Basic Trope: A bored character wants to live in a Show Within a Show.
- Straight: Alice wants to live in her favorite television show, Tales of Troperia.
- Exaggerated: Alice wishes the whole universe was the show.
- Downplayed: Alice wants her favorite character to be a real person.
- Justified:
- Alice is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander and thinks being in a TV show is possible, and besides her favorite show is set in a Sugar Bowl.
- Alice suffers from depression and finds the idea of living in the world of her favorite show more appealing than her current life situation. She may be right or wrong.
- Alice is a very strict moral absolutist and resents the Grey-and-Gray Morality she encounters in her life. Tales of Troperia's appeals to her because of its Black-and-White Morality.
- Alice lives in a hopelessly Crapsack World, and Tales of Troperia is set in a utopia or at least a world worth living in.
- Inverted: Alice is a Fourth-Wall Observer and wants to be in Real Life.
- Subverted: Alice wants to be in her favorite show, but then stops.
- Double Subverted: But then she wants to live in the show again.
- Parodied: Alice wants to live in every show at once.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes Alice wants to be in her favorite show, sometimes not.
- Averted: There are no shows-within-shows, or there are but nobody wants to live in them.
- Enforced: The author is making a Meta point about the power of fiction.
- Lampshaded:
- "You do know that show is not real, right?"
- "Why does Alice want to live in her favorite show? Why would anyone want to live in a SHOW?!"
- Invoked: Alice agrees with the Central Theme espoused by Tales of Troperia, thinks the world would be better if it were more like the show, and decides she wants to live in the show because it would be the best way to get that wish.
- Exploited: Bob gets to call attention to how Alice is out of touch with reality.
- Defied: "Yes, I really like this show. But I know better than to pretend I can actually enter it as if there's a magical portal to it."
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's obsession with wanting her favorite show to be real starts to affect her life and health negatively, to the point Bob is forced to snap her out of it for her own safety.
- Alice learns her favorite series is real and actually gets to go there ... only to find out that despite the fantastical elements, it's little different from her own world when it comes to structure and may even be worse than her current living situation.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice finds a constructive outlet for her fandom, like joining a fan community.
- Discovering that the show is set in a Crapsaccharine World is impetus for Alice to improve it.
- Discussed: "Here comes Alice. Chances are she's going to complain about how reality isn't as 'cool' or 'righteous' as the Tales of Troperia show."
- Conversed: "Why do characters sometimes like to live in shows within their universe?"
- Implied: Alice has been established as a Straw Fan for the show and her few words about the 'real' world are less than kind.
- Played for Laughs: Alice tries to jump into the TV.
- Played for Drama: Alice's obsession with Tales of Troperia means she avoids dealing with Real Life, even when it starts to affect her and those around her negatively.
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