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Lost And Found

There is discussion here with companion crowner about how we could make this page more efficient. Your considered opinions are desired. Thank you for your contributions.

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 Found list for your request!

Lost

  • What about a theoretical Playing Both Sides Against The Middle? Its a form of Batman Gambit which relies on benefitting from keeping two sides at each others throats while you either exploit both of them or get ready to wipe them out.

  • A trope wherein the plot is set off by a single wrong turn that is implied to land the character(s) in a place far divorced from their intended destination. This setup could be played for comedy (Ex: Bugs Bunny's repeated "wrong turn[s] at Alberquerque" that have landed him, variously, in the Sahara Desert, Ancient Rome, a medieval castle, the American Civil War, a Spanish bullfighting ring, and Indian territory), drama (Ex: Lost In Space, Star Trek Voyager), or horror (Ex: Any "cannibal hillbilly" movie).

  • Does a character (incidentally the People Puppet two questions down) still count as a Tyke Bomb, playing with the "homegrown" part, if the Big Bad scraped his embryo from his mother's body after conception and fertilization?

  • Is there a trope for a type of character that everyone thinks is a delinquent (or similar) but actually isn't? Like Ryuuji from Toradora or Sawako from Kimi Ni Todoke.

  • Do we have a trope for a character whose body is controlled by an outside source, say, cybernetically? Would have traces of Fighting From The Inside and And I Must Scream, but isn't true mind control. I thought I'd seen this one somewhere, but I can't remember....
    • Would Brainwashed or any of the other Mind Manipulation tropes fit?
    • No, not really; I'm looking for where the body's controlled, but not the mind. Basically, my Dragon (mine because I'm asking for the sake of a fanfic) is a literal puppet of the Big Bad via surgically implanted cybernetic and/or chemical control devices; his mind is his own, but not his body.
      • I stand corrected; the closest I can find is a cybernetic variant of People Puppets, but that'll do, thanks!

  • Videogame Trope. It MUST exist. It HAS to exist! But I can't find the words to google it. Me and my friends call it the Squaresoft Special. It's that treasure chest...three screens away...on a sheer cliff...at the end of a loooooong pathway...just past a fork in the path...that requires at least twenty or thirty random battles to make your way down to it...which contains: DA-DA-DA-DAAAH! A single phoenix down. Retail value: 40 gil. Happens in every dungeon RPG, especially Final Fantasy.

  • Two related videogame tropes: one is where you start the game as a character other than the protagonist, then switch to the protagonist after the first few levels, and continue playing as the protagonist for the rest of the game. Happens in Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Kingdom Hearts 2. The other trope I'm wondering about is whenever you fight a boss who was previously a playable character, or even an iconic protagonist of the series (e.g. fighting a whip-armed Belmont). It happens in all three of the above examples, as well as numerous others.

  • Not sure if this one deserves a whole trope of its own, but: a sort of "What Measure Is A Non Intersting?", possibly related to Bad Writing. This is a trope where the fate or death of Character X is supposed to be of great importance to a story and affect how we view the characters, etc., but the intended effect fails because Character X simply isn't interesting enough. Not a "girl of the week" type - Character X has been here for several episodes, or all season (or for the whole novel etc.), but their death doesn't have impact because we don't care for them as a character.

  • What's the trope for the ninja 'receptionist' that appears spontaneously, delivers information, then is told to "move out." or something and they flicker away again?

  • What's the trope for "character opens door, there is a person behind it who falls to the floor (possibly with a blade sticking from his back)".

  • What's the one for when a character isn't really a good person, but tries to do the right thing (whether on one occasion or consistently) because they don't want some other character to be disppointed in them?

  • Is there a trope for when, in the final battle of the movie/book/episode, the hero wins the battle but gets knocked out, allowing them to wake up in the hospital/infirmary, catch up on any exposition they missed, and skip over all the supposedly less-interesting but necessary stuff that would've had to happen to get them out alive? [It happens a few times in Harry Potter, and it seems to also happen in the Anita Blake series (judging by the entry—I haven't read them myself).]
    • Does Post Dramatic Stress Disorder work?
    • That's the first half to a tee—falling unconscious right after the critical moment has passed. Is there one for the other half, then—waking up in a hospital to skip the post-final-battle clean-up (or rescue of the hero by sidekicks/mentors from the dungeon, burning building, etc) straight to the exposition?
    • If it helps, this also wraps up the climax of Ender's Game. Toward the end, Ender keeps passing out after the mock battles, and when the final mock battle finishes up he passes out to allow the resolution to be told as a flash-forward.
    • It also happens in Batman Forever (after the cave is attacked) and Batman Begins (after his first Scarecrow encounter). Neither occurs at the ending, but both go in the order of battle -> unconsciousness -> explanation of what happened. Not sure how important the "ending" part is to the trope.
    • The "ending" part probably isn't really that important, that's just more of a tendency. Is it just an extension of Post Dramatic Stress Disorder, or does the way it modifies the exposition and allows what happens next to be explained with benefit of hindsight make it a trope of its own?

  • Is there a trope where two characters start having a relationship with no clues beforehand?

  • Is there already a trope for charging up an otherwise ordinary item with some kind of energy (magical, physical, spiritual, whatever)? I'm thinking along the lines of Gambit, of X-Men fame, and his ability to turn anything into a bomb.
    • You could probably fit that into Made Of Explodium.
      • Maybe, but I was asking more because I'm doing up a page for John Ringo's Princess of Wands, and there's a couple of points where the heroine, acting as an agent of God, imbues some normal objects with spiritual energy to make them able to harm supernatural beings who would otherwise be impervious to them (specifically, bullets from a gun taken off of a dead mook and a katana, in the first and second parts of the book, respectively). They don't explode, unlike Gambit's charged objects.
    • On further thought and some random surfing phlebotinum-related tropes, I think that Depleted Phlebotinum Shells would pretty much cover it, particularly the "magic imbued" section (admittedly stretching "magic" a good bit, but then so does the section in question :P ).

  • What do you call the sort of character who refers to everyone around them as an object, like "pest," "irritant," "obstacle," or "insect" in a haughty, dismissive and/or annoyed tone?

  • I'm looking for somewhat of a Chessmaster-lite; she actively manipulates people and events (to the extent she's able) to further a minor Xanatos Gambit, but without the "layers and layers of misdirection" and, if asked, will admit outright that certain events were her doing. Do We Have This One or is it just the variant of The Chessmaster?

  • What trope could describe a situation where Character A tells a story about his truly epic fight with Character B that lasted many hours, and then we learn that B in fact defeated A in one blow and A just made this up not to appear weak and/or to impress somebody? Or a more general version with two characters involved in some adventure, when one of them tells about his super deeds, and then we learn from the other one that the first one was actually just hanging around doing absolutely nothing?
    • Your second one sounds like a Miles Gloriosus. The first one could be as well.

  • Do we have a page for really, really big cities? There's Capital City, which is a specific type, and both Coruscant and Trantor are on Single Biome Planet, but is there a general one?
    • No we don't. We should, though. Hie thee off to YKTTW — Megalopolis would be a good name for it.

  • What trope could describe a situation when a character who recently acquired some kind of powers uses them for the first time without even thinking much of how to do it or even accidentally (especially if there was an emergency), but when they later try to use the same powers on purpose, they fail to get them to work because they don't really know how to do this?

  • Do we have a name for commercials where either the visuals or the narration completely ignores the demographic the advertisers are supposedly trying to reach? Like, for example, Reebok's new Easy Tone sneakers are supposed to be marketed to women, but the commercials themselves are blatant T&A fap material for male viewers instead.

  • Those purple butterflies that are a manifestation of somebody's evil powers in the anime?
    • I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but that sounds like a type of butterfly of death and rebirth
    • Someone in the discussion page of Butterly Of Death And Rebirth mentions those purple evil butterflies, but they aren't quite was that trope is about.
      • Some examples on that page suggest otherwise, although the description is clearly not about these... Still, I've seen these at least twice, so maybe it is some variation, or should I just stuff them into Animal Motifs page?..

  • I'm looking for a trope that's similar to Glad I Thought Of It (and may be it, but I want to make sure), but it's when a character feeds another character "suggestions" to make it seem like the other character came with an idea on their own.

  • Is there a trope for when a non-POV character (often a love interest) has no motivations of their own and only does things because the plot demands it? e.g. The Seme in bad Slash Fic.
    • Would Flat Character and/or one of the things it links to of any help?

  • Is there a trope for when a character has about fifty different locks on their door to show that they're either paranoid, hiding out, or in an unsafe environment? I see it everywhere and yet...

  • Is there one for when a character is treated as though he/she has done something wrong, but the character has no idea of what they did?
    • Would You Know What You Did fit what you're thinking of?
    • Not really, but thanks.
      • I think I asked about a similar situation once, and You Know What You Did was the closest thing I found, but there really should be a broader trope for such things; One Side Of The Story is related because the situation is usually caused by the fact that usually nobody bothers to tell the character what exactly is going on and ask them about this. My opinion as a result is that the Poor Communication Kills tropes are a complete mess and should probably undergo some splitting/merging/sorting treatment.

  • Do we have anything relating to the sarchasm?
    • I love the pun, but the idea that sarcasm is a form of wit angers and infuriates me. In any event, you might find what you're looking for in Variant 1 of Dont Explain The Joke.

  • Is there a separate trope for the inversion of Science Is Bad (the scientist or other creator recognizes with horror the actual or potential harm caused by the creation)? A suitable title for it would be along the lines of "I Have Created A Monster..." (...and it's up to me to stop it....)

  • What's it called when a character who's just Time Travelled runs around going "Okay, you can all stop acting now! It's not funny!" ?

  • Is there one for when someone is upset or angry, but everyone doesn't take them seriously and remarks on how cute or sweet they are when they're angry/upset, despite the fact that the character is genuinely angry/upset and may take it out on someone/something?

  • This Doctor Mc Ninja page is lampshading a trope in the Alt Text. I know I've seen it before, I just can't find it now.
    • It is some form of Info Dump. Not sure which, either.

  • Do we have a trope for a character who's obsessive about his car? He doesn't drive like crazy, he just treats his car almost as a surrogate child and God help you if you scratch or otherwise damage his baby.

  • The page covering things/people/places which are sufficiently famous from books or films that many people are surprised to learn that they actually exist in real life. For example, there are plenty of people who think that Transylvania is a fictional place, as its prominence in Dracula et al has overshadowed knowledge of the real thing.
    • Maybe Adaptation Displacement or one of its related tropes may have something you're looking for, though I've never heard of it.
    • The "Real Life" sections of each page do just that, but I'm not sure if they're collected into one page somewhere.

  • One for when someone is trying to climb something secretly and manages to startle a bird or a bat which is nesting somewhere. Tends to surprise them, maybe putting them at risk of falling, or alternatively, might make enough noise to put them at risk of discovery by guards. (Or perhaps there's a broader trope somewhere around about startling animials in general while trying to be stealthy. That would do.)

  • Is there one for a character who is extremely simple- not simple as in 'really thick' simple, but simple as in, they're honest, easy to get along with, they're not complex at all and they're quite easy to manipulate?

  • What trope could describe a situation where character A enters some contest with character B only out of jealousy and/or wanting to get a revenge for something, despite there being almost zero possibility that A could win?

  • A person gains the power to read minds, and he becomes distressed when he discovers that most people around him have less-than-positive feelings. Do we have this one?

  • Is there a trope covering the tendency of magic and technology to interfere with the proper functioning of each other, sort of a supertrope to Walking Techbane that would also cover a "walking magicbane"?

  • The one for when the heroes think that they're sneaking/breaking into the bad guy's lair, but find that the bad guy already knew they were coming (typically saying something like, "Ah, Mr Bond, I've been expecting you.")

  • A videogame (RPG) trope: Bob tells you he's going to location X or do Y or fetch item Z, but he doesn't. Bob isn't lying, but the game never shows him doing what he says he'll do (often because of design constraints) so we assume he did it off-screen. For example, when your rival first meets you in 3rd Gen Pokémon she (or he) tells you she needs to hurry to meet Prof. Birch in the tall grass to catch some Pokémon. But instead of going to the tall grass, she walks to her computer.

  • A trope for acronyms/initialisms which have lost their original meaning through time? For example, O.K. (probably) stood for Oll Korrect, RADAR stands for R Adio Detection And Ranging.

  • Is there a trope for a bit in a translated book/movie/tv show/game where a sentence or sentences doesn't quite fit, as in, someone tried translating a piece of slang or an idiom or metaphor, but it doesn't make sense once translated or it means something different to what the makers/translators had intended?
    • I think that's Woolseyism.
    • Not really. If you're asking for an overly literal translation, leaving untouched the idioms (even when they don't make sense anymore), that's Blind Idiot Translation. If you're searching a pragmatic translation, looking for the closest idiom/pun possible in the translated language, that's Woolseyism.

  • One for those big industrial magnets suspended from cranes (the sort they might use in a scrapyard, for example). They seem to crop up quite frequently in media from a certain era.

  • Do we have a trope where the writers introduce something for a one-off plot, without intending to use it again later on, but it becomes an important fact of the show? Not Chekhovs Gun, since the items are not intended to be used again. An example (and what brought this to mind): the Ancient communication stones in the Stargate 'Verse. Introduced near the end of SG-1 season 8 for a one-off plot about O'Neill switching places with a barber; used near the beginning of SG-1 season 9 to introduce the new Big Bad, the Ori; used for a one-off plot in Atlantis season 5; now a key part of the plot of Stargate Universe.

  • A trope where someone is being chased by or is looking for some kind of monster, and they never look up/ behind them (despite the fact that it would make a lot of sense if the monster was above them/ behind them), leading to a scene where they turn around/ look up to see the evil creature right there, about to pounce?

  • So you have a villain organisation consisting of the Big Bad and a couple of minions. If the minions are just generic servants with no specific personalities, there's usually no problem. But often, they are people, and this is what usually causes the organisation downfall. Specific cases usually include: 1) minion who does his job for the sake of his people, but dislikes the Big Bad personally or does not trust his plans; 2) minion who does his job only out of personal respect for the Big Bad, especially if they happen to be of the opposed gender; 3) minion who does his job because he considers it "fun", usually a young and/or immature character who is more interested in the process rather than outcome. The end result is usually that none of the minions can really be considered "purely evil". Are there tropes that describe these types of villains?

  • Is there a trope for when theres no real clear hero or villain in a story?

  • Is there a trope for people diving into their own imaginations or otherwise bailing the world for a fictional one? This happens in the Weird Al music video Dare to be Stupid and twice in the webcomic One Over Zero.

  • Is there a trope in which the hero is currently at the mercy of the bad guy who is about to kill him or succeed in his plot. However just then, the hero's comrade throws him a weapon which the hero then uses to kill the bad guy (the comrade couldn't use the weapon himself because either: he's dying, he's incapacitated, only the hero could use it, some other reason).
A couple of examples: Command and Conquer Red Alert: In one cut scene, Tanya is about to be killed by a Soviet. Suddenly an allied spy comes in to try and save her. He is shot and mortally wounded but is able to throw Tanya his pistol who kills the Soviet just as he was about to kill her. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: At the ending, Captain Price, who is heavily injured slides you his pistol which you then use to kill the main Russian villain right before he caps you.

  • Is there a trope for those red plastic cups that are the universal prop choice when people are drinking (usually beer)?

  • Is there a trope where a character in-series thinks that Status Quo Is God?

  • A trope similar to Alternate History, but which takes real historical characters/events and places them in a wildly anachronistic or fantastical setting. This isn't Fish Out Of Temporal Water; things have apparently always been the way they are in this alternate world. An example is a webcomic called Antique White House, in which John F. Kennedy is President in a fantasy Steam Punk Divided States Of America setting where(among other cultural differences) Christianity isn't a major religion, and it seems to be an Anachronism Stew as well. A less crazy example might be the Temeraire novels, which are the Napoleonic Wars WITH DRAGONS!

