a threat and having it backfire? E.g. the hero/wannabe says "If you want X, you'll have to kill me first" and the bad guy enthusiastically responds "Thanks!" or "Over my dead body" is met with "Your terms are acceptable".

  • Is there a trope for this? A character gains dark powers or the like by either being transformed into something or unleashing his superpowered evil side. However, once said character managed to regain control of himself and goes back to being good, said dark powers still remain even though they should have disappeared along with the rest?

  • What's the one where fans petition the network to bring back a cancelled show (or a fired actor, etc.) by sending items in to the producers? Like the Torchwood fans sending in bags of coffee when Ianto was killed off, but I know it's been done a million times before

  • Is there a trope for when a character starts saying stuff like "Woe is me" ?

  • Is there a name for the trope where, in any film needing a deserted daylight scene in a recognisable city, the scene's really obviously filmed early on a summer morning when no ones about? Like any part of 28 days/weeks later shot in London.

  • Don't we have a page saying what the most-quoted works on the site are? What's it called?
    • Most-quoted as in "Trope Overdosed", or as in "provides the largest number of page quotes for tropes"?
      • Page quotes. At first I thought it was Quote Overdosed, but that's just a redirect.

  • Not sure it exists (Tear Tropes doesn't seem to have this kind), but tears of happiness? Like a character's reaction to a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming directed to him/her? Or would it just fall under CMOH?

  • I was looking through some movie and game tropes, what's the one when there's the best character, or the one that everyone really likes, and he ends up being one of the first few to die?

  • A character has a specific pet name or term of endearment that only one person is allowed to call them. Anyone else using the name would elicit a negative reaction (possibly pressing the Berserk Button). Related to First-Name Basis.

  • So there's a wise old wizard type character, usually mentoring the main character, and a Big Bad, and they are sworn enemies, only later in the series we find out that a long time ago, they were best friends, and one of them went evil. Like Psycho Ex-Girlfriend, only (usually) not romantic. I can think of four examples off the top of my head.
    • Forgotten Childhood Friend
    • I'm not the original poster, but they don't look like quite the same trope to me. In any case, Forgotten Childhood Friend doesn't include the kind of examples that this description made me think of: the Doctor and the Master, Xavier and Magneto, Avatar Roku and Sozin... I think it might be a different trope.

  • Is there a trope for when someone receives mail or email that looks like an obvious scam, throws it out, and then it turns out to be legit? Examples might include this Achewood story arc in which Ray gets a Nigerian scam email that turns out to be an actual plea for help getting money out of the country, or this CollegeHumor sketch in the same vein. Or this Sexy Losers strip (NSFW) in which a guy receives what he thinks is porn spam, but is actually — unbeknownst to him — a real girl trying to get in contact with him.

  • What is that trope called where someone lists a lot of reasons why something can't happen, but saves the most relevant one for last?
"Wait! That is not how we do things around here, buddy. First we have to argue incessantly over semantics. Then one of us has to hurt one or all of us. Also, you're a villain."

  • Is there a trope for an unlockable character who is only unlockable after the game ends?

  • What's the newspaper trope in which one character gives another character a newspaper to read a specific article, only for the second character to mistake an irrelivant article or an ad as the important subject? Dialogue usually goes like this:
    Bob: "All of these crimes are connected! Here! Look at this!" (proceeds to throw down the paper)
    Alice: "Hmmmm...there's a shoe sale at Macy's? Interesting, but maybe another time."
    Bob: "Not THAT!" (Flips the paper over to the relevant article) "THAT!"

  • I've been looking at Mind Screw and TrueArtIsIncomprehensible and I'm wondering if a distinction is made between works where that really have no point, and works that seems to have a deeper, if some what incomprehensible structure (ie, Alan Moore's .. well, most of it, by Promethea in particular - built (IMHO) on psychology, western mystic symbolism, tarot symbolism, etc). What about TheChrisCarterEffect works where the author won't admit to making it up as he goes or where the viewers are supposed to come up with their own answers (due to a ShrugOfGod) except you're sort of pretty sure nobody bothered to put any in there. Or where it's admitted only later to have been mostly random.

  • What's the Time Travel trope in which someone who goes into the future does not meet his or her future self... because no one has seen or heard from that person ever since he or she went timetravelling? It nullifies tropes such as Never the Selves Shall Meet, My Future Self and Me, and Help Your Self In The Future because there WAS no other self to live in the time between the present and the future. The example I'm thinking of is a Darkwing Duck episode, but even Back To The Future has the dog Einstein disappear as he time travels, so that there is only one version when he reappears minutes later.
    • I don't think we have that yet.

  • Is there a trope for when a fight is cut short due to an unexpected element, much to the disappointment of the fans?

  • Is there a trope for an episode that is generally hated? (I.E: The Scrappy episode of a series)

  • Is there a trope for when there's a flashback to when the characters were kids, they'll be wearing the same clothes (but smaller, obviously) as they do in present day? Usually in animation. I checked Limited Wardrobe, but it wasn't mentioned there.

  • Is there a trope for when a Cloud Cuckoo Lander suddenly realizes the insanity or inappropriateness of his behavior? It's not Bored with Insanity, more when Dr. Hobo is rambling off a wild conspiracy theory and suddenly realizes he's conversing with a talking cat.

  • I'm not sure this could exist as a separate trope, since there are already Filler and Padding, but a kind of entry in a continuity-based series that feels particularly... detached from the main plot. Two examples:
    • Sailor Moon: first season episode about a psychic girl (where the MOTW wasn't related to the Dark Kingdom; other episodes just have the Shitennou repeating the same attack patterns on different people). Also the infamous second season Beach Episode that didn't even get into the uncut sub.
    • Harukanaru Toki no Naka de - Hachiyou Shou episode 18. To elaborate: this episode is located in the middle of the second arc (the Four Seals hunt), which consists primarily of character-focused episodes. The episode in question has practically nothing to do neither with the arc's plot nor with any of the main characters, and instead is basically about the team trying to help a young couple to get together. Sure, that's so much more important than saving Kyou. The episode is also unusually silly..]] Considering HaruHachi is only 26 episodes long, it feels a little out of place.

  • Do We Have This? Seen It A Million Times, and it is mentioned under Nature Spirit that combining it with Anthropomorphic Personification yields Mother Nature, but there doesn't appear to be any YKTTW about that; additionally, not all depictions of "Mother Nature" are anthropomorphic - some are quite impersonal, like Final Fantasy VII's Planet . It's certainly not Mother Nature, Father Science, which is purely about a metaphor-based association of the titular opposites (Nature vs. Science) with specific genders, from which stems the Real Life concept of Mother Nature.

  • Is there a trope for when a conversation or something similiar (like the way someone is thinking) goes on a Wiki Walk? I thinkign kind of like the guy from Scrubs (JD?) and his imagination, but also if a group of people are talking and the conversation goes from Point A (Why do men like women's breasts?) to Point alkdhsajfhdl (How and why Ariel's dad is creepy, and there's a weird vibe about the whole thing between the two of them.) It's not technically a Wiki Walk, since it involves more than one person and a computer, so... Any ideas?
    • This looks like just Wiki Walk. The description seems to suggest that conversations and thought processes count too. Even the Scrubs example is listed in it's examples.
      • Possible Sienfeldian conversation

  • Is there a trope for when someone knows an author/songwriter/screenwriter and finds that the author based the story or a character on the other person, often getting angry that their lives are being used for fiction? Typically the portrait will be quite unflattering.

  • Are there any tropes about marks/ symbols that are deliberately put there to so that a person cannot pretend to be something else? for example designing a robot with odd eyes so it can't look completely human. Kind of like a built in or added Glamour Failure.

  • Is there a trope for what happens when a character is in a virtual reality world (or remote piloting a vehicle, avatar...) and is suddenly disconnected, usuallywith very bad results? as seen in Avatar, The Matrix...

  • What's the trope for when a character gets what they wanted, but not in the way they expected?

  • Is there a trope for a kind of music in movies where it's played in background while two lovers have sex? Like the ones in Sliver where the movie plays Carly's Song by Enigma while Sharon Stone & William Baldwin are humping around.

  • Do we have anything for an evil subordinate who is worse than the villain that commmands him? Sort of like a Not What I Signed on For Even Evil Has Standards for the guy in charge.

  • I'm thinking of putting something in a story I'm writing and I'm wondering if there's a trope for it. Basically, two characters get into a (playful) snowball fight. Person A makes a snowball that Person B judges just a little too big, so person B ducks. What person B does not realize is that Person C, who is much smaller, is behind Person B and gets creamed by the snowball. It's meant as kind of a comic relief thing. Is there a trope that this would fit in?

