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You know, that thing where...
You have a trope that you have seen a million times. It just needs a snappy name. Discuss it here! This is also a good place to call for examples.
Please see How To Make A Cool YKTTW before your first YKTTW.
Number of YKTTWs in this list: 193
These were created/updated in the last 3 day(s).
(Limit:500)
a completely new YKTTW or lend a hand with one of these:
Angelic Mecha
Needs A Better Title, please.
A Humongous Mecha show that has loads of Judeo-Christian symbolism, but this being Japan, it's often just for the hell of it.
Uncanny Valley Makeup
The female version of Pennywise, perhaps?
Makeup (or cosmetics) has been around for quite a while. It has long been known as those substances contained in the pretty little boxes, containers, and tubes, which are arranged on the standard vanity table with an elongated mirror to check your appearance as you apply said makeup. Makeup is mainly used to enhance the countenance of your face, usually to gain a more visually appealing visage.
Sometimes, however, the result goes horribly wrong and pushes the person straight into the Uncanny Valley or perhaps the result was intentional. Either way, they literally may end up with a clown-like appearance, a comically grotesque appearance, or an appearance similar to a porcelain doll.
Bonus points, if the person also puts on a Pimped Out Dress and the like, or dresses in a skimpy outfit that was intended purely for Fanservice, but in this case it may turn out to be Fan Disservice.
Examples: Anime/Manga
Terebi Turoopusu Uiki
This trope would be for when an anime or video game is translated and its fans steadfastly refuse to call it by its Woolseyismed title, instead using the original Japanese names, usually romanized (whether or not it's coherent). This happens most often with Macekred anime, but can also happen with video games - see the Bubble Bobble article for an on-site example.
(The working title is a romanized version of "TV Tropes Wiki".)
Gypsy Thief
A very insulting stereotype to Roma people. It was more popular in the past, but nowadays you may still sometimes encounter it, mostly as Unfortunate Implications.
It's one of the most prominent stereotypes of Roma, alongside Magical Gypsy. Most of the time, Romani women would be portrayed as either Magical Gypsies or ExoticDancers, and men would be Gypsy Thieves.
Given the Roma's historical association with horse trade, a Gypsy Thief often specializes in stealing horses. Sometimes, those are the same horses he just sold. Or, he may be a scammer, selling low quality horses or something, and "robbing" the customer this way.
Gypsy Thieves may be female, too - in that case, they're often young women - Exotic Dancers or just beautiful girls, who use their charms to distract the victim. Also, Gypsy Thieves may be children - in that case, they may swarm the victim and snatch his purse.
Examples:
Robotic Psychopath
Uh, I have diffuculty explaining the idea better than the title and examples
Dead Stop For Character Development
When a character dies without being given much time in the story. Creates a really weird feeling and is usually followed by "What the hell? I liked him/her!" from the viewers. Quite a "dead stop" for their development.
Examples:
Big Stone Lettering
Exactly What It Says On The Tin - huge letters carved in stone and piled on top of each other. Judging by the examples, this trope is most usually used by more comedic works. It would take a particularly sad musical act to use this on an album cover in the name of rock, which means it's almost certainly been done.
In Harmony With Nature
Surely we must have this and I am searching wrong. I thought Closer To Earth was it - it seems to be used that way on a number of pages, but the page doesn't say anything about nature at all - I see it's yet another Double Standard / The Unfair Sex sort of thing, whereas this has nothing to do with gender.
This, simply, is a character or a society who, either by training or by intuition, understands the resources and rhythms of nature exceptionally well, and lives accordingly. They may be able survive in, or travel through, an apparently forbidding wilderness with ease. If they're not an actual Nature Hero they'll probably be a virtually self-sufficient farmer or gardener, able to coax glorious harvests out of the ground with a single trowel and love (and certainly never with pesticides) and will pontificate about the ancient wisdom of the soil. At the very least, they'll be able to experience a simple jaunt through the countryside on a deeper level to any more urban-minded people around them. This MAY overlap with Friend To All Living Things, but not necessarily - quite often living In Harmony With Nature requires you to kill stuff, and even if you never take more than you need and have immense respect for the little critters you're roasting over the campfire, this does tends to deter them from gathering around you adoringly while you sing.
When confined to cities, characters who are In Harmony With Nature will often become distressed and wonder how the other characters can bear to live in such choking sterile surroundings.
Characters Raised By Wolves will almost inevitably be like this. Often a characteristic of a Mary Suetopia.
Examples
All Lesbians Want Kids
Can also be titled Lesbian Baby Boom. I guess this is one for The Parent Trope list.
So a given female cast member will get the storyline of realising she is gay/bisexual/"it's not the gender, it's the person" or maybe the she was already gay from the start, whatever the case maybe at some point after entering in a long-term relationship with another woman expect their biological clock to go off and thus the pregnancy (or adoption if pregnancy doesn't workout) storyline for the two will begin.
This isn't going to be good.
