When Wemberly was especially worried, she rubbed Petal's ears. Wemberly worried that if she didn't stop worrying, Petal would have no ears left at all.
Everyone has felt nervous at one point in their life; it's a natural body response to pressure and difficult situations. It's also an emotion associated with behaviors such as nail-biting, leg bouncing, hair twirling, etc., which come out whenever someone needs some stress relief. In fiction, these habits reveal a lot about the character's personality and mental state as they are an easy way to identify a Nervous Wreck or an insecure person. They can also be helpful clues for spotting an imposter.
These tics can be verbal as well. May overlap with Oral Fixation if they involve the mouth. See also Pinocchio Nose for tics when someone is lying (the character who is lying can also be nervous, though, especially if they're a Bad Liar). A subtrope of Character Tics.
In real life, some of these repetitive behaviors may indicate serious mental disorders. For example, pathological hair pulling is a sign of Trichotillomania
, and repeatedly picking at one's skin could be an indicator of an existing Excoriation disorder.
A Super-Trope to:
- Awkward Collar Pull
- Cigarette of Anxiety
- Deteriorates Into Gibberish
- Dramatic Stutter
- Eyes Always Averted
- Feminine Leg Swish
- Hand Behind Head
- Inopportune Voice Cracking
- Loud Gulp
- Mirthless Laughter
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat
- Quaking with Fear
- Rapid-Fire Nail Biting
- Still Sucks Thumb
- Twitchy Eye
Note: Please only add examples here if they don't fit any of the tropes listed above.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- The Brilliant, but Lazy Karma from Assassination Classroom tends to chew his nails when he's particularly stressed. It escalates when he doesn't study for his exams and fails to reach a top score in anything and he actually bites into the papers.
- During the student council play in Bloom Into You, Touko's unnamed amnesiac character has a habit of playing with her hair when she's nervous or troubled. The nurse, played by Yuu, is quick to notice this and points it out to get her to choose her own path instead of becoming the person her girlfriend described her as.
- In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, when the Upper-6 fight gets heated, with the threat showing its true face, Gyutaro presents a rather disturbing nervous tic that fully drives the point home of just how insanely envious he is of anyone he perceives to be more privileged than him, Gyutaro is prone to self-harm in these envious episodes, scratching his face and chest to skin tearing depths; since he has demonic regeneration, Gyutaro pays no mind in tearing his skin apart whenever he wants.
- The Enigma Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable weaponizes this trope. Its user, Terunosuke Miyamoto, ends up kidnapping four different people in folded paper via uncovering what tics they show when they're scared. Koichi Hirose blinks twice when he's scared, Tomoko Higashikata nervously gulps, Josuke Higashikata bites his lower lip, and Yuya Fungami touches his chin when he's scared. When Josuke is freed, he notices Terunosuke's own tic, closing his eyes.
- Shigaraki from My Hero Academia tends to scratch his neck whenever he's stressed or irritated. However, he does it much less after his character development.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji has a habit of clenching and unclenching his hand when anxious. It's possibly a tic in the actual psychological sense, due to the extreme pain he suffered when his Humongous Mecha had its arm ripped off.
- A common theme in the Studio Ghibli movies is characters (child characters especially) pulling at their clothes but not always when they're nervous. Notable examples include:
- Chihiro in Spirited Away.
- Sosuke in Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea.
- Mei in My Neighbor Totoro
- Kanta in the latter movie is nervous around the girls, especially Satsuki, and tends to try to offer them things, like his umbrella for instance, by stretching out his arm as if he was forcing, rather than actually offering, and grunting and pulling frustrated faces at them, before finally dropping or forcing whatever he is offering into Satsuki's hands and running away.
Comic Books
- Star Wars: Kanan: Caleb runs his hand through his hair when he's nervous. He puts his hair in a ponytail to hide this.
Fan Works
- Fire Emblem Fates: Aftermath: When Lilith gets nervous, she starts playing with her hair braid.
- When she was young, Katrina of Ma Fille would repeatedly clench and unclench her fists.
- In The Loud House fanfic Part of the Gang, Maggie sneezes when she's worried.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Reflecting Balance: Blitz the Shinx is often seen rubbing the yellow rings on his forelegs together when nervous.
- In Safe Anchorage, Jeyne smooths or fiddles with her skirts when nervous. Given her canon backstory, this is most of the time.
