Sandbox / TLP Adoption Drive

This sandbox was created as an effort to improve the Trope Launch Pad. It intends to act as a catalog for drafts in good condition — i.e. with a solid concept, a good description, and enough examples — that have been declared Up for Grabs by their original sponsors or left floating in the aether by a sponsor who has become inactive.

If you would like to add to this sandbox by listing a UFG draft, please list it in the "Drafts Up for Adoption" in alphabetical order along with its laconic. If you would like to adopt a draft from this list, move it to the "Adopted Drafts" folder and sign your name. And if you would like to ask for input about certain drafts or help get them ready for launch, see the Adoption Drive thread.

Note that this draft is for taking care of existing drafts. If you would prefer to start fresh, the Trope Idea Salvage Yard catalogs potentially tropeworthy ideas from Trope Repair Shop and discarded, low-quality drafts.

See also the TLP Salvage List for more drafts worth adopting and grabbing.

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Drafts Up for Adoption

• Absolutely Average Assignment: A crazy character treats his lame or made up job as Serious Business.
• Absurdly Charismatic Villain: Villain who gets followers through pure charisma.
• Across Time and Albums: A band writes about a character or concept on several different albums
• Adaptational Singularity: A type of Mook is a single character in adaptation.
• Alibi Sounds More Fun: Why am I sneaking around when I could be having fun?
• Ambiguous Family Ties: Spouses assume a distant relative comes from each other's family.
• Anachronistic Holiday: A holiday is celebrated in a real-world setting where it didn't exist yet
• Anachronistic Swordsman: A character who wields a sword as their usual weapon, even in settings where swords normally aren't used.
• And Many More Coda: A classic four-note music ending that ends on a seventh chord.
• Animal and Animate Object Employees: Animals and automobiles are not simply used in professions; they behave like employees as well.
• Arrival Amnesia: A person forgets why they entered a room immediately upon entering it.
• Art Episode: Episodes where the characters or setting indulges in the world of Fine Art; making it, selling it, learning from it and satirizing it.
• Artificial Impregnation: Getting pregnant through artificial means
• Artistic License – Journalism: When fiction writers (and occasionally nonfiction writers themselves) get nonfiction writing wrong.
• Artistic License – Technology: How technology works is portrayed incorrectly in fiction.
• Ascended Misspelling: A subtrope of Memetic Mutation where a misspelled word takes on a life of its own.
• Assumed Trope: A new Playing with a Trope entry for when a character mistakenly thinks (without being deceived) that a trope is happening.
• Attempted Apparatus Agriculture
• Attention-Driven Activity: A character takes up a new activity (be it a hobby, a job, or what have you) for the sole purpose of getting attention.
• Auxiliary Force: They're not a regular part of the military/police, but they provide a useful service
• Baby/Dog Bond: A dog portrayed as being the friend or protector of a human baby.
• The Backbone: A character who tries to make their shy friend to be more assertive.
• Badass Boast-off Characters exchange escalating statements of bluster.
• Bag Of Tricks: An unpredictable container that always has something new, which might be helpful or might just be strange.
• Big Bad Gift: A villain gives a gift to the protagonist or a major character.
• Bimbo Chaser: A character who is attracted to Brainless Beauties.
• Bladed Shoe: A shoe with a blade in it.
• Bonding At The Bar: Characters bond while sharing drinks. May need to be expanded to include non-alcoholic beverages.
• Born Evil, Stays Evil: When an individual's species or normal state of being, from birth, maliciously goes against the kind-hearted morality of other populations, and cannot be swayed to good by others.
• Boyish Skirt-Flipping Prank: Bratty boys flip girl's skirts to tease them.
• Brace Lock: Characters with braces kiss and their braces get stuck.
• Brain Diagram: A chart is provided of a character's brain, with areas dedicated to specific function or interests.
• Breaking Rules For Fun: A flagrant, public rule violation purely for fun, followed by getting called on it.
• Brute Force Code Cracking: Keep inputting codes until it works!
• Business Is Business: Sometimes business is more important than anything else.
• Called In A Favor: When a character you've never heard of turns out to owe the hero a favor, and the hero calls in that favor to move the plot along.