Now there's nothing wrong with the miracle of life nor lesbians, especially should the two combine, what is problematic is the execution of these storylines. In fact the very conception of the storyline can be borne out of lazy writing or possibly Executive Meddling and due to this apathy the quality overall will suffer. Did Not Do The Research, Double Standard, Most Writers Are Male and Unfortunate Implications are often attributed to it's prevalence. Expect some variation on a joke involving turkey basters.
However as we all know Tropes Are Not Bad and put in the right hands this can (and has) realistically be a good thing eventually leading to this being a Discredited Trope but not right now.
See this article
Last Accent Hero
An article that deserves to exist just for the pun, it's the character in a fantasy setting with an accent that nobody else in the world has, possibly even people of the same country or race.
Inspired by Durkon from Order of the Stick, whose over-the-top accent isn't shared by any other dwarves, even his own superior. There are bound to be dozens of examples in manga alone.
Deliberately Misspelled Title
Some works have titles that could have come straight from Rouge Angles Of Satin. Almost always, it's because some character makes a significant misspelling, so expect a Title Drop.
Compare Xtreme Kool Letterz.
Film
The Johnson
Yeah, I bet we have this.
This is the NPC that gives you quests to do. Any quests, if it's going to catch kittens for scientific study for extra money or furthering the story by the shady office dude giving you information on the man who killed your father.
Named after Shadowrun slang for a person who gives you a run.
What would you do for a Klondike bar?
This is a rethinking of a YKTWW I added earlier.
Originally this trope was about the improbably long lengths characters (normally men, because they're all perverts) will go to for sex.
Thanks to a reply from Nick Bensema (and for the working title suggested) now this trope would cover more ground, as long as the goal or reward the character wants is reasonably trivial or mundane. This trope does not cover characters that risk everything for a chance of true love, or saving the universe from destruction ; this is about characters who would fight monsters, travel around the world, face their worst nightmares for sex, chocolate, their lucky sock, the perfect shampoo or maybe even a klondike bar.
Of course it doesn't have to be that fantastical, what the character endures could easily be subjection to humiliation, physical tasks etc. (When I first thought of this YKTTW it was inspired by the teengae boys in American Pie, The Inbetweeners and the like going to ridiculous lengths for the chance of carnal pleasure, normally failing in their quests)
So, if this isn't already a trope and if you think it should be please give some examples, for I must now go and battle The Dragon to get my klondike bar back.
The Aliens Taught the Egyptians Everything
Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Mainly a Science Fiction trope. I think the pure number of Egyptian information we have on the site justifies the creation of this trope.
How many times has the Phlebotinum had an Egyptian counterpart, or the Ancient Deus Ex Machina been from the land of the pyramids? Need some high tech thinguhmabobber to combat the alien menace? Go to Egypt, dig up a forgotten tomb, and there you go--problem instantly solved.
In short, the Egyptians did it all first, and then left lots of hieroglyphic treasure maps behind.
Possibly justified because the Aliens helped the Egyptians build the pyramids.
Evil Girls Have a Shred of Humanity
Do We Have This? Doesn't help that the search is down. Also Seen It A Million Times so examples are needed.
Needs A Better Name IMO.
In a group, or maybe a duo of villains, the males will have no qualms about committing horrific acts, such as bombing villages, torturing prisoners, shooting puppies, and ripping the tags off of mattresses. The females will usually also participate in said acts as well, sometimes even with more vigor. However when ethical issues become more and more apparent you can bet that the gender of the villian that will have a problem with it will be female. The chance of this trope appearing increases if children are on the receiving end of the dark acts. The males on the other hand, will either never even look back, or if they do, simply shrug off said acts as business. Can usually involve a Femme Fatale.
While there is some truth in this trope, as males tend to be inclined to violent acts then females culturally, this is not always the case in everything else. Typically, female bullying can usually be even more viscous than male bullying.
However, culturally, females have been seen as the more peaceful of the two sexes, and are expected to have morality in them at all times, since traditionally, they would be stuck with children, whom need these traits. Males on the other hand, were going out hunting game and killing other males in war, they were expected to be able to commit acts of violence without any issues.
In short, it is a Double Standard, that the male will be expected to commit acts without remorse, but the female must look by eventually.
The trope is very similar to High Heel Face Turn in the sense that the female may make a Heel Face Turn after becoming throughoutly disgusted with the male villan's actions, but differs in the fact that she may not always defect to the other side but rather may just be shown having moral issues with the evil acts.
Examples:
Anime
DragonBall Z: The two primary evil androids are Android 17 and 18. 17, male, is never shown as having a shred of compassion, and is the more sadistic of the two. He doesn't just kill people, he ENJOYS killing people. 18, female, is more dispassionate about killing (even though she does quite a bit of it), and in several instances, shows mercy and/or outright aversion to killing innocents.
Film
Annie: The 1982 verison. Miss Hannigan has no kindness to the girls of the orphanage, and has no problems with kidnapping Annie from the loving Grace and Daddy Warbucks for cold hard cash, but once Rooster chases after Annie when she escapes and attempts to kill her, she has a change of heart and attempts to stop him.
