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.
Miss_Desperado
Since: Sep, 2016
15th Dec, 2017 11:32:01 AM
I just stumbled across The Moving Experience completely by accident, it seems like a sub-trope of your described situation.
If not for this anchor I'd be dancing between the stars. At least I can try to write better vampire stories than Twilight.
It's like Let Them Die Happy or Your Days Are Numbered or Secretly Dying except the "them" in question lives and we get to see how they react to the other party's attempt at sparing their feelings before the other party did something very bad that will probably cost their relationship or thinks will cost their relationship. Often causes the other party to act O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
For example:
In Teen Titans, the plot of Season 4 is that Raven is destined to end the world. The first part of the Season 4 finale takes place on the day this will happen, so Raven doesn't tell the team this because she doesn't want them to worry about her (because she's supposed to die when this happens) or try to stop the apocalypse (they are Determinators, and she believes it's hopeless to fight what's basically Satan), so instead she chooses to live her life to the fullest with them and making sure they have a good day. The team doesn't know why Raven is doing this (she is usually a Grumpy Bear) until the world ends at the end of the episode, but Raven uses the last of her powers to let them live before she dies/goes MIA, wishing them to stay safe. The team knows that Raven is a good person, so her attempt at trying to Let Them Die Happy only encourages them to fight in memory of Raven.
In the first season finale of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, a season-spanning arc is what Fred's father, Mayor Jones, is up to. We learn that besides being a neglectful sociopath, he's involved in the Myth Arc and is Ambiguously Evil. By the season finale, he's paranoid that he'll be found out soon, so at the beginning of the episode, he apologizes to Fred for being mean and tells him that he loves him. The episode ends with not only revealing that Mayor Jones is after the MacGuffin, but also that he's not Fred's real father; he's Fred's kidnapper, having abducted him from his real parents as a hostage. Mayor Jones was scared that he would lose his son's love and trust (he had come to genuinely love Fred), especially because Fred was actively trying to search for the truth about his father himself. Fred and Mayor Jones end up becoming estranged, with Fred not wanting anything to do with Mayor Jones and we don't get to see Mayor Jones' response in the aftermath of the season finale (other than he implicitly still wants Fred back and he's still a selfish jerk).
In Episode 26 of the Pokémon Sun & Moon anime, Sophocles learns at the beginning of the episode that he and his family are moving. Because this means that he'll have to tearfully bid farewell to his friends at school if he tells them, he initially doesn't tell his classmates that he's moving and instead acts like it's a normal school day. At the end of the day, he gives in and confesses. The next day, his classmates decide to give him the best day ever before he moves away the day after that. It turns out that Sophocles' family is just moving to a bigger house in the neighborhood. It's like Last Day to Live (it probably is?), except Sophocles doesn't die or anything.
Edited by CommanderVisor