  • Is there a trope for when someone imitates a gun with his/her hand, like the Heavy from Team Fortress 2? Sometimes the effects team treats it like an actual gun, and make it look like it was actually fired, bullet and everything.

  • Looking for... something that I thought could be a distant relative of Last Second Word Swap... Here's the situation: a character is speaking aloud (talking to another character or to himself), and says something that he doesn't want to be heard by a particular person. Said person enters the room just in time to hear the last few words of the conversation (often out of context), and has questions about what he just heard, so the character(s) doing the talking hastily attempt to pretend they were actually talking about something else and the overheard words were actually completely different words or had a different meaning. The result may include silly made-up statements, bad puns, etc.

  • What do you call a situation (often arranged by villains), when the main hero is in danger, and saving him requires sacrificing a "less important" member of the team?

  • Is there a trope for a situation where a character is mistakenly blamed for doing something bad, but can't explain he didn't do it because anything he tries to say is mistaken for apologies or attempts to justify doing this?

  • Trope for a character who is obsessed with studying?
    • Workaholic?
    • Maybe... maybe not... I was thinking of a character type similar to, say, Mizuno Ami. Someone who does a lot more work than is usual because he or she has a dream of getting some job or achieving some status, and needs to perfect his/her skills in order to succeed.

  • Is there a trope for heroes having gadgets named after themselves like the Batmobile and spider-tracers?
    • There's Trope Mobile, but that's specifically for vehicles.

  • The one for a sequence where someone is clinging to the outside of a vehicle as it drives (such as in all those action movies where the hero jumps on the roof of a truck and has to get to the cab, with the bad guy swerving all over the place trying to shake the hero off). Sort of like Train Top Battle, except that there may not actually be a battle (and on things other than trains).

  • Is there a trope for a situation where a character has to choose between something that was important for him in the past and his current mission?

  • Is there a trope for when a character wants to die for some reason, but instead of just commiting suicide he tries to trick his rival into killing him (or even force him to do this)?
    • Cannot Self Terminate?
    • This does fit to an extent; I was looking for cases when the character for some reason wants to be killed by a specific person in that case, but I guess this might work... (don't like shoehorning examples, though)

  • Is there a trope that describes this?

  • Is there one where a director says something is going to be in the final product, but it actually is not?

  • Is there one for a situation where someone is asked a question (which may be a yes/no question) but they cannot answer it as all the possible answers will bring negative consequences?

  • Ran into this twice in my own work and several times in canon. There a trope out there for a villain who is not only genuinely in love with the hero but offers to spare them from the coming destruction he/she has planned? Basically, someone who plans to destroy/take over the world but says they'll spare the hero since that person is special to them. This can also apply to a villain who honestly wants to be/is friends with the hero instead of just romantically. If it doesn't exist and needs a name, I like the sound of Apocalypse Romantic...

  • Ski chase scenes.

  • A father has an inheritance for his son (no, not this one), but not an object such as a lightsaber or magic cloak: a task, a quest, oftern an archeological-historical mystery with puzzles. Maybe the two have drifted apart, but now they are together, at least for a part of their path. E.g. Indiana Jones, National Treasure, Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Tower (La torre della solitudine in the origianl Italian), even Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason's The Rule of Four qualifies, even if the father is dead, he's spiritually with his son, and he revives with flashbacks. Is there a trope for it, or it's simply a mix of Well Done Son Guy, Adventurer Archaeologist, and sometimes Secret Legacy?

  • Is there a trope about how fame is fleeting? That is, a character is suddenly famous, but by the end of the episode the public has moved on to the next big thing?

  • Davtwan: Is there a trope where when a character dies, he doesn't let go of the item or body he is holding? A common example of this is a monster or Bad Ass as they don't let go of either a Mook or a Red Shirt, preferably in a way where they die with them. (I.E. Neck.) Though again, the thing being held doesn't have to be something alive.

  • Are there any tropes for things that cannot (allegedly) be comprehend by the human mind ? Often there will be a reaction shot from the characters as they try and process what they are seeing,usually they fail and will react wwith horror instead.

  • Is there a trope regarding the opening scene of a movie that effectively sets the tone for the rest of the movie, sort of a Character Establishing Moment for the entire movie? The only specific example that comes to mind is the dolphin musical number at the intro to The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, but it would also be something like a wild car chase or shootout involving characters to whom we have not yet been introduced at the intro to an action movie.

  • Is there a trope for when a character is writing (or drawing/painting) something, and runs out of paper — so they continue writing on the table/floor/walls etc.?

  • There is a MissingMainCharacter, but it seems to be more towards the main character missing inside a game, making you pick another one. So, TV Tropes, is there a trope for when a character (more for a story than a game) - main or not - goes missing and though the other characters try to find him/her, they can't and that character stays missing.

  • A film, which has an English title, is dubbed in another language and its title is changed to... a different English title (e.g. in Italy: Dracula 2000 -> Dracula's Legacy; The Forsaken -> Desert Vampires ) Completely Different Title ? Gratuitous English ? Or a trope apart?
    • Market Based Title covers this. In fact we have some examples on that page where shows get exported to Germany and keep their title but have "the" added/removed (depending on the show's name).

  • The trope where the sequel adds odd things, often because the first game used everything "mundane". I think the name "Sequel Strangness Dissonance" or something was suggested (but obviously not used) in the YKTTW.
    • Unexpected Genre Change?
      • Nope, I'm asking about where the first game has weapons like swords, axes, lances, bows and staffs, while the sequel adds rocks, clumps of grass, crates, minecarts and phonographs.

  • Is there a PronounTroubles trope referring to different level of politeness? I'm thinking of things like "you" having to be translated either as informal "du" or formal "Sie" in German, which sort of makes distance and respect between characters as perceived by the translator more pronounced.
    • There should be! This happens in Italian as well: informal "tu", formal "lei" (and even over-formal "voi", a Pluralis Maiestatis). (Furthermore, there's also the related trouble of "you" being both singular and plural, e.g. a big problem in the dub of a certain Val Kilmer's speech in Mindhunters)
    • Spanish gives us informal Tú, formal Usted and Vos, which I'm not sure how it's used because it's only used at all in Spain. Then French has Tu & Vous, though vous is also the standard plural form which makes it kind of tricky. Nahuatl had a similar thing but I forgot it, and the crown goes to Japanese, which has about 10. Off the bat I recall Anata, used with high respect by someone inherently "low" on the social scale, as would be little kids, women or one's servants; Kimi, for situations when respect can be safely overlooked, aka high familiarity; and Ore, the most disrespectful, used mostly for the guy you are about to (try to) kill. You might notice I couldn't recall any form we could call "standard". Actually English seems to be the only languaje in the world where it doesn't happen. Dunno if such a trope could exist, though, but about all instances of it actually happened would be covered by Lost In Translation, methinks.
    • Russian has these problems as well. Like French, it has two words for "you" (informal & formal/plural), so when you are translating from English, you are going to have to choose the level of politeness yourself. When translating from Japanese, the reverse happens — and with a certain amount of Values Dissonance chances are the chosen pronoun won't be anywhere near the level of politeness the original had. Since these seem to be common problems for many languages, I believe it is worth at least a separate sub-section on the Lost In Translation page or some other related trope.
    • Japanese Pronouns and Japanese Honorifics deal with the problem to an extent, but they are obviously only about Japanese. Now that I think of it — is there a page among Translation Tropes that could work as a subcategory for Common Translation Difficulties such as pronouns, honorifics, puns? (You know, there are crazy people like me out there using the info on this site to improve their skills — not just in writing stories, but in translating as well.) Lost In Translation would be a nice choice in this case, although, considering that half of the Translation Tropes deal with these kind of problems, maybe that index could have tropes dealing specifically with that split in a subsection (with the aforementioned Japanese language quirks added), as opposed to Macekre and other stuff dealing with bad job on the translators' part?

  • Is there a term that describes a situation in which you have someone who is known for hating everything, accentuating the negative, or being just plain unpleasable finally find something he or she cannot complain about? I'm not actually talking about said character learning to like something, but rather said character finding something so flawless and perfect that he or she is unable to complain about it? Rather than leading to a road of happiness, said character would more likely shut down completely or have a serious brain meltdown because he or she is completely and utterly unable to criticize whatever is in front of him or her. Think of said person desperate to find something to hate, but upon finding something that's "unhateable", said character has a severe meltdown.
    • That sounds like a Turned Up To Eleven version of Grumpy Bear.
    • That would be the character, yes. But what I'm looking for is a time in which said Grumpy Bear actually becomes happy. The thing is that they've been miserable for so long that they're unable to function properly due to lack of misery. Is there a trope for this situation?

  • You've just watched or listened to the coolest commercial you've ever experienced. It made you piss yourself laughing, or ooh and ahh at the pretty special effects. You would be perfectly willing to go out an buy whatever it was they were advertising, were it not for the fact all you remember is the commercial spot and not what it was actially for.

  • Is there a trope for when the hero and his friends have been captured by the bad guy, the bad guy is taunting them in front of his followers and making wisecracks, and his minions are all laughing with him—-and the hero turns to the most out-of-it member of his party, and that guy's laughing too? Or the villain makes a big speech, proclaims victory is now at hand, and his minions applaud wildly—-and the bumbling sidekick claps with them?

  • In many series (and toys), they go through a lot of trouble to do very good design on the human characters, the settings, the costuming (and armour), and the props. Then you see the animals... suddenly, they Did Not Do The Research. Is there a trope for that? (eg: In Lord Of The Rings, the movies; and some toy series have human action figures with usual number of points articulation - animals? Zero.)

  • "Your father is a hero" (or "Your father was a hero") ALWAYS told to the son of someone who was killed on duty, typically at the funeral.

  • A character who comes from another dimension, or had been hybernated for a long time, but somehow learns how to live in our modern world. Roland reads Jack Mort's mind (his "Mortcyclopedia"), Marcus uses Genetic Memory; maybe also the bad guy of Demolition Man qualifies.
    • The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer?
      • Hmmmm, I'm not sure... The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer should be "superior to the natives". The bad guy of Demolition Man becomes as good as the natives, he may qualify. But the others? Roland learns how a pharmacy works via Mortcyclopedia (i.e. mind reading), but he always mispronounces "aspirin"; Marcus simply learns how to use a computer... they're not "superior to the natives" in these fields.
      • The bad guy version is Antagonists Assimilate.

  • Is there an Ape Rape trope, for where a character runs into an ape (usually a gorilla; occasionally not a primate), and gets molested?
    • If this is Played For Laughs, then it probably falls under Rape As Comedy — that page does have a section "Rape of humans by animals" that mostly consists of examples like "somebody gets molested by a random animal and it's funny". I'm not sure if there's a page specifically about apes.

  • Is there a trope for when a character is asked about his past or his motivations for some action and goes into some long, serious, tragic story with a perfectly straight face, and then when his companions inevitably ask "Did that really happen?", grin and reveal he was just messing with everyone?

  • Is there a trope that's the opposite of Parental Bonus? Like, rather than something only the parents are amused by, something that makes the kids go 'meh', but majorly squicks their parents. Because children are too young to get any sexual implications.

  • What is the trope for a single episode plot where two different characters temporarly drift into each other's territories? Like a lazy guy suddenly discovering the joys of cooking which makes him work hard towards a goal for the first time, and a tidy humorless man getting cracks in his morale and stoic appearance eventually turning him to a bum with a stubble, and then by the end of the episode both go back to how they used to be.

  • What was the language trope in which two characters come from different countries and speak their native languages, yet they miraculously understand each other? This is all over the Tekken series as of late when two characters can speak in their native languages, but the dialogue is perfectly understood by an opponent that otherwise shouldn't know what he or she is saying.
    • That sounds like Language Of Love, but clearly if they're fighting there's not much love...
    • It's definitely not that. Here's an example: Asuka Kazama speaks Japanese. Lili Rochefort speaks English. Both of these girls are rivals and speak with each other quite regularly, taunting or otherwise. Yet despite the fact that each character speaks in their native tongue throughout the exchange, the two can perfectly understand what the other's saying. And there's no indication that either one of them (or any of the Tekken cast for that matter) are multilingual at all.
    • It sounds like you want Bilingual Dialogue: "For whatever reason, two or more characters can't manage to speak the others' language ... However, all involved can understand the others' language when spoken... . you have two people listening and responding to each other in completely different languages, ..." In the example you give, they can't speak each other's language at all but still understand it perfectly.

  • Is there a trope for a guy who's such a stud that he has a lady on each arm?

  • Is there any sort of trope for someone unconsciously breaking the Masquerade or some fake form and not being aware of it? Like, hypothetically speaking, some sort of example would be a werewolf (who for example purposes, still completely retains their mind, speaking ability, and bipedal figure) transforming in the middle of a date and not even noticing, while their date's freaking out.

  • Is there a trope for, when in a game, things will change depending on what difficulty you're playing on? Like on the hardest difficulty you'll get a different ending and some cutscenes will change, on the easiest you won't get as many cutscenes or content, and stuff like that?

  • Is there a type of Determinator that doesn't succeed in his determination? Or rather...his determination is misplaced? I'm thinking of a situation where said character knows he's outmatched and charges in anyway believing that he will prevail....only to get taken out in two seconds. Situations I can think of include a criminal who charges an armed SWAT team with a knife or the idiot who swings a sledgehammer at the Hulk (or better yet, the dude who tries to fight the Hulk with his bare hands), both of who think can win.

  • Looking for something to 'religion is bad' where any kind of belief is seen as corrupt, full of stupid sheep or insane. Different from Corrupt Church in that the people are seen as ignorant but not necessarily evil, a kind of 'religion rots you brains' kind of thing. Seen it a lot but can't think of any examples right now.

  • A directing trope where the heroes appear to be closing in on the villain's location, but it turns out they've come to the wrong place. Specifically I'm thinking of cases where the film or show deliberately misleads the viewers into expecting a confrontation, then teases them with scenes of the good guys finding an empty warehouse, the villain's former residence he'd moved out of weeks ago, etc. Used in Silence Of The Lambs, when the other agents initially appear to have found Buffalo Bill's hideout, but it turns out they're following a false lead.

  • A trope for a series of things all exactly the same except for one that differs in some way.

  • A trope for a character who is related to someone famous, and is only known because of that.

  • A trope for when an author, say, has two characters of the same name turn up in different works, although they're different to each other.

  • Do we have a trope for Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness when it's used for comic effect?

  • Do we have a trope about Occam's Razor (the simplest solution is usually the correct one)? I tried searching for "occam", "razor" and "simplest solution" but none of them seemed to come up with a trope about it.

  • What's the trope for when a dead body is believed to be the villain's, even though it's disfigured/burnt to a crisp/lacking distiguishing features like a head/fingerprints/teeth, and it's later revealed that the body belonged to some other person and the villain is alive and well? Like Never Found The Body but with a cadaver of uncertain identity.

  • Is there a trope for mind-numbingly one-sided sex? The type where one party (usually a female) lays on their back while the other humps away, more or less oblivious to their partner's boredom?

  • Do we have a page for game-spanning scavenger hunts, like red gems in Illusion Of Gaia, or dalmations in Kingdom Hearts?

  • I figured this should probably have its own trope, but I don't know if it's here. So what's it called when a person undergoing a transformation (involuntary) is resisting it like hell, to no avail? The example I'm thinking of is in 28 Weeks Later, but as most people don't acknowledge that movie's existence here, I figured I'd just ask.

  • What's the trope for when a person can't call someone out on something because doing so would also be admitting their own guilt to something else? (For example, Bob can't say he saw Alice working as a stripper because that would mean admitting he had gone to a strip club, or something.) I know it's here, but I'll be darned if I can find it.