- Vow of Nudity: Spectra tends to grab her necklace pendant whenever she's scared or anxious.
Films — Animation
- When Dolores from Encanto is nervous, she’ll let out a little squeak.
- Frozen (2013):
- Elsa wraps her arms around herself whenever she's feeling stressed.
- Anna brushes a lock of hair behind her ear whenever she feels nervous or embarrassed. She also tends to wring her hands together during a moment of anxiety.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): Sebastian's voice tends to get higher-pitched when he's frightened.
- Robots: When Wonder Bot is nervous, he'll either fly around erratically or literally fall to pieces.
- Tangled: Rapunzel often runs her fingers through her hair when she's anxious (though she also does this when she's excited). Rapunzel also has a little half-laugh she'll do whenever she's nervous or excited as well. She shares this trait with her mother — which really drives home their connection to each other when they reunite and both do the little laugh.
- Zootopia: Judy's nose sometimes twitches when she's anxious, just like a real rabbit. Travis even teases her about it.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Caine Mutiny Captain Queeg has a nervous habit of rolling around some glass beads in his hand. When he does this at a court martial hearing, it pretty much guarantees that he'll be released for being mentally unstable.
- Nicky from Dominick and Eugene rubs his fingers together when he's nervous.
- James Bond: Boris Grishenko, the Big Bad of GoldenEye, has a habit of constantly twirling his pens and clicking on them when he's working or nervous.
- In Max (2002), Hitler nervously touches and smoothes his hair.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Tony Stark sometimes massages his left arm since it has a tendency to get repeatedly injured over the movies, ever since the first Iron Man. He usually does this when stressed and it can occasionally be seen trembling, making it likely that it's a nervous tic and probably linked to PTSD.
- Loki is fidgeting with his hands when nervous, a trait he shares with his adoptive mother.
- Southland Tales: Boxer Santaros has a habit of tapping his fingertips together when he's nervous (which is pretty often).
Literature
- Jack from Because of the Rabbit flickers his fingers, especially when he's nervous.
- In Breaking Point (2002), Paul Richmond's mother pulls out strands of her hair because of the stress of divorcing her husband.
- Isaac Asimov's "Catch That Rabbit": Gregory Powell sometimes pulls at the ends of his mustache when he's nervous. In this story, he tries to do that while wearing a spacesuit.
- Different Seasons: Discussed in "Apt Pupil." Dussander recalls that the stress of waiting for the Allies to march on the concentration camp he commanded caused a strange outburst of nervous tics in his soldiers, including teeth clicking and a man who would drum intricate patterns on his legs with his fingers. Dussander tends to talk to himself when stressed, a habit he unknowingly shares with Todd Bowden.
- In Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte, Lieselotte twirls her Ojou Ringlet when she's nervous.
- Glue: Andrew "Gally" Galloway fiddles with his earring whenever something bothersome is on his mind. The habit is implied to be so prevalent that, over a decade after receiving the piercing, his ear still hasn't entirely healed. It's the last thing he does before jumping off a bridge.
- In Guardian Cats and the Lost Books of Alexandria, Professor Chin has a nervous tic massaging his wrists and fingers.
- Sorreno from Hoshi and the Red City Circuit fiddles with her locket when she's nervous.
- Jack Blank tends to run a hand through his hair when nervous or stressed. He's stressed a lot in Book 3.
- Journey to Chaos: Annala tugs on her ear when she's nervous or embarrassed. It's a trait unique to her for more than just her Pointy Ears. Other elves don't do this.
- Keeper of the Lost Cities: Sophie has a nervous habit of tugging out loose eyelashes.
- In Language Arts, after a traumatic experience when Mrs. Braxton tries to tie a ruler to Dana McGucken's arm, he acquires a nervous habit of massaging the area between his thumb and forefinger.
- In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo tends to fiddle with the things in his pocket when he's nervous.
- Michael Vey : The titular character Michael Vey has Tourette's syndrome, which makes him blink rapidly, stutter, or gulp loudly when in stressful situations.
- Savvy: When Lester is nervous, his shoulders will twitch.
- Sword of Truth: Richard runs his hands through his hair when gets nervous or exasperated.
- The Wheel of Time: Most of the female characters smooth their skirts when they're nervous.
Live-Action TV
- Diane from Cheers has a tendency to twitch her cheek when she's stressed. Sam tries to exploit this when she's competing in the Boston Barmaid Contest.
