The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Find a Trope:
openMurphy’s Law
Is there any trope relating to Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong)?
open"Return to Innocence" Film
Is there any trope that describes a sort of return to innocence from depression and adulthood, like the adults in Paddington experience when befriending him, or like adult Christopher Robin experiences when meeting Pooh and his friends after having gone to war and having a wife and child?
openTeam Recap/Exposition to Villian Live Action TV
The good guys take turns explaining the plot to the bad guy.
Good Guy #1: "You were angry at ___ over ___ so you killed him" Good Guy #2: "And then you tried to cover it up by ___" Good Guy #3: "But you didn't count on ___" etc.
Used frequently by show like NCIS and Scooby Doo
openSupernatural interrogation methods
Using Super Powers, the force, waterbending or whatever as a method of torturing someone to interrogate them.
open Snark from an editor Web Original
This is when the editor of a video production (although it could be from other media) inserts snarky on-screen comments and/or effects into the video to make fun of the host(s), point out something in the video that wasn't originally part of its focus, or other shenanigans.
Do we have something for this already?
openSpectator Mode
A video game, usually one with online Multiplayer, allows you to watch other players.
openHorrified by the mundane
It's a comedy trope where someone is utterly unfazed by stuff normal people find horrifying, but then utterly terrified by totally normal stuff.
"Blood and gore, Lovecraftian abominations, yawn... wait, is that... OHMIGOD IT'S A SNICKERS BAR, RUN!"
That sort of thing.
openAudience Knows The Twist
A scenario where the audience knows a major twist (Bob is a traitor, Alice was Switched at Birth, Charlie has cancer, etc.) by witnessing it before the rest of the cast knows about it.
For example:
openClosely Following Someone Videogame
What trope is it when you have to closely follow someone to a destination and failing to do so results in some negative consequence? I'm thinking something like Stalking Mission, but there's no stealth element involved.
openA section for noting the Location / Time, for the scene right after.
Noting the Location / Time, for the scene right after.
Like, a frame that says "Jack's House, Morning".
openDetectives don't wear gloves Live Action TV
Hi, I'm looking for DNA contamination tropes. Examples I'm thinking of: Everybody except the detectives is wearing full body forensic suits, masks and gloves. Usually the forensic team is still collecting DNA samples or finger prints while the detectives go around and touch everything. This is however treated as something completely normal and almost never addressed. If the sample collected has more than one match they will only match police officers and no suspect. Otherwise they will have exactly one match, the suspect.
openAnti-Abridged Arena Array Videogame
That One Level is for the hard levels, but is there a YMMV for the levels people just don't like playing in general? Like the Goddamned Level to That One Boss's Goddamned Boss?
A few months ago I added the Pac-Land stage on YMMV.Super Smash Bros Ultimate as a Replacement Scrappy to the Pac-Maze stage as I regularly see negative comparisons between the two; it was later removed as misuse, which I agree with, but even outside of comparisons to Pac-Maze, rarely does anybody actually want to play on Pac-Land (I regularly see people self-destruct when I pick it).
I know it's not limited to Pac-Land within Smash, as other stages like Hanenbow, Mario Bros., and 75m tend to elicit groans if someone picks them, but most of the time I see the "levels nobody wants to play" filed under That One Level (in fairness, it can actually be hard to play on some of these levels, so you could make a case that it would fit both that trope and a hypothetical "Avoid This Level" trope).
openPost-Apocalyptic Ferrarri Live Action TV
Is there a trope for characters taking advantage of societal breakdown to use expensive cars and other luxury items? Like if 99% of the world's population is gone, there are lots of ferrarris to go around?
open"The Beard" but for straight characters?
I mean, when a character in a work of fiction is intended to be straight but some elements of the work might give the opposite idea, so said character is given a mate of the opposite sex in order to clearly state their preference, BUT the mate has absolutely no relevance in the story other than that. What trope would that be? The Beard, of course, is for fake opposite sex relationships in which at least one of the two is actually gay. Satellite Love Interest is similar or overlapping, but not necessarily including the "beard" factor.
The example I'm thinking of: Jennifer in "Back to the Future". She serves no purpose in the plot of any of the three films whatsoever (she would only become a real character in the Telltale videogame), and even Zemeckis and Gale admitted that if they knew they were going to do sequels, they wouldn't have put her in the Delorean at the end of the first film (of course she's quickly written off in Part II). The only reason to put her in the movie seems to be stating that Marty is heterosexual, and thus definitely not doing anything naughty with Doc's, uh, "flux capacitor"...
(Thank you to troper Primis for the heads-up about the right forum!)
openCurly on the Floor
Someone spins around running on the floor like Curly of the Three Stooges.
openWhen I’m drunk....
Is there a trope for when someone’s behavior becomes less whacky, rather than more, when they are intoxicated? Bernice from Designing Women was a Cloud Cuckoolander who became intelligent, sane, and rational when drunk. Comedian Geri Jewell, who has cerebral palsy, jokes that when she’s drunk she walks perfectly straight. And I just got a laugh out of my daughter by saying that when a Furby gets drunk, it speaks plain English. What trope is in play here?
mathematical formula version of Overly Long Fighting Animation