  • What would the trope be if the show's cast is half male and half female, but does not pass The Bechdel Test because the women never interact?

  • Is there a trope for a recurring place in Video Games?

  • Seen It A Million Times. A well-meaning, naive, or simply ignorant character makes a statement about how another character has learned An Aesop, then leaves the scene. The character being discussed and his companion then snicker to each other, making a comment to the effect of, "He doesn't know you very well, does he?" Hard to believe we don't have it, but it's not showing up anywhere that I can find. Example here.
    • That's covered under Horrible Judge Of Character, IIRC.
    • Not really. Horrible Judge is about the person doing the judging. This is about the person being judged.

  • I've looked all over Time Travel Tropes for this, with no joy. Do we have the one where a guy (a native of the past, or of a "primitive" civilization) is mocked for believing something that the audience knows to be true? e.g. "You know how everyone thinks that those lights up in the night sky are {supernatural explanation}? Well," *drops voice to dramatic whisper* "I think they're suns! Like our sun! And, just as our sun warms our world, those other suns warm other worlds!!!" \\ Offhand I can think of three examples (all of which involve stars, for some reason): Binro the Heretic in the old Doctor Who story "The Ribos Operation"; a snippet of dialog between Timon and Pumbaa, in The Lion King; and the Isaac Asimov short story "Nightfall".\\ It's like They Called Me Mad, except that it has more of a situational irony feel: it's not that Crazy Guy is a scientist whose theories are proved right by the story, it's that the audience already knows that Crazy Guy is scientifically correct. It's like Not So Crazy Anymore or Science Marches On, except it was deliberately written in and isn't a side effect of the age of the script. It's like You Will Be Beethoven, except that CG is never believed by his peers. It's like It Will Never Catch On, except that CG isn't really making any predictions. Anyone know?

  • I'm looking for somewhat of a cross between The Nicknamer, Terms Of Endangerment, and an inverted Insistent Terminology; essentially, Character A is a Nicknamer-lite and refers to her adoptive sister Character B as "Onee-chan," while Character B insists that she not do so. Do We Have This One or is it just the elements of the three?

  • Is there a Shoplifting Jaywalking and Genocide trope (inverse of Arson Murder And Jaywalking, obviously)? I know there's Bread Eggs Milk Squick, but when the third isn't squicky and the first two aren't that normal. Inspired by this:
    Artemis is pretty much a teen version of Holmes. Except, you know, with his own personal Battle Butler, a Voice With An Internet Connection, and a bunch of fairies on his side.

  • Do We Have This One: Basically, you have a character who has a seemingly unimpressive power or attribute, that they put to good use. Then you have the character who is jealous or dismissive of this character and their ability. Then the first character has their power or ability broken, and soon after they break. The character who was dismissive of the first character begins to realize that for all their jealously, that one power, ability, or belief was the only thing keeping the first character functioning at all, and they also feel bad that they wished for it to be gone. This results in the second character helping the first character get their power back. Best two examples I can think of are in the animated Legion of Superheroes, where this happens with Karate Kid, and King Of The Hill, where Boomhauer gets used by a woman, and Bill has to help him get his confidence back.

  • Is there a trope that covers shows' tendency to cling to the Stock Aesop of 'Stay in School', even when it is unclear whether further education is in the character's best interests? I know I've read at least some discussion of this on the wiki, with one of the examples being when Home Improvement character Brad was offered an opportunity to play sport professionally, but was pressured to go to college instead, even though he could always get his degree after his sports career.

  • Anime trope again. Often, if a character gets injured and is bleeding, the first sign of this you'll see is a few drops of blood falling to the groung below, then the wound. I remember there was a trope that I thought was about that, but from the description it didn't seem to be...

  • Is there a trope for when a character spends a lot of time and effort preparing for some event, only to discover at the last moment that they've already missed it due to not paying attention to time (were distracted by something during the process long enough to be late, or overslept)?

  • A trope for those magically cast protective energy spheres (if in shoujo anime, they often end up looking like giant soap bubbles, like Mew Ichigo's shield in Tokyo Mew Mew that she sometimes puts up with her weapon).
    • Barrier Warrior?
      • That's related, but it's the character, rather than the actual barrier and it isn't specifically spheres, or even a visible barrier. I don't think we have one for Magic Bubbles.

  • Anime trope — I remember this mostly from Sailor Moon, but the trick is used a lot in other series. Rough description: when a character who is inside a house screams for some reason, the camera will cut from the scene to show the house from outside (shaking optional). When this screaming happens outdoors, the alternative is to have the camera pan up to show the sun in the sky or something like that. I know this description sucks, so I can give specific examples if neccessary.
    • Sounds like it might be close to The Scream.
    • Yup, although it does not seem to cover the outdoors quick-pan-up-to-show-the-sky version — I'm pretty sure I've seen this enough times; the page currently has the cut-to-the-surrounding-area version that covers my first example, but not the second.

  • Is there an entry describing when an organization such as a school or top secret organization admits someone that would never pass even simple background checks in real life? For instance, in some fictional universe, an extraterrestrial somehow winds up attending a human school, even though he or she has just arrived on Earth and barely obtained a disguise. This wouldn't apply if said extraterrestrial had taken great care to fake an identity. He or she would just walk in and be admitted, no questions asked.

  • What is it called when one character, in an attempt to impress/hook up with/fit in with another character or group, claims to be able to do something he/she can't actually do, or otherwise makes a ridiculous claim he can't back up? The others will invariably ask him to prove it, and he will either a) fail miserably; b) confess and leave us with An Aesop about honesty; or c) succeed through sheer luck. Examples: Spongebob Squarepants (the lifeguard episode; the anchor toss- both class A), Seinfeld ("The Marine Biologist"- class C), and many others.

  • Is there a trope for when a movie/series/whatever is set in the past and a character is shown to have invented something that really exists, but they're not the actual person who invented it?
    • Sound a like it might be tangentially related to You Will Be Beethoven.
    • Well, it's more that I'm trying to pothole the fact that a character from The Musical Carousel apparently invented canned sardines.
      • Is it more like "guy invents or claims to invent something that in real life was invented by someone else", or more like "time traveller 'invents' something"?

  • I'm looking for a trope for when a character (usually in a cartoon, but sometimes in a live action comedy) has something happen to them, only for them to call out "I'm okay!" while still offscreen or otherwise unseen. He's Okay is close, but not quite.
    • No, that does fall under Hes Okay: "This can also happen when a character says that he himself is okay and turns out to be correct." It doesn't matter whether the injury occurs onscreen or off.

  • Is there a trope for when a treat is dangled on a stick in front of an animal (or occasionally a person) to make it run on a treadmill, either to power a machine or for exercise?

  • Is there any kind of trope like Urban Legend Of Zelda, but not for video games?

  • I see this all the time but I can't find the trope. Found more often in live action than cartoons, but present across the board. When an artist is working on a painting, it'll never be in the early stages, or even half-way through. They will always be finishing it; adding that last, insignificant detail, that really means that the artwork, carving, painting, whatever, is actually completed irl, but the audience is supposed to get the idea that it is just in the process of being finished and that all the work that actually went into it before we saw them was off camera. Some examples that come to mind: in Heroes, the future painters are always finishing, or even just looking at the finished painting. Even when we see them painting, we only see them put brush to canvas, zoom away to look at their eyes, then time lapse and it's completed. In the movie Troy, Eric Bana's character is seen putting the finishing touches on a wood carving. There are tons more that I just can't think of.

  • Anime trope. Characters as black shadows/silhouettes, usually on a red background. Usually when somebody gets impaled by something or otherwise mortally injured. Sometimes can be just a general indication of shock.

  • What trope describes an audience slowly becoming desensitized to tragedy and angst? At first a tragic moment in really feels tragic and heartwrenching, but over time as more and more of the audience becomes exposed to Wangst, the line is blurred and soon people cannot tell the difference between real tragedy and just emo whining.

  • Is there a trope for how easy it can be to carry a human body on one's shoulders? This happens all the time on Lost, the most egregious example probably being Locke carrying his easily-200-pound father's body on his shoulders between two fairly distant points on the island, but I'm sure Lost isn't the only example. Hollywood Density seems almost, but not quite, right.

  • Can't figure this out: if a character has the ability to talk to plants (not in this sense, but actually getting info from them), would it be just a variation of the Green Thumb trope, a mutant version of The Doctor Dolittle, or something else entirely?

  • Is there a trope where a character snatches somebody's food without asking because he or she is hungry and/or impudent?

  • Is there a trope where a character who's really proud but unable to do something "allows" a lesser character to do the thing to retain their social standing? An example is Granny Weatherwax and Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum, where she "helps him through the forest."
    • We don't seem to have a "Save Face" supertrope (Or at least I can't find it). Even I Let You Win is more a bad guy trope.

  • Is there a trope where a character fixes a machine by substituting an object that looks like the broken part?

  • Is there a trope for a person who, having heard all the mistakes his teacher/predecessor made when he was a student, is determined learn from them and not to make those same mistakes?

  • Is there a trope that describes characters that are extremely attractive, yet their official age makes them minors? I am not talking about Lolicon where the characters in question are clearly too young, but more of teenage characters that certainly look hot and are exploited for fanservice, despite their official age being too young (i.e. Yoko of Gurren Lagann. SHE'S 14!!!!). Oddly enough I've tried searching Jailbait for this trope and have come up empty.
    • I'm not sure there is — particularly, if you are talking about anime, then in most cases characters over 13 are not quite considered minors in these terms in Japan (although this law might have been changed since, I'm not sure); this lead to certain amounts of Values Dissonance when such anime are shown in Western countries.

  • A trope about someone in a relationship who is mad. Not Mad Love mad, the character is mentally unwell, not trying to prove their love crazily.

  • Is there a term for an author or artist who flat out just hates their fans? While some of it would be justified due to Fan Dumb, I'm talking about someone who's sole purpose is to create works that depress, anger, and otherwise disatisfies the audience to an extreme level. Said author or artist would think of the fans/audience as nothing more than mindless mooks that deserve to be pissed off by whatever they create, and might actually revel in the ensuing Hatedom. In fact, said author or artist would even make that extra effort to openly mock his or her fanbase just to prove a point. Whether or not the fans still love or hate said person is usually up to them.

  • A trope where someone is told a truth that is quite bad- say, the reason their partner left them wasn't because the relationship simply wasn't working, it was actually because the partner was cheating all along, and the revelation really badly affects the character?
    • Well, there are Awful Truth (for the truth) and Heroic BSOD (for the reaction), but these might be a little too extreme...

  • Is there a trope for... um... Well, here's the basic situation: a group of characters hijacks a letter addressed to another character, and, for some reason, decides that the contents (and the very existence) of the letter should not be revealed to that character. When played for comedy, the result is that everyone involved in keeping the secret will (instead of destroying the letter and not mention it anymore) carry the letter around, discuss it in places where they can be overheard by the person the letter was intended for, etc.

  • Is there a trope where if something bad happens to a character, say, someone they love dies in a fire, the character then become obsessed with fire?

  • Is there a trope for when two or more opposing parties are after the same item, but only one of them actually has the ability to get it, so the others have to just stick around and wait for a chance to snatch it? (This is much of what happens in Sailor Moon S during the Talisman hunt: Uranus and Neptune can't extract pure hearts from people, the villains can, both groups are searching for the same thing — so the duo is always present during the battles to check if the MotW's victim has a Talisman.)
    • Sounds a little like Mac Guffin Delivery Service, but there could be a better one out there.
    • Seems okay, but I was looking specifically for cases when you have to rely on the opposing party getting the item because you can't get it yourself — Sailor Moon even has an earlier example with Tuxedo Kamen stealing the Rainbow Crystals from Zoisite after the latter extracted them. There must be something about this out there, it's not too uncommon to only have one of the two parties possess the power to acquire the item (or otherwise meet the requirements needed to get it) while the other one wants it nevertheless. Also note that the plot does not absolutely have to end with the opposing party snatching the item at the last possible moment, and they might not even be the bad guys (Sailor Moon examples are mainly good neutral guys doing this). This is mainly about the process rather than the outcome. Might be a subtrope or something?

  • Is there a trope for a "wave of destruction"? Simply put, a wave but necessarily a shockwave that just vaporises everything in it's path? An example is what Galactus does at the end of Annihilation.

  • Is there a trope for when a villain mistakes one of the heroes for a member of his own organisation (often with neither of them realizing what is really going on) and proceeds to treat him as such?

  • I've been quite unlucky with the search lately... What do you call a situation where an imposter, likely not having bothered to do some research, reveals himself by saying something that is completely out of character for the person he is posing as?

  • Is there a trope for when a character suddenly does something bad to his/her friend/lover/nakama/whatever, and said second character starts to think over various possible reasons for this, eventually coming to the conclusion that his/her friend/whatever must have run into some troubles that forced him/her to do this, and therefore decides to help that person at all costs. (And characters rarely account for the possibility of the person in question secretly working for villains or just being an asshole — there must always be some deep reason behind these bad deeds.)

  • Is there something like Genre Writing Failure, where the author is not or may only claim to be a fan of a particular genre they're writing for, but they're actually only writing for the perceived paycheck and actually are completely abysmal in their attempt? e.g. market research says that the studio should do a sci-fi adventure, but they fail in actually hiring any writers who do sci-fi?
    • Sounds a bit like They Just Didnt Care with a bit of Follow The Leader mixed in.
    • Still, There Oughta Be a Trope with that name (Genre Writing Failure) because it happens way too often, especially with sci-fi.

  • Is there a trope for when a particular event in the story suddenly changes the meaning of an earlier scene (or a phrase said by a character)? For example, the reveal of some new info on a character can give a radically different explanation of their previous behavior; or it may be a revelation of some symbolism behind a certain event. Not in terms of Funny Aneurism Moment and its opposite, but the reveal that is always pre-planned and done deliberately in order to put things in a different light?
    • Pretty sure you're thinking of a plain ol' Tomato Surprise.
    • ...might be a bit too strong, but I guess it's OK for some of the stuff I was thinking about... (What about the cases where the reveal isn't intended to be a surprise twist out of nowhere, but where there are still subtle hints over the course of the story that there's something unusual — only you often won't realize they were hints until you learn what exactly it was? Or the cases where the characters aren't aware of what's going on either, because these hints are only available to the audience, but not to them?)
    • Congratulations, you have successfully described foreshadowing - leaving hints or clues in the context of a story that don't come together until a second read-through, when you realize the truth that the hints suggested.
      • ...You know, if I were a manga character, chances are I'd be crushed by a very large sweatdrop now (must stop hanging around this site late at night instead of sleeping)... Or, on second thought... let's take a version where the clues are available to the characters, but they don't quite realise what they mean until the reveal. When the reveal comes, sometimes (particularly if this happens in a TV series) characters will have flashbacks to these clues just to help the audience realise that these were clues (because, clearly, no viewer can remember what somebody said or did ten episodes or chapters ago...). That means — you're specifically pointed out the clues through flashbacks, just in case you missed them and don't feel like rewatching the series again. Does this device have a name, or is it again something very basic?.. Please forgive me, okay?.. Please...

  • Is there a trope for when a particular scene involving two characters (or two groups of characters) later happens again with the same characters, but with the roles reversed — not necessarily to show they're Not So Different, that's the negative variation, but maybe to show they're not different in terms of, well, being people and having the same feelings. Also not necessarily involving opposing parties — may occur between friends or just random characters.

  • Is there a trope for a character telling another character that they're like the son (or daughter, but usually son) they never had?
    • We don't seem to. Although admittedly I haven't searched through all the Stock Phrases, Google isn't finding anything with that or similar wording and the title search's got nothing. Closest we've got is So Proud Of You. Likely candidates to say it: Team Mom, Team Dad, most Mentors, older members of the Nakama, any officer who's A Father To His Men. (If you decide to propose this, you might want to keep it at just "you're like a son/daughter to me," to allow more examples. :D)

  • I can't believe we wouldn't already have this one, but I'll be darned if I can find it... what is the name of the trope dealing with a character killing a person (or a group of people) and then their self? Pater Familicide is the closest I can find, but that seems to specifically deal with Father/Mother killing children then themselves. What about Murder/Suicide in general?