- Gyu-ri from Extracurricular picks at her fingers until they bleed whenever she feels uncomfortable, much to her parents' annoyance.
- Red Dwarf: Arnold Rimmer has a tendency to jiggle his leg when he is nervous.
- Sesame Street: When Natasha and her dad Humphrey are afraid, they cover their heads and shout, "Yelp!".
- Star Trek: Discovery: Played with. Tilly talks a lot when she's nervous, though she also does when she's very happy.
Video Games
- Cookie Run: The regularly shy and anxious Strawberry Cookie will pull on the strings of her hoodie when frightened or overwhelmed. In Cookie Run: Kingdom, she also has the tendency to grip onto her lollipop when nervous or unsure.
- Halo: Captain Keyes will fiddle with or chew on the tip of an antique pipe passed down from his grandfather to deal with stress (smoking on a ship's bridge is against UNSC regulations).
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice, introduced in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, can notice the nervous tics of witnesses when they hide the truth during cross-examination, which he points out in order to pull more information out of them. Trucy Wright has this ability too, which they both inherited from their shared mother.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
- When Maki is stressed, she tends to fiddle with her hair, touch her fingers together or bite her nails.
- Kokichi bites his nails when he's anxious, though given his lying nature, it could easily be something he fabricates than an actual tic.
- Yuri in Doki Doki Literature Club! has a habit of looking to the side while fiddling with her hair when she's nervous.
Web Animation
- RWBY: Yang's left arm tends to tremble when she's frightened due to her PTSD as a result of Adam slicing off her right arm and nearly killing her. When she faces him again in Volume 6, the stress causes her arm to start shaking, which he taunts her over.
Web Comics
- As seen in chapter 3 of Aki-chan's Life, Aki has inherited her dad's nervous tic: she clenches then unclenches her right hand when she gets nervous.
- El Goonish Shive: Several characters touch their index fingers together when nervous or embarrassed
- Foxes in Love: Apparently, Green's reaction to a stressful situation is to weave an entire rug.
- Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name: Lamont giggles when he's nervous.
- Shot and Chaser: The OnlyFans creator who is Tre's photography client clenches the front edge of her shirt when feeling nervous and apologetic for saying something while he had his phone on speakerphone that he'd rather she didn't, once she's got a shirt on that is.
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers:
- Tina sometimes lets out an elongated "Uhhhh..." when she's nervous. Other times, she'll yell, "HUH! HUH!" in a manner similar to hyperventilating.
- In "Loft in Bedslation", Shirley, who is nervous about being the game master of an RPG game, pulls on the drawstrings of her hoodie. Gene warns her that she'll cut off her own head doing that.
- Central Park: Owen tends to rub his hands on his shorts when he's anxious. This is pointed out in "Dog Spray Afternoon" when the tagger is shown to have the same tic, which is how Molly identifies the tagger.
- Centaurworld: Glendale pulls on her ears when stressed or anxious, which happens practically every episode.
- Kaeloo: Stumpy sometimes bites on things when he's stressed.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- The nerdy obsessive-compulsive Twilight Sparkle has a few, slightly bigger ones when she's panicking. She'll pace around, and sometimes Teleport Spam around the room (usually at least once she'll appear right in the face of whoever she's talking to/at).
- Ms. Peachbottom, from "Games Ponies Play", is extremely claustrophobic, and whenever her phobia kicks in, she starts stretching and "limbering up" in an attempt to distract herself.
- The Octonauts: Tweak's ears sometimes twist together when she's nervous or when some kind of trouble arises.
- Over the Hedge: When Verne is nervous, his tail tingles.
- Peg + Cat: Whenever Peg is "totally freaking out", she waves her arms around frantically.
- Rocko's Modern Life: Whenever Rocko is flustered, he taps his fingers together and laughs nervously.
- South Park:
- Kenny sometimes pulls on the strings of his hood when he's frightened.
- Being a Nervous Wreck, Tweek has quite a few, including yanking on his own hair or shirt.
- Butters tends to wring his hands or rub his knuckles together when he's worried.
- Teen Titans (2003): Raven tends to pull up her hood when she's nervous or uncomfortable.
- Tuca & Bertie: Bertie pulls out her feathers when she's anxious. In Season 2, her arms and legs fall off whenever she's stressed out, a visual metaphor for her "falling apart."