  • What's the trope for defeat a boss by using its own attacks against it?
    • Don't know if whe have the exact trope you're looking for, but we have some that are at least partially related: Tennis Boss ("I reflect your attacks at you"), Bullfight Boss ("I dodge when you charge making you slam into a wall"), and Beat Them at Their Own Game ("I use the same attacks as you to defeat you").

  • Is there a trope for when a writer/narrator spends fifteen minutes describing how Bad Ass a group of people are, then has them get defeated in one sentence?
    • Informed Ability?
    • No, in the sense that they really are that tough, it's just used to show how powerful the opposing people are.
    • The Worf Effect?

  • What's it called when one spends an extended period of time watching a show on DVD straight through? For example, spending an entire weekend watching House on DVD. It's not quite an Archive Binge, though it is referenced on the page. I know I've read about it somewhere as something separate. Maybe it was somewhere other than TV Tropes?

  • Do we have one for precognition/foresight that isn't limited to Spider-Sense (ie knowing what is just about to happen)?

  • Is there a term for a spoiler in a commercial?

  • A man and a woman run away from something - Jason, cannibals, whatever. Point is, the only way the woman keeps up is by the man grabbing her hand and running in front, pulling her along. Even if she's an Action Girl. Related to but not the same as Standard Female Grab Area.

  • What is it called when two characters sit down to eat with someone(it could be an old friend or just plain old hospitable strangers) but one of them doesn't want to eat thay may or may not have an Incurable Cough of Death it isn't I'm Not Hungry because the situation is friendly and Alice Really isn't hungry. something like this.
    Bob:(seeing Alice isn't eating) You should eat something.
    Alice: I'm Not Hungry.
    Bob:(sounding worried) You haven't eaten anything all day

  • Working class intellectual — a well-known trope IRL, but somehow I haven't been able to find it here. I can't believe we don't have a page for it!

  • A trope for when someone does something, like stealing a personal item or saying a nasty remark, and although the act itself isn't very serious, whatever was said or done means a lot more to the victim?

  • Is there a trope for the boy next door who always enters the girl's house by climbing a ladder into her bedroom window? I know we have There Was a Door, but I was wondering whether there's anything for that specific variation, since it's so common.

  • Is there a trope for when a character is preparing to tell another character (that has a crush on them) that it won't work out between them, only to find out that either the other character already gave up on them or got a significant other recently, and the character is suddenly offended that the other character got over them so quickly?

  • A trope for when someone really believes that what they do is the right thing to do, no matter what it is or how dark it is.

  • Is there a trope for someone prefacing a stock phrase with "I never thought I'd be saying this, but..."? Sort of the dark cousin of I Always Wanted to Say That, in that the context is more dire. Examples: In Snakes On A Plane, a stewardess has just learned that the last member of the flight crew has succumbed to snake bite, and she has to ask the passengers if any of them knows how to fly a plane. At the end Shaun Of The Dead, a news anchor reflects similarly on himself giving instructions to "sever the head or destroy the brain" of the zombie.

  • Is there a trope for a person wearing a jacket just over their shoulders? I mean where their arms are not in the sleeves of the jacket, but it's simply resting on their shoulders such that it almost resembles a cape. I've seen this on many characters in various places, though primarily in anime. This may be something too specific, but it does tend to show up quite a bit.

  • Erm... I'm not quite sure if this goes here, but here it goes: A page on this website, I can't really remember what it was, but it I don't think it was any of the Crowning Moments (not, not even Awesome), and it had a couple of folders (three, I think), about the Justice League. In one of them, it talked about Flash, and how he was able to get info where Batman(?) and someone else couldn't, by beaing nice, and promiseing to play darts with the guy in jail.

  • Is there a trope for the opposite of And Zoidberg? For example, Alice, Bob and Cathy are talking. Dan walks up and says "Hey Ladies" (or something) Charlie thinks it's an And Zoidberg, but it's not.

  • The complete opposite of Loads And Loads Of Characters; a work in which there will be only ONE person present, and he/she carries a story on his/her own, without interacting with other sentient beings.

  • We must have this: a character goes to another character for advice, but the other character is unaware of this. They may not say anything, or say something to someone else entirely, or something like that, but the first character is inspired either way and thanks the other character for their help.

  • Is there a page describing what happens when the ending of a work based on a true story is spoiled simply because the viewer is aware of the outcome of the original event? In other words, a work is spoiled by history. (Example: 300)

  • Is there a trope for a character wearing a protective suit not to protect themselves but to protect others from them. For example they could be radioactive, sweat anthrax or be made of dark matter.

  • What is the trope for a work that has a radically different genre or atmosphere from the creator's usual one? (E.g. it's noticeably Darker and Edgier, or it's fantasy when s/he usually writes realist novels). I'm sure I've seen this, but now can't find it...
    • Sounds like Genre Shift or Out-of-Genre Experience.
    • Those both seem to be more about transitions within a work, though - this is less on the lines of "Fluffy show suddenly turns dark" and more on the lines of discovering your favorite fluffy story author also wrote a High Octane Nightmare Fuel story you shouldn't let any child near, or that someone you only know as a sci-fi author also made a straight soap opera.
    • He Also Did?
    • That'd be Genre Adultery.

  • Is there a trope for characters suddenly revealing a knowledge of foreign languages you wouldn't have expected them to know? Particularly innocuous, provincial-seeming characters. The perfect example would be the Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist Jin meets on Lost who first asks him for a paper towel in English, then starts delivering the father-in-law's threats in Korean.
    • You could start with Omniglot, which is about a character knowing an improbable number of languages or being able to learn them ridiculously fast.
    • Omniglot I think can overlap with what I mean, but they're not quite the same thing. I'm not referring to the character's breadth of language knowledge so much as the surprise effect of them knowing the language.
    • You Didn't Ask or I Know Kung Fu?

  • Is there a trope for a character who is a sadist?
    • Sadist Teacher, Combat Sadomasochist... type "sadist" in the search bar up there. A sadist in general sounds too general for tropes, or at least for the ones currently with pages.
    • I didn't find it from the search, (but thanks for suggesting it). To be more specific, do we have anything for a character who isn't content when their enemy is just in pain- they want to take it Up To Eleven?

  • I'm pretty sure we have this, but I can't quite find it. When a character reacts to something, but it's not what we think they'll react to. Like if Character A shows Character B the newspaper, instead of noticing the plot-relevant article, they'll instead go "Oh my god! There's a huge sale at Kohls!" and so on.

  • Is there a trope page for that thing where Alice and Bob are talking, and then a third voice breaks into the conversation, and they turn, and there's Carol, who's just entered the room? And usually there's something dramatic about the fact that Carol is here, now?

  • Is there a trope for whenever someone's talking about a character, and then you cut to them sneezing? Or they say their ears are burning or something like that?
    • Oddly enough, this trope is covered under Sneezing.

  • Is there a Trope for a sequel that has little or nothing to do with the previous installments ( i.e Halloween 3 and S.Darko) Non-Linear Sequel is Video Game Centric

  • What trope does "If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?" fall under?
    • Do you mean the Zen koan, or some application of it?

  • A trope for when democracy is present in the game but does nothing of value since the game designer is the only one who can implement new features or tweaks.
    • Please elaborate. Your question is so vague as to be meaningless. Are you talking about a game where players are allowed to vote on new or proposed features but the developers ignore them? Do you have any specific examples?

  • A trope for the concept of "Achievement" - is it under another name or do we not have it? Specifically for goals that are tangental to the plot of the game - while there are often achievements for progressing story, many of them are "Do X random things that you don't have to do".

  • A trope for a character who is mistaken for another character- maybe a relation or a close friend- because they sound the same or look the same as the other character.

  • Some record of my old Stealth Minority trope, which was zapped by somebody for not going through YKTTW, even though it had already been edited. I need to put it through "the proper channels."
    • What, you don't keep an offline copy of pages you launch? Bad troper. Also, having been edited is no barrier to the Cut List.

  • "That's just what they'll be expecting us to do..." This is a line of Robert Stack's (Captain Rex Kramer) in "Airplane!" A movie full of brilliant parodies and genre bending... But what is the origin of this line? What's the Trope?
    • You might look under Stock Phrases and add it if it's not there. Make sure to use YKTTW to gather examples.

  • I know there was a trope page that included weird weather like it would suddenly rain frogs, or raining blood - usually as a bad omen or to say reality broke or some nonsense. Can't find it via searching terms, help?