• Carcass of Foreboding: A dead animal foreshadows that danger is coming for the POV characters.
• Cargo Concealment Caper: Hiding With The Cargo
• The Casanova Did Nothing Wrong: An story tries to have an Aesop about not taking advantage of women, but no women were actually taken advantage of.
• Centerfold Gag: A character opens a magazine centerfold, parodying a Playboy centerfold and implying sexual, shocking, or pleasing content.
• Christmas Epilogue: The final scene is set at Christmas when the rest of the work is not.
• City Destruction Threat: A villain coerces the hero by threatening to wipe out an entire city.
• Class Interrupted: If a class is being held, it will inevitably be interrupted for some reason or other.
• Class Reunion Crasher: Someone attends a class reunion that isn't theirs and poses as an old classmate of the attendees.
• Clown Doctor: A doctor and a clown, all in one.
• Consumed By Wrath: When a character hurts others nonsensically because they are driven by anger.
• Crib-to-Bed Plot: A plot involving a toddler character moving from a crib to a regular bed.
• Crosstime Dialogue: Two characters in different time periods are able to have a written or spoken conversation.
• Cultural Erasure: Destroying the values, traditions, languages, and everything else that makes a certain group unique.
• Damage Boost: Taking advantage of getting hurt by hazards for a temporary speed boost.
• Darkhorse Episode (YMMV): An apparently ordinary episode is well loved among a fan base.
• The Dead Pity The Living: The fear of death appears pointless or amusing from the perspective of the dead
• Desolate Dimension of Discomfort: A remote alternate universe/dimension where the environment is harsh and distressing, but not agonizing.
• "Did It On Purpose" Accusation: A character blames another's act against them as being done deliberately (title crowner)
• Different For Everyone: An object or similar takes on different qualities depending on the character interacting with it.
• Discovering The Body: A character discovers a dead body. Drama usually ensues.
• Distracting Passenger: A passenger distracting the driver.
• Dodge Fighter: Fighter focuses on avoiding hits rather than absorbing them.
• Dramatic Offering Rejection: Someone rejects an offering by destroying it.
• Dreadful Diva Demands: A superstar makes petty, unreasonable demands just to flex their power.
• Eerie Moon In Bare Branches: The visual of the moon framed by bare tree branches as a portent of danger
• Emergency Solar Navigation: The sun or stars are used as a directional guide, when all other methods have failed.
• Enabled Delusion: A character's delusions or wrong beliefs are enabled or encouraged by other people.
• Energetic Editing: An editing style popularized by Web Videos, with quick cuts and surreal visual gags.
• Ethnic Mascot: A mascot that is a racial/ethnic stereotype.
• Evidence-less Extranormal Murder: A magical murder MO that leaves little to no evidence that can be investigated by conventional means
• Evil By Outside Force: A villain is revealed to have initially become evil due to an outside force.
• Excuse for Defeat: Exaggerating your opponents' prowess to conceal your embarrassing defeat.
• Exempt From Physics: A character's actions do not conform to the physics of their world.
• Extremely Cooperative Multiplayer: Co-Op Multiplayer where the players collectively control a single character (or genre equivalent).
• Fad Starter [Trivia] : A work that started a real-life fad of some kind.
• Fantastic Plagiarism: Plagiarism which involves time travel or parallel dimensions.
• Fantasy Creep: Over time, a show not originally in the territory starts having fantastical plot elements
• Fearing Death Is Fine: Fear of death is presented as normal, if not desirable.
• Filthy Street Chickens: Chickens as shorthand for a place being poor and underdeveloped.
• Finishing with a flourish: A form of Mundane Made Awesome where a character finishes an action with a flashy little gesture.
• Fire Safety Episode: Fire fighters fascinate kids.
• The First Supers: A trope regarding the first appearances of superheroes within a given universe.
• Friendship Struggle: Drama based around friendship issues. May need a retooling.
• Five Victim Ensemble: An ensemble trope concerning victims in a horror/zombie/whatever movie.
• Fourth Wall Farewell: The fourth wall is only broken with the final line in the work.
• Funeral Grave Jump: Jumping into someone's grave during the funeral.
• Gacha Elements: Video games that use the summoning aspects of gacha games without microtransactions.
• Gifted Hero, Self-Made Villain: When heroes have acquired their abilities quickly while villains built themselves up slowly.
