This index covers all things limbs: arms, legs, wings, tentacles, weird alien appendages, you name it.
Arm Tropes:
Subcategory to:
Related indices:
- Arm Cannon: An arm-mounted gun.
- At Arm's Length: Holding someone back with an arm, preventing their approach.
- Badass Arm-Fold: Arms folded to signify badassery.
- Bicep Kiss: Vainly kissing one's own muscular biceps.
- Bicep-Polishing Gesture: A common Japanese gesture when preparing to take on a difficult task.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: A blade somehow attached to an arm.
- Creepily Long Arms: A monster has long arms for creepy effect.
- Crucified Hero Shot: A character's arms are outstretched, reminiscent of a crucified Jesus.
- Elongating Arm Gag: A gag where someone greatly extends their limb(s).
- Extendable Arms: Someone who can greatly stretch specific body parts.
- Falling into His Arms: A woman physically falls into a man's arms.
- Flexing Those Non-Biceps: Flexing unmuscular arms.
- I Will Tear Your Arms Off: A character threatens to tear another's limbs off.
- A Lady on Each Arm: A man is shown with each arm around a woman.
- Literal Disarming: Someone's arm is removed to prevent it from wielding weapons.
- Lover Tug of War: Love rivals use their object of affection's arms for tug-of-war.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Greater limb count means greater threat.
- Multi-Armed Multitasking: Character with multiple limbs can do multiple things at once.
- One-Armed Warrior: Missing an arm doesn't slow a character down from being a threat.
- One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: One arm wrestler is much stronger than the other.
- Reaching Towards the Audience: A character reaches toward the audience.
- Reverse Arm-Fold: Arms folded behind the back to indicate patience and consideration.
- Standard Female Grab Area: Women held by the upper arm are rendered powerless.
- Yawn and Reach: Yawning and stretching as a guise to put an arm around someone's shoulders.
Leg Tropes:
- Armed Legs: A character whose weapon is greaves, shoes, a leg-mounted weapon, or a natural feature of their leg anatomy with lethal applications (e.g., clawed feet, or sharp bony spines).
- Armless Biped: A two-legged creature with no arms.
- "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody: A Stock Parody of the iconic leg-crossing scene from Basic Instinct.
- Between My Legs: Someone or something is framed between the legs of another person.
- Captain Morgan Pose: A character poses with one leg on a higher platform than the other as a show of confidence.
- Four-Legged Insect: An animal species is portrayed with fewer legs than it has in real life.
- Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Some animals are portrayed as bipedal when in real life they aren't.
- Hitchhiker's Leg: A hitchhiking woman shows a little leg to attract a ride.
- Helpless Kicking: A character who is being killed, taken to their demise, or Eaten Alive kicks their legs.
- Hobbling the Giant: The easiest way to incapacitate a giant is to target its legs.
- I Can't Feel My Legs!: Someone announces an inability to feel their legs, indicating paralysis.
- Leg Cannon: A leg-mounted cannon.
- Leg Cling: An attractive woman clings to a muscle-bound man's leg.
- Leg Focus: A character's legs are given special attention by other characters or the camera for Fanservice.
- Little Girls Kick Shins: Little girls kick shins when they're angry.
- Kick Chick: Female characters are prone to fighting using their legs.
- Murderous Thighs: Crushing people with strong thighs.
- Seadog Peg Leg: A pirate has a fake (usually wooden) leg.
- Sexy Slit Dress: A dress with a slit to leave the legs exposed.
- Show Some Leg: A character provides a distraction by showing skin or acting sexy.
- Spider Tank: A tank with multiple pairs of legs that walks like a spider.
- Tripod Terror: Three-legged mechas piloted by Alien Invaders.
- Walking Tank: A tank with a pair of legs instead of treads.
Arm Joint Tropes:
- Always Over the Shoulder: The camera in third-person video games is directly behind the player character.
- Blind Shoulder Toss: Dismissing an item as worthless or irrelevant by tossing it over one's shoulder.
- Coat Over the Shoulder: Carrying a coat draped over the shoulder to indicate coolness.
- Dramatic Dislocation: A dislocated joint, usually a shoulder, is Played for Drama.
- Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: An injured character uses their opposite hand to hold their shoulder.
- Over the Shoulder: A dialog speaker's shoulder is shot in a way that frames their interlocutor's head.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Carrying a person face down over one's shoulder with their upper body to the rear.