  • Is there a page for old people who have no concept of inflation, i.e. the Simpsons episode where Bart is put to work on an old lady's backyard for weeks and only receives fifty cents?

  • Is there a trope for anime fans that do not understand or rail against phonetic equivalence, or at the very least intended equivalence, and say 'such-and-such character's name must be spelled with an 'r' (or 'l') because that's what their name was in Japan' (despite both being equivalent), or else insisting a character's name always be in Japanese syllables even if it is meant to be an english name (such as Sonikku instead of Sonic).

  • Is there a trope for people that look scarier than the person who's actually threatening the protagonist or doing them harm? Like, for instance, if the Big Bad was threatening to torture the hero while surrounded by the Big Bad's allies, who, despite not saying anything or doing anything apart from standing still impassively, look scarier than the Big Bad, despite the fact that the Big Bad is the one who is about to torture the hero.

  • Is there a trope for when a video game character somehow already knows skills that they would have had no real opportunity to learn?
    • An example is in Ocarina of Time, Link somehow knows how to ride a horse, accurately shoot a bow, play an ocarina and many other skills, with nothing more than a few sentences of instruction, despite living most of his life in a sheltered community, where he would not have encountered these things. Sometimes simply obtaining an item that the character has likely never even heard of instantly makes them a master of it. I'm sure I've seen this one on here before, just can't seem to find it again.

  • The trope where a character stretches before zooming away. Most cartoons made use of this, especially Wile E. Coyote, and Star Trek made use of this for a warp speed effect up until Enterprise.

  • Is there a trope for when a character goes "If you're here..." and then usually something goes horribly wrong?
    • Tempting Fate ?
      • I'm not sure if it would be Tempting Fate, as the damage is already done. The line isn't so much provocative rather than wondering that if you're here...who's flying this thing?!

  • I'm almost certain that this is somewhere, but is there a trope where main characters are held back by mooks, and the big bad is trying to kill someone/fire death ray/whatever, then after they do, the main characters break free from the grip of the mooks and run over to the dying character/death ray to see if there's anything they can do.

  • Is there an allergy trope yet? Like, the only characters who have allergies (specifically food allergies) are either over-priviliged, weak, or nerdy (or some combination) ? It's sort of similar to only nerds have asthma (and by the way, does that trope exist?)

  • A trope for when an ally of the Big Bad is heavily implied to only be on the enemy's side because the Big Bad is holding someone/something important hostage, or the Big Bad has information the ally needs, or the Big Bad has promised the ally something vital- in other words, the ally would be on the hero's side if the Big Bad didn't have that one thing the ally needs.

  • What about the one I call the "Insincere Instructions" trope, where one character gives another character some instructions with the expectation...in fact, the hope...that said character will disobey the instructions. I.e.: "Don't open that box, whatever you do." A comedic variation exists where a character gives the instructions ("Don't anyone try and stop me!"), and reacts with disappointment when all present obeys them (...and no one tries to stop her.)

  • What is it called when someone's rival has similar if not identical wardrobe, team members, adventures, etc.?

  • Do we have an index of Trope Namers that are not actually an example of this specific trope?

  • Is there a trope for a character that's beloved even by a work's hatedom (or especially/only by the hatedom)? This isn't quite Ensemble Dark Horse, as it'd be for a character who's specifically cool enough to be well-received even by people who dislike the rest of the work. Someone like Murtagh from The Inheritance Cycle comes to mind.

  • Is there an index for couple tropes, e.g. Odd Couple, Yuppie Couple, Birds of a Feather, etc.? Did a couple (No Pun Intended) of searches and not been able to find it.
    • We have Ensembles and Cast Calculus, which could include couple tropes, but it doesn't seem like we have an index for just couple tropes.

  • Is there a trope for when sequels pollute critical or fan opinion of the original work? (Like arguably what happened to Sonic Adventures 1 and 2 when Sonic 06 and Unleashed came out)

  • Is there a trope where a character wakes up from a dream (often a nightmare), glad that it wasn't real... until they suddenly see some very clear evidence that it wasn't a dream at all?
    • Or Is It?
    • Not quite. Or Is It is primarily an ending trope; I meant the cases where this happens just partway through the story, often as an evidence that something at least borderline supernatural is involved.
    • Or Was It a Dream?

  • Is there a trope for when a character is incapable of getting hints, despite being told/shown repeatedly? As in The Thing That Would Not Leave, Oblivious to Love...

  • What's it called when a character dies right after something good has happened to them?

  • Do we have a trope that's related to Monster Is a Mommy, except the monster is actually a baby?

  • Seen It A Million Times. Whenever you want to show just how crazy fans get over a certain band or celebrity, you not only have them squeeling like idiots but actually mutilating themselves. This can range anywhere from smacking themselves with a hammer or pulling out their hair to just going nutso and punching out anyone within a 5 foot radius. Is this generally under Fan Dumb, or is there a specific description for this?

  • Is there a specific trope for this? In this world, the color of magic doesn't just reflect things like alignment, skill, or type, but the color of magic varies from user to user as a personalized calling card. It might just fall under Color-Coded Wizardry, but this is a more specific use.

  • Does Action Commands fit in Fake Difficulty the way I described it? In a more general case, the game treats waiting for ~15 seconds as a pass command; this was used in the older Ultima games. In the specific case of Telengard, I think the delay is ~5 seconds, and it takes ~30 seconds on the Commodore 64 just to render the current location within the dungon.

  • do we have a trope for when you have a Calling the Old Man Out moment but a parental figure is not involved?It's still the same idea of calling up a character on their behaviour but without the well done son guy undertones so it can come from anywhere. The closest thing I've found was What the hell hero but if I understand it thats just when a character crosses a line that even they knew they shouldn't cross. Examples:

    • Familyguy - in what should almost be a crowning moment for Quagmire, 'Jerome is the New Black' has him effectively calling Brian up on every hypocrisy and flaw that he has.
    • Dexter - In season three new character Quin pulled this on token pervet Masuka. The end result was a depressed yet better groomed Masuka and Debs & Batista going through a whole wewantourjerkback phase. When the two confront him about it he effectively pulls one on them for how they treat him.
      • Another, more subtle example happens in season 4 when Dexter and Rita go to relationship therapy. The therapist points out how Dexter has effectively been doing the same things he always did (sans the characterderailment with Lila) but only now that they're married does Rita seem unable to handle it, almost expecting Dexter to change instantly with marrige.
      • I'm pretty sure all of the above are noted on What the Hell, Hero?.

  • A protagonist living in a sexist/racist/homophobic time (in a work created in a modern time) is never sexist/racist/homophobic (at least not by our standards). They will usually even be given a line that indicates how progressive they are. A wise prince will reprimand a courtier for belittling women; a pretty lady will explain to her intolerant family that just because a culture is different from theirs, doesn't make it bad. What is this? I'm certain I've seen it before. It might be an idea to link it from Politically Incorrect Villain. Thanks!
    • Purely Aesthetic Era, perhaps?
    • /shakes head/ that's pretty close, but not the one I remember. Thanks. : )
    • Politically Correct History
      Originally, this manifested itself through making the main characters surprisingly "enlightened" (and thus more sympathetic to a modern audience).

  • What trope doesn't believe in truly charitable, selfless acts? Like there's always some ulterior motive behind every non-profit charity or every relief effort for disasters beyond just helping people out?

  • I'm sure this has to exist already: The Captain shouts 'charge!' to his band of Mooks and strides manfully away to do an unpleasant or risky task. We either see him arrive on the scene and suddenly realise that his Mooks haven't followed him, or the POV stays with the Mooks who watch his departing back without much interest and then head off to have a cigarette instead. Any ideas?

  • Is there a trope for when a show specifically shows both Humans Are Bastards and Humans Are Awesome in the same show instead of focusing on one or the other? Kind of like a "Humans Are" trope. Some examples include"

  • Is there a trope for when a guy is interested in two girls at the same time, but they are not Betty and Veronica because the two girls have the same personality?

  • We have Good Bad Bugs and Game Breaking Bugs, but do we have a trope for bugs that are neither of those things?

  • This sounds like something the site would have, but I don't know where to look. Is there a trope about locations in video games not in anyway resembling the building they should be? A sort of form of Gameplay and Story Segregation where the believability of a location takes a back seat to level design and playability. Notable offenders: Most early FP Ss, platform games, City of Heroes' office buildings, and the ridiculous Black Mesa complex in Half-Life.

  • Is there a trope for someone who attacks or kills a murder suspect out of vengeance (whether or not that suspect was actually convicted yet)?