• Ghost Brings News Of Own Death: A character who's interacting with ghosts meets the ghost of somebody who was still alive last time they met.
• Greece Is Always Ancient: Plots about or set in Greece are always about or set in Ancient Greece, and if set in Modern Greece, only as a backdrop or devoid of modern Greek attributes.
• Handkerchief Comfort And Blowing: Character A offers crying Character B a handkerchief and/or substitute similar to a handkerchief or Character A has a handkerchief and/or substitute similar to a handkerchief to comfort him/herself with while crying
• Happy Battle Music: A tune played during a Fight Scene or Boss Battle that is happy and cheerful.
• Heartwarming Echo: Quote repeated in an emotionally-touching context
• Heterogeneity is Evil: A trope about the tendency of stories to present uniformity as desirable and diversity as evil, whether the ultimate Aesop is
• Hideous Makeover: A makeover backfires and a character ends up looking terrible.
• How You Play the Game: An Aesop about fair play and good sportsmanship being more important than winning.
• If vs How Tension: Does the drama come from whether the conflict is resolved or how the conflict is resolved?
• Improbable Diet: There's no way someone could sustain themselves with these feeding habits.
• Improvised Puppet Mouth: Someone uses a hinged object as a puppet mouth.
• Inevitably Infectious Wounds or other means of disease transmission carry a 100% infection rate.
• Insanity Inquiry: Asking someone if they’re crazy if they’re doing…uh, something crazy.
• Instant Correction: A character corrects another character's statement erroneously.
• Ironic Favorite Music Genre: A character loves music you wouldn't expect from them.
• It Takes A Real Crisis: A fake crisis fails to motivate somebody to step up and be a hero, but a real crisis does.
• Item Fusion: When multiple items are combined into one.
• Judge A Book By Its Center: Books are always opened to the middle.
• Key of Opportunity: Advantage is taken of a key left in a lock.
• King of the Orphans: A Street Urchin becomes the de facto "leader" of the other orphans.
• Kiss As Payment: Character (often a villain) demands a kiss from hero/hero's love interest in return for a service.
• Knights In Power Armor: Medieval style fused with modern technology
• A Lesson In Gun Safety: A character gives another character a quick lesson in gun safety.
• Lost Property Live Drop: An agent gives or receives covert goods disguised as lost belongings.
• Man's Job Means Male Relatives In The Field: Women with traditionally male jobs usually have male relatives already established in the field.
• Manly Single Father: Becoming a father and raising a child alone or as the primary parent is masculine and desirable.
• Mental Illness Song: Songs dealing with mental health
• "Merit, Not Bigotry" Aesop: An Aesop in which someone who believes they are being unfairly marginalized instead finds out their lack of success is based on lack of merit.
• Mexican Music Motif: Dancing around a sombrero or a Standard Snippet, usually Jarabe Tapatio, La Cucaracha, or Cielito Lindo, played to convey a Mexican setting or character.
• Misleadingly Timed Screaming: A character screams at a time that causes others to get the wrong idea about why.
• Mistaken for Mentally Disabled: A dumb character is believed by one or more characters of having a mental disability.
• Monster Menagerie: A facility for the live containment of monsters.
• More Than Just Spock (Trivia): An actor takes up a new role that allows them to gain recognition beyond the one character they are best known for.
• The Most Popular Band In The World: A band, singer, or musician is absurdly popular and loved by everyone
• Multiple Choice Afterlife: There are lots of afterlives. Which one you go to is determined by your belief system.
• Narrow Victory Tantrum: A character is mad that they won narrowly instead of by a wide margin.
• The Neighborhood Changes At Night: During the night, the neighborhood changes.
• Nerf Axed: A Game-Breaker is removed in the next installment.
• Never Cried Before: Character claims to have never shed tears before.
• Noble Predator: Predatory animals are depicted as majestic and heroic.
• Normal Doesn't Exist: In reality, there is only weirdness.
• Not Actually In Disguise: A character has a plan relying on another character being in disguise. Then the real thing shows up.
  • High-maintenance draft, title brainstorming in progress.
• Not Good with Children: A character just doesn't do well with children.
• Obstructive Paranoia: A person's paranoia ends up hindering the efforts of those on his side.