Western Animation
Atlantis The Lost Empire: When the crew reaches Atlantis, Helga mentions how their entire plan is changed since people weren't supposed in the ruins. Rourke simply remarks, "This changes nothing." Despite this implied qualm, Helga doesn't try to stop the potential slaughter of the Atlanteans, although she does help Milo and Co. by shooting a flare at Rourke's airship after he throws her from it.
The Incredibles: Mirage has no problem with Syndrome firing a missile at the plane carrying Helen, although once Helen screams over the radio that there are children aboard, things change. The final straw for the Heel Face Turn however, is when Mr. Incredible grabs her and threats to rip her in half. Syndrome calls bluff, and Mr. Incredible is unable to do it. Mirage later calls Syndrome out for his blatant disregard for life, and later gives the family access codes for the rocket.
I See Uranus
Examples
Gradual Grinder
Needs a Better Name. Too bad Mighty Glacier and The Millstone were already taken...
The Glass Cannon uses powerful attacks to quickly blow his enemies to smithereens. The Gradual Grinder thinks this shows a lack of patience. Instead, the Gradual Grinder prefers to use abilities that deal damage over time, steadily wearing her enemies down, and usually leaving them too crippled to be much of a threat to her - which is good, because typically she isn't much tougher than the Glass Cannon.
Usually, the Gradual Grinder comes in one of three variations. Most commonly they are spellcasters who specialize in curses, hexes, or other Standard Status Effects. Some Roguish characters also fight like this, poisoning or literally bleeding their foes to death while they nimbly dodge their increasingly feeble counter-attacks. More rarely, some heavily-armed and -armored fighters prefer to wear their enemies down this way through blood loss or, if they are Magic Knights, through debilitating spells.
Gradual Grinders are rarely good guys, probably because a slow, torturous death is viewed less favorably than a quick and comparatively clean kill.
Examples:
SlidingScaleOfDamselInDistressVsActionGirl
(Name may be changed)
Basically, this is to describe the female roles in Media.
A girl can be a complete (battle-wise useless) Damsel In Distress, but might as well be an Action Girl, or anything inbetween.
Do we have something like that already?
An interesting example would be Princess Peach from the Super Mario series. If Mario is the main character, she will most times be the Damsel In Distress, but in other games (Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers, Mario Party, etc.) she is well capable of holding her own.
Kidroduction
This is a trope that I have noticed for a long time, but I can't find something like this in Tv Tropes. The working title is a pun by putting the word Kid into Introduction.
Some movies begin with showing us the main character as a kid. Normally it doesn't last for more than one scene, and seldom effects the plot in any way other than being a way to highlight some basic character motivation. After the scene is done we are transfered to the present day where the main character is grown up.
Examples:
Hunt The Wumpus
Do we have a trope for reclusive, monstrous villains who the hero must pursue into a hazardous lair in order to confront?
I'm pretty sure it's Older Than Dirt; one notable example would be Grendel's Mother, of Beowulf fame. The title of this YKTTW is a reference to the very early video game of the same name, which was arguably the first Text Adventure and consisted entirely of creeping around a labyrinthine cave trying to sneak up on large, predatory creature called a Wumpus.
All Works Are Tropable
(Formerly "Media Pages Are A Free Launch" and "YKTTW Is Not Necessary For Shows" (which will likely be redirects).)
One of the many standards for this informal wiki is that YKTTW is strongly recommended for many tropes and pages. It's to get feedback from the Wiki Hive Mind on if these pages are valid (or "tropable"), and if so to get help with refining these pages.
Media pages are a different matter. If you want to make a page about a work (Series, Film, Literature, VideoGame, etc.) or person involved in making works (Creators, Musicians, etc.), you don't need YKTTW. These works and people actually exist (as long as they are published). This is important because it's proper form in YKTTW to wait for feedback. With work pages, if you have enough, you can make the page immediately.
Now you can use YKTTW for these pages, especially if you want help with writing up the page or think you don't have enough content. But if you already know what you are going to write, just go ahead and make the page. As long as it has a good description and examples (we're not too keen on "stub" pages), we'll take it.
The other side of this is There Is No Such Thing As Notability. As long as the work is published and the page is not a stub, we won't demand the page be cut because the work is not "notable" enough.
(Okay, we might have more standards for these pages, but if there are, let's hear them.)
Took Mom to Prom
Needs A Better Description
A character having to resort to his mom for a date for the prom is often portrayed as having zero luck with women.
For especially [[Squick squicky]] laughs, mention him getting lucky.
ExamplesMusic
Breaking Out The Boss
Probably Needs A Better Title
When a character, most often The Dragon or The Renfield, breaks out the Big Bad or some manner of superior entity to the character doing the break out. Most commonly done either in the form of freeing the Big Bad from an Oubliette or breaking out the Sealed Evil In A Can. Sometimes, this will be part of either a general scheme or some sort of gambit by the sealed entity. Generally, one of three possible outcomes occurs:
1. The person or thing being broken out is fully cognizant and quickly gets back on their feet, barking out orders as though nothing happened.
2. The person or thing being broken out is heavily tired by their long captivity, and must be minded by their liberator. Perhaps his mental faculties are in order, but his body is not, perhaps the opposite. Regardless, it will normally take anywhere from a few days to a few years to recover. Rarely, this state can be permanent.