  • Is there one for particularly paranoid military organizations that seem to spend more time hunting down subversion in their own ranks than fighting the supposed enemy? I've seen it in Catch22, Blue Gender and Gundam08th MS, but there almost have to be others.

  • Do we have a trope covering the one-night-stand in general? What Did I Do Last Night seems to apply strictly to drunken encounters that a character can't remember (or would like to forget.) What about purposeful and non-drug induced one-night-stands?

  • Is there a trope covering the situation where a newly expecting parent suddenly finds themselves surrounded by other peoples children, usually babies?

  • Is there a trope for when a Xanatos Gambit is suddenly and irredeemably screwed up, a la Inglourious Basterds?
    • Spanner In The Works seems most likely. (In the case of Inglourious Basterds, the spanner would be the drunk German soldier who asks about the British guy's accent, which leads to the Gestapo officer asking, which leads to the bar massacre, which leads to the plan falling apart spectacularly.) The Xanatos Index has related "things didn't work as planned" tropes, like Take A Third Option or Out Gambitted.
    • Actually, I was thinking more of the screwup at the very end, but I realize I didn't word it correctly. The trope I'm looking for is when a person's totally unexpected behavior (shooting Hermann) causes the ruin of the plan.

  • Do we have a trope for ominous heartbeat sounds in the background?

  • Are there any tropes about copyright or copyright issues?

  • Is there a trope for when a character suffers from Death By Origin Story, but the police either never finds who did it or they just straight up don't bother looking for the killer at all, leaving the superhero to seek revenge leading to the You Killed My Father moment?

  • Do we have one where a character will invoke Vigilante Man as a justification for his crimes, but it's really just an excuse to hide the fact that he is doing it for the money, For The Evulz, or for some other non-noble reason?

  • Is there a trope (this pertains to videogames) where in a sequel to a game, a farmiliar object, storyline, song, boss battle, place, etc. is in the sequel but for various reasons, is not nearly as good/meaningful/fun?
    • Nerf might cover some examples.

  • I know there's a trope for this, but my google-fu is weak today. What's the trope where the lovebirds meet during a conflict? Either pointing guns at one another or actually brawling. How Slap Slap Kiss gets started. Not Meet Cute. The important thing is that their introduction to each other occurs as enemies or opponents.

  • This one isn't exactly lost, I simply need help in identifying the trope. In Eyeshield21, main character Hiruma is usually an abusive Jerk Ass, but whenever someone does something that in his opinion is good, he kicks them without saying anything. Other characters then explain: "We figured it out some time ago: if he kicks you without saying anything, it's his way to tell you 'well done'." Does anyone here have any idea what this trope (abusing someone to show praise) is?
    • I don't think we've got this. Does it honestly show up enough to qualify as a trope?
    • I can't find a trope that exactly matches the "uses violence to show affection" thing (although I've seen it used elsewhere; Toph in Avatar, for example), but Love At First Punch kind of touches on it and Hidden Heart Of Gold might be the over-reaching idea behind it. It might have something to do with the Interplay Of Sex And Violence, too, though obviously it's not necessarily a sexual trope. And maybe Slap Slap Kiss, a little.

  • We have For The Evulz. Do we have For The Lulz? As in, a character does something completely random just for kicks, like in For The Evulz, but without any malicious intent?

  • Pika_power Do we have one for Geniuses can spawn metal? Examples such as Dexter's Laboratory and Jimmy Neutron, where both boy geniuses would have little access to metal, but still manage to use a ridiculous amount in their projects. Do we have another one for all metal labs, despite there being no sufficient reason for the floor to be metal other than to make it look hi-tech and shiny?

  • Do we have a trope for when plot-relevant events that are happening/have happened/may happen in a work are shown in child-like crayon drawings? Two examples I can think of are the opening of Magic User's Club, and all the kids drawings from The Ring.

  • Is there a trope for when a group of characters tries to figure out how to solve a particular problem, and one of them comes up with a plan that involves one of them doing something dangerous (or embarrassing, for that matter) without realizing that he's the most suitable for that role — so the result is basically him going "whoops..." while everyone else says "okay, sure, do this".

  • What would you call the monster roar that doesn't really seem to affect the hero? This is usually played up in a comedic fashion in which a monster appears and promptly roars in the hero's face, but instead of defending themselves or running away said hero just stands there and takes it. Many times said monster tends to roar so violently that spit flies everywhere. The hero then opts to either run AFTER the roar or lay out a can of whoopass.

  • Not sure if this exists or not, but an accidental sacrifice? Where a death that appears tragic and senseless at the time winds up kick-starting a chain of events that eventually leads to good things, though nobody could have seen it coming at the time let alone the dead guy?

  • Is there a trope for when a character (almost always female) wears a snake like a mink stole or feather boa?
    • Pretty In Mink?
    • If there isn't, can we call it "Feathered Boa Constrictor"?
      • I would suggest expanding that to the whole "Pets as accessories" trope (assuming that this doesn't already exist) - like a stereotypical pirate's parrot.

  • What's the trope for when the manual or back cover spoils most of the game/movie/book?

  • A trope for where a character spontaneously changes clothes to something that they consider stereotypical of whatever they are becoming. For example, if a character realizes there's a mystery afoot, they suddenly don a deerstalker and pipe ala Sherlock Holmes. Or, if they want to come across as being smart, they'll start wearing glasses and a sweatervest.

  • Do we have one for a situation where the protagonists go in search of a solution to a life-threatening/world-ending/otherwise plot imporant issue, and when they finally arrive at the place they expect will solve their problems they find out that the service/object they need is no longer there because it was cut due to budget constraints?

  • Is there a trope for a character who can pull off impossible feats just because he doesn't realized that he can't?

  • What I'm thinking of is somewhat related to Media Adaptation Tropes, but I can't seem to find the right one, if it exists at all. Say, there's a work that gets an adaptation as another medium (e.g. manga into anime, game into comic/animation/whatever). Said adaptation introduces a number of changes from the original (not neccesarily of the bad kind, as in Adaptation Decay). Then, the storyline gets adapted into yet another medium, where instead of re-adapting the original version or re-adapting the adaptation (as in Recursive Adaptation), the writers deliberately use both the original and its first adaptation as a source material. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon is known for taking a lot more material from the original Sailor Moon manga than the anime did, yet it occasionally seems to also employ things that were unique to the anime in comparison to the manga (that is, aside from the whole bunch of completely new stuff they added). Generally, if a work happens to have two or more versions in different media running simultaneously (aka MediaMix), chances are the subsequent third version/adaptation will be of that kind (though it doesn't have to be the case — the versions may just follow each other one by one).

  • What would be the next step above Sturgeons Law? It's not just 90% of everything that's crud, but 100%. Hell, why not go to 110% or even 200%? Because everything about everything and all things in the universe is crud anyways.
    • Going over 100% would be a statistical impossibility and playing god.
    • Think you're looking for World Half Empty or Crapsack World. A place where everything is completely rotten.

  • Is there a trope for where the good guys suffer a defeat from a villain, but point out that they still have a chance to win through some means — only for said villain to tell them flat-out that they do not have this chance (for a certain reason which may be specified right away or just hinted at). The point is, the villain basically goes "Haha, your hopes are all in vain, so you all suck", and it's not just to mock the heroes because they can, but there's a real reason for why the heroes can't win — and the villain feels the need to point this out to make them lose their confidence or something. A variation is when the villain himself loses something in the battle as well (but still wins), but still mocks the heroes for their situation being even worse — once again, with a particular reason, not just as a random display of evilness.

  • Is there a trope for when experiencing certain emotions (usually negative ones) causes a character to feel pain, almost on the physical level — either because they're too sensitive to these by their nature (maybe they're The Empath or something) or because they're not used to such emotions due to having never felt them before (as in What Is This Feeling; this may happen to both good and evil characters)?
    • The "not used to such emotions" does fit under What Is This Feeling, but "too sensitive" seems to be something else...

  • What Last Words trope isn't necessarily a line one says when they're about to die, but rather a line that virtually triggers the Big Bad to happen? For example, exclaiming "It's a GUNDAM!" in the Gundam universe practically guarantees that you'll be killed by said Gundam.

  • Do we have a trope on the ridiculously long sleeves some characters have, where the sleeve covers their entire hand? Akira from Lucky Star has them on her winter uniform, for example.

  • Looking for tropes that have a characters strenght and/or intelligence changing as the plot requires. One example is Sam Starfall from Freefall who is weak enough to get beaten up by a small child but strong enough to carry Florance (90 lbs/ 40kg). He has also stupid enough to strap a rocket to his truck but often smart enough to figure out things other characters missed.

  • Is there a trope that refers to stories focused on pilots and piloting in an era where flight is still seen as eccentric, dangerous, and somewhat glamorous? The RPG Grandia III, Last Exile, Airborn (if I recall that one correctly), and to a slightly lesser extent Crimson Skies are modern examples. I can only imagine the quantity of older series. They might have Steam Punk, Sky Pirate or a Cool Airship and often the The Sky Is An Ocean , but this describes a setting and story focused on flight as being amazing and dangerous. I was thinking of calling the trope Wild Blue Yonder should a new one need to be made.

  • Skill Stones? Materia? I'm thinking of a gameplay mechanic where your characters have physical objects which they attach to themselves somehow, with these objects imbueing the wearer with new commands to be used in battle (special attacks, spells, etc). Don't tell me we don't have this. ~Slvstr Chung (If I have to launch this, I'm gonna call it "Skill Stones" after Jeanne D Arc, since that's more descriptive, even if Final Fantasy VII is more popular.)

  • Is there a trope for when the viewer/readers sees the events of the plot through the viewpoint of one group of characters during a time period, then afterwards sees the same time frame from the perspective of other characters? Not so much a Rashoman thing but more like Saw III/IV (yes, I looked there). Also, is thee one for when the narrative suddenly stops following the main character and introduces another? (not quite the Decoy Protagonist...more like, say, in Dreamcatcher, when it introduces Owen and the military as main characters when the first large portion of the book was about the four friends in the cabin, but from that point on the story follows both groups)? Sorry if my questions don't make any sense, it's hard to phrase.

  • What trope describes a situation in which a disaster reveals the true character of somebody? i.e. When shit hits the fan that nice deliveryman that you greet everyday suddenly becomes Ax Crazy, the once calm and collected teacher becomes an unstable mess spewing out Water Works, and that dirty hobo that nobody thinks twice about actually becomes The Messiah. Some also say that these "true selves" also come out when you're drunk.

  • What's the term for the tropes that record the reactions of humanity when the end of the world is coming? The options that humanity takes are either:
    • Band together as an entire species and do its damnest to fight for their right to live. Sometimes it takes a fantastic disaster to break the barriers of ignorance and hate.
    • Panic in such a way that it destroys what little semblance of sanity is left, such as killing spree or mass indulgence of epic proportions. World's going to hell anyways.
      • For the latter, Dying Like Animals.
      • So what would be the term for a kind of person (or people) that would revert to savages the instant that the end is coming? Like they use the end of the world as an excuse to commit unspeakable crimes against humanity because they're going to die anyways? Rules and civilization becomes moot because it'll all be over soon?
      • Humans Are Bastards?
      • The former fits under The Alliance.
      • The opposite of Dying Like Animals is Fighting For Survival.

  • Is there a trope about when a pretty girl gets a makeover to give herself a different image as individualist, smart or cool?

  • What's the trope for when a character pretends to hate somebody because they are secretly in love with them, and don't want anybody to know. For example, Helga from Hey Arnold. I can't for the life of me find the article, but I'm sure one must exist.

  • I can't remember the name, but there's a crime trope where if someone knows that another person has committed a crime, they take the blame to save the other person.

  • What's the one for some sort of authority figure who usually gets pushed around by an Evil Chancellor, a Beloved Smother, or whoever, but who then grows a spine and reasserts themselves? I'm looking for something more specific than just standing up to bullies - I'm hoping for something directly dealing with reclaiming authority that the person was meant to be exercising all along.
    • Calling The Old Man Out, Klingon Promotion, and Challenging The Chief all come pretty close.
      • All of those seem to be situations where the person who takes action is ranked lower than the person they're challenging, so I don't think they're really what I was hoping for. I'm wanting things where the guy is already meant to be the boss, but just wasn't acting like it until now. Thanks anyway, though.
      • So basicly, you're looking for a version of Return Of The King that doesn't require the "king" part?
      • Well, sort of. I don't mean that the boss had to have been absent, just that they weren't asserting themselves. For example, a king who is too weak-willed to say no to his Evil Chancellor, but who then is persuaded by the hero to actually do something about it. The king was never absent, or kicked off the throne, but just wasn't using the authority he had. An actual example might be in Wall E - the captain didn't "return", because he was captain all along, but he did have to fight to regain control from AUTO, who was supposedly his assistant. Basically, I'm just looking for "the boss reclaims control from subordinates".

  • Do we have a 'date stakeout' trope? This is where a character decides to keep any eye on a girl when they go on a date as the don't trust who they are dating. This comedy trope usually has chaos and Hilary as the result as things go more and more wrong for the character.

  • Do have any RTS tropes for permanent take over of enemy units, I've looked at Charm Person and Enemy Exchange Program and neither seem to fit. one example of this is The Judas warlord of Machines that Converts units to you side.

  • Is there a trope for when a fictional society basically treats social status and/or reputation like levels? You might be punished for misbehaving or even be placed in slavery for crimes, but in the end you can regain your original status and people will treat you as if nothing happened, instead of like if you were tainted forever.

  • A trope for a leader figure who has a lot of natural charisma, easily earns the respect of people, even rivals, tends to be the backbone spirit of a Nakama group. Similar to The Messiah but without the unconditional love and forgiveness part, such examples are ending up there however. Heero Yui from Gundam Wing, Carrot Ironfoundson from Discworld, Aragorn. Didn't some trope recently get renamed Keystone Character or was being considered for it? If not, well...

  • Is there a trope for a sunrise or morning ending? Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
    • Sunrise - Cue The Sun. Sunset - Riding Into The Sunset.
    • But no trope for ending the movie/book/whatever in the early morning to show that the night (the threat) has been dealt with? Too universal?

  • What is the name for the trope where there is a small organization of near-equally prominent members (but generally one leader who commands them all), and these members get systematically eliminated, one-by-one, by the hero? The only movie example I can think of is Kill Bill. But it abounds in video games. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II has the Seven Dark Jedi. Kingdom Hearts has a council of Disney villains while Kingdom Hearts II has Organization XIII. Even Mario 3 and Super Mario World have Bowzer and his children. Not to be confused with just a standard line of bossses; they have to have an organizational/familial connection with each other to count. "Single-elimination Organization" is the name that comes to my mind, but I'm sure there's a real name out there. Thanks!
  • Five Bad Band is actually pretty close to what I was thinking, but, upon further searching, it looks like Gotta Kill Them All fits the theme I was looking for. Thanks!

  • Is there a trope for a plot where the characters go through some plan, likely Zany Scheme, to prevent something from happening, and then in the end it happens anyway — usually because of some relatively minor circumstances none of them accounted for?
    • Spanner In The Works
    • *confused* That page seems to be about a character type who can ruin the plan through their sheer stupidity; this mainly causes the plan to crash. But consider that the "minor circumstances" might not be a single stupid character doing something unpredictable — maybe all of those who came up with the plan failed to notice something important, maybe the victim of the plan has some special abilities they forgot about... that means, the plan itself was doomed to be a failure from the start because of some flaw in it — they just didn't realise it until it's too late, and the plan might even be completed already, but turn out to have no results.