• Offset Blink: A character closes and opens one eye earlier than the other when blinking
• The "One Job!" Mistake: Some jobs just can't be trusted with certain people.
  • High-maintenance draft. The title, whatever it ends up being, needs to be guarded against being changed to "You had one job!" because of No New Stock Phrases. The description needs to be changed from character-centric to plot-centric, or else there's too much overlap with character-centric tropes like Spanner in the Works; The Millstone; The Load; The Fool
• One-off Ending Theme: One episode uses a different ending theme than usual.
• Only Clean Mouth: The only one in the cast not subjected to the Cluster F-Bomb.
• OOC Message: A character intentionally uses out of character behavior to send a hidden message to other characters.
• Pacifist Princess: Princesses who prefer peace over violence
• Pager Avalanche: In a room full of important people, every pager and cell phone starts going off simultaneously - Something really terrible must've happened off-screen.
• Painful Confession: A character makes a confession that is particulary distressing for them (and sometimes others).
• Patched-Clothing Individualism: A character is decked out in patches, buttons, or something similar to show their individuality.
• Personally Relating: Someone gets to relate with someone else's problem/issue/attribute/etc.
• Phishing: Anything designed to get personal information from the gullible.
• Phubbing: A character snubs someone by messing around or talking on their phone. The only big issue is that godawful name/neologism.
• Pilgrimage: A journey made for moral or spiritual reasons
• Player Conditioning Systems: A mechanic intended to condition people to play a game more.
• The Pointer Pose: A dog points its whole body to something it smelled/heard/saw to notify its owner.
• Point Of View Character: Seems less of a standard trope than a "nuts and bolts of storytelling" article. Maybe Useful Notes?'
• Popular Nerd: Nerdy characters who are actually popular and well-oiled in-universe.
• Post-Escape Chase: The heroes are escaping but the enemy is hot on their tail.
• Power Shrinks: As something becomes stronger, it becomes smaller.
• Pregnancy Bombshell: A regular joe has had a bad day, and the suck is gonna reproduce.
• Puberty Is Corrupting: Puberty is seen as an evil or corrupting influence on a person.
• Queer Since Childhood: An LGBTQ+ character shows Early Personality Signs.
• Razor Substitute: A person uses a non-razor object to shave.
• Reality Singalong: A character with knowledge of an event repeats what another character says as they say it.
• Rebuilt Society: A great society implodes and rebuilds itself from the ground up
• Re-Enter, Pursued By A Bigger Stick: Character A chases Character B off-screen. A second later, the chase reverses, B holding a bigger weapon.
• Rejecting Rite of Passage: A plot driven by debate over whether a child should undergo a cultural ritual.
• Related Regardless of Distance: Your distant relatives are considered close relatives
• Relationship Won't Survive the Adventure: Yeah, no way they'll be a couple by the time this is all over....
• Reveal By Reflex: Triggering a reflex response to reveal a character's martial-arts prowess or other badassery.
• Ridiculous-case scenario: Worst-case scenario ideas taken to extremes for the sake of comedy.
• Risking Their License: A character complains they could lose their license for taking a certain action.
• Rock Star Rebels: Fighting The Empire with The Power of Rock!
• Rodent Overbite: Every rodent and lagomorph in fiction tends to be drawn with prominent buck teeth.
• Sandersons First Law: "An author's ability to solve a problem with magic is directly proportional to the audience's understanding of said magic".
• Secretly Related: Two characters are related, but keep their relation a secret to everyone else.
• Self Defense Run: Someone runs from a murder they could easily be acquitted from.
• Sexy Mermaid Costume: A character dresses up like a mermaid for show and not for swimming.
• Shapeshifting Includes Clothing: The character can shapeshift, including their clothing (which is not part of their body in the first place).
• Shouty Consultant Genre: A successful person screams and berates everyday people while attempting to fix their business. Basically the Gordon Ramsay Genre if that wasn’t Trope Namer Syndrome.
• Sickness Story Framing: Everything is an Imagine Spot for a sick person being read a story
• Signature Game Weapon: The weapon in a video game that moves away from Standard FPS Guns and is most well remembered.
• Special Whistle: A whistle that can't be heard by normal people.