3. The liberation backfires, and the entity kills, enslaves or otherwise harms it's allies. Often a consequence of unleashing the Sealed Evil In A Can, and may lead to an Oh Crap or My God What Have I Done moment.
ExamplesThe person or entity is fully cognizant
Moving at Kaiju Speed
Needs A Better Title
Any really large creature that moves and reacts slowly. This gives the hero an advantage against an otherwise seemingly invulnerable creature. It can't exactly turn on a dime, either. Expect a victim of a Colossus Climb to feature this.
Did You Just Rock Out Cthulhu
A Sub Trope of Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu using The Power Of Rock.
If said victim is the devil, then it overlaps with Rock Me Asmodeus.
Note this is actually defeating with music, not winning a music contest against it. That would be "Did you just out rock Cthulhu".
Up For Grabs if someone thinks this would make a good page.
Why Does Everyone Think I'm Deadpool?
We have two characters, X and Y. They are similiar to each other, but Y was created after X. Whatever one of them is another's Expy, Captain Ersatz, Legacy Character, Alternate Company Equivalent or even Distaff Counterpart, or it's completly coincidence, fans will quickly realize it. And from this point they are going to looking at Y through X's prism. They can like it because he/she resembles they beloved X, or hate as X's rip-off as well. Anti-fans can threat Y like pointless, unnecessary character created only to attact X's fans, or turn into model of "This is how X should written to be good character." They will argue, compare each other, but only few people that knows both of them will be able to see Y as himself, not some other version of X. Sometimes Y will never get free from X, not matter what he do. Rare situations when it happens mostly requires switching sides or complete Re Boot of character, and it's not always working.
Examples:
Everything But Talking To Them
Alice suspects Bob of something: an affair, whether he's been cheating on a diet, whatever. Rather than simply confronting Bob with her suspicions, she tries various crazy plans to get Bob to entrap himself. Hilarity Ensues.
The title comes from an episode of The Simpsons. They're watching a show similar to Cheaters, and the wife says that she's tried everything except actually talking to her husband.
Did Cthulhu Just Punch Out Another Cthulhu
A godlike being is invading our world. Our technology is helpless to stop it.
This looks like a job for... another godlike being, either as powerful, but usually almost as powerful.
Note this isn't when a hero is so powerful that a powerful villain is written in just to make a credible threat (Superman), nor is it when a godlike being deals with other powerful beings on a regular basis (Silver Surfer).
Not In My Backyard
There are many things in life that make it more convenient for us if we have it, but has enough bad side effects to being near it (or just doesn't look pretty) that most people don't want one in their back yard--let it be Somebody Elses Problem, they think. This Stock Phrase and its underlying attitude is one that quite a few of the people on the side of social and technological progress have to combat.
Also known as NIMBY.
Seen It A Million Times.
Examples:
Smile Like Mona Lisa
Because the Mona Lisa
Examples:Film
dying person sees dead loved one reappearing
this might already be a trope on the sight but i cant think of what i would be called. This is when a charcater that is dying sees a dead loved one, sometimes in a way to welcome the dying person into the afterlife
Celebrity Impersonator
There are those who look like famous people, and there are those who make a living dressing up like them in their most iconic outfits and acting like them (or at least the most popular depiction of them), making appearances at parties, in lookalike contests, or in porn. Popular targets are Marilyn Monroe (who may need her own subtrope someday) and Elvis.
Seen It A Million Times. Might be better served as a supertrope/index. See discussion below.
Examples:Film
Punctuation Inflation
This *((New Media))* !*!trope!*!, primarily found on ~*Internet forums*~ is akin to ${Bold Inflation}$ for forums that don't have style tags or people who can't be bothered with them. In order to call @=attention=@ to important {*words*}, one dresses them up with ^special characters^, usually the *asterisk*, but ~tildes~ are common as well because `!they look cool!`, and other characters +occasionally+ show up. Often goes hand in hand with LOTS of needless **$Capitalization$**. See also Wanton Cruelty To The Common Comma.
Difficult But Awesome
Up For Grabs
Sometimes a technique or character in a game has a very difficult learning curve. However, in skilled hands that have went through this learning curve, this diffficult thing becomes very powerful (possibly but NOT ALWAYS a Game Breaker), thus is greatly rewarding. Some games themselves have nasty learning curves but are awesome when you take the time to learn them. Glitches do NOT count. Only legitimate techniques count.
Related to Magikarp Power. Lethal Joke Character is a subtrope. Related to Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards.
Finger-Twitching Revival
BTW, this is Up For Grabs.
So...you're unconscious. That sucks for you, huh? After all, this is probably the result of being banged on the head, having some horrible illness, or just being so injured that you can't voluntarily wake up or move around. The doctors around you are talking openly about the likeliness of you never waking up. Bye-bye, you.
But wait! You're not licked yet! As you slowly begin to rouse yourself, a telltale sign of your impending consciousness will show itself. It will often go unnoticed, perhaps when everyone has turned away. But it will indeed happen: your fingers will twitch back to life.