  • Is there a trope for a 'last bastion' of sorts? A final stronghold, against an overwhelming force? For that matter, is there a trope for sanctuaries in general? It seems so basic there has to be, but I can't find it.

  • Is there a trope for an "ark", that is, the world is ending and its inhabitants survival depends upon a ship, either to ride out a flood or take them to a new home?

  • Is there a trope for something different that people hate because it's different? Say, a band releases a very different song to the others, but instead of being a Black Sheep Hit, people tend to hate it?

  • Is there a trope for non-written works where, in a dub or otherwise, there's a really obvious grammatical error? Like Critical Grammar Failure or something?
    • They Just Didn't Care ?
    • No, but I do have an example: In Mulan, during one of the songs, she sings "Ancestors/Hear my plea/Help me not to make a fool of me" when it should most definitely be "myself."

  • Is there a trope describing the situation wherein a person (usually, but not always, the hero) pulls some stunt which will kill both the enemy and himself unless the enemy does something he wants? (For example, the episode of Psych where Shawn activates a bomb which he and several suspects are in the immediate vicinity of, in order to force the maker to disarm it, and in the process reveal himself.)
    • That might be Batman Gambit.
      • I thought about that, but those are about manipulation, and getting people to play into your scheme without realizing it. This is much more straightforward: do what I want, or we all die.

  • What trope is it in video games when characters constantly leave your party for Mysterious Reasons? The one that comes to mind is Shadow from Final Fantasy VI who tells you outright that he's unreliable and will randomly leave you. Nephi in Black Sigil says and does the same thing, but plot-induced. So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear seems to refer to when they leave, not their tendency to do so.
    • Really, I'm positive we have this one.

  • What's the trope where the story will cut to the other group who had been split from the main group by unforeseen circumstances? I could have sworn Cutaway Scene was that trope's name.
    • Could you be thinking of Cutaway Gag or perhaps B Story?
      • I was actually thinking of the scences in FFVI where it switches between Locke, Sabin, and Terra. "And now for our other group"... B Story probably would fit.

  • In the Deep Space Nine episode "Our Man Bashir" (a homage to James Bond, among other things), the antagonist "has built massive lasers that will cut into the Earth's crust, releasing magma such that the tectonic plates will sink and the planet's oceans will rise over all the land area except the top of Mount Everest, where he has his base" (to quote from wikipedia). The plot is sufficiently campy such that I'm thinking it's probably a trope discussed here. I'm just not sure what its name would be. "Island Paradise" seems like a reasonable enough name (since the survivors will live on an island and all the evils of the world will wash away with the flood waters, in theory), but, reasonable as though it may be, it's not the name of that trope.

  • I know I've seen this one around: A trope for pop culture references that would be well-known and hilarious to the original audience, but are baffling to a contempory one, because the show makes no effort to identify them. I'm thinking of things like the movie star caracatures in old Looney Toons cartoons or

  • What would be the opposite of Acceptable Targets that are not Once Acceptable Targets, but rather targets that were never acceptable in the first place? These would be the targets that nobody save for people who enjoy Dead Baby Comedy would poke fun at.

  • Is there a trope in which a volitile boss fires his employees, only to find out later that without said employees he's incapable of running his company?

  • Is there a trope for a situation like the following?
    Hero: So what's going on?
    Mr. Exposition: I'll explain...
    [cut]
    Hero: Thanks, that makes perfect sense!
In written works, this might be expressed by having the narrator say "He explained". The point is that the hero has learned something, but we the readers/viewers don't get the same knowledge.

  • Hey guys. Is there a heroic equivilant to Fashion-Victim Villain? Considering the sheer horribleness of some hero costumes, I'm surprised there isn't, but I want to double-check. WTH, Costuming Department? is sorta close, but that's more about movie adapations. Anyone know if there's a direct equivilant?

  • I'm pretty sure there's already a trope for this, but can't manage to find it... A trope where The Rival comes with a plan of sending his Mooks to put the Love Interest in a (fake) distress situation, only for him to barge in, pretend to scare off the punks, and get admiration from the girl... Only for the Hero to arrive before him and steal all the glory from him. See the scene reference in this vid, between 3:12 and 8:07 (with the most important parts between 3:46 and 5:20, and 6:32 to 7:56). Thanks in advance for your help ! :)

  • Is there a trope for when someone loses a contest/trial/bet of some kind, but still emerges victorious in other way? A common example: The protagonist and his rival enter a contest in which the winner will be declared King. Obviously, the Queen is the girl both of them are fighting for. After much cheating and wackyness, the rival wins...but it turns out the girl is no longer the Queen, instead an ugly one occupies her place, while the "loser" gets to go out with the cute girl

  • Is there a trope aside from Gone Horribly Wrong for when the creation of something is made to go awry in a fashion that isn't catastrophic but still causes problems for what's created and those who have to deal with it? For example - Amaranth in Tales Of MU - an all-around good character, but has some glaring personality flaws due to someone tampering with her creation process to get what he thought he wanted her to be.

  • We have a Suicide Attack trope, but it only seems to cover people literally strapping bombs to themselves and blowing themselves up. Do we have a trope for the common moves and techniques in RPG that sacrifice the user to hurt the enemy — the attacks Bombs in Final Fantasy or many pokemon in Pokemon use?

  • Is there a trope to cover resource nodes or resource points as they often appear in videogames? I can't find it. There are several variations on this — there are 'gold mine' style resource nodes that require constant active mining by resource units, as Warcraft gold mines; then there resource nodes that constantly provide power automatically as long as you hold them, like the monoliths in Sacrifice, the mana nodes in Master Of Magic, or gold mines in Heroes Of Might And Magic.

  • There's a crime drama trope I'm thinking of in which the teams on TV get extremely (and even sometimes necessarily) sophisticated gadgets and unlimited budgets in order to crack a case. This is usually because the audience responds better to cool high tech stuff than machines we use all the time. Examples are:

  • Standard plot a charectre is gong somewhere lets say for some sort of forign exchange program or somthing how or where doesn't matter but for some reason when they 'r there they fi nd people who are counterparts for EVERYONE they know

  • Is there a trope for when a horror or hard science fiction piece of media depicts a scary but plausible (but so far fictional) scenario - only for that exact event to occur not long after? Harsher in Hindsight doesn't quite seem to fit.

  • Looking for the trope where, for whatever reason, two good guys end up fighting each other. With no Face–Heel Turn involved.

  • Looking for a trope where for no apparent reason, you never get to choose where exactly you're fighting in a video game. Like how Nitros drags you to Adok every time you fight him in Bomberman Hero, or you can't choose the stage during the storyline (and in the postgame) in Custom Robo.

  • What is the trope in which romance occurs between two completely straight people...except one of them's actually the same gender but crossdressing. This is a classic case of a girl falling heads over heels over an incredibly good looking guy...only to find out later that said guy was actually a girl in a very good disguise. And yet somehow...she's still in love with the crossdresser.

  • What's it called when a Badass is in a situation in which most people would be scared, running for their lives, but he simply stands there, indifferent to anything dangerous that may be happening around him? Similar to Unflinching Walk

  • Okay, the trope I'm looking for goes something along the lines of "it's what you do with your life that matters, not how you're remembered after death". The two sources I'm thinking of are otherwise unrelated, but the messages are very similar...so I was hoping someone familiar with either source could help me here.
  • Do we have anything dealing with harmless electrocution? This happens in many things where a character can be shocked and take no damage, even after mains voltage or lightning strikes. Similar to Harmless Freezing I guess.

  • Is there a trope for when a sequel to the work has a different main cast than the original, but this entire new main cast consists of obvious Expies of the original cast? For some reason, I think this would mainly happen in Movies and Video Games, although there might be other cases.

  • Situation: Someone with a devoutly religious idea about something clashes with someone's explicitly scientific idea about the same thing, or in general when a religious person and a science-minded person clash. Is that just a type of Magic Vs Science, or is there another trope for that?
    • Does the non-scientific person have to be religious? If it can be just plain beliefs, you might be looking for Agent Mulder and Agent Scully.
      • Yes, a religion vs. science debate is exactly what I was going for. I'm sure this has happened in other shows, but an episode of The Big Bang Theory is my reference. Sheldon gets in an argument with Leonard and the others and moves back home with his devoutly religious mother; he obviously grates under this, and goes back to living with Leonard after an argument with his mother regarding evolution.

  • Alice and Bob go on a mission together. Bob betrays Alice and ends up dead. As there's no witnesses, Alice tells everyone he made a Heroic Sacrifice. I'd swear there was a trope for this but I don't remember it for the life of me.

