Basic Trope: Evil is likened to an intoxicant or drug that the victim constantly needs to imbibe in.
- Straight: After shoplifting a set of hair clips, Emily experiences an adrenaline spike that prompts her to do the same thing again with something more expensive.
- Exaggerated: Emily becomes so addicted to shoplifting she experiences physical symptoms of withdrawal if she doesn't do it regularly.
- Downplayed: Emily feels tingly after shoplifting, but it's mostly her nerves being on pins and needles at the thought of getting caught.
- Justified: The rush Emily gets from lifting items is what keeps her doing it.
- Doing something illegal can be tantalizing.
- Repeated actions can easily become engrained habits, especially when they release lots of little endorphins into your brain.
- Inverted: Emily doesn't feel anything after shoplifting.
- Subverted: While Emily feels good for a little while after shoplifting, the feeling quickly wears off, and when she tries again it isn't the same. She doesn't shoplift again.
- Parodied: Shoplifting gets Emily hot and bothered.
- Zig Zagged: At first Emily feels bad about stealing, but over time she begins rationalizing her behavior: if she can walk away with the item, and if the store clerks don't bother trying to stop her, why can't she have it? This makes her feel cleverer than most, and with that thought comes a sense of euphoria at "getting away with it", which persists until she tries shoplifting again and gets caught. The ensuing arrest and black mark on her record inoculate her against future attempts.
- Averted: Emily doesn't shoplift.
- Enforced: The work is parodying Rachael Leigh Cook's Trope Naming PSA.
- Lampshaded: Emily claims to feel like a totally new person after shoplifting.
- Invoked: Emily has anhedonia, and is trying to train her brain to feel pleasure at anything, even if it is just petty theft.
- Exploited: Emily's friend Ashley wants Emily to be "less boring", and figures getting her hooked on a victimless crime like shoplifting is her best bet.
- Defied: Shoplifting makes Emily feel vile.
- Discussed: Emily and Ashley wonder why shoplifting makes them feel good.
- Conversed: Emily and Ashley call their attempts at shoplifting "smoke sessions" to throw off any suspicion.
- Implied: Emily starts dressing and acting differently after shoplifting.
- Deconstructed: Like all forms of pleasure, Emily's shoplifting habit requires bigger and bigger inputs to get the same high, until eventually she's arrested for outright robbery.
- Reconstructed: Emily still manages to get her kicks in short, controlled bursts of shoplifting, acknowledging that, while it'll never be like the first time, there's plenty of thrills left to be found in gaming the system.
This is the Playing With page. This is the link back to the main page. Any questions?