- Over-the-Shoulder Murder Shot: A murderer looks up over their shoulder when approached mid-deed.
- Parrot Pet Position: A pet rides on its owner's shoulder.
- Possessive Wrist Grab: A character aggressively grabs another's wrist to display power or dominance.
- Shoulder Cannon: Shoulder-mounted guns.
- Shoulders of Doom: The biggest shoulder-wear is sported by The Hero or the Big Bad.
- Shoulders-Up Nudity: A nude person will only be shown from the shoulders up.
- Shoulder Teammate: One character carries another on their shoulder.
- Super Wrist-Gadget: Cool gadgets mounted on a wrist.
- Weapon Across the Shoulder: A pose where someone slings their weapon across their shoulder.
Leg Joint Tropes:
- Ankle Drag: Someone gets dragged to their doom by their ankle.
- Knee Capping: Immobilizing someone by attacking their knee.
- Knee Fold Fall of Defeat: A defeated character falls to their knees before collapsing.
- Knee-High Perspective: Adults are seen up to their ankles, knees, or waists.
- No Knees: Animating characters without knees.
- Old-Timey Ankle Taboo: Visible ankles being considered risqué in works set in or before the early 1900s.
- Twisted Ankle: A fleeing character is slowed due to injury.
- Twisted-Knee Collapse: Sitting with legs splayed in a W-shape after collapsing.
Wing Tropes:
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Character alignment based on wing type or color.
- Growing Wings: Someone grows wings.
- Power Gives You Wings: Powering up bestows wings.
- Razor Wings: Wings with knives instead of feathers.
- Wind from Beneath My Wings: Flapping one's wings to generate strong winds.
- Wing Shield: Wings used to shield someone from danger.
Tentacle Tropes:
- Combat Tentacles: Tentacles used for combat.
- Knotty Tentacles: Tying up an opponent with their own tentacles or tentacle-like appendages.
- Naughty Tentacles: Tentacles in a sexual context.
- Sensory Tentacles: Tentacles that sense.
- Tentacled Terror: Cephalopods Played for Horror.
- Tentacle Rope: Tied up with tentacles.
- Typical Tentacle Tactics: Standard video-game behavior of octopods.
Other Limb Tropes:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Limbs that have more rotation range than normal.
- Amputation Stops Spread: Cutting off a contaminated body part to prevent the spread of the contamination.
- Appendage Assimilation: Regenerating lost limbs by stealing others'.
- An Arm and a Leg: Limb loss as a dramatic device.
- Artificial Limbs: Someone has prosthetic limbs.
- Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: Prosthetic limbs are stronger than normal ones.
- Attack of the Monster Appendage: Only the monster's appendage is seen.
- Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots: Robots' lower legs and forearms are bigger than their thighs and upper arms.
- Bizarre Alien Limbs: Distinctly non-humanoid limbs.
- Cognizant Limbs: Bosses with individually-labeled limbs.
- Dismemberment Is Cheap: Losing a limb is only a temporary inconvenience.
- Extra Digits: Additional fingers or toes.
- Fake Arm Disarm: A character's artificial body parts are destroyed, but not their real ones.
- Floating Limbs: Hands and feet are visible; arms and legs are not.
- Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic: Character alignment based on prosthesis type.
- Human Hummingbird: Limbs flailing so fast they're almost a blur.
- Injured Limb Episode: A character spends an episode sidelined with a limb injury.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: Cutting off a limb to escape a trap that would otherwise cause death.
- Limb-Sensation Fascination: A character explores what their new limb(s) do.
- Made of Plasticine: Dismemberment is easier than in Real Life.
- Noodle People: Characters drawn with exaggeratedly long, thin torsos and limbs.
- Phantom Limb Pain: Feeling pain in a nonexistent limb.
- Prosthetic Limb Reveal: Someone is revealed to have a prosthetic limb.
- Retractable Appendages: Body parts that can retract.
- Rubber-Hose Limbs: A cartoon character's limbs behave like rubber hoses.
- Spider Limbs: Having spider-like appendages.
- Stock Punishment: Locking someone's legs (stocks) or arms (pillory) in a wooden board as punishment.
- Subsystem Damage: The player's individual body parts can be targeted and damaged.
- Swiss-Army Appendage: Various prosthetic extremities with special utility attached as required.
- Torn Apart by the Mob: Someone is torn limb from limb by an angry mob.
- Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: A land animal with more than the standard four limbs.