  • Is there a trope for insults and/or curses that don't really make sense, like "May you and your descendants be sterile to the fifth generation!"?

  • I see there's a YKTTW for "One Man's Trash..." Is there a reverse, "Another Man's Treasure"? For instance, the protagonist happens upon garbage by what means and a bystander (usually) sees it and MUST HAVE IT because it is so Awesome?

  • Characters are in a parlor, formal dining room, or such. We know there is an awkward silence among them because we can hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room. What is that trope?
    • Chirping Crickets might fit your criteria.
      • Chirping crickets is too specific; it's to show that someone who has spoken is expecting an enthusiastic reply but receiving only silence. And it's usually for comic effect. The ticking clock means that no one is speaking, either because they uncomfortable with each other or because they are just too stuffy to engage in chit-chat. The example I just saw was in Desperate Housewives where Bree and her husband were eating at opposite ends of the table in their fancy dinning room. The softly ticking clock you can clearly hear means that there is tension between them and both are reluctant to begin speaking.

  • Is there a trope where a major plot point will happen and some object of significance shatters/breaks? Let's say a character dies and all of a sudden, 40 miles away, a love interest's necklace will shatter the second the character dies

  • Is there a trope in which an attacker is defeated because he wasted all his energy trying to pummel an unbreakable opponent? Imagine if a thug were to try Shooting Superman, keep firing until all his bullets are out, pull out a knife and break it onto Superman's chest, and then as a last ditch resort attempt to keep pummelling Superman in the face until he collapses from exhaustion. It sounds like a Curb-Stomp Battle, except in this instance all Superman had to do was just stand there and let the thug wear himself out without even lifting a finger.
    • So basically, Shooting Superman mixed with Overly Long Gag?
    • Not really. I'm looking more for the guy who wears himself out and essentially gets defeated all on his own with his opponent not needing to do anything.

  • Is there a trope for the fact that saying the name of a real person is almost a taboo on T.V shows?

  • Do we have a trope where, instead of flashback credits, new footage is used to show actors doing something they love, looking at the camera and having their name show up(think: family matters, full house)?

  • An amazing inquiry: I remember reading TV Tropes about almost defining diction, and an introduction identical to this stupendous sentence. Is it perhaps possible to track and aquire this thoughtful, exquisite entry?

  • A Virtual Ghost has a malicious/evil side that operates unconsciously. Ren/Invy/Revaia-san Leviathan in Baldr Force EXE Resolution would be an example. Would this qualify as Malus ex Machina? I get the feeling that generally involves people with actual bodies, but the aforementioned example doesn't have one (at least not anymore). Perhaps just Virtual Ghost is sufficient? But that doesn't emphasize the malicious aspect.

  • Do we have a trope covering a person being hit so hard or experiencing so much violence that they are said to have lost something intangible, like having the taste slapped out of one's mouth, or in And Another Thing Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is hit so hard by Thor's hammer that he has the immortality knocked out of him?

  • Do we have a trope for a hilarious failure of a battlecry? Examples: Nijel the Destroyer in Sourcery enters battle with, "Erm, excuse me..." while Piffany has been known to use, "NAUGHTY! NAUGHTY! NAUGHTY!"

  • I am positive we have, or had, this, but I can't find it again. If a story's set in the future, and a character is listing famous people in a certain subject area, they'll have two fictional names and one real, generally modern, one. Like, "The greatest physicists of all time! G'hrobian, Llewlynhar5, and Einstein!"

  • Is there a trope for the male half of a love duo hiding from his lover's significant other (usually by sneaking out the window and hanging out on the ledge, but also often in the closet)?

  • Do we have a trope for when a person is sleeping, but stirs when something happens, say, a person sneaking past makes a noise, only go back to sleep while murmering something that's usually nonsensical or unintelligible? Not a Non Sequitur, *Thud* per say since the person isn't really injured, just semi-awakened. A common phrase uttered would be something like, "I don't wanna get up mom..." This Troper can't think of any pertinent examples right now but has seen it a million times.
    • Happens in the Disney Robin Hood, when Robin Hood and whoever accompanies him try to get past the sleeping guard. I haven't seen that trope here, but if it doesn't exist, it definitely should.

  • I thought I'd find this on Law & Order but no luck. What do you call it when you've got a Ripped From The Headlines type moral grey issue that becomes the crux of a law drama, you flail around with it for a bit — then sidestep it completely by revealing the culprit was someone else who actually did it for petty personal motives?

  • This is quite specific, and should be around Sound FX...except I could not find it there. When you have a movie with small characters like mice or bugs, sound behaves just a bit differently then it should. Characters often have normal voices (their size wouldn't allow it) and if they yell in a cardboard tube it echoes, while yelling in a living room doesn't do the same. Being a small creature in a human would seems to evoke a new type of laws regarding how sound is perceived (and sometimes, generated).
    • This is mentioned briefly in the examples section of Lilliputians, but we don't have a trope for it precisely.

  • What trope is used to apply to unsupported character traits like Faux Action Girl when used to describe anything else?

  • What's the trope for where a bit character tries to get Character Development but is specifically denied that by the main characters? Happened in Waynes World with the guy played by Al Bundy, and happens here in Sluggy Freelance.

  • Is there a trope for band nerd/geeks? Not "Five Man Band", or any of that- they have their instruments (which they like to play), they've been to band camp (or have they...?) they have friends who are also band geeks, etc. Not a rock band, though- but like a school band or something...?
    • Ooo, Nerdcore?
      • Not exactly, but thank you though. I'm thinking more about being a "band geek", but there is not "band geek" trope. I think maybe I'm going to add it to YKTTW...

  • There is most definitely a trope for opening songs and musical numbers...right?
  • When a characters calls someone, about half of the time they get directed straight to the answering machine, unlike in real life where you need to wait for four or five beeps or whatever. Surely we must have this?
    • I haven't seen anything like this yet, but it's worth noting that with the rise of Vo IP phones, it's becoming more common in real life, with the options of sending specific callers to voicemail directly, putting your phone in Do Not Disturb mode, and standard behaviour when the phone is out of service (the last one applies to cell phones as well).

  • Is there one for when a new character joins an established group, but is ignored, disrespected, or otherwise treated badly (it may just be passive-aggressive if the new guy is a superior) for an episode or two, until one day they do something very awesome and the group accepts them?

  • This troper has been watching Babylon 5, and has noticed that boarding calls for passengers come at very convenient points in conversation, usually followed by the words of the departing character, "well, that's me." Is this a trope? Should it be?

  • What would describe that one essential piece of work that anyone should know on any given subject? Examples are:
    • If you like video games, you HAVE to know who Mario is.
    • If you like movies, you HAVE to know about Citizen Kane.
    • If you like cartoons, you HAVE to know who Mickey Mouse is.
    • Anime fan? You HAVE to know who Ozamu Tezuka is.

  • Two enemies meet somewhere where neither can really afford to fight it out right now, so they have to pretend to be cordial to each other. As a result, their entire seemingly polite conversation is actually thinly veiled threats and insults. The clearest example I can think of right now is West and Loveless' snarky pun war in the Wild Wild West movie. Sound familiar?

  • What's that tropes where the one installment of a series is the 'odd one out' compared to the others?

  • Is there a trope for a character who is unusually ignorant of pop culture that would be common knowledge to everybody else? If said character was a foreigner or born beyond that era then it'd be understandable, but I'm talking about someone who should have at least a passing knowledge of something that's extremely common. For instance, imagine someone saying in this day and age they've never heard of the Beatles or Elvis Presley even though said person is old enough to know and lives in America. Dr. Brennan from Bones is a great example, at least in the first couple of seasons.
    • Ooo, or when The Brain misses the question in Final Jeopardy because he thinks trivia about television isn't useful knowledge?
    • Raised by Wolves (With a side of Literal-Minded in Dr. Brennan's case).

  • Is there a trope for something that can have more than one meaning depending on which way you look at it?
    • Can you be a bit more specific? We've got stuff like Alternate Character Interpretation for audience reactions, and stuff like No Man of Woman Born for in-story reasoning.
    • I mean a subject/story that can be interpreted lots of different ways, like a song that could be interpreted as either a devoted love song or a creepy Obsession Song where the narrator plans on kidnapping his object of affection and forcing her to stay with him forever- basically, whatever is being interpreted could be seen in a different light because of one word or one line.

  • Is there a trope for a character who is talked about but never seen?

  • A trope for fanbases or subgroups of fanbases that tend to be really devoted to (read: insane) about the work/s in question?
    • Fan Dumb?
    • That's part of it, yeah. There's another related trope (the title of which I can't remember) which had a lot of examples where fans went rabid and attacked people who said one vaguely criticizing thing about the creator/work. Anyone have any ideas what that could be?