  • In new media, especially in video games and other computer animated things, Amazing Technicolor Population happens, but you also can get wild variation in body types/models (which might need a trope too, now that I think about it.) But do you ever notice how (main)characters with the same model type are paired up? Raz and Lili from Psyconauts—they both have the same shape of head. Link and Tetra in Wind Waker. Bob and Dot in Re Boot.
    • I suppose it could consider it to be an overlap with Token Shipping.
    • Model Couple is also something of an overlap. But it's been YKNTW'ed.

  • Is there a trope for the generalized version of Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo, but more specific than I Know You Know I Know ? Something to describe an event like this: a police officer is chasing a criminal. There's a fork in the road, one path is open and brightly lit, and the criminal will surely get caught if he chooses that path and the police officer does too. The other path is dark, with a lot of places to hide. If the criminal and the police officer both take that road, there's still a good chance of the criminal getting away. If they choose different paths, the criminal gets away for sure. Which path should the criminal take, which path should the police officer take?
    • What you are describing is known in Game Theory as the Prisoner's Dilemma I am pretty sure, or a variation close to it. I don't know if the wiki has a page for it.

  • I was looking at the No You Hang Up First page, and I think there must be a broader version of this somewhere — essentially, two characters getting stuck in a situation because both are too... polite or something to proceed. Like failing to go through some door because each feels the need to let the other do it first. Or failing to converse because both have questions to each other and can't decide who should ask first. As with No You Hang Up First, this is primarily a comedy trope, because the process can go on for ages unless it somehow gets interrupted. So...?
    • Twice Shy?
    • Hm... now that I think of it — such situations might not neccessarily be between lovers. Consider just two random people who are stuck with that "no, please, you first"-"no, you" thing just because it's considered polite to let the other go first. They might even be the same gender, I think. It's less of a Cannot Spit It Out type and more of... eh... a disadvantage of trying to be polite?...

  • I've searched through the Poor Communication Kills stuff, but I must tell you it's confusing as hell — so I'll ask here first. Say, Character A is convinced that Character B did something... um... of a questionable nature. Character A then starts to treat Character B accordingly, without even attempting to clarify the whole thing first — only with some vague references that Character B can't understand simply because they did nothing like that and have absolutely no clue what Character A is talking about. The closest thing I found is You Know What You Did, but it seems to be primarily about couples; also, this can be subverted if Character A decides to forgive Character B (for that thing that Character B had never really done), with Character B left clueless about what exactly Character A is forgiving them for. Sorry for stupid questions here. Might be One Side Of The Story, with the quirk that the other side doesn't even know what the argument is about? *utterly confused*

  • I'm trying to remember the name of a trope where a fraudulent romance turns into a real one. For example, a secret agent is sent undercover as a suspect's lover. However, over time said secret agent really DOES become said suspect's lover. Said trope is usually accompanied with a line such as, "It started out that way...but now I think I love you..."

  • What trope would cover characters who are seen taking medication or recreational drug - usually in pill forms - throughout the story, but when the stress is too much, they jam pills into their mouth, dropping some, dry swallowing them, etc?

  • Is there a trope for video games where instead of having actual extra lives, you only have a limited number of unique characters, and if you lose all health with one of them you can't use them anymore, possibly until you 'regain' them in some manner?

  • I found many Tropes that partially covered the concept of multiple timelines, but none really seems to fit. All The Myriad Ways appears to be covering the cases where the concept is abused for throwaway timelines, while Butterfly Of Doom and For Want Of A Nail could apply, but also have cases where there is a single timeline that can be changed.

  • Is there a Trope entry for a superhero headquarters, or just a headquarters in general? I've seen specific ones such as Supervillain Lair and Elaborate Underground Base but none seems to fit.

  • Two characters are necking, or something, in a semipublic room (usually a kitchen?) when they hear a noise at the door...by the time the (accidental) intruder walks in, they're very ostentatiously and separately engaged in completely innocent activities. If the intruder happens to be particularly young, naive, or tactless, he or she might have a couple of awkward questions—"Why are you blushing like that? And why's your hair all mussed?"—but will probably quickly drop the topic in favor of something more pressing. I've also seen this from the POV of the intruder. Either way, is there a name for it, or a larger trope it falls under...?

  • Two in one: 1) Is there a trope for situations where the heroes or villains need to use a location or a device that was going to be used by an irrelevant third party? 2) A trope where if there is a potential love interest, odds are s/he is going to be an integral part of the plot and the relationship cannot ever work because of that, and the attempted romance would inevitably be tragic.

  • Is there one for a bitchy comment from someone who is not necessarily a Jerk Ass/ Jerk With A Heart Of Gold/ The Libby?

  • There's a bunch of specific or elaborate suicide tropes, but not a "just suicide" trope, supertrope or an index. Or is there? Because I was trying to find one.
    • No, because "Suicide" all by itself isn't really what we consider a trope. How it's used in the work is a trope, how it affects the characters or how they react to it is a trope, but "Suicide" by itself isn't, anymore than "Chairs" or "Rain" by themselves are.
      • Although a Suicide Tropes page (like the Death Tropes page) wouldn't be out of line. That's assuming there are enough suicide tropes to make such a page more than two or three entries.

  • Is there one where we see some perfectly nice scenes, like a flowing river or a busy street, and then we cut to or are shown something completely squick? Like, for instance, someone falling from a great height into the river, or someone being run over in the busy street?

  • Looking for any tropes where a character 'voluntarily' decides to be quiet, though defeats, threat or suggestion. Common phrases would be "I'll be quiet now" or "Okay, I'll just shut up" or simply silence as in this example and also this example Both from FreeFall

  • Are there any tropes about whispering?

  • A trope where in a conversation, someone says something that sounds perfectly nice and then follows it with a statement that doesn't sound quite right.
    • I can only come up with Damned By Faint Praise, but that doesn't sound like what you're after. Might want to check out other Insult Tropes.
    • I don't mean an insult- more like, if Alice says to Carol, 'Yeah, Bob and I had a really good date last night- he bought me flowers', and Carol replies, 'Oh, that's nice,' Alice might follow this with 'And then he accidentally pushed me down the stairs.' Like that.

  • I swear there used to be a trope page with the punctuated title Wait What Whoah. I have no idea what the exact punctuation or the ptitle was, but Google's not turning up anything with that phrase. Was it cut? It's not on the list of recently cut tropes.

  • You know that thing where at the start of the story our hero has an ally, and at the end it turns out the guy was working for the other side? Usually the readers can see it coming a mile away, but the hero, however clever he is, does not. (And there's the rare example when it shocks the readers, too.) I've seen it subverted a couple of times where the guy who's been menacing and evil through the whole story turns out to be good, too. The only example I can think of is Luke from the Percy Jackson books, or, for the subverted version, Snape from Harry Potter.
    • We've got about five of them, depending on the situation. Go to the Mentors page and look at the five that are listed separately at the bottom of the list.
    • The Mole?

  • After a breakup, a character will be seen eating ice cream, generally straight out of the container. Sort of Drowning My Sorrows, but with unhealthy food instead of drinking.

  • Sort of like Cant Get In Trouble For Nuthin, only the character knows he can't and isn't trying to get punished and isn't trying at all to hide his misdeeds. He knows he won't be punished, either by knowing/being related to the right people or having something like a Licence To Kill.

  • I think I've seen this one, but can't remember where: Where the Big Bad Evil Guy is constantly sending out threats against the hero - when the BBEG is clearly capable of thrashing the hero himself - because he wants the hero strong enough for his own purposes.

  • Where do we keep our trope for people passing through mechanisms or machines? This is usually a cartoon trope. There's usually a cut-away involved and the character usually ends up in, as, or in the shape of whatever comes out on a conveyor belt.
    • Not just cartoons—it appears in Modern Times.

  • Been trying to find this one, do we have it? A character is on a quest (or something like that) and runs into someone threatening, but they end up making that person laugh, so the threatening person not only doesn't hurt them, but they give them a hand with their quest.
    • Hmmm, Heel Face Turn is about people changing side, maybe your example is covered by it.
    • Not neccessarily: I think that "someone threatening" might just as well be on the neutral side, not the villains', the original reason for treating the hero badly being just that they have nothing to do with the hero either (maybe they're just a jerkass). IMHO, this is more about humour helping to establish a good relationship or understanding, rather than people changing sides?..

  • Do we have that thing where doomsday is predicted, so an entire population starts doing whatever crazy things they always wanted to since there are no consequences as they're gonna die soon anyway. For example, in The Simpsons and Cow And Chicken when apparently a meteorite is about to kill them.
  • Dying Like Animals is closest I can think of.

  • Have we a trope for where the plot revolves around an accidental death and someone going to increasing lengths to hide the body? Examples: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, The Cement Garden by Ian Mc Ewan, Into the Garden by VC Andrews
    • We have Dead Mans Chest which is about trying to hide a dead body in general. I can not think of anything that covers the plot revolving around hiding the fact that they're dead at all, which is what you seem to be talking about.

  • Is there a trope for overly sparkly shoujo manga eyes? I looked through the anime tropes, but couldn't find it.

  • Do we have a trope from unfortunate reflex actions? For example some martial arts expert gets tapped on the shoulder only to throw or nearly beat up that person, before recognizing there a friend. Generally causes embarrassment and fear on part of the person affected.

  • A trope where if someone tries to go back in time to change an event, they either are not allowed to change it, they are talked out of it or if they try to stop or change the event, it actually makes it happen.

  • What would be a trope for a Hero-type character that is much adored and loved by its fanbase, even though that hero...well, isn't all that nice of a guy to begin with? Definitely not the paragon of justice and truth that fandom makes him out to be. Dracoin Leather Pants springs to mind, but that's for villainous characters who get adoration from fandom even though they're kind of ... So Yeah. Is there a related trope for heroes that are given a undeserved saintly status by fandom? Or would that be too much of a Subjective Trope to even be a real trope?
    • Heroic Sociopath? Villain Protagonist? Anti Hero?
      • None of them are quite what I have in mind. It's not that the Hero himself is a bad guy—he's just totally overexposed and turned into a God who can do no wrong by fandom, instead of a normal well-rounded character (like he would be in the source material). It's like Flanderization, I guess, but within the fan perspective, not the creators. Hence the Dracoin Leather Pants comparison, only those are for overexposed/easily/forgiven can do no wrong antagonists.
    • Misaimed Fandom, then?

  • There's a character who is part of the group due to being among the chosen ones or some such, but (s)he seems to be more along for the ride than anything else, or may even prove to be a liability to the group. Then at some later point in the storyline, the character finally gets a moment where they demonstrate unequivocally that they do in fact belong with the group. Is there a trope for this moment?
    • Crowning Moment Of Awesome? Lets Get Dangerous? Crouching Moron Hidden Badass? Beware The Nice Ones?
      • All are somewhat close, but not quite what I was thinking of. The person doesn't necessarily have to be a "nice one" or a person who seems like a bumbling fool most of the time. The second and third suggestions imply that the person reverts after a brief moment of awesomeness. The examples I'm thinking of usually leave the character at the new level they've achieved. I guess maybe it would be akin to character development, only more instantaneous? And while it could easily be considered a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, it would have to be a bit more than just one of those, as it truly defines a new level for the character. The primary example that comes to mind is a character from the Wheel of Time, Mat Cauthon, who doesn't really do anything helpful until the end of the second book, and only really proves himself to be on par with the others in a certain scene early in the third (at least in this one's opinion).
      • Took A Level In Badass?

  • After watching the Rush Valley episode of FMA:Brotherhood, I realised how sick I was of birth scenes. Do we have a trope for "If a pregnant woman is introduced in an episode, she will have given birth by the end of it, the female lead will take charge, and the male leads, after rushing off to get towels and water will wait outside the door and chat about life. We will never see what is happening inside the room"

  • Can't find this one anywhere, but I'm almost sure I've seen it on this site before. Some characters are negotiating. One of them throws in something that seems extremely minor on top of his offer, and that causes the other to immediately agree. For instance, Alice is the devil and wants Bob's soul. Alice: "I'll give you the entire continent of Asia." Bob: "Well...I don't know..." Alice: "*sigh* And a puppy." Bob: "Sold!" One example from a movie would be when Jack Sparrow tempts Barbossa with the prospect of being a commodore, and Barbossa only agrees when Jack offers to buy him the hat as well. I'm 90% sure I've seen a trope for this, but if not "With Sprinkles on Top" would be a good name for it.

  • What is it called when an extremely powerful plot device is introduced for an extremely minor purpose and then never seen again? The kind of device that makes you say "Gee, they sure could use that..." ever subsequent time the characters get into trouble? Example: the Time Turner in the Harry Potter series. Because a freakin' time machine is only useful once.

  • Do we have a trope where enemy takes a form of somebody hero loves in order to get an advantage in fight?

  • I know we have Coitus Uninterruptus, but do we have one for plain ol' "Coitus Interruptus"? (For those not up on Latin, think "If the Moment Killer is about ten minutes late")

  • We have a trope for Does Not Like Men and Does Not Like Women, but do we have one for "Does Not Like People," i.e. plain old misanthropy?

  • Is there something like "Stuck On Zeroth Base" when a boy and a girl in a series have been together for quite a bit, doing sweet things for each other and getting closer, and while in real life one would wonder how far they already got, they haven't even kissed in the series? Is there something like "Running The Bases At Dangerous Speed" when the unresolved tension finally short circuits?

  • Is there a trope (probably mostly anime) for when the main character doesn't seem to know to finish off the enemy until someone else tells them to? Sailor Moon is a particularly notable offender; this troper is watching the subbed series for nostalgia's sake, and she can't help but notice the Once An Episode line, "Now, Sailor Moon!"

  • Is there a trope that is about a Ridiculously Unstable Reality? Such as, it's an everyday occurrence that all (or large swaths) of civilization may be wiped out in a number of different ways, usually by acts of God or Magic, and yet society in general manages to remain stable nonetheless?

  • I know I've seen this, but for the life of me I can't figure out what to call it. Two characters spend an entire season or movie getting together and finally do at the end. Cut to the next season or the movie sequel and the are apart again for some reason. Therefore we can spend ANOTHER whole season/movie getting back together. It's like a Reset Button specifically for relationships.

  • Looking for the trope describing the fact that, whenever a college lecture end on TV, the bell seems to interrupt the professor mid-thought. These professors never plan ahead for their time; they're directly in the middle of whatever they're teaching, and when the bell rings, they shout out a "We'll continue where we left off next class", thereby leading into the scene where our Main Characters are packing up their stuff and walking out while having meaningful dialouge.

  • Looking for a trope that goes thus: the audience is able to guess what is coming up, not because of any internal logic but because they've looked at the running time.

  • Looking for a trope where character A is trying to kill character B, but character B, thanks to a series of lucky coincedences, not only keeps on surviving but remains totally oblivious to character A's efforts. A gets increasingly frustrated as B keeps ducking under sword thrusts and sniper bullets, and B just wonders why stuff keeps breaking around him.

  • Filmmakers often decide to flip an image for aesthetic reasons. Sometimes this can get rather annoying, if some prominent feature of the film's star gets flipped again and again. Do we have something like that? Thanks.

  • Looking for trope or tropes regarding people who have a strange power/friend/life but have no idea that they are strange, kind of a 'normal is what you know' trope.
    • If everyone else knows about it, this is Locked Out Of The Loop.
    • Otherwise, that sounds like I Thought Everyone Could Do That.
      • Thanks, that seems to partially cover it, but maybe there is space for another trope more linked to certain behaviours and beliefs. For example 'I thought every body said grace before a meal' or 'Doesn't everybody spin around three time before going to bed?'. This belief could be due to ignorance or less often the complete inability to see that other people can be very different to them (There's a medical condition like this)

  • Do we have a trope for someone who is always preaching to other characters?
    • I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but it might be Soap Box Sadie.

