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.

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• Neon Genesis Evangelion, although I think this is older than that.
• Genesis Of Aquarion
• Rah Xephon (I think?)

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.

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Examples:

Anime/Manga

• An example occurs in Ouran High School Host Club when the host club dresses as women to cheer up Haruhi. They wear makeup that is hilariously overdone, wigs, and gaudy dresses.

Film

• As mentioned previously, Tim Curry's portrayal of Pennywise The Dancing Clown in It.
• Let's just say that Dr. Frank N Furter looks downright terrifying when he's angry and in his make-up...especially in the scene when he hacks Eddie to death with a pick-axe. That grin... (Shudders)
• Grace Jones's quasi-geisha voodoo vampire thing make-up in the movie, Vamp.
• Queen Narissa from Enchanted, especially in her live-action form.
• The Mystery Man from David Lynch's Lost Highway. It takes you a while to work out what's so off about his face, gradually you realise that (well, among other things) it's his fairly subtle eyeshadow and lipstick in combination with the fact that he never blinks. The effect is, well, eee... brr... aaargh...
• In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula's family is preparing her for her wedding, and they are in such a hurry that everyone pitches in to do her hair, makeup, and dress her. The end result is that she, in Toula's words, "looks like a snow beast".

Comics

• The Joker in all his adaptations, especially in The Dark Knight.

Live Action TV

• The porcelain doll look is used to fantastic effect in this advert for East Enders.
• Pictured above, Mimi Bobeck from The Drew Carey Show frequently wore more makeup than was necessary.

Webcomics

• Gunnerkrigg Court contains a mild example, which basically just falls under Ugly Cute.
• Unshelved had one plotline where Coleen dived into this trope after buying some bargain-bin cosmetics.

Literature

• Count Olaf has a group of henchmen that help do his bidding. In his group, there are two woman, with white powder all over their faces, and they are never depicted without the face powder.

Western Animation

• Ginger, Dodie, and Macie do this twice in preparation for school picture day in the As Told By Ginger episode ''Kiss and Make-Up".
  • Miranda and Courtney even laugh and wonder if the trio is "auditioning for clown school".

Real Life

• Combined with Values Dissonance, this applies to most historically accurate recreations of historical makeup styles, such as the English Renaissance fashion for caking on a pale, lead-based makeup.
• Pageant photography, especially of kids.
• I'm surprised no one's mentioned the late great Tammy Faye Messner. The woman's makeup would have scared the Joker.
• Chris Crocker demonstrates in this video how the Joker would have looked like without his white face powder.

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".)

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:

• In Russian author Mikhail Uspensky's Zhikhar humor fantasy trilogy, there's a Romani character who's the epitome of this stereotype. He even manages to steal the main characters' horses while they're riding them.
• Seen It A Million Times

Uh, I have diffuculty explaining the idea better than the title and examples

• HK-47 is the Trope Codifier
• Robotero from Futurama
• E-123 Omega in Sonic The Hedgehog. Somewhere on the wiki it is mentioned that the Bioware made chronicles lampshades the similarity to HK-47.
• Alpha 2 Abomination the Second, son of the great protector of Lamar from The Nameless Mod

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:

• Tears To Tiara Lidia dies in episode 11, we only knew that she was dead loyal to the Empire and that she wanted to fight Octavia, they quickly inserted a childhood flashback sequence. Admittedly this is almost halfway through the series, but she wasn't introduced until episode 8.
• Umineko - Played straight and subverