Running low on puns, looking for handouts.
L - R, top to bottom
An index for all tropes related to hands, arms, fingers, and various gestures involving them.
L - R, top to bottom
Compare Glove Tropes and Tropes Out on a Limb. See also This Index Slaps.
Tropes:
- Accidental Hand-Hold: Two characters end up holding hands by complete accident.
- Accidental Unfortunate Gesture
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Showing affection to a character by petting their head.
- Air Quotes: Using two finger of each hand to mimic quotation marks. Used to indicate Sarcasm Mode while speaking.
- Almost Holding Hands
- Angry Item Tapping
- Anti-Sneeze Finger: Someone tries to prevent themselves from sneezing by placing a finger at their nose.
- Badass Fingersnap: When the character is so badass they just need to snap their fingers for things to happen.
- Bare-Handed Puppetry
- Bicep-Polishing Gesture
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Shooting a weapon out of someone else's hand.
- Blasting Time: Charging your hand-based energy attack with your arms raised upward before firing.
- Bloody Handprint: A handprint made of blood.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass
- Breaking In Old Habits: A character gets their hand replaced and ends up using the new hand to masturbate.
- Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Stopping someone you love from leaving by grabbing onto their sleeve.
- Chain of People
- Clawing at Own Throat
- Clutching Hand Trap: A character gets their hand stuck while trying to get a treat from a jar or a hole.
- Coin Walk Flexing: A character does a coin walk to look cool or show off their dexterity.
- Contemplating Your Hands: Someone is fascinated by their hands while on drugs.
- Creepily Long Arms
- Creepy Long Fingers
- Cross-Cultural Handshake
- Crushing Handshake: A character shakes hands with another one, but they grip so hard they end up hurting them instead.
- Cuckoo Finger Twirl: A character twirls their index finger close to their ear to silently call another character a weirdo or lunatic.
- Cumbersome Claws
- Dead-Hand Shot: We see a shot of someone's hand to confirm that they have died.
- Declarative Finger
- Dusting Off Your Hands
- Evil Hand: A limb (usually a hand) is manipulated to act independently of its owner.
- Extra Digits: When a character's hand has at least one more digit than is standard for the story.
- Eye Am Watching You: Aiming your index and middle finger at your eyes and another's eyes to confirm they're under your radar.
- Face Palm: Pressing your palm against your face after seeing someone do something stupid or embarrassing.
- Feather Fingers: A bird's wing feathers function like fingers.
- Feeling Your Heartbeat: A person puts another's hand on their chest to feel their heartbeat.
- Femme Fatalons: A character has long, well-kept fingernails, indicating that they're a villain, untrustworthy and/or dangerous.
- Film the Hand
- Finger Firearms:
- Finger Framing
- Finger Gun
- Finger in a Barrel: Placing at least one finger inside the barrel of a gun, which typically causes it to explode.
- Finger in the Mail: Delivering a severed finger with a ransom demand as evidence of a kidnapping.
- Finger Muzzle
- Finger on Lips
- Finger Poke of Doom
- Finger-Snap Lighter: When the character wants to light something up, they just snap their fingers and fire manifests.
- Finger-Snapping Street Gang: A street gang advances on someone while rhythmically snapping their fingers.
- Finger-Suck Healing
- Finger-Tenting: Manipulative characters tend to cover their faces or chests with their fingers tip-to-tip or interlocked.
- Finger-Twitching Revival
- Finger Wag
- Fingerless Hands: A character's hands do not have fingers.
- Fingore: Violence inflicted upon fingers.
- Fist of Rage
- Fist Pump
- Five-Finger Fillet: The "game" of quickly stabbing a sharp object between your fingers; get hit, and you lose.
- Flipping the Bird: Insulting a person by sticking your middle finger at them.
- Four-Fingered Hands
- Futile Hand Reach
- Giant Hands of Doom: A boss who fights with giant floating disembodied hands.
- Giant Robot Hands Save Lives
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Pointing at someone is a super-dramatic and serious gesture.