  • Is there a trope for Wiki Wandering where the part that consumes so much time is writing articles for the redlinks... which you discover contain other redlinks... which you want to fill in just to be tidy... and, hey, it's three in the morning now...

  • I'm trying to find a trope for when a work (usually a written work) tells the audience to go check something out, adding "Go ahead, I'll wait." Then usually the next sentence is "You're back? Okay, good," before continuing.

  • What kind of a trope pastes a nationality onto a kind of food, even though said nation has never actually heard of it? Examples are:
    • London broil. Nobody in London's heard of it.
    • French fries, which aren't really French.
    • Mongolian BBQ, which actually never originated in Mongolia at all.
    • Brussel sprouts, which have very little to do with the town of Brussels.
  • For that matter, would there be a trope that debunks the popular perception of some foods? Like...
    • Fortune cookies. They're not Chinese, and I guarentee you that if you went to Beijing and asked for one, you'd get a very confused look.
    • Pepperoni pizza. You'll never find it in Italy, and the cook will kick your ass if you ask for it.
    • Same with spaghetti and meat sauce. Ask for this in Italy and you'd be considered insane.

  • Is there a trope where there's an oppressive ruler that is hated by his own people and is subject for rebellion...only to discover that whatever oppression he had subjugated against his own people was actually for their own good?

  • What nostalgia trope involves someone exaggerating the feats he did when he was younger? You've heard the speech: "Cars? PAH! Back in my days we walked fifty miles a day just to get to school! In the snow! With no shoes! And the clothes on our back! And we liked it!"

  • Do we have a back injury trope? Any comedy that runs long enough seems to feature an episode where a main character throws out his/her back and hijinks ensue. Off the top of my head, it left Miranda wanting a Modesty Towel on Sex And The City, Will and Philip being accidentally arrested on The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and Elaine trapped under a stinky mattress on Seinfeld.

  • Is their a mortality ball trope? Related to idiot ball this is when a character with normally good survival instincts suddenly gets himself killed in a totally avoidable way.
    • Maybe a character with a trait that scores low in the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality? Like Death by Pragmatism?
    • Close, but I'm thinking of a certain example, in x-men origins wolverine, the teleporting character tries to fight a regenrating guy with sharp fingernails and a long history of killing when he could have just wallked away. the result is predictable.

  • Is there a trope for a dictator (in the good sense)?

  • Is there a trope for the common comedy situation in which schools (nearly always American public schools), due to apathy or lack of funding, have exaggeratedly outdated textbooks and audiovisual materials? It's particularly common on The Simpsons, where for example Lisa's class views a black-and-white film that promises "someday man will go the moon." There are also examples from Family Guy and Mad Magazine.

  • Is there one for when a villain is well beyond capable of decimating an entire area, but he refuses to do so, instead facing the hero in one-on-one combat, as opposed to baking the area the hero is in and saving himself some trouble? This slapped me in the face so hard when watching Ben 10 Alien Force's Vengeance of Vilgax I nearly fell out of my chair. Vilgax openly admits that he's capable of destroying Earth. What's stopping him? Legal procedure. He's legally bound to face the planet's ultimate warrior before he's considered the proper owner of the planet. In this case, the eponymous hero, Ben. If Ben doesn't show it's his legal right to blow up the entire planet. Corollary: Do we have Starfish Alien Laws?

  • Is there a music trope for when another member of the band sings a song instead of the lead singer?

  • Is there a trope for when someone or something does a fall or descent that is really extreme? The fall or descent is physical.

  • Is there a trope for when a hero continuously cannot bring themselves to kill/imprison a villain or nemesis because they are responsible for a major tragedy in the villain's life, perhaps even leading to their current evilness, and the guilt is overwhelming?

  • A trope for when someone decides to do something unusual, simply because they can.

  • I don't know exactly what kind of Theme Tune shows such as Quack Pack has. The second half repeats "Quack Pack" over and over, that's obviously Title Theme Tune, but I don't know about the first half. Here are the lyrics:
    ''I feel like quacking so I think I will! I'm gonna quack, quack, quack, until I catch my thrill...Got the quacking fever, got the quacking craze..."
  • It sounds like "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune, but it's not clear if someone from the show is singing it...Do we have a variation of the Theme Tune like this? Also, what about a title tune sung from the point of view of a clear outsider, who is commenting on the qualities of the protagonists?
    • The first part: Title Drop, perhaps?
    • I made a mistake, I meant I didnt know about the first half, the second half is already identified. Sorry.
  • Is there a trope for a situation like this: The Hero and his group have to formulate a plan for do something, and they go with the craziest option- not because it's the simplest/easiest plan using the stuff they have, or because they have no other option- simply because they can?

  • When The Lancer is seen hanging around with the bad guys? Not turning evil temporarily; just chillin' with them on a party or something like that.

  • Is there a trope for when a character says they can't date another character because they're gay (or some other excuse) but it's a lie?

  • Do we have a trope for the fact that on television and in movies, people only seem to choke in very expensive restaurants? Examples include Mrs. Doubtfire and the Malcolm in the Middle Episode 'Vegas'.

  • Soft Underbelly. I see it mentioned on the For Massive Damage page, but it doesn't seem to actually exist.

  • The trope that means "You're not X, are you?". for examples, a deleted scene from Star Trek has Kirk apologizing to an Orion, then realizes that it's not Gaila.

  • Do we have a trope that covers supernaturally fast undead, particularly ghosts and spirits? I saw it a lot in the remakes of Thirteen Ghosts and The House On Haunted Hill, as well as the headshaking demons in Jacob's Ladder. I'm hoping to differentiate in-universe examples of the Shock Trailer effect from actual shock trailers.

  • Is there a trope for a hippie played straight, as in one who is going the whole way with free love and everything the lifestyle entails and isn't doing it because it's trendy or isn't hopelessly out of place.
    • I guess it'd fall under Blithe Spirit, but the answer is no, we don't have any true hippie tropes.

  • Is there a trope for when an apparent good guy is actually bad, and right before they set their final dastardly scheme in motion, they start having second thoughts, and right before they decide that it's not worth it, the Old Wise Man tells them that they must betray the group/kill Character X/be bad anyway, because that is what will make everything else work out in the long run? If there isn't, I'm thinking of making one called Humor Me Judas, based, of course, on this happening between Judas and Jesus in the Bible. The only other example I can think off the top of my head is in the seventh Harry Potter book, but it's a spoiler, so I can't put it down - the page won't recognize it.

  • I'm looking for the trope about a couple in which the man is very sexually experienced and the woman is very sexually inexperienced. When the man who is not a virgin starts dating the woman who is not a slut, there should be a trope for the two of them together, right? The examples on My Girl Is Not a Slut have gotten vague enough I could probably get away with adding these examples there, but I don't think it fits the original idea for that trope. If this trope doesn't exist yet, maybe adding it could help clean up the My Girl Is Not a Slut examples.

  • Is there a trope for the general (very common) plot point involving a character taking one for the team and having sex with someone they really/probably don't want to have sex with for the sake of the mission/team/whatever? As in the "spy shagging the enemy" situation. I suppose it could be too general, but figured there is no harm in asking.

  • I'm looking for a trope where a character finds out something about themself- they're the child of the Big Bad, their love interest is their sibling, they've accidentally destroyed something extremely important- and because of this, they feel that they do not deserve to live and decide to kill themself. Alternatively, after defeating the Big Bad/ destroying the artifact/ completing the quest, the character decides that since they have nothing else to live for, they may as well commit suicide.

  • Is there a trope for an occasion when a character finally finds out what they need to know/should have known for years?

  • A method for creating fictional names that involves combining two appropriate real life names. Example: One Numb3rs episode revolving around comic books had a legendary artist named Ross Moore, a combination of Alex ROSS and Alan MOORE.
    • We list those under Shout-Out, but it might be prominent enough for its own trope.

  • Is there a trope name for when a hero asks how long a villain will do something, example hold someone prisoner, and the villain goes over their schedule in seemingly cooperation, and says never anyway?

  • What's that particular sort of Contrived Coincidence called where the two sides of the Masquerade tend to accumulate at some single muggle location? Or, in less abstract terms, if a magical girl or Sentai squad attends a given school, you can bet that the superpowered antagonists are also their classmates?