  • Pretty sure this is anime only: Is there a trope for how when a character gains weight, their voice usually gets deeper, too?
    • I don't know, but if there isn't, I suggest "Heavy Voice" if you start a YKTTW on it.

  • Is there a trope for the scheme where a virus is written to affect a bank's computer system and skim tiny amounts of money into another account - thus accruing millions possibly. This scheme is mentioned in Hackers, Swordfish, Office Space and Superman III.

  • I am looking for a trope that is a relative of Lets You And Him Fight, where protagonist a and protagonist b both are fighting antagonist c, but for whatever reason, protagonist b considers protagonist a to be an antagonist as well. It's not about the fight, but rather that the characters are definitively set against each other in a three-way arrangement. From the beginning, protagonists a and b are at each other's throats, to the point that antagonist c would take advantage of the ensuing clash to strike. Think Horde vs. Alliance, both are the good guys, but they hate each other.

  • Okay, so you've got your everyman hero and his counterpart, who is Not Quite Human in some way. When they go amongst the Muggles, the Not Quite Human has trouble with normal human social cues, and must rely on the everyman hero to guide him/her through it. Hijinks Ensue, and frequently romance too. I'm thinking of Anya and Xander from Buffy The Vampire Slayer; Aeryn and John from Farscape (though they fulfill both roles, depending on where in the universe they are); and recently, Castiel and Dean from Supernatural.

  • How about a music trope regarding songs where it's completely impossible to hear the lyrics without a lyric sheet? Not mondegreenes, just the lyrics being incomprehensible and sounding like complete gibberish if you don't know what to listen for?

  • Is there a trope about the concept of "do as I say, not as I do?"
    • I think Moral Dissonance covers that.
      • I meant in a more literal, specific way. Like when a character is about to kill someone and then tells another character, "Listen to me, never kill people."
      • That's sounds like Protagonist Centered Morality.

  • Is there a trope for Euro games?*

  • a genre of board games with pretty similar mechanics, usually from germany. I'm think Catan, Princes of the Renassiace, etc.

  • A knight, paladin, or other warrior carrying some sort of holy or consecrated written parchment. Examples: a paladin carrying an enormous Bible on a sling, or a samurai with strips of kanji hanging off his armor. What is this?

  • Im sure It's in here some where a troop for certain technologies/ super powers breaking down just when you need them. The ultimate example is star trek, need transporters? too bad that last weapon hit broke them, ditto for warp drive.

  • Is there a trope for when you have two characters who are in the other ends of the scale when it comes to sexual morals, e.g. Chaste Hero and a hooker with a heart of gold? Or vice versa, obvs... i think i saw it somewhere?

  • Saw this on TV the other night; it must be common enough to count as a trope. Basically, a family or group of people are discussing something, then the phone rings. As a laugh, or to make a point, someone answers the phone in a manner related to the current discussion, e.g. "Sharon's Escort Service, press 1 for a good time." Then, sure enough, the person on the other end of the phone will turn out to be the most inappropriate recipient of that greeting, such as a school headmaster or church minister. Awkwardness (and hilarity) ensues.
    A slight variation on this (but I'd probably still count it as part of the same trope) would be when a character answers the phone expecting it to be someone in particular, so blurts out something personal relevant to the perceived recipient, but of course it turns out to be someone whom they really didn't want hearing that particular thing about them. If it's well written and performed, it can be pretty funny, but I saw a version of it recently which was quite clumsily written, in that the person answering the phone had no good reason to assume they knew who the caller would be, but said something stupid anyway.

  • This was either a trope or a YKTTW. The gist of it was, characters who will let other people walk all over them but will defend/stand up for their friends.
    • Martial Pacifist?
      • Mmm, don't think so. It wasn't so much an action/adventure trope, and the "standing up" wasn't necessarily physical. More like The So Called Coward, but that isn't it either, from what little I recall.

  • What's that trope where Character A starts talking about someone, and Character B thinks that they're talking about them, but then Character A mentions who they're talking about, and it's someone completely different? Here's the example that prompted me to try and find this trope (from one of the Strawberry Shortcake specials):
    The Peculiar Purple Pieman: Aren't you forgetting someone?
    Sour Grapes: Of course not, Purpy. I could never forget my purple partner in crime. My warm, wonderfully wicked, nasty but charming...pet snake, Dregs.

  • Pika_power: Do we have one for when pilots eject out of mecha? In particular, the fickle nature of when it counts as an eject,and when the person is killed?

  • When speeches are televised, sometimes, for the benefit of the deaf (presumably the ones who can't afford subtitles), newscasters and advertisers will put someone in the corner of the screen and have them sign out everything the speech maker is saying. This gets sent up a lot in comedy. I'm not actually sure if we have this onsite, but I thought I'd ask before taking it to YKTTW.

  • The horrorcore rapper Syko Sam just got arrested for four murders, and the San Francisco Chronicle identified him by his artistic medium in its headline, talking about the music in much the same way newspapers often discuss violent video games. Since horror rap isn't mainstream, this isn't The New Rock And Roll. Since it isn't a new medium, it's not New Media Are Evil. Since this is real life and not a crime and punishment show, it's not Freaks Of The Week. It could be You Can Panic Now, but that's a bit of a general term. What, if anything, does that leave?

  • Kind of subjective: the feeling of sadness or loss you get after a series is finished. I'm not sure if this is a trope actually.
    • Lostalgia might come close.
      • That is very close, that sounds like a sibling of what I'm looking for. But this isn't about something that ends on a cliffhanger or is unfinished. This is about a series that has been wrapped up and you feel empty inside because something you cherished so much is finished. To give examples, I felt this after Avatar the Last Airbender was over. I also felt it after Metal Gear Solid 4, despite upcoming games for that series.
      • What you're loking for is Lostalgia; it doesn't have to include ending unfinished. That's just a factor that makes a case of Lostalgia worse. "So you find out about an amazing TV show. You watch a couple of episodes, and you're hooked. You buy the DVD box sets, you watch everything else the guy(s) made...then realise that they won't make anything new. Ever. The crushing realisation that this is all there'll ever be, is Lostalgia. Nostalgia, but for a lost cause."
  • Time Travel Trope. The time-traveller has the chance to change one past event, but then snaps back to the (changed) present. Examples include The Butterfly Effect and Time Hollow.}{
  • What's the trope for endings where the authorities catches the main character but decide to let him go. Examples would be The Boondock Saints, Les Miserables and the first Death Wish.
    • Get Out Of Jail Free Card?
    • It looks like it's what I'm looking for but I don't understand the exact definitions of the trope. Is Get Out Of Jail Free Card like a "shrug of forgiveness"?
    • In my three examples they weren't handwaved, they were firmly built into the story and made sense in the end. The guy in Death Wish got away because his actions had caused a major decrease in street crime, and the cops felt that finally catching him would make them look bad and ineffective. In The Boondock Saints the FBI guy eventually agreed with what the main characters were doing and didn't want to stop them. I forgot how exactly Les Miserables went but it definitely wasn't handwaved. Basically, an ending where the authorities let the Main Character/s get away with it for a tangible built up reason that wasn't a last second Ass Pull.
  • A Get Out Of Jail Free Card is when the character escapes consequences only because the plot requires it. Both Les Miserables and Death Wish qualify. A handwave doesn't have to be a last-minute Ass Pull — that's why Ass Pull and Handwave are two different tropes..

  • Is there a trope for when the window blows something away and the characters have to chase after it. Usually something light but important, like a letter, a paper due that day, etc.

  • I'm pretty sure we have one about when writers consider intelligence and knowledge to be more or less interchangeable. For example, plots in which a dumb character is somehow made smart often seem to have that character suddenly know a lot about science, as though knowledge just suddenly appears out of thin air provided you're clever enough.

  • Looking for a trope about names that are "spelled like they sound" but have completely ridiculous spellings. Not exactly Spell My Name With An S because that's about fan translation arguments or mistranslations. I remember there was an example from The Man With Two Brains.

  • Also, are there any direct alternatives to the Literary Agent Hypothesis?

  • What's the one for someone who wants to be seen as upper-class, but who would not really be seen that way by others?

  • There was a trope... I assume it was about names... Anyway, the only example I can think of is from Pirates of the Caribbean, mentioning in one of the movies someone calls someone captain and... anyway, the point was that they used names very carefully, and then there was a line like "as opposed to in the rest of the movie."

  • Is there a trope for how when people blow up balloons, the balloons tend to float as if they were filled with helium?

  • A trope where you start out as a bigger group, but one by one someone stays back so at the end it's just the hero versus the villian. For example: You start with 5 members and as you progress, one person stays back to give the other 4 a chance. Then another stays back to give the other 3 a chance. And so on. In the first Harry Potter, Ron gets left behind, and then Hermione so Harry's alone. In the 3rd Pokemon movie, Brock then Misty get left behind in battles so Ash can get up to his mother. In the first season of Sailor Moon the sailor scouts stay back one by one so the others can keep going.

  • Is there a trope for when, in a relationship, the guy is always fawning over the girl and saying how cute she is etc. while the girl is always picking at the guy, not in a Well Excuse Me Princess way but more of a one-sided The Masochism Tango sort of way? Or would one just call that a one sided The Masochism Tango?

  • Ok this has to exist it starts up when the story sets up a scene and then the narrative kicks in and the4 scene shifts later near th e end of the story we are presented that same opening scene and its reveald that the rest of the story was leading up to that scene sort of like the Daredevil movie (bad movie but good example)

  • Is there a trope name for when someone confronts someone (typically a villain) from behind, and the villain confidently knows of the persons presence despite not seeing them?
    • Badass Back I believe.
    • Could be Offhand Backhand if the person being confronted from behind smacks the confronter without turning around.

  • Do we have a trope for strange things in people's eyes? In XKCD, a man and woman must either break their relationship or have her refuse a dream job from Google, and he thinks that the true love he sees in her eyes will prevail - until he looks closer, and sees "Sorry, we don't have imagery at this zoom level." They have her already. Pratchett's Moving Pictures has tiny glowing stars in the pupils of film stars as a brilliant parody of something or other. Avatar The Abridged Series has an ultra-close zoom-in to a character's eye accompanied by Psycho Strings, until the closest zoom reveals Batman's face with the same expression. Just to be different, The Adventures of John and Dave has the viewpoint zoom in towards John's moustache until it arrives in Mordor.

  • Do have any tropes relating to 'ruining utopia' where a character comes from the past/ the future/ a different planet and shows the local how much fun they could have with the power of love/drugs and alcohol/ sex / rock and roll. Also as utopia it's self was not meant to be a perfect place (rather how a perfect society is impossible or not desirable)they may be better off in the end, as 'perfect' societies tend to be boring, apparently.
    • There had better be.
    • Maybe I'll get on that.

  • I'm sure this must be on here somewhere, but no idea what it might be called. It's the situation when a villain's abilities/powers are shown to be utterly devasting early on, so that the audience is meant to wonder how on earth the hero will defeat them, but later on when the hero actually fights the villain, the villain's abilities have been scaled back to a much more beatable range. The best example of this I can think of is from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: When we first encounter the Kraken monster, it is so powerful that it pulls a whole ship under in an instant, so pretty much invincible. Yet later in the movie when it attacks a ship with our characters on it, it then miraculously moves so slowly and clumsily that people can actually hack at its tentacles with their swords. Ridiculous.

  • A trope for two characters who become friends after something awful happens to them.

  • um, well I found this one once but then lost it, it like... Bob has a crush on Alice, a alice never pays attention to him, then one day, Alice goes through a really bad break up, or gets drunk or something, and throws herself to Bob, but bob, being a gentleman, denies the offer seeing that she doesn't know that she's saying. did I just dream is it really a trope?
    • Are you thinking of Above The Influence?
      • THANKYOU!!!! thanks, I've been looking for it everywhere!!!! thanks dude!

  • Is there one for when a character does something and the time is waay too precise? Like in the Death Note anime where whenever Light uses the Death Note, the person ALWAYS dies on the 40th second (as it takes 40 seconds to die of a heart attack).

  • A trope for a bitter, cynical character. This may have resulted from their backstory.

  • Is there a trope for friends with benefits relationships/ on again off again relationships? We have She Is Not My Girlfriend, Like Brother And Sister, Odd Couple, Just Friends and so on, but I haven't found a trope for that.

  • This seems like such a basic character type that I'm sure we have it, but I've never run across the article. It's a character who never stands up for themselves, but is almost a mama bear for anyone else. Examples: Shirou Emiya in Fate Stay Night, who lets himself get walked all over but will risk death for complete strangers, the eponymous character of Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple, Subaru in Dot Hack Sign, Negi in Mahou Sensei Negima, Kohane in xxxHolic, Mai in Kanon... Lots of examples and not just in anime, despite my polluted brain. We must have this one, but damned if I've ever seen it or have seen it referenced except as mama bear.

  • Closely related to Bilingual Bonus, but not quite: it's when a word has a meaning in another language out of sheer coincidence, without the author(s) realizing it.
    Just to clarify, an example: in One Piece there's a villain, named Eneru, with electricity powers. His name can also be translated as "Enel"; now, ENEL is the name of Italy's electrical power company.
    Do We Have This?

  • Maybe there is no existing trope for this one: When people in a story feel, sense, or experience things in a way no normal humans do. Basically, when people get extremely detailed "intuition," or somehow 'sense' tons of stuff about other characters or situations, even without psychic powers or stuff. What I mean is when a character just meets someone and thinks something like, "I didn't know him, but he gave me a sense of calm, and acceptance, and I could tell he would be an ally in times of need, though definitely could be a source of mischief. When I talked to him I felt that he was one who was well versed in the martial arts, and had lots of experience in large groups of troops in urban warfare." etc. Also many general, vague terms such as "I felt something tugging at my senses," or "I was drawn towards something," or "I reached out with my senses and felt the area," or other stuff normal people can't relate to. I guess it may be an overlap with authors being lazy and just TELLING how people are feeling or acting, instead of SHOWING it or giving reasons for it, e.g. saying "She felt that he was adept with blades." Instead of noting little details that give her that impression, and why. I think I've lost my train of thought, sorry. Does this idea or something like it exist?
    • Might you be looking for Hyper Awareness?
    • Hmmm perhaps, but I was thinking more in the interpersonal, emotional spectrum of things, though Hyper Awareness does include some of that. But I guess the main thing would be a possible subset of Hyper Awareness where it doesn't specify the details that they are aware of, it just blandly says the end result they infer.

  • ok so someone is going through someone elses personal effects and they list off several things which are usually following soem sort of theme and then they list somth ign unrelated which is usualy somthing very common or mundane. not in an Arson Murder And Jaywalking style mind you the y just follow a theme usually and the items can be sinister or not and then theres that weird unrelated article.

  • What is the trope for a mysterious newcomer, basically a guy who gets added in an estabilished team at the last second and is relatively unknown to the rest of the characters? I wanted to add this in the examples for Mindhunters but it seemingly doesn't exist.
    • If it's used as a premiere for a new show, it's Welcome Episode. Otherwise, I don't know.
    • In a welcome episode it's basically the entire plot, and the article is very tv show specific. What I am looking for is a broader version that can be applied to singular works like movies. Maybe the name I'm using is wrong, Tacked On Teammember is probably more accurate. I'm having a hard time thinking of proper examples for this. I guess it's not tropable.
    • New Meat? Ensign Newbie?
    • Both describe fresh graduates with no experience, and those kind of newcomers are usually redshirts or reserves in general.
    • Fifth Ranger?
    • Don't you mean Sixth Ranger? Oh well, it looks close enough even if it's not an exact match.