This is an extremely common trope, usually done in extreme close-up on the hand as a last-second Cliff Hanger of a scene or even the entire show/film. The dual categories of whose fingers could be twitching determines the tone of this trope. If it's a hero or a love interest, this is a moment of renewed hope and happiness (and usually is then immediately followed by the full wake-up scene); if it's a villain, the moment is a threat. The ubiquitiousness of this trope covers up the fact that twitching fingers may not always be the most likely part of the body to first signify someone's revival - eyes could open, shoulders could adjust, chest could rise and fall with breath. But even when the arms and fingers of a character have been significantly hurt, and are even bandaged up or suspended in one spot, this is more often than not the way we'll be shown that the character is coming back to his/her senses.
Compare to, or used along with, Eye Open. Additionally, by its nature, this is more often than not a spoiler trope.
Examples:
The Ruins Built Just For You
So it's a typical day of adventuring, and you stumble upon some ruins. Eager at the prospect of phat loot, you set out to explore. Whereupon you're hit by massive quantities of Deja Vu.
You encounter a switch that was designed to be opened with your sword. There's a door over there that's designed to be opened with your magic key. And over in the west side, there's a statue that your magic flute can animate. Something's not right...
Congratulations - you've just made a pilgrimage to The Ruins Built Just For You. Thanks to their cunning and foresight, the not-so-Negectful Precursors have given you the tool you need to save the world, and hidden it in a temple that reacts only to the other tools you need to save the world. It doesn't matter that you're the only person in the entire universe that could possibly make it through this deathtrap - they're super-advanced and Crazy Awesome!
Examples:
Undersea City
Up For Grabs, Do We Have This? Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
See also Underwater Ruins. Sometimes an Evil Lair. Compare Atlantis.
Amulet Of Concentrated Suck
Do We Have This? Formerly Dependency Mac Guffin.
Sometimes a character finds, or manages to manufacture, an Amulet Of Concentrated Awesome. This can be a risky endeavor. Sometimes the character goes on to become a successful superhero or supervillain, but sometimes that amulet turns out to be a Magic Feather, Artifact Of Death, or Artifact Of Doom. And sometimes the Amulet Of Concentrated Awesome turns out to be Blessed With Suck.
Using an Amulet Of Concentrated Suck gives you great power or other benefits that you quickly come to rely on, so after a short time it's not exactly easy to live without it. It also exposes the user (and sometimes their allies as well) to either an Achilles Heel that could be exploited by an enemy, or a Mana Drain that weakens them in other ways without help from an enemy.
Can be An Aesop about illegal drugs, but it often isn't. Your Mileage May Vary.
If the owner of the Amulet Of Concentrated Suck is also carrying the Villain Ball, their response is usually to set up all sorts of Death Traps that the hero must survive to activate the Achilles Heel, thus setting the scene for The Heros Journey. Those lucky enough to be the protagonist or a particularly sympathetic Anti Villain have the option of finding a way to get rid of it, but they usually only succeed with great sacrifice and often must simultaneously prevent it from falling into the hands of the Big Bad.
Villain builds his own Achilles Heel:
Big Boobs equals Happiness
Commonly seen in coming of age stories. The main character is usually, like most girls her age, flat chested. In some cases, she may even be a late bloomer. So, of course, when she looks at the girls who are well developed for their age, she automatically feels some degree of jealousy. I mean, why wouldn't she be? After all, she's popular, the boys fall head over heels for her, she's possibly even a cheerleader. And all because she happens to be a cup size larger.
In a middle school or even elementary school setting, "big" would be anything from above a training bra size (A cup), to maybe even a C cup (C cup being the average for a full grown American woman). In high school and beyond, it's usually CONSIDERABLY larger, D Ds and above.
Of course, one should remember that Most Writers are Male, so they don't tend to understand the complications that come with large breasts. Large breasts are heavy, which can cause back problems, and get painful when they don't have enough support. It's also harder to find bras in larger sizes, the larger they get, the harder it is to find them. Some women with almost Gag Boobs often times have to shop and expensive stores only. Also, larger bras don't tend to be as pretty. And lastly, getting more attention from men is, more often than not, a bad thing. In real life, Breast Reductions are almost as common as Breast Implants.
Remember, this trope deals with Breasts in general, not just implants.
Subversions occur so often, that Big Boobs equals Unhappiness could be a trope in it's self. Often times, this is a case of "The grass is always greener on the other side"
Examples:
Anime
Mexain
Cousin trope to Scotireland.
Mexico and Spain. Maybe it's because they share a language, or that Mexico used to be a Spanish colony, but in fiction, these two countries seem to be grouped together a lot, so you'll see, for example, thick-moustachioed people in sombreros and ponchos attending a bull fight. This could be that Mexicans have much more demonstratible stereotypes than Spaniards do.
Needs a better name, and probably also a better description.
Limited Move Arsenal
The brain is a remarkable device. With training, it is capable of processing and accumulating an essentially unlimited number of skills.
In video games, this can be hard to simulate.
