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openAbrupt zoom-in for spooky effect
The character sees something that frightens them, such as a gnarly tree or a scary painting, and the camera suddenly zooms in on that thing, frightening the viewer as well.
Can occur in film, live-action TV, animation, or even video games.
An example would be the opening scene from the Thomas The Tank Engine music video, "Boo, boo, choo choo!". The song begins with a spooky chord, accompanied by an abrupt zoom-in on a rather scary-looking owl.
Edited by TheGrassGuyopenChiasmus/Antimetabole Literature
Chiasmus and antimetabole are closely related rhetorical techniques, in which someone uses the same, or related, words, in a certain order, and then in the opposite order, to make a point. There are many notable examples:
"When the going gets tough, the tough get going." "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
These examples all use the same words, but Chiasmus can also be employed by using similar concepts - "Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves". You see it all over the place, in any medium which involves words, and can be played for drama or indeed for laughs.
openWhiny Woobie
A character has a genuinely sad backstory or is worthy of pity, but is so whiny about it that it makes them unsympathetic. Similar to Jerkass Woobie, except the character isn't mean to people around him, just hard to stand for more than five minutes.
openDeal certain damage for win
the player must deal x (can low as 7 or high as 100/1000) damage to make boss defeat from surrender otherwise boss is hard to kill
Edited by Baolen2445openJust Go With It
Bob says something mind-bogglingly stupid to Charlie. Alice (Bob's friend/parent/minder etc.) tells Charlie to just go with it, as ignoring Bob is much faster than correcting him every time he says something stupid.
openDoes nothing from shock?
So there's a grand fight between multiple factions, but the one of them drops a bombshell of a reveal, and then another of the factions just... stands by the side and watches the events unfold and not because it was planned all along or anything. They just stand by the side watching in anger even though they could have stepped in at any time.
openFailed Heroic Sacrifice
Is there a trope for when a character attempts a Heroic Sacrifice death but they don't die, and as a result thing get worse?
openinintentional expy
Is there a trope for when a character happens to be really similar to another, but it a coincidence, meaning they aren't an Expy? The exact example I am thinking of is how Astronema seems rather similar to Sarah Kerrigan, even though Power Rangers in Space started several months before Starcraft came out.
Edited by BootlebatopenNinja Fishnets Anime
Is there a trope for whatever the hell that fishnet-like fabric that Ninjas wear on their arms is?
openTransferred The Call
Alice receives The Call, but she doesn't particularly want it, so she arranges for Bob (who has a bad case of I Just Want to Be Special) to go in her place instead.
Edited by Chabal2openMistaken for Imprisonment
Is there a trope for when a character thinks he/she is being detained for a crime but is actually able to leave freely or is being detained for something more mundane?
resolved Popularity boost, might be in YMMV or Trivia?
A show/movie/book/whatever receives a massive boost of popularity after being shouted out by another show/book/movie/whatever. I thought it was called the "Conan Effect" or something similar, but searching that brought up nothing.
openYou Can't Win
In a one-on-one fight, a character knows that they can't completely beat their opponent, so instead their goals are just to stall for time or force them to retreat instead of outright defeating them
openThrow heal at you boss
Boss or That One Boss have habit to sometimes heal the player midway during battle
openPermutation Sickness
Soap operas suffer from this: combinatorics has to come to the rescue where fresh plot lines are scarce... at some point everybody has been romantically involved with someone else! (As The World Turns)
Other shows get hamstrung by their own success and receive more seasons than they have story for. In Lost, the cast kept breaking up in various factions that storm off to the other side of the island. Orphan Black similarly degenerated into various combinations chasing around what is probably the environs of Vancouver.
A special instance of this trope is the endless game of Who Has The Gun which was also a never-ending story device in Lost. (I don't hate Lost, it is just a perfect showcase of this Trope.)
openActor changed element?
Like the opposite of Actor-Inspired Element, where something about the character or plot is changed at the behest of the actor. Could be due to an injury, or maybe do to a personal reason (like how Iron Man 3 was supposed to be an adaptation of the Demon in a Bottle storyline, but Robert Downey Jr. requested it be changed, as he didn’t want to get in the headspace of an alcoholic, which would put his own recovery from alcoholism at risk or how the rape scene in The Lovely Bones was cut due to Stanley Tucci's discomfort and Saoirse Ronan's parents saying that they wouldn't let her star in the film if it was left it)
Edited by arimediumopenAbsurdly Lethal Poison/Disease
A sister trope to Absurdly Sharp Blade, Absurdly Sharp Claws and other tropes of that type. In this case, this often describes a fictional disease or poisonous substance that is so deadly that it’s just plain ludicrous and implausible.The substance/disease in question will often be described along the lines of “even a tiny sample of that disease would be enough to kill the entire population of Earth in less than a month” or “a single teaspoon of that liquid could literally kill you a thousand times over if you tried to inhale it” and whatnot. You get the idea.
openDate trope? Western Animation
I'm sure we've seen this in some series:
- In OK Ko Lets Be Heroes, a calendar showed Year 201X, the year wasn't given.
- A Comic-Book Adaptation of Arrow had Year 201X in one panel.
- In Western Animation/Dexter's Laboratory, one issue of the Comic-Book Adaptation had Year 200X on a calendar.
openthe comedy is more accurate
Is there any sort of trope for when a comedy or satire is somehow more accurate to a setting/topic than more serious drama shows of the same vain? Like, how Scrubs depicts working in a hospital more realistically than most serious medical shows despite being sitcom that only rarely tries to be serious.
Edited by DrunkenRockLee
A character (usually of the Yandere type) uses a box cutter specifically as a weapon. I've seen this in quite a few anime, as well as anime-inspired works (i.e. video games) that I'm surprised I haven't found a trope about it yet.