  • What's the trope for when someone has complete control over their dreams (i.e., deciding what to do, waking themselves up, doing stuff no one can ever make themselves do)?
  • Is there a trope for an activist group (using that expression in a very general sense) which is inspired by another person or group, but not joining that person, just expressing/working towards the same ideals? I know that's a very bad description, so here are a few examples:
    • The Joker Gang from Batman Beyond - inspired by Joker (obviously) to become criminals in a Joker-like way
    • In The Dark Knight Returns the former members of the Mutant Gang are inspired to become vigilantes by watching Batman beat up their leader.
    • The first generation of "real life" costumed adventurers in Watchmen were inspired by Superman et al. in comic books.

  • Is there a trope for the fact that dreams in fiction seem to be perfectly logical a lot more often than people's dreams really are? Not Dreaming Of Things To Come, since this applies to even dreams that aren't being sent to the character somehow or have a message for them. For example, in real life if people would dream about their rival beating them, it would happen in a completely illogical way, or the rival wouldn't look like they really do, something like that. In a book, the character would not only have a dream where the defeat happens exactly the way it would in real life, the character would remember the whole dream perfectly the next day.

  • Is there a trope for when a dead character's friends or squadmates make a makeshift memorial for their comrade by taking their sword or gun and stabbing it into the ground? They might also balance the fallen character's helmet on top, or lean some personal effect against the blade/barrel.

  • Is there a trope for something that's the Hannibal Lecture only it's done by the hero? Captain Kirk was very good at this and both Roy and Haley have given them in Order Of The Stick.

  • Are there any tropes about characters who are supermodel beautiful despite living in the middle ages/ a nuclear wasteland/ hell on earth ?
    • Beauty Is Never Tarnished?
    • On the right lines but not quite this webcomic is an example, the some of the characters look like barbie dolls and even the serious drug users look far better that they should.

  • What's the trope for skulls and other pieces of scenery that turn to follow people?

  • Is there a trope for an animation that ought to depict a gradual change in something, but is instead cyclical?

  • I was wondering if there was a trope for a team of Mary Sues. I've looked in the Mary Sue Tropes index, but didn't see anything about a group.
    • Don't know of one either, but I might suggest Merry Sues.
    • That cracks me up. ^_^

  • Is there a trope or someone related about creators when making a show/movie/game had low expectations for sucess?

  • Looking for a trope about giant newborn babies. You know the scenes showing childbirth and then the baby comes out, but it's obviously not a newborn baby judging by the size of it. Oftentimes it seems as if the baby is several months old and weighs probably 25lbs or more.
    • Unless it's newer shows where CGI and realistic dolls can be used, you're looking at Acceptable Breaks From Reality. I mean, it's not like soaps from the 70s or movie sets will get permission to use real newborns.
    • Dawson Babies

  • Is there a gun trope describing how in video games, certain types of guns always fill the same niches? For example, the pistol is always weak, but accurate and reliable, with plenty of ammo, while the shotgun is lethal at close range and might hit multiple enemies, but rapidly approaches uselessness as the distance to the target increases. That sort of thing?

  • Someone is asked a question or told something which is quite disturbing, which they answer before they or another character suddenly realises what they were just asked.

  • This seems especially prevalent in animanga, but its likely universal. A person gets into a dangerous situation that grows more and more bizarre. then it all turns out to be a prank, a set-up, a lesson, or somehow for their own good. Often, these set-ups involve kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment, but somehow all is good, so long as there are no fatalities. Prankster/set-up artist is most often a Karma Houdini, who never even gets denounced for the lengths they go to. Very often, pranked characters will go out of their way to say how its all right, when in RL prosecution or lawsuit might be on their minds. I guess I'm asking after the seemingly artificial mellowness of the pranked, the aptness to forgive things that might get the set-up artist pounded outside of fiction. Any character who resents these things is often presented as 'uptight'. Anything that speaks specifically to the idea that any potential danger can be forgiven minus fatality or serious injury, when it seems like this is only because the writer writes it that way.

  • Do we have any tropes about the rather bizare rating/beleif systems that see violence as more acceptable than sex and swearing ? For example the american film classification board will let lots of violence be included in a film but sex (or even nipples) will make the rating jump considerable as will a single swear word.

  • X is in trouble. Y wants to know why X didn't ask them to help. X says that Y is too violent for this problem, exposing Y's methods of dealing with problems.

  • A trope for when someone is attacked or something like that, it happens off-screen so all we see is their friends running in to save them and finding the bad guy dead/tied up/unconscious.

  • Is there a trope out there for "Hulking Out" - meaning "get angry, get large, shit gets broken". Jekyl And Hyde, Superpowered Evil Side and You Wouldnt Like Me When Im Angry don't quite cover that specific trope. And the former two don't really fit because the trigger is almost always pure rage.

  • Lots of Animesque pictures, usually of women, depict the character with the mouth hanging open for no good reason, like our very own Trope-Tan. Why exactly is that? Is this supposed to be cute or something? Is there a trope for this? Thanks.
    • It's mentioned in Manic Pixie Dream Girl Stare. It's supposed to be a happy smile, but with no lips drawn and no shading on the face to indicate muscle movement it's just "their mouth hanging open"

  • A chunk of text is revealed, one paragraph at a time, ending with a short sentence packing an emotional punch. Eg: "The godfather was born Vito Andolini, in the town of Corleone in Sicily. In 1901 his father was murdered for an insult to the local Mafia chieftain. His older brother Paolo swore revenge and disappeared into the hills, leaving Vito, the only male heir, to stand with his mother at the funeral. [Pause for effect] He was nine years old." Often used to tell us about the human cost of whatever war the movie we just saw was set in.

  • Looking for a trope that describes what is essentially a Power Of Friendship event, usually toward the end of a given medium or arc thereof, where the hero and/or the hero's posse is preparing for a final confrontation, but stops for a moment. The moment of non-action may or may not be justified (e.g., on the reveal of the next form of the One Winged Angel or Sequential Boss), but is notable for the cast of minor characters, who probably have said very little up to this point, to give a sudden impromptu cheer. After all the supporting characters deliver their lines, the hero/posse gains the determination to defeat the Big Bad. This can be especially jarring if the media does not have many lines. It's not necessarily Big Damn Heroes, because the people cheering on the hero or posse are generally not directly assisting, and may not even be present (or if they are, they were already present before, and did not stage a Big Damn Heroes appearance). I know it shows up in a lot of games (e.g. Fire Emblem, Boktai, Final Fantasy), but I recall reading an off-hand comment that it is also a common anime trope. However, I can't say anything on the latter, given that I don't watch it. Thanks in advance.

  • Is there a trope for a planet, country, race or simply population of people who all possess psychic abilities and/or super powers? Thanks.
    • Planet Of Hats, where the "hat" is that particular super power.
      • No, what I'm looking for is a population of people who possess a large variety of mostly unique powers collectively, not all the same power.
      • Still fits, as "Everyone has a superpower" is the "hat". You could probably define what you're looking for further under Superpower Lottery.

  • In the Tintin book Destination Moon, Captain Haddock spends a lot of his screen time getting all worked up at Professor Calculus for getting him involved with the moon project, saying repeatedly that the idea of putting people on the moon is extremely crazy. Reading it now, his outbursts don't seem funny anymore, just sort of weird. This isn't a Funny Aneurysm Moment, because it wasn't made unfunny by something horrible happening, nor is it Hilarious In Hindsight, because future events made it LESS funny, not more. It doesn't seem to fit with the other examples on Tech Marches On, so I'm not sure where to put it.

  • Do we have the "character gets stabbed by arrows with insults written on them" trope? Not real arrows, of course. It seems common enough that I figured it'd already be on here, with a name like "Pointed Criticism" or something like that.

  • SharPhoe: Another one from me. Is there a trope for when someone is trying to make a change to something, then after several tries (and thorough frustration of anyone helping), he decides that whatever option thery currently have is "perfect"... and it's the exact same option they started with. For example, the old furniture gag with
"A little to the left... no, too far, more to the right... now bring it forward... No, not that far, back up a bit... THERE, Perfect!"
  • or if a character wants a new hairdo or outfit and goes through several styles before deciding on the one they originally had, usually blissfully unaware that it's the same one. I figure it would be some kind of subtrope of Status Quo Is God or something...

  • Character has a deep dark secret that the audience is aware of and that they must never reveal. Immediatly, the ambient universe seems destined to talk about the secret - the next person s/he meets seems like they know the secret via having a very metaphore-heavy conversation, et cetera. Example: in Heroes, when Claire goes to a new school and West asks if she's "one of them", an "alien or a robot"; furthermore, after she cuts off her toe, the teacher's lecture is about mitosis (my-toe -sis)

  • Hm. I just can't seem to find the psychological version of Hollywood Healing: The fact that, after trauma-inducing nightmarish adventures, the hero and her family just walk off to happily live ever after. Ex: The family in Face/Off would most probably fall apart, or kill each other, in Real Life. Any hints? Thanxalot.

  • I'm sure this is in here somewhere; I just have no idea how to search for it: a character comes to terms with (if not outright accepts) his dark side/inner beast/not-necessarily-evil "other self". Most immediate example that comes to mind is the comic book character Werewolf By Night; both he and his Darker and Edgier alternate continuity counterpart gained control over their transformations and werewolf forms by accepting and gaining an approachment with their inner wolves.

  • Is there a trope for when a character misinterprets some statement as a euphemism, and assumes the worst, when that statement was meant to be taken literally? Hypothetical example: Alice hears that Bob is spending lots of money on "Belgian chocolates", and thinks this is some kind of slang term for an addictive drug, but it's actually expensive imported chocolates.

  • Do we have one for when a video game Boss Room is too small for the boss to live in, or get in and out of? Lots of times you'll fight a giant dragon in a giant room, but the only way in or out is a human-sized door and a long, narrow hallway. The uber example would probably be Kraid in Super Metroid, who's confined to a room barely more than his body length in any direction.

  • Is there a trope for a character that is fat, but is proud of it, and may even complain when they lose weight?

  • Do we have any tropes for radical redesigns where a character/creatures has little in common with past versions except the name. For example Dryad from D&D 3.5e◊ and then the D&D 4e version◊
    • While In Name Only is mostly about works, it could cover this situation.

  • " Are there cops in this town?"
    I know we have this, but we have the "where are the adults". But do we have "Where are the cops?" when all the characters do numerous things that would get them at the very least arrested if not jailed for life, but somehow there are never any cops. When the cops do show up they say stuff like"Well no one was hurt" mmeaning there are no obvious dead bodies and go back to the station. I was watching True Blood, where the vampires are constantly going over the legal line. They harass people by showing their fangs. Its not legal to intimidate people physically. Even if you don't touch them you go to jail. They kill, they break furniture...and although there are human vigilantes the cops do nothing. Even obvious murders go unremarked. But when anyone other then a vampire kills people the national guard comes. WTF?

  • A character tries to reassure someone, but just makes things worse.

  • A world in with suicide is legal, and (usually) encouraged. An example would be Soylent Green.

  • Is there a trope for what I'm thinking of as You Don't Know What You've Lost Till It's Gone? A la the plot for My Best Friend's Wedding, where the woman doesn't realize she wants her guy friend/marriage until he calls and tells her he's engaged. Or a character doesn't want children until she miscarries, or the character's significant other miscarries, or children foisted on the character are reclaimed by parent, etc.

  • The hero is in chains in the villain's dungeon, and the villain's daughter is so attracted to him that she helps im escape or even joins his side. Seen a Gazillion times, can only specifically remember it from an obscure irish song, crying for heeeeelp!!!!

  • A trope where someone names a few people and leaves one off, only to have another character add the forgotten person to the list.

  • Is there a trope for showing something floating in a vat of (usually) green goo and covered in wires, like a robot or artificial life form?

  • Is there a trope for a Narrator narrating what the characters are about to say?
    Narrator: Alice was worried but Bob didn't care.
    Alice: I'm worried.
    Bob: I don't care.

  • The trope I'm looking for was described as the reverse of Evolving Credits. In which (for instance) a character who has left the show is still credited in he opening credits even though he left years ago. I remember seeing this in YKTTW, but I have been unable to find it there, and I can't find it anywhere on the Main Wiki. Was it even launched?

  • Ok this one is used in series about teenage action girls. a big dance or event is coming up and they have a nice dress for it either she had it stowed away or their mom bought it for her as a surprise. so now as she's getting ready something big happens and she either has to face the Big Bad or The Dragon or something thorough the rest of the episode she never takes off that dress and she kicks ass in it as she normally would (or maybe better)

  • Is there a trope for the exact opposite of a White Void Room (i.e., Black Void Room)?

Found

  • Is there a name for the awkward introductions of the main character to the strikeforce that they're pairing up with? "Blade, this is Reinhardt. That's Snowman, Lighthammer, Priest, Chupa and Verlaine." If memory serves, every one of the aforementioned characters did some kind of lame salute or demonstration of their abilities as they were introduced. I've seen this a number of places. Anyone have an identifier for me? Thnaks.

  • I'm looking for a trope...what I'm thinking of is when a character or group of characters are devoted followers a figurehead until said figurehead is removed from power. When that happens, the followers latch onto whoever did the removing or another powerful figure and begin to follow them with the same level of devotion. I want to say that this is an inversion of Be Yourself, but I don't know for sure. Help, please!

  • One thing I see a lot on animal cartoon characters is a tendency for one of their ears to look like a bite was taken out of it. Examples include Furball on Tiny Toon Adventures or Ronno from Bambi 2 (both with marks on their right ears). Is there a trope name for this? And does anyone know the purpose of making ear bitemarks a characteristic? My guess is it just makes them look cuter.
    • Sounds like Fashionable Asymmetry.
      • Thank you. Since eye patches and monocles are included, I figure that's close enough.

  • I'm thinking about a troop about those greedy bastards that do anything for money. In the archives I have seen money fetish, but I've seen none so far that has to do with the will to do whatever dead as long as there is money/treasure to be found.
  • What happened to that one trope, Don't You Dare Die On Me(or something similar)? I can't find it in Death Tropes.

  • Is there a trope for where reporters reporting on a certain franchise show an astoundingly poor understanding of said franchise?
  • A trope where whenever somebody plans to do something that isn't necessarily allowed when their parents/guardians/whoever are away, they always end up coming home early and catching them in the act.

  • Do we have this one? A person is called or whatever and told something like "turn on the TV, x is on/this is happening", ect, and the TV is always set to the relevant channel without being told the channel. The example that sparked the nag would be a Doctor Who episode in which Martha's mum calls her and says "Your sister is on TV." When she clicks on the set, it's at exactly the right channel. Perhaps this falls under Acceptable Breaks From Reality?

  • I know we have this somewhere. What's the trope for conversations like this:
    A: "Let's see...I brought a map, compass, canteen, hooker, trail mix..."
    B: "...what did you say?"
    A: "Trail mix?"

  • I'm looking for a form of Culture Clash that's on the audience, but isn't values related (so isn't Values Dissonance). I'm thinking of Battle Royale and the classroom scene, most of which (particularly the video) is a pastiche of actual Japanese lessons, something mostly lost on Western audiences who frequently believe there's Narm involved. Seen It A Million Times I'm sure!

  • I could have sworn I've seen this before. It's where sexual arousal is shown by a cat's tail standing on end or the like?

  • Anyone seen a trope that describes a spectacle in the background or slightly off screen but in hearing range: basically it's Exactly What It Says On The Tin: the action in the scene is focused on a given character or characters, but there is some kind of scene or commotion in the background, which everyone, even the camera, seems oblivious to.

  • Is there a trope for animation where the extras in a crowd disappear when the focus is on the main characters?

  • Are there any tropes about obsession or characters who are obsessed with something?

  • Is there currently a trope that describes the inevitable romantic attraction between a serious, straight-laced character and a more frivolous free spirit? I've seen this all over the place in fandom, but the example that sticks out in my mind is the implied pseudo-romantic relationship between Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello in Psychonauts.

