Basic Trope: A girl wears shorts under her skirt to avoid giving panty shots.
- Straight:
- Alice is a Kick Chick who fights in a miniskirt, but nobody sees anything embarrassing because she's wearing shorts underneath.
- Alice plays sports in a miniskirt, but nobody sees anything embarrassing because she's wearing shorts underneath.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice's shorts are so long they extend past the hem of her skirt and can be clearly seen even while she's standing up straight.
- Every girl in school wears shorts under a skirt, because it's part of the uniform.
- Downplayed: Alice wears shorts under her skirt that are so tiny it's almost impossible to tell they aren't normal panties.
- Justified:
- Alice's contract for this season says she has to fight in a miniskirt, but it doesn't say anything about what else she wears.
- Alice is a world-famous tennis player, and she's getting sick of Paparazzi covering the tabloids with pictures of her panties after every game.
- Alice simply prefers shorts over panties, and the fact that they prevent panty shots is inconsequential to her.
- Alice replaces panties with shorts as a fashion statement, and/or to add to her image as a somewhat Tomboyish girl who also doesn't mind to put on a dress.
- If taking place in a school, see the last part of Exaggerated.
- Inverted:
- Alice's skirt is so long that it's hard to fight in, so she puts shorts on over it to keep it from flapping around and getting in the way.
- Alice normally wears very tiny shorts, and when she doesn't want to stand out so much she puts a skirt on over them.
- Alice wears a pair of bloomers down to her knees under a skirt a few inches above her knees. Both technically a panty shot and more modest.
- Gender Inverted: Bob wears a pair of shorts beneath a kilt to minimize any embarassing international incidents - limiting it to a few snarky remarks about being "inauthenic" as opposed to headline tabloid news and lame puns about "cockups".
- Subverted:
- Alice's rival Brenda has a very similar outfit and fighting style, but as soon as their obligatory fight starts, it becomes apparent that Brenda is much less concerned with showing off her panties.
- Catherine disguises herself as Alice, but a sudden panty shot reveals that her disguise isn't quite perfect.
- Bob steals Alice's shorts right before the Big Game, forcing her to wear her normal panties instead.
- Alice's rival Brenda sabotages her shorts, causing them to fall off in the middle of the fight in the hopes that Alice will give up rather than risk exposing herself.
- Alice is wearing boxers. The Reveal is that Alice is becoming Albert, or alternately, that Alice was/is Albert. (depending on what direction he or she is transitioning, either wearing the boxers as a step toward more masculine dress/a secret, or alternately because they are the only underwear that conceal an externally male appearance under the skirt)
- Alice is wearing shorts loose enough and short enough that one can see up her legs to what's behind the shorts.
- Double Subverted:
- Brenda defeats Alice, then takes her shorts and starts wearing them herself as a trophy.
- Seeing Catherine's mistake, Alice offers her a spare pair of shorts to complete the disguise.
- Alice's teammate Charlotte steals the shorts back from Bob and gets them to Alice, who puts them on over her panties just in time for the game to start.
- Alice continues fighting in Vapor Wear, but trying to protect her modesty puts her at a severe disadvantage until her teammate Charlotte arrives with a spare pair of shorts.
- Parodied:
- Alice's teammates complain about getting constantly flashed during every fight, so Alice agrees to wear a pair of shorts... which happen to be completely identical to her old panties.
- Alice fights in a miniskirt without giving a single panty shot, thanks to highly reliable usage of Magic Skirt. But when she starts to wear shorts underneath there's no more need for the Magic Skirt, and the audience gets to see her shorts all the time.
- Zig Zagged: A team of miniskirted heroines are all participating in a fighting tournament on live television, so Alice protects her modesty by wearing shorts instead of panties under her skirt. Beatrice sees her first match and suddenly realizes that because she didn't wear shorts, there's no way she can fight without flashing her panties to the camera. So Alice takes off her shorts and gives them to Beatrice, who puts them on over her panties right before her round starts. But Alice's shorts don't quite fit Brenda, and halfway through the match they split wide open and Beatrice ends up flashing her panties after all. Afterwards, Alice comforts Beatrice and says she'll just use the spare pair of shorts she brought just in case. They hurry to the locker room and discover that the villainous Catherine saw the whole thing and stole Alice's spare shorts, in the hopes of forcing her to forfeit the match. Just then Alice notices a pair of shorts in another locker, and realizes that Dorothy must have forgotten to change into them before her match. They both rush back to warn her, only to see that Dorothy is already in the ring and about to start fighting in her hot pink daisy-patterned g-string. But before she can embarrass herself, her opponent Eve opens the match with a flying kick and shows everyone that she forgot to put on not just her shorts, but her underwear too. Eve is disqualified for violating the tournament's dress code, and Dorothy later reveals that she didn't forget her shorts after all, but decided that a thong would distract the opponents better.
- Averted:
- Alice wears perfectly normal panties under her skirt, resulting in a perfectly normal panty shot.
- Alice doesn't wear shorts under her skirt, or anything else.
- The audience will never find out what Alice wears under her skirt because it always covers everything.
- Enforced:
- Alice is designed as a serious Action Girl and the writers don't want to have her end up as Ms. Fanservice, so when the plot calls for her to fight in a miniskirt they give her a chance to put shorts on underneath since it's more realistic than using Magic Skirt.
- The localization team is trying to target a younger demographic and/or get past very strict Moral Guardians, but Alice's panty shots are just too frequent and blatant to cut completely. So instead, they turn her panties into shorts.
- Lampshaded: After Alice wins a tough fight with a spectacular high kick, her teammate Bob points out it's a good thing she's wearing shorts under her skirt or the whole scene might have been cut.
- Invoked: Alice is a miniskirt-wearing Innocent Fanservice Girl who flashes her panties all the time. Her friend Beatrice disapproves, so while Alice is in the shower Beatrice replaces her panties with a pair of shorts.
- Exploited: Alice is forced to wear a miniskirt for the fighting tournament and wisely decides to replace her usual skimpy thong with a pair of shorts, so while she's in the ring Bob sneaks into her locker room to steal her unattended panties.
- Defied:
- Alice discovers that someone switched her panties for a pair of shorts while she was in the shower, but she decides she'd rather go commando than wear them.
- Alice is a backup dancer in the big musical, so Bob sneaks into her dressing room before the show and switches her shorts with a tiny g-string, knowing it's sure to help ticket sales.
- Discussed: As Alice squares off for a showdown with her rival Brenda, the rest of the team places bets on which one is wearing shorts under her skirt.
- Conversed: While playing Bikini Battle VII, Alice asks Bob why none of the game's miniskirted fighters bother to wear shorts.
- Implied: Bob waits under a staircase hoping to get a peek up Alice's skirt, but when Alice finally does climb the stairs he just looks disappointed.
- Played For Laughs: After Bob gets caught taking a picture of the Student Council President's Hello Kitty panties, she declares that all the girls must wear shorts under their skirts from now on. Bob soon starts exhibiting withdrawal symptoms.
- Played For Drama: Thanks to some sort of Zany Scheme, Alice's panties now have the MacGuffin's activation code written on them. Unable to simply explain the situation to her, the heroes race to find a pair of shorts and convince Alice to wear them before the villains discover her secret.
- Deconstructed: Alice's leather biker shorts are really hot and confining, and eventually she decides she'd rather risk a few panty flashes than put up with the discomfort.
- Reconstructed: Later, Alice gets more comfortable shorts to wear under her skirts.
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