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:
openNo Title
Do we have a trope that is an inverse of O.O.C. Is Serious Business, where out of character behavior is played for laughs?
Closest thing is Not So Above It All, but given all the subtropes in "Serious Business" that may be a case for this being a subtrope of an "OOC is Hilarious Business" type of trope.
Edited by sgamer82openNo Title Anime
Do we have a trope for a modern chivalrous character, or it's just generic Nice Guy? Quite obviously he won't fit into Knight in Shining Armor nor Old-School Chivalry—but to the female protagonist, he'd be, on a metaphorical sense, a "knight in shining armor" (not the trope).
openNo Title
What's the trope for this: A hero is being chased by bad guys and runs into some bums at an intersection. When the mooks arrive, this conversation happens:
The mooks run the way the opposite way the vagrant pointed, after which the hero gets up, having rolled himself in one of the bums' blankets.
openNo Title
Is there already a trope for when a character is running straight away from things... well that sounds stupid so here's an example (mutiple examples to be exact):
Bob sees a long but thin thing (a tower of doom for example) collapse towards him, now Bob could of course just step a few steps to the side and be all merry (we're excluding things like debris for the sake of this example), but instead of doing that Bob decides to run straight away from the thing, leading to a long scene were we can see the collapsing tower comes nearer and nearer to Bob until finally the top crashes on the ground behind him.
Another example: Bob shoots an unguided(!) rocket toward Alice, now Alice could just step aside and let it be, but no Alice instead decides to run straight away rom the rocket leading to a scene were we see the rocket closing in until its fuel finally runs dry. (or where it doesn't... ooops, RIP Alice, why didn't you just step aside?)
Edited by Sergey_SmirnovopenNo Title
There's an old trope that associates businessmen and/or extremely wealthy people with golf, and it was practically to the point where successful businessmen were expected to know how to play golf. This was particularly prominent during the 80s and early 90s before a cultural shift gave businessmen other ways of socializing that wasn't on the green.
Tennis also gets this kind of stigma as a common phrase a high ranking manager might have is working on his backswing. It all likely has something to do with tennis courts and golf courses being prominent in country clubs, but I'd like to know if we have a trope for these.
Edited by RikunopenNo Title
I think this is related to but distinct from My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels.
A character/item/world has a name which to most people is totally normal, then they visit someone from a different culture and tell them the name only for that person to immediately break out laughing. When they finally stop they explain that, in their native tongue, that name is a word meaning some embarrassing thing.
openNo Title Videogame
Is there a trope where a character is able to use his/her power because of his/her heritage in a region, from a particular group of people, or at least in general?
I am doing this for Dia from Might & Magic, who is able to use Thunder magic as her lineage come from Atharva, a region that is associated with the element thunder.
openNo Title
How does Villainous BSoD relate to My God, What Have I Done? and Heel Realization?
openNo Title
How would Strike Me Down, Get It Over With, Finish Him!, Kill Him Already!, Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand, Get On With It Already, Sword over Head and Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred! relate to each other?
They're all subtropes of Coup de GrĂ¢ce, right?
openNo Title Live Action TV
Two people are getting married, and one of their friends gets ordained online so they can perform the ceremony. In Real Life this is done by the Universal Life Church but I've seen it on TV as the Church of Buffy and the Klingon church.
openNo Title Live Action TV
Does the Wiz Live! quote "So, knowing that I know nothing...means that I know something?" sound like something that belongs under any of the Logic Tropes? I listed it under Insane Troll Logic, but I don't know if it still sounds insane in context.
Edited by dsneybufopenNo Title
What is the inverse of Techno Babble (meaningless string of words that superficially resembles technical jargon), where a seemingly meaningless string of words is actually quite meaningful to someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable in the right kind of technical jargon? Is it Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness?
openNo Title
Alice knows exactly what The Empire is doing. Bob is representing The Empire. Alice wants to negotiate with The Empire. When speaking to Bob she diplomatically downplays atrocities committed by The Empire to avoid having a pissed of Bob to deal with on top of everything else.
Is this a trope?
openNo Title Live Action TV
Is there a name for the common practice of having a recurring guest character on to serve as a temporary love interest for a main character, with no intention of it ever going anywhere permanent, but purely to draw out the will-they/won't-they arc of the main character with another main character?
(For example: Jennifer Morrison, Sarah Chalke, and practically every other recurring guest actress on How I Met Your Mother.)
Edit: I looked in the subtropes of Love Interest; Romantic False Lead was the closest, but still not quite right. That was describing more of a case where one of the main characters is dating someone who's clearly wrong for them (like Pam and Roy in The Office). I'm thinking more in terms of a situation where the writers make the guest character very appealing and like someone it would sense for the main character to be with, but it doesn't work it mostly just because they aren't a main character as well, and the writers want the main character to end up with another main character (like Rashida Jones, or more briefly Amy Adams, with Jim on The Office).
Edited by RookiebatmanopenNo Title
Is there already a trope for when after the main energy source of something is cut a backup power will kick in (a battery or other kind of internal source) and said internal source will handily last for a given amount of time regardless of what actually happens).
Like in Neon Genesis Evangelion, if you cut the umbilical-cable of one of the EVAs their internal battery will last for 5 minutes (excluding all the times when they reactivated after said time was over), though if those 5 minutes are filled with an action laden fight with lots of movements and stuff involved or just 5 minutes of standing around (where one would suspect the energy drain to be much lower) is totally irrelevant, its 5 minutes regardless.
openNo Title Live Action TV
I might be going for something too specific in this, but is there a trope for when the lines of extras during Audience Murmurs and chatter seems intentionally clear and audible for effect?
I've recently been watching The 100, and there have been multiple times when lines of extras are so (awkwardly) clear they almost sound dubbed, and the intention was for dramatic effect. As an example, after one of the leads instructs the group to "Get back to work!" or something similar, no-one-in-particular can clearly be heard saying in agreement, "You heard him!"—I feel this falls outside Audience Murmurs since it is not a watermelon/rhubarb phrase meant to emulate dialogue, but an actual line heard from an indistinct member of a crowd.
I am just using that series as an example, since I feel like I've heard this a million times in various tension-building scenes, like where two characters are about to fight and you can hear people in the background distinctly saying "Beat his ass, [Character Name]!" instead of general cheering, or when someone shy is thrust on-stage about to perform their Crowning Moment Of Awesome and people in the crowd can be heard saying things like "You suck!" and "Get off the stage!" rather than general sounds of booing and disapproval.
Edited by mephistos
Do we have any tropes related to mining settlements? If not I might try a YKTTW.