  • Somewhere out there, possibly over the rainbow, is there a trope that covers laconic one-liners delivered rather matter-of-factly that embody such innate badassedness that all who hear it are rendered impotent? My example: Soon after the outbreak of World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm I was speaking to the Chancellor of Switzerland. Wilhelm noted that the Swiss army was about 300,000 men. The Chancellor nodded; it was true. Kaiser Wilhelm then prodded him, "If the German army were to cross your border tomorrow with 900,000 men, what would you do?" The Chancellor calmly stated, "Each of my men would fire three shots and go home." Apocryphal, most likely, but certainly badass.

  • looking for a trope similar to 'rendered speechless by stupidity' where a character says something so stupid that another character has troble speaking for a moment or their mind protects them, not allowing them to realise how stupid it was for example

  • Something about all the signs in "Red Dwarf" being in English and in Esperanto seemed to be familiar, but it wasn't until recently that I found out why. In an old novel, "Deathworld 2," the protagonists crash-landed on a planet populated by people who spoke only a debased Esperanto, a holdover from when their ancestors crashed there generations ago. It strikes me that there was a plague of Esperanto-themed silliness years ago—and I apologize if I remind anyone of "Incubus"—and for a while everyone thought Esperanto was the wave of the future and would unite the world. Is there a trope out there that describes something like this, where the world (nay, the UNIVERSE!) is unified under one government, one language, and we all do happy stuff happily ever after?

  • Do we have a trope for when a character shares the same name as a fictional celebrity or powerful family? For example, in Satou Kashi No Dangan Wa Uchinukenai, the new transfer student is assumed by her classmates to be the daughter of a famous pop idol, because she has the same first and last name. I know we have Named After Somebody Famous, but that appears to be about fictional characters who are named after real-life celebrities.
    • Is Named Like My Name what you're looking for?
      • edit: Actually, now that I've taken another look at that I think it will work for me. Thanks!

  • Is there a trope dealing with the practice of an actor intentionally putting on a significant amount of weight in order to play a role?

  • Is there a trope for a rather specific type of fighting in shonen: both fighters exchange very-high-speed blows, so all you can see is several dozen fists appearing for a split second. Seen in Hokuto No Ken (the page picture), DBZ, SSBB (one of Cpt. Falcon's moves), and SMBZ.

  • Is there a trope for a pseudo time travel? Sci-fi writers may sometimes have their characters visit a planet that has a culture very similar to, say, ancient Greece or something like that, which effectively creates the impression that they are in the past, when in reality there was no time travel and the similarity is, more often than not, just a coincidence?

  • When people (mostly in cartoon, anime and movies) start reading a book, they always end up reading in the middle of the book. There is a troope for that?
    • Comes part and parcel when you are a Lazy Artist. (It's even listed as an example.)

  • Is there a trope about the main objective of the bad guys failing, and they just pack up and leave and give up what they gained so far, even though the good guys still couldn't beat them? Is it different if they have a valid reason, such as they wanted home anyway or they have a new main objective that's really more rewarding for them than staying?

  • Is there a trope where you have a person in an animation who says something, but since their lips aren't visible (or present), they instead move something else to indicate they're the one speaking?

  • Is there a trope for Big Guy, Little Girl? And no, get your minds out of the gutter, that's not what I mean. I mean a Big Guy who's love interest is very petite and small, making for a funny picture even when it wasn't meant to be played for laughs. Or it could be to show that she is in need of protection from a big guy like him. Or to humanize him. Shows up in anime a lot. I'm thinking of Jet from Cowboy Bebop with Alisa.

  • I'm not sure if there's a trope for this, but basically I'm looking for something like Kyle Rayner: a hero who isn't exactly The Chosen One, or even The Unchosen One; someone who only became a hero because the Call To Adventure decided to just dial a random number, but still manages to rise to the challenge.
    • Editing in the Found myself because I just did — apparently it's Missed The Call. Doesn't seem quite like it'd fit, but Kyle's in there as the first Comic Book example, so I guess it's close enough.

  • Is there a page that covers cases where the difficulty level or stage you select ahead of time is not actually indicative of how hard it is going to be? For example, in Valkyrie Profile, playing hard mode actually gives you access to so much extra stuff that playing through the whole game is much simpler. Or when playing 150cc on Mario Kart Wii, the shorter 'easy' tracks are actually much harder to complete in first than the longer tracks because of the time constraints and less space to outpace the other racers to overcome the Rubberband AI.

  • Is there a trope for a character that is Named After Somebody Famous, but their name is slightly changed to be a pun, and they're not a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of said Famous Person?

  • Do we have the trope where characters are menaced by a simulation suffering a Phlebotinum Breakdown? Like the malfunctioning Holodeck from Star Trek The Next Generation, or any VR that can kill you in real life because Your Mind Makes It Real?

  • Do we have that thing where a part of a character's (usually last) name is something they are? For example, Yogi Bear, Patrick (sea)Star, etc.
  • I'm looking for the trope that's both a friendship trope and an evil trope. The one where the two people are best friends, but they have completely different moral codes: one's evil and the other isn't. And it isn't Big Bad Friend, because both people know the other one doesn't agree with their morals, but they're friends anyway - there's no deception. (Sometimes, they were friends from childhood or something.) It isn't Friendly Enemy, either, because these two are careful not to come into conflict with each other because it would just be too painful. It's kinda like Token Evil Teammate, but it's with friends instead of an entire team.

  • What's that thing called when someone looks through a telescope or similar object while looking for someone and they pan over the person they're looking for, then realize they just passed over them and focus back onto them? I recently saw it happen on The Emperor's New School and remember it happening on the Magic School Bus. I looked through their articles with no results.

  • Do we have a trope for when the hero faces off against the big bad in their final battle, and to make everything more dramatic, the hero first almost looses, before suddenly tapping some unknown reserve and saving the day? The most prominent example in my mind is when Aang energybends Ozai, and is almost corrupted before succeding and claiming victory

  • What's that trope, when some immortal being is incredibly old? It has an example that when old universe died and was recreated into Marvel Universe and Galactus was born, Watchers were already watching it.

  • Does this sequence of events have a name? 1. A character says that something can't happen. 2. It happens. 3. Character states that some other, desirable event can't happen, hoping for the pattern to repeat. 4. Of course, it doesn't. (e.g. in Dogma: "Guys like us don't just fall from the sky, you know!" *Rufus falls to Earth* "...Beautiful, naked women don't just fall from the sky, you know!" *nothing happens*).

  • Okay, we've got to have this, but I can't find it. Characters with bangs that cover one eye?

  • Is there a trope for punny names like Dick Hertz and Mike Hunt?

  • Say Bob and Alice are in a battle and suddenly the narration jumps into Bob's mind, which thinks: "Alice will never defend my next move". And then as Bob does this next move , Alice "defends it" even though Bob and the audience thought she won't. So is there a trope for when eventually if this "explanation" is used a lot, the audience picks up that if a fighter starts explaining her/his plan to the audience then that fighter is soon going to lose. This happens a lot in Bleach and Eyeshield 21, I find.

  • What's it called when they do a scene three times in row, with more emphasis or from different angles?

  • Sure I've seen it about, a robot/ship separates with each part fighting separate but controled by one central part.

  • Looking for a withdrawn individual (male or female) that normally seem without emotions but when asked about a certain thing will fill you in on their delusions. One example is Vasilios Cosmos from Space Colony.

  • A trope for twins who hate each other/disagree with each other all the time/are continually trying to kill each other.

  • One covering monsters which remain primarily underground or underwater when they fight people, instead just sticking their heads up above the surface? For example, lots of depictions of sea monsters just involve a giant head coming out of the water to attack a boat. (On the subject... is there actually anything covering sea monsters in general, whether or this type or not?)

  • What's the one where someone has to chase someone else but can't keep up, so they take a little kid's bike (usually) and awkwardly pedal like mad down the street in pursuit (and cause hilarity to ensue)?

  • Do we have a trope for the cynical, crotchety veteran/Grandpa type character? You know, the one who has been through wars and so is jaded and cynical, particularly when it comes to the unbridled enthusiasm shown by young people/new recruits towards the activity/life itself. Generally intolerant for no good reason towards the newcomers, he'll insist "You had to be there" and that they could never understand what he's been through. Kinda like Retired Badass but it could just be a bitter old man who goes on about the "Good Old Days" and such like.

  • What's it called when a famous actor is playing the role of a character other than themselves, but that character is impersonating the actor? I'm thinking of Roger Moore playing Seymour Goldfarb Jr. (who claimed to be Moore to attract women) in Cannonball Run, or Julia Roberts as Tess in Ocean's 12 (who tried to pass herself off as a pregnant Julia Roberts in the 'Blessed Event' scam).

  • Something covering the way fantasy worlds often have a border of uncrossable mountains, unsurvivable deserts, impenetrable forests, or something more outlandish - anything that provides an edge to the world. Especially common in video games which need something to stop you wandering outside the game area, but also found in other things. (For that matter, do we actually have anything for literal edges of the world, where the ground just stops and there's nothing but space?)

  • Is there a 'wet shirt' trope, specifically for males? (think Colin Firth in Pride & Prejudice)
    • That would basically fall under Fan Service. Even though it used to be almost always female characters who provided fanservice, it's becoming more common for males to do so as well.

  • Someone is in charge and has no business even coming close to their role. A company head who doesn't even know what the company does, a bumbling military general, or a book dumb teacher. If this is addressed at all, it is generally handwaved as "I had a cousin who had a father-in-law."

  • Something to the tune of 'rabid fanbase.' I'm positive that an article exists, but...

  • Is the a trope for the ability to percieve auras? Not a battle aura which is visable everyone but the ability of a character to see the normally invisable life energy of others? Usually the colour will be indicate the persons character/alignment. One example in the graphic novel 'walk in' where everybody has a different coloured aura.

  • Say Alice is one of the good guys, and Bob is a bad guy. Early in the story, Alice criticizes Bob for his immorality, and Bob, being an aspiring Magnificent Bastard, replies with a smug, witty comment, chuckles and goes away. By the end of the story, right before Alice kills Bob, she (ooh, the irony!) reprises that comment, mainly to get a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. It doesn't have to be in this format; the basic idea is that a phrase is said twice, with the speaker and receiver reversed the second time around. I think it could be called Chekhovs Pwn.

  • Do We Have This One? When a character is accused of "doing something bad", s/he breaks and admits a crime that wasn't what the one the accuser was talking about. Just saw it on the simpsons where Moe is accused of sending death threats to Bart, he immediately ends his panda-trafficking business.

  • Looking for a troop where a bad guy/monster/robot is seemingly killed only to start reassembling themselves. Examples would include the T-1000's from the terminator series, the replicators from Stargate SG-1 (occasionally) and the robot form the iron giant. If there isn't one I'll wait few days and then put an entry in YKTTW.
    • I couldn't find it. Go for it.

  • Video game trope where you get to play through the game as a different character, sometimes with completely different powers, sometimes changing the story, and almost always after you've beat the game once already. Like in Castlevania Aria of Sorrow where you get to play as Julius. I could have sworn the trope was called Etna Mode, but I can't find it.

  • Do we have anything simuliar to a 'shared soul' trope? I'm talking about several characters who are in fact a single person, sharing a single soul, not like multiple man or something simuliar these characters may have significantly diffrent personalities or be part of a larger being. The closest thing I can think of is 'trinity' God being the the father, son and the holy spirt at the same time.

  • Is there a trope for when the main character seems to have been given a cool or unusual name for the sole reason that it would make a cool series title? Like Richard Castle in Castle, Elizabeth Canterbury in Canterbury's Law, John Amsterdam in New Amsterdam, or Meredith Grey in Grey's Anatomy. I have checked the pages for shows I can think of where it would fit, but I can't seem to find anything like that.

  • I recall reading either a trope or a YKTTW suggestion a while back, about really long, elaborate setups for a punchline. Now I've found a great example (this xkcd comic), but I can't find the trope. Was it never launched? Was it lost in The Great Crash? Or am I just searching for the wrong keywords?

  • The equivalent of Lawyer Friendly Cameo, but for real-world items such as corporations? Dykes To Watch Out For does this all the time ("Bunns Noodle," "Bed Bath & Bite Me," "Bounders Books & Muzak," etc.)

  • I'm looking for the sitcom trope where two characters are forced to share a room, and they get all mad at each other and end up dividing the room in half with a big old line of paint or something. Cue childish arguments about "my" side of the line, and of course, hilarity. My focus here is on the line bit.

  • This would probably be a Stock Parody but it isn't listed on the page. My instinct tells me its a parody of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas but I must admit I haven't seen it. Basically, Bob has hit a rough patch and so goes out for a night on the town. His night on the town is represented as Bob walking in place towards the camera on a black background as the neon signs of various bars and casinos fade over the image. Do We Have This One?

  • I could've sworn I've seen this one in Launches, but I can't find it... Character X doesn't like Character Y, so during a battle he stabs Y in the back, then tells his teammates that Y fell in battle or something.

  • I have yet to see anything indicating a Silent Protagonist trope. Considering how many video games at least put this to use, I'd figure there'd be something.

  • That thing in anime where a character gets down on their hands and knees and everything goes all dark when somebody says something hurtful to them, or somesuch. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is Foxy in One Piece, who did it a lot.

  • Video Game trope. Your characters have finally received the Legendary Equipment of Plot! The sword around which the prophecy revolves! The armor that is said to have belonged to the gods! Essentially, a Plot Coupon in equippable form. Sadly, within a few more hours of gameplay, you are opening chests that contain generic weaponry that is just better; hopefully there's a sidequest to power up the Plot Equipment, Like Degraded Boss, but for your equipment instead. Examples include the Masamune in Chrono Trigger, the Mythgraven Blade in Final Fantasy IV, and the Gugnir in Tales Of Phantasia. All examples of powerful plot-driving items that get outclassed (but can be upgraded)

  • Sliding scale of morality: hero, villain, innocent bystander, etc. tropes rated / classified from pure hero to pure evil?

  • Looking for the situation where something supernatural (or at least weird) is foreshadowed or hinted at by having a character's shadow or reflection act differently from the character—e.g., the character adjusts their tie, then turns around to leave, but the reflection does not turn around and in fact sneers after the character.

  • Do we have an article for the fact that for a lot of big screen actors there seems to be a TV-counterpart that either looks very similar or plays the same kind of roles? (or: should there be such an article or am I the only one noticing this ...) For example: Meg Ryan and Amanda Tapping (Stargate's Carter) look alike (and for that matter, the two Daniel Jacksons do as well), William Fichtner is sort of a low-budget Kevin Bacon, there is that one guy whose name I can't recall at the moment but who is basically the same person as Robert Patrick... and so on.

  • What's that Anime trope where, to show someone has snapped, a line passes through the back of their head, usually with the lights suddenly turning dark.

  • What would the trope be for a character - usually a spy or secret agent but sometimes a cop - who has been fired/suspended/framed and has to escape his organisation/headquarters/jail by fighting with other agents/cops who would otherwise be his buddies or allies. The issue is that the character is basically a good guy, using martial arts and deadly force to disable colleagues, even friends, who are also good guys (although they may be nameless extras). There's no time to explain, so the hero has to fight his way out. The most recent example is James Bond in Quantum of Solace, but it's happened to him and other movie characters over and over again.
    • Fake Defector
      • I have read that one, but I was specifically thinking of the actual fighting and hurting of the hero's buddies, rather than the wider plot development that puts him in that situation. At some point he is going to have to go back and work with these guys!
      • Lets You And Him Fight

  • Okay, what about igniting something soaked in kerosene or gasoline with a cigar or cigarette, preferably when the smoker just casually flicks it into the fuel? Would that belong to any of the currently existing tropes, or if not, do you think it merits it's own (because you see it all over the place).
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