Basic Trope: Two characters has a Relationship Upgrade while off-screen.
- Straight: In the beginning of the Tales of Troperia, Lance and Cindy are just regular teammates with minimal interactions to each other. After a five-year Time Skip, they are already engaged.
- Exaggerated: The story is a believer of Everyone Must Be Paired and ends with Weddings for Everyone, but there are no actual Romance Arc between any of the characters. All the couples were either already together from the start, or get together between time skips or while being Put on a Bus.
- Downplayed: Lance and Cindy are clearly attracted to each other from the start, but neither had the courage to approach the other without being reduced into a stuttering mess. After the Time Skip, they've somehow resolved their UST, and are now an item.
- Justified: Due to their differing roles in the team, Lance and Cindy didn't have a lot of opportunity to interact, but the pair actually have a lot in common, and a lot can happen in 5 years.
- Inverted: Lance and Cindy were a couple at the start of the story. After the Time Skip, they've broken up.
- Subverted A later chapter shows a flashback detailing Lance and Cindy's Romance Arc.
- Double Subverted: Except the scene is all in Hiro's imagination. Both Lance and Cindy deny that their Relationship Upgrade happened in such a manner, and the audience still don't know how they managed to go from near-strangers to lovers.
- Parodied: Lance and Cindy are off-screen for one page, and when they reappear, Lance tells the rest of the party that he and Cindy has gone through an epic Romance Arc while away. Hiro complains that they weren't gone for long enough, especially since there weren't any Time Skip in that one page they weren't on-screen.
- Zig-Zagged: Lance and Cindy breaks up and makes up numerous times throughout the story. Sometimes, the scenes are shown on-screen. Sometimes, they are not.
- Averted: Every relationship between characters are developed on-screen.
- Enforced: Lance and Cindy are paired together because of fan demand, but the creator doesn't like writing romance, so their romantic development is not shown on-screen.
- Lampshaded: "Wait, you two are dating now? When? How?"
- Invoked: Hiro thinks Lance and Cindy make a good match, but they are too preoccupied with their quests to think about romance. So he sends them both away to take their attention away from the adventure so that they can notice each other.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed:Hiro: I wonder how Lance and Cindy are doing. I haven't heard of them ever since we left them at Beach Town.
Sam: On a date somewhere, most likely. It's just the right time and place, and it's not like they have nothing better to do.
Hiro: A date? They barely even talk to each other!
Sam: With us gone? They probably would, and who knows what might happen when they do. - Conversed: "Were those two together before? I don't remember seeing them having any sort of chemistry."
Back to Offscreen Romance.