  • Is there a trope covering someone offering a gift to another for perfectly genuine and benevolent reasons, but Hilarity Ensues because the giver's idea of a suitable gift for the occasion is very different from that of the recipient? Related to Blue-and-Orange Morality (the likeliest cause of said Hilarity). One example that I can think of is Jack Skellington's idea of suitable Christmas gifts in Nightmare Before Christmas including such things as severed heads, carnivorous toys, etc.
    • Could be an in-universe example of Values Dissonance, maybe. Is there a trope for bad gifts in general? I'd be surprised if not.

  • What trope does someone being drugged (specifically, being slipped a sleeping pill/etc) fall under? It crops up in Sherlock Holmes (the new film), but I'm not sure if there's a trope for it or not...

  • There must be a trope that deals with different groups that each have their own, distinct speciality? I want to use this for the Avatar film entry, with the different clans (horse clan of the plans, banshee clan of the coast, Jake's clan which has both horses and banshees). This is sort of similar to captain planet, where each character has their own distinct power.

  • I've seen this one a Million Times. our Nakama or Five-Man Band are reaching the climax heading to the final destination when they each run in to one of the bad guys or some obstical usually in the form of anotehr opponent leaving one or two people to face the Big Bad or turn off the machine or whatever

  • Is there a trope for cases in which something which was previously present in subtext is brought into the foreground and made explicit? Relationship Text Upgrade is a common subtype of this, but it sometimes happens in non-romantic contexts as well. An example which comes to mind is in the Battlestar Galactica episode "Unifinshed Business", in which various character conflicts are foregrounded when the characters enter the boxing ring. There's a moment in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode in which Giles describes this, saying "I think the subtext here is rapidly becoming... text."

  • Looking for any tropes related to be people behaving differently when their identity is disguised, e.g wearing a mask or anonymously talking to some one on the internet. They may become a diffrent person when they think they can get away with things.
    • We have a few tropes that fit the bill. You have Becoming the Mask for when the alter ego becomes the true identity, Secret-Identity Identity for the resulting freakout, Double Consciousness for when the two IDs react differently, Split Personality for when the identities really are completely separate, and A Darker Me for the RL phenomenon of people on the internet trying to be cooler than they are in reality (related to GIFT).
    • Thanks for the lookup I also started a related topic here

  • I'm thinking of a trope that I like to think of as Marketing Roleplaying Failure. Like how the card game that is played in Yu-Gi-Oh! is pretty much the game that exists in real life... except it's called Yu-Gi-Oh! and has (had) Yugi all over the packaging. Or when 7 Elevens were decorated to look like Kwik-E-Marts... except why would the Simpsons be painted on the side of the Kwik-E-Mart?

  • Is there a trope for when people appear on a TV show (or any other work) independently of each other and then appear on another show to work together in completely different circumstances? I was specifically thinking about how Adam, Jamie, and Grant all appeared on Robot Wars and now are working together on Myth Busters.

  • A fictional character has a product in Real Life that has absolutely nothing to do with it/him/her in-universe. For instance, Donald Duck Orange Juice. Is there a trope for this?
    • This seems to be Celebrity Endorsement, but I think you have a point in ad companies using fictional characters (largely cartoon ones) to promote their products, like Flintstones vitamin pills or (in-show) Krusty the Clown's various products, like the Krusty Pregnancy Test. Fictional Celebrity Endorsement?
      • It sounds like it could indeed lead to the creation of Fictional Celebrity Endorsement if something similar doesn't exist already...Celebrity Endorsement has a Krusty quote on on it, but that's the only mention of a fictional character promoting a product in the entire page.

  • In videogames, the bodies of defeated enemies often just disappear in a puff of smoke, without a trace as if they had never existed (i.e. they do not leave cadavers behind). Is this a trope?

  • Is there a "Rule Of Convenience"? Something is the way it is not because it's cool or fun, just easier for both the creator and audience, e.g. the Door to Before

  • it came ot my mind when i was reflecting on a film i was watching. this is an audience reaction trope osmthing along the lines of the mantallity that a films budget the use of big names and place n the box office = quality often when these big films get h yped up it leads to Hype Aversion but i'm wondering if we have anythng for the mantallity that leads to that

  • Not long ago, I found a page that had section of various memetic Say My Names. Would anyone know what article this would be? I know the page exists, and it had a drop-down section that was entirely characters shouting names, with the names linking to the source's article. It was otherwise just like any other list of examples.

  • The trope where someone sarcastically says something to the effect of "I know there's no one there" and sometimes seeks the person out anyway while continuing to say that.

  • What do we call it when a character is trying to intimidate someone/thing, the target runs away and the character thinks it's because of them, but it's actually because of the much scarier thing behind him? Cue Oh, Crap! moment. Checked that trope, and doesn't seem to cover this. I refuse to believe that something this common isn't already on this wiki somewhere.
    • Said it before and i'll say it again Always a Bigger Fish
      • Nearly, but not quite. None of the examples have the "I caused him to run away. (turns) Crap, no I didn't" element that I'm thinking of.
    • I don't think we have yours. YKTTW it.

  • What's the trope for when something incredibly awesome and/or expensive to show happens just off screen, sometimes with a lampshade hanging by the characters?

  • Is there a trope for someone whose true form is so mindboggling that it can't be conceived of or seen by humans, so they have to take on an avatar or hide themselves? (Examples: God in the Bible, Cthulhu?)

  • Is there a trope for when writers over-elaborate originally trivial details/characters/objects in order to broaden/deepen the story?

  • Is there a trope for the normal soundtrack being interrupted in favor of a song during a dramatic moment? For example this video (WARNING, The OC spoilers!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3umNk9nVxbQ

  • Do we have that thing where a character experiences something so many times he becomes to loath it, probably even going insane? Like in "Groundhog Day" Loop plots.

  • Is there a trope for a work about Funny Animals with many types of species, where no one has apparently EVER cross-bred a species until the generation we happen to be watching, but suddenly pairs from different species start dating or falling in love (and you wonder how their children will turn out)? Examples I can think of: Better Days, Arthur, Jack, DMFA and most other furry works.
    • No Biochemical Barriers mixed with Gender Equals Breed.
    • I agree that we should have this, probably for every example (furries might be quite prominent but the trope should be more inclusive) where biologically compatible species (technically the same species) live next to each other without their separation vanishing over time. No Geographical Barrier might be a good title (to match No Biochemical Barriers, and because the reason for this in nature is usually because the two groups are separated). It should be noted that this can be justified: if the mating habits differ sufficiently, or if differences in size etc. make mating difficult, then this occurs in nature. There is a cricket which occurs in genetically identical groups with different tunes. They will only choose to breed witht he same song type. Fantasy/scifi stories where humans can mate with everyone might be a good example of other fiction where this trope is in effect.

  • Is there a trope name for the delayed fear that comes after passing, say, a room, and realizing that something unpleasant was staring out at you? The two examples I have are from F.E.A.R. with Alma and the move Sunshine with the dimly lit corridor scene with Pinbacker at the end.

  • What's the trope for when a man prevents some other guy from taking advantage of a random girl on the street by pretending to be their boyfriend or such?

  • Is there a trope for when someone is doing something nefarious and using peoples' ignorance to cover it up- like, if someone was using a group of people to build weaponry, but telling them it was machinery to help people because they didn't have a clue what they were building?
    • Xanatos Sucker touches on it, but from the perspective of, well, the suckers.

  • What trope describes a situation in which a character is unable to honestly critique a piece of work presented in front of him because to do so would label him the Jerkass of the year? Examples include:
    • Holy crap that painting is horrible...but the painter is mentally handicapped and very sensitive, so it's ok.
    • Oh gawd that singing is making your ears bleed...but the singer's only 5 years old so you really can't say anything about it.
    • Good lord that stew could kill a horse...but it's your grandma's stew so shut up and eat it.
    • Jeez Louise that's the worst dancing you've ever seen in your life...but the dancer's a terminally ill cancer patient so please don't ruin the dream.
    • If it doesn't exist, we should YKTTW as Grin And Bear It
    • Seems to me the trope is either poorly named or poorly described, but Dug in Deeper.

  • Is there a trope for when a character is taller than the other characters in one episode/whatever, and shorter than the others in another? Your Size May Vary is similar, but that's only for characters who are always tall or always short.

  • Is there a trope for a construction level in a video game? Seen It A Million Times.

  • In episodes 78 and 79 of Red Vs Blue, a character in the military calls "dibs" on a crashed spaceship against protests from the opposing soldiers. When an officer shows up to find out what happened, he laments that "Everybody knows about the International Dibs Protocol!" That made me think: do we have a trope listed where a childhood interaction like "dibs" or a "pinkie swear" or "no take backs" is given official status by the government or military?