Either the controls of the game make it impractical to have access to more than a certain number of moves at a time, or having too large a selection of skills at one's disposal would simply make the game too easy. As a result, characters are forced to rely on a strictly limited move set, rather than being allowed to draw upon all the skills they have learned at any time.
Comes in two flavors
Type 1: Characters have an inventory of skills, out of which they can equip a limited number to be available to them in combat.
Type 2: Characters are only allowed to know a limited number of skills at any time. When they learn new skills, they are forced to forget others to make room.
Examples of Type 1
Examples of Type 2 Porting Is Not A Free Action
One of the Common Fan Fallacies. Also might need a better title if too many are likely to not get the Irony.
There is this widespread idea among gamers that porting a game to another system, no matter how different, is easy and simple. Making it run well or look good is the hard part. So if there is a Porting Disaster, gamers accuse the developer of being lazy or doing a rushed job. Those can be the reasons, but because of this trope, that is assumed to be the reason by default.
This is just wrong. Porting is not easy. You can't just take all the assets and code and slap it onto another system, save for very effective cross platform engines and/or similar game systems. Without those, a port amounts to building a house identical to another one. You know what it's going to be like, but you still have to put it together.
And putting it on less powerful systems makes the "identical" part impossible. Those are barely ports at all. It's more like trying to make a tall building with a wooden frame instead of a steel one. You can't make it as tall, so you need to copy whatever parts of the first building can reasonably fit.
Experience can be a big factor in this. Many times a system will get ports that don't work as well, but later ports work fine. Gamers of course also don't take this into account and bash the early ports and claim they should be just like the later ports, when in all likelihood it was the lessons learned from the early ports that made the later ones work so well.
But this is pretty general, and I'm just beginning to study game design. If any of you know in more detail how game development and porting works, please help add to this description.
Note this isn't when the port actually has poor performance and design choices. Those go in Porting Disaster. This is a combination of two factors:
In Your Nature To Destroy Yourselves
A Sub Trope of Humans Are Bastards.
Do We Have This One? Needs A Better Description.
Frequently, characters both human and non-human will claim that it is in the nature of humans to kill themselves.
Ghost Adventures
(I know this is not a trope, but I did not know where else to see of a page could be made of this page, or where to start)
Alanmooreization
Disclaimer: Okay, the title's up for discussion, obviously :) Though, I think it's somewhat justified due to Moore creating several defining examples of this trope - e.g., the Lo EG
Basically, when you throw many (sometimes, almost all) characters belonging to a specific genre (or sometimes a distinct division of this genre - e.g., the works of a certain author, etc.) into a Massive Multiplayer Crossover, for the purpose of exploring and de- and/or reconstructing said genre from a modern viewpoint (which may or may not be Darker And Edgier).
Note that the Massive Multiplayer Crossover itself here is just the means, while the goal is the aforementioned exploration/de/reconstruction. Also note that it's only one of the possible uses for a Massive Multiplayer Crossover, which may be implemented for numerous other purposes.
The trope is named after Alan Moore, who friggin' loves to use it. He authored many solid examples of this trope's use: most famously, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which may or may not have actually started this trope's popularity. For more examples, see... well, "Examples".
A subtrope of Deconstruction, Reconstruction and Massive Multiplayer Crossover.
Examples:Alan Moore
Badly Chosen Super Name
So you thought you selected Awesome Mc Coolname for your alter ego, so why is everyone laughing?
Examples:
Skill Gate Characters
These characters have glaring strengths that new or maybe average players will have trouble working around. But once you have enough skill, these characters are average at best, if not a joke, usually due to Crippling Overspecialization. This is not to be confused with Jeigan Character, because that already becomes a Joke Character later on, being the Player VS Environment version, although the most balanced variety of that is usually a Lethal Joke Character that simply works off of strengths that are particularly effective in the earlier levels without needing any prior knowledge of them.
Do not ever subject 5-year-olds to these characters. It would be just plain cruel to have them fight these quite possibly lazy attempts at Game Balance.
Inevitably, a good enough player will break through the Skill Gate Character's specialty with the worst character(s) to go up against it. When that happens, whoever is playing the character is most likely screwed, since the opposing player's character will usually have traits that brutally exploit the Skill Gate Character's (likely already glaring) weaknesses.
Plenty of these may be Mighty Glaciers or Glass Cannons. There are likely to be exceptions, though.
Examples:
Lecturing To The Bell
Do we have this one? High school teachers and college professors in film and television have a habit of continuing to lecture straight until dismissal, often being interrupted in mid-speech by the dismissal bell. As far as this troper is aware, that never happens in real life. More often than not, the teacher/professor is well aware of the time limit and will usually cut things off shortly before the time. Also, fridge logic comes into play when you consider the exceptionally poor lesson planning that would give way to never appearing to have enough time to cover the day's subject material.
Seen it a million times, but I here's a few examples I can think of:
Weather Report
I don't think we have this. Do We Have Should We Have Needs A Better How Did We Blah Blah Blah.
James Bot
Robots specifically made for Spying or Espionage missions. Needs A Better Title and Needs A Better Description.