- A Glass in the Hand: Fists clench, glassware broken.
- "Good Luck" Gesture
- Gotta Get Your Head Together: Victims of assault on the brain, head or ears will clutch their head.
- Got the Whole World in My Hand: Symbol of a hand grasping at the globe.
- The Grace Face Pose: A girl puts the backside of her hand underneath her chin cunningly.
- Grasp the Sun
- Greeting Gesture Confusion: Several characters meet, and use mismatched gestures when greeting one another.
- Hand Behind Head
- Hand Blast
- Hand Gagging: Silencing someone by putting a hand over their mouth.
- Hand in the Hole
- Hand of Death: Only the killer's hand is seen prior to the reveal of their identity.
- Hand of Glory
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: A naked person covers up by placing their hands over their private parts.
- Hand on Womb: A woman rests her hand on her stomach as an early sign that she is pregnant.
- Hand Rubbing: Someone sinisterly rubs their hands together.
- Hand Seals: Ritualistic hand gestures that are commonly used as part of a magic formula, with roots in Taoism.
- Hands Go Down
- Handshake of Doom: A handshake that means nothing but death, sorrow and general misfortune.
- Handshake Refusal
- Handshake Substitute
- Hand Signals
- Hands in Pockets: Some artists just don't bother drawing certain things that should be there.
- Hands Looking Wrong: A character notices they've been transformed or changed in some other way by checking their hands
- Hand Stomp: Stomp on someone's hands while they're hanging for dear life.
- Handy Cuffs: Cuffing an offender with their arms in front makes them still dangerous.
- Hanging by the Fingers
- Has Two Thumbs and...
- Helping Hands: A sentient, detached limb capable of moving on its own.
- Heroic Ambidexterity
- High-Five Left Hanging
- Holding Hands
- Hook Hand
- How Many Fingers?
- Humanlike Hand Anatomy
- I Broke a Nail: A woman becomes really upset because she broke a finger nail.
- Ignored Raised Hand
- I Kiss Your Hand
- Kinky Cuffs
- Knuckle Cracking
- Knuckle Tattoos
- Last Grasp at Life
- Lying Finger Cross: A character crosses their fingers while making a vow, oath, etc., to show they're lying.
- Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: Someone names their fists.
- Menacing Hand Shot
- Nails on a Blackboard
- Nightmare Hands: Ghastly hands, often a source of Nightmare Fuel
- Offering a Hand
- Palm-Fist Tap
- Palm on Cheek Pose
- Pinky Swear: Using pinky fingers as gesture of promise, usually by children.
- Poison Ring: A wearable accessory or item of clothing that conceals poison.
- Power Fist: Weapon that improves punches.
- Power Palms
- Prayer Pose
- Pstandard Psychic Pstance
- Raised Hand of Survival: A person believed to be dead raises their hand onto the screen to show that they're alive.
- Rapid-Fire Nail Biting
- Razor-Sharp Hand
- Reaching Towards the Audience: You can practically touch the poster's frontmost hand, it's so close!
- The Right Hand of Doom: A character has a disproportionately large arm.
- Rock–Paper–Scissors
- Secret Handshake
- Security Cling: Grabbing onto another person in response to something scary or distressing.
- Shy Finger-Twiddling
- Situational Hand Switch
- "Silly Me" Gesture
- A Sinister Clue: Left-handedness = evil.
- South Paw Advantage: A character's left-handedness gives them an advantage.
- Special Odd Hand
- Spit Shake: A character's left-handedness gives them an advantage.
- Standard Female Grab Area: Grabbing a woman's arm will stop her in her tracks.
- Still Sucks Thumb
- Take My Hand!
- Talk to the Hand
- Team Hand-Stack
- These Hands Have Killed: Someone is remorseful of the fact that they just killed someone.
- V-Sign
- Warding Gestures
- Yubitsume: Cutting the tip of, or an entire finger in the Yakuza as punishment for failure.