  • Do we have a trope for when a character thoroughly underestimates his enemies, and this work to the enemies' advantage? Not Obfuscating Stupidity, because it's not the enemies feigning to be stupid, but just the character underestimating them. Exemplified by this quote, from Mirror's Edge (villain name censored to avoid spoilers):
    Faith: [Villain]? But you couldn't...
    Villain: Now, attitudes like that... That's precisely why I could.

  • Is there a trope for when someone does something good, but for a bad reason? Like, for example, a girl who breaks up her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend, since the boyfriend's cheating, but her real reason is because she wants to get with the boyfriend?

  • Is there a trope for characters that are dangerous not for the obvious reasons but for the ones that are often overlooked? For example, Dolph Lundgren is a large, incredibly strong person and he's trained in karate, fencing and boxing but the real reason why you shouldn't piss him off is because he's a genius, having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. Another example would have been Batman. Batman is well known for being very strong, very well trained and having incredible resources. However, what actually makes Batman dangerous is that he's Crazy-Prepared. I say that Batman would have been an example but now, everyone knows that being crazy prepared is what makes Batman dangerous.

  • Is there a trope that's basically the opposite of It Never Gets Any Easier? Meaning, one character who's new to an awesome job asks another who's been in it longer "Do you ever get used to it?" and the veteran says with a grin, "No, never."

  • What's that thing in anime where one male character joins his fists together with the indexes out and rams them into another male's butt? Seen in Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist...
    • It's a Japanese practical joke called kancho; Ass Shove is the trope you're looking for in this case.

  • A group of people are talking and someone brings up a certain topic. They say what they want to say, and then they expect the subject to be dropped or changed. But the others won't let it happen. They keep asking questions and bringing up the topic again- and if the person who brought it up complains, they say something like 'Well, you brought it up...' is there a trope for that?

  • So you have a character that, for some reason or another, doesn't talk at all or is too stupid to say anything of value. But then, at the climax of the story, said character suddenly breaks in an intelligent monologue that is so out of character that the rest of the cast is agape. Then, after he delivers his speech, he resumes his either silent or stupid persona for the rest of the show as if nothing extrodinary happened. What trope am I thinking of?
    • Interestingly enough while the idea seems to be mentioned alot in tropes like The Voiceless, Silent Bob and The Quiet One, the actual trope on its own doesn't appear to in fact have its own page. Possibly you just read one of these and noted the point you mention above. Certainly all examples would be covered by these pages. Could be split off.

  • Is there a trope where doing too much of something decreases the impact of the situation? Examples include:
  • Is there a Trope for this situation? The Hero or someone of similar value is in a hot chase against The Big Bad, or maybe he's running out of there before the bomb explodes, or maybe he wants to make a cool entrance. What does he do? Everything BUT take the stepladders placed in front of him, of course! They just, epicly jump over them. I.E. Judge Dredd in The Movie, Maka in the Anime, etc.

  • Is there a trope for those situations where destroying control panels (not the power source, just the control panels) shuts down the related systems? For example, a character prevents the firing of an orbital laser by shooting up a specific computer terminal.
    • Sounds like Computer Equals Monitor: "The practical upshot of this is that to destroy the computer, and any data stored on it, you only need to destroy the monitor, and if you're lucky you only need to shoot it. " Possibly also Explosive Instrumentation ("...there are no such things as fuses or circuit breakers, and every control panel, sensor, and shield has C4 built into it.") (Also, put new qustions at the top. Thanks.)
    • Destruction Equals Off-Switch.

  • Vree: Do we have a trope for a Love Triangle where the hero is lusting after the Popular Girl but ends up with the plain girl (usually the female friend) in the end instead? Friend-or-Idol Decision seems to be this but means something else.
    • First Girl Wins? Victorious Childhood Friend?
      • No, I mean that there is a female who is working with for some cause ()maybe even for getting the other girl but who she does not consider a love interest because she's less pretty. In the end usually she could get the idol girl, but he goes for the plain friend instead. They might not have known each other before.
      • Sounds a bit like Betty and Veronica

  • Is there a trope for this? The hero enters a fight using a special weapon/ability that has limited power only to face an opponent that has the same or comparable weapon/ability. Because the opponent is typically more experienced fighting that way, they take the advantage, so the hero eventually uses up all the power of his weapon/ability in one shot forcing the opponent to counter with all of his own power, leaving the two of them to decide the fight with a straight beatdown instead, usually giving the advantage back to the hero.
    • I don't think that happens often enough to be a trope...

  • What's that damned trope called when an ad or commercial convientely comes along to further the plot? I just saw a perfect example of it...
    • No idea, but I'd call it Fruity Oaty Bar.

  • Is there a trope for actors playing the roles of one of their own close relatives? For instance, the role of Waylon Jennings in Walk The Line was played by his son, Shooter.

  • Is there a trope for this? A character, usually a student, doesn't know something that should have been taught in the class. I had to watch The Emperor's Club in one of my classes last week, and here's what happened in the movie:
    • Three students were in the finals of an academic competition, one that revolved around Greek and Roman history. The teacher/moderator suspects one of the 2 remaining students of cheating, so he asks a question that only the other student would get, because he had done outside reading. The question was "Who was Hamilcar Barca?" Why the crap would that not be in the basic curriculum? Hamilcar was Hannibal's father, and he was quite important on his own.

  • I'm searching through music tropes, but I'm having a hard time finding one that specifically covers music (from Video Games in particular) that is deliberately invoked to play along with the theme and emotions the current stage or area is trying to convey. I found Standard Snippet, but this is more about cartoons and doesn't quite cover what I'm looking for. Soundtrack Dissonance covers scenes where usually the very opposite of what you'd expect from a scene is played, like something cheery during a violently bloody scene full of killing dozens of people. I'm looking for the opposite of that, where a violently bloody scene full of killing dozens of people is accompanied by music that enforces the feelings.

  • Do we have a trope to describe when a character's personal items, such as Yoko's Skull Hairpin, or Heihachi's ghost doll change to reflect the current mood and emotions of the wearer? Often times you will see it giving an expression that the user itself is currently emoting. I tried searching but I can't find the proper words to search for. I think I've seen something like this before though.

  • Do we have a trope like Stage Mom, but for sports? You know, like a Soccer Mom?

  • Is there a trope for when the gender of a character changes the interpretation of the work? I'm not really sure how to describe this, but a good example is Ray Charles You Don't Know Me. When sung by a male, the lyrics tell the story of a man who never got up the nerve to ask a woman out and lost his chance. When sung as a duet by a man and a woman, the song becomes the story of two people who were in love but could never summon the courage to tell each other and thus both lost out.

  • In the real world "evil" is often considered to be an absence of good, while in certain TV shows (especially kids TV) it exists as an entirely separate force- going to the darkside is basically like being possessed etc.. does this trope already exist?

  • I've been searching around a bit and I haven't found anything about a Fake Macguffin, and how it's used by either the hero(es) or the villain(s) to try and trick the other side. Is there a trope for this?

  • We have Pinocchio Syndrome, but what about the inverse — a human who wants to become a nonhuman? Not necessarily I Just Want to Be Special, more like Otherkin.

  • What is the name of the trope where it warns that there is no canon, plot or continunity of any kind and any effort to find one will result in Wall Banging?

  • Is there a trope for a bully that travels around with a entourage of less assertive, but also, jerks?

  • Is there one for when, in games, graphics are used only once, or extremely rarely- i.e. Leknaat's tower in Suikoden, or the indoor graphics for the Sky Garden in Illusion Of Gaia? Pretty much a graphical version of Wasted Song, basically.

  • Is there a trope for when the Villain hires another villain to work for him, only to discover that the person is way too psycho for him to control and everything goes to Hell? Like when the mobsters hired the Joker in The Dark Knight, and when Justin Hammer hired Ivan in Iron Man 2.

  • Is there a trope for when the hero (well, usually it's the hero), who is part of the police/military/another agency with authority, gives back his badge/whatever proves he is part of the organisation to show either that he is shouldering personal responsibility for whatever failure happened (or is asked for his badge after such a failure), or gives back his badge (or whatever) to distance himself from an organisation he no longer trusts ? It came up in "Last Action Hero" (in the "badge taken by organisation for failure" form) or in Fullmetal Alchemist (in the "watch given back to deny further association with the military" form).

  • Is there a trope for mispronouncing "th" as "f" (e.g. everyfing)?
  • is there a trop for when a guy pulls the cloth from under of the stuff under it hoping to make a cool trick when the stuff over it stay's?

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