Costume Under Suit
Needs a Better Title
Perhaps the most famous use of this trope
Do we have this one? I've been looking around and I don't think we do.
Anyway, this is the Trope for when a Superhero wears their superhero costume underneath their normal clothing, allowing them to change quickly when there's a situation.
Not necessarily just for superheroes, although they are far more likely to use this trope.
Related to Flung Clothing
Examples:
The Aloner
Maybe the End Of The World As We Know It came and went. Perhaps they are the only survivor of an interplanetary expedition or otherwise a Robinson Crusoe on Earth. Or worst of all, they are trapped very close to other humans... but are in a Closed Circle or Oubliette that keeps them trapped. Point is, this guy or gal is now completely, utterly alone and it's slowly... driving them... mad.
On the plus side, they'll be rescued by movie's end, but before that expect them to run into another soul in their Closed Circle and creep them out quite a bit before settling down. However, if they aren't the lead expect them to actually go insane long before being found.
Crowning Moment Of Silence
Sort of like the Crowning Music Of Awesome, but in this case, it's not the music that drives you - it's the sudden lack of it, letting the moment itself stand without musical accompaniement (CMOS type I) or without sound at all (CMOS type II).
Examples:
Depression Fuel
As Nightmare Fuel is something that makes the audience scream and Fetish Fuel makes the audience... well, do something else, Depression Fuel will make the audience sadly mutter something along the lines of "What a senseless waste of human life"
This tends to happen more and more often the farther you go down on the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
Identify Item
For some reason developers find it fun to make players trek all the way back to town to figure out what there new item does. On the other end it is silly trivial, such poping an ID item spell, wondering why the devs even bothered with making items need iding.
Imageboard Adventure
We should have this as a Web Original genre, imho.
Basically, it's a game of Choose Your Own Adventure, but played on the Web, mostly on Imageboards. The DM would typically post a picture and tell the basic options or just ask what to do next. In subsequent few (or not so few) posts the players suggest the next actions, and the one with most votes (much more rarely - the first one posted) is implemented.
The graphics of Imageboard Adventures are most often quite simplicistic, mostly drawn in MS Paint due to severe time limitations when posting in an Imageboard. The pictures often try to imitate the interface of real Adventure, Interactive Fiction, and other genres Video Games (such as an inventory, a stat screen, etc.).
Examples:
Magical Gypsy
Do We Have This One? Didn't find it, but maybe I wasn't too thorough. If we do, please post the link. Thanks.
Roma (or, as they were usually called in the past, gypsies), are a mysterious people. No one knows exactly where they come from, or when did they come. They just are there, and live a nomadic lifestyle which could be very unusual and strange for rural or city-dwelling Europeans.
It's no surprise that most Europeans started associating this people with magic. The Roma themselves knew very well about this trope - and so, many Romani women started offering their services as FortuneTellers, clairvoyants and witches. This helped establish the trope even more, making Magical Gypsy one of the most common stereotypes associated with Roma, along the Gypsy Thief (Do We Have This One?) and Gypsy Exotic Dancer.
This trope is very common in old fiction, and is still alive and kicking today. Most of the times, it takes the form of an old Romani woman, dressed in a humongous number of headscarves, skirts and jewelry. She often has a Crystal Ball and lives inside a tent (often cluttered with various quasi-magic paraphernalia, like a hanging stuffed crocodile - btw, do we have a trope for such an environment?). She also has a big hooked nose. Sometimes, though, it would be a young beautiful exotic Romani girl. Men? This troper doesn't remember any cases.
A Magical Gypsy is mainly a fortune-teller or a clairvoyant, sometimes a medium. She may also make and sell LovePotions, or put (or relieve) GypsyCurses for money. Sometimes, she can do more advanced magic, like common fantasy wizards and witches do. And very rarely, she may invoke very powerful - and usually dark - things.
Also, if the Magical Gypsy is of the beautiful exotic girl variety, this trope may overlap with the Gypsy Exotic Dancer, and the dance itself may be a part of a magic incantation. And if she makes a love potion, she may try to make it so that the handsome hero would fall in love with her.
The description needs clearing, I guess.
Examples:
MinorityAntiVillain
Needs A Better Title.
A somewhat frequent, but really sad trope. If a villain's all bad, he can be a huge blonde blue eyed true Aryan, for all we care. But if you want to make him a more complex character... maybe even an Anti Villain... how do you emphasize that? Oh, just make him a member of a minority (preferably small and/or persecuted), of course! That would show he's "not too bad" (villains can't truly be "not too bad" if they belong to an ethnic majority, amirite?) It surely won't lead to any Unfortunate Implications, no sir!
Examples:
Our Man Their Woman
Examples:
Golden Ending
I don't know if this should be a trope on its own, or simply an expansion on Multiple Endings.
Anyway, this is the tendency for a game to include Multiple Endings, but really only use them as a means of giving the player a Nonstandard Game Over after beating the game. In essence, if there are 4 endings, rather than have them all unique but fairly equal, you have one Golden Ending and 3 endings that show how you screwed up and everyone is either dead or hates you.