• Species Like Mine: Intelligent beings prefer species like their own.
• Speedy Sequel: A work's sequel is released a short amount of time after the original.
• "Spider-Man" Kiss: A work parodies the upside-down kiss in Spider-Man.
  • High-maintenance draft, the glaring problems that caused it to be unlaunched should be fixed before its second launching.
• Stock Doomed Items: If an object or building appears explicitly, it WILL be destroyed or desecrated.
• Story Convention Origin - Could become a fun Trivia or Just for Fun page; has some good examples but the description needs filling out.
• Strangely Small Staff: This large business doesn't have very many people working there...
• Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal: Breaking the truce in an Enemy Mine situation.
• Super Mario Mockery: A parody of Mario.
• Sweet Scarecrow: A nice, friendly scarecrow.
• Tattered Top Hat Lids: Disheveled, poor, and drunk characters have top hat crowns like tin can lids.
• Threatened With A Kiss: One character threatens another with the thought or possibility of a kiss or romantic connection.
• Throwing The Useless Weapon: A weapon is rendered useless during the course of battle, and the fighter throws the now-useless weapon at the opponent.
• Tomboyish Career Path: Woman in traditional male oriented careers tend to be tomboys.
• Too Fabulous to Fight: Name says it all.
• Topiary Zoo: Ornamental gardens with the bushes in the shapes of animals.
• The Topic Of Diabetes: Diabetes treated as a serious, central topic of either an episode or a character.
• Toy Actor Series: Index of live-action works where toys are used as characters (figurines, plushies, puppets, etc.).
• Trauma-Induced Prohibition: Someone bans something because that something is associated with a controversial and/or villanous character
  • High-maintenance draft, title-scope mismatch pointed out here.
• True Final Level: A video game level that comes after the final level, but will only show up if you've finished a certain objective.
• Two Angels Make a Devil: When two kind, usually religious parents have a bratty or evil child.
• Unable to Whistle: A character cannot whistle.
• Unfinished Word Reveal: When the MacGuffin is kept secret by removing some of the letters from its name.
• Unintended Kinslayer: A character kills their relative without intending, or didn't know they were related.
• Varying Levels Of Cyborg Needs: Half organic, half mechanical creatures have varying requirements of organic needs or mechanical maintenance.
• Verbal Jabs Vs. Verbal Knockouts: When people tease each other, one goes for multiple shots, while the other prefers to land one good solid comeback
• Vicious Vampire Child: Taking "ankle-biter" to a whole new level.
• Virginity Renewal: A person's virginity is supernaturally restored.
• Visceral Robot: Mechanical robots with artificial, organic-like traits
• Watching The Past Go By: Snapshots of other times are briefly seen when a character travels through time, space, or someone's mind.
• Weak Hero, Strong Sidekick: The Sidekick is physically stronger than the Hero.
• Weird Judicial System: Accused, prepare for telepathic thought-extraction. The Computer shall decide your fate.
• Whip Wrist Wrap: Countering the use of a whip by letting it wrap around your wrist
• Whisper Reaction: One character whispers into another's ear, and judging by the listener's reaction, it's dynamite.
• Working for the Woman Sucks: Working under a female boss is presented as degrading, humilating, or just plain crappy when you're a guy.
• The Writer and the Typewriter: An old-school typewriter as visual cue that a character is a writer (and also possibly a hipster and/or Luddite).
• Write Who You Hate: A writer creates a character based on someone they have a grudge against in real life.
• Yank Into Melee Range: It's a thing, just needs a new description and some TLC. Significant overlap/possible dupe of You Will Not Evade Me resulted in a TRS thread for the latter that stalled out.

Adopted Drafts

• Aesop Dissonance: Adopted by Darkling Archer
• Alternate History – Confederate Victory: Adopted by Cutegirl920fire
• Ascended Hoax: We made this for April Fools... then we made it for real: Adopted by Master N
• Demonic Hiss: Re-adopted by Mighty Mewtron
• Genericasaurus: Claimed by Morgenthaler
• Long Season, Short Season (Trivia): Adopted by Van-San
• Protagonists Become Poor Parents: Adopted by Mighty Mewtron
• Raspy and Tough: A character with a raspy voice to signal their toughness: Adopted by Coachpill
• Smart, Dumb, and In-Between: Adopted by Ikea Han
• Used To Be Enemies: Two former enemies are now close allies: Adopted by AudioSpeaks2

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