Hollywood Genetics
I could've sworn we had a YKTTW for when the genetics of fictional character don't make sense (exmaple: two blondes produce a redhead), but I can't find it in the history or on the launch list, so I'm starting it up again.
Speech Bubble Censoring
Damn your exclamations, Rito.
A subtrope of Peek A Boo specific to comic style formats. Simply, a character's nudity is covered by a speech, thought, or sound effect bubble. It's usually used to imply that characters within the work are getting a full eyeful, while still preventing the audience from seeing anything.
Examples:
God Help Us All
Do We Have This? Should We Have This?
Stock Phrase used when someone, usually The Captain, has to make a Sadistic Choice. He either has to let millions die or thousands die, there is no third option and the cavalry isn't coming. The only option is to sacrifice your own men or let the enemy kill everyone in the area.
Almost always includes There Is No Kill Like Overkill and is often combined with Pyrrhic Victory, Earth Shattering Kaboom and Taking You With Me. Almost never leads to a Was It Really Worth It as the stakes are usually so absurdly high that it's generally acknowledged that the action taken was worth it. Usually turns one into a Hurting Hero and is nearly guaranteed to give the person making the decision Flashback Nightmares.
Alternatively, it can be used when the Heroes have just grasped the consequences of the Big Bad succeeding in completing his master plan. Also, highly likely to include There Is No Kill Like Overkill and Earth Shattering Kaboom or Take Over The World. Difference in this case is that there is less likelihood for there to be a Last Stand or Pyrrhic Victory, not to say that it can't happen.
Examples:Sadistic Choice Examples:Video Games
Big Bad Master Plan Examples:Film
Japanese Ranguage
Whele a joke is made about plonouncing "R's" and "L's" in Japanese, or other plonunciations.
Thele is an image on Supeldickely
Ring-Ring: "Evelyone shourd realn to accept the way they L"
Drive-In Theater
Apparently we don't have a page for drive-in theaters and their appearances in fiction. I think we should. Anyone agree?
Logo Drop
Equivalent of title drop
Alternate Appearance Aura
A spell or other mysterious effect is placed on a character to make them look and sound like a completely different person, to select people.
Subscriber of the Strange
A character subscribes to a weirdly specific fandom magazine or trade publication you would never expect to have an audience. Name is based on Collector Of The Strange, but it's not ideal - suggestions welcome.
Roasting Hot Spaceship
Better title would be appreciated...
Normal fictional spaceships should have their crew cooked already. Why? No cooling.
Most of the (non-literature) spaceships in fiction will not have some kind of heat management system (like radiator) in their construction, which, if that happens to warships that have weapons/propulsions/internal systems with massive energy output, should roast the crew outright due to the ship not being cooled fast enough.
If Space Is Cold, then this might be handwaved, but then You Fail Physics Forever. If space is not cold, but this happens, then you stil fail physics forever.
This trope is one of the main reasons why Stealth In Space is damn hard to do.
This trope is so prevalent (in non-literature source) that it's better to list non-straight examples.
Non-examples:
Red Boxing Gloves
Even in the less politically correct era of animation long gone, the pioneers of animation have already known that using boxing gloves instead of bare fists lowers the level of violence, both from the practical angle (they were designed to protect one's fists after all) and from the receiving end (obviously boxing gloves deal less damage than knucklebones). At some point, this Bowdlerisation began to be seen in a more comedic light, with boxing gloves on big goofy springs replacing more harmful or mortal implements for all manner of reasons. To drive this point home, boxing gloves are always bright red for heightened visibility. Subtrope of Improbable Weapon Usage.
There's also the fact that a disembodied bare hand on the end of a spring would fall straight into Body Horror.
Concealed boxing gloves come under this, with the application of Fridge Logic to hide something about a foot wide in say, 5 inches of space.
Examples:AnimeandManga
Earn Your Title
Do We Have This? Should We Have This?
This is where a character has a nickname that arose from something they did in the past, usually infamous. This is usually a title gained as a direct result of something they did and is nearly guaranteed to be descriptive of the person it's referring to. This is what usually leads to someone being called The Butcher.
Similar to Appropriated Appellation except the person rarely if ever uses the title. If the title is used in a comedy, expect a Noodle Incident to explain how the character earned it.
Examples:Anime
Redirected Row
Two feuding characters make up their differences over a common love of abusing someone else - usually, but not always, the person who tried to get them to make up in the first place. Needs A Better Title.
Examples.
Justisfied Save Point
Sometimes, because gamers these days expect higher amounts of realism, video game designers try to justify standard game mechanics. This is easier with some functions that others; materia and combat game mechanics may be explained by story easily, but save points, not so much.
Many gamers have a snark fit when their video games attempt to justify or explain the concept of saving your game without disrupting the story or implying that your characters are immortal. Phrases like, "Record your daily progess here or it will be like everything you did the day before never happened!" and "If you gaze upon this mirror, it preserves your memories forever."
Doesn't count when a video game explains to you straight, and usually outside of the story in a tutorial, that you need to save your game or you'll lose all progress.
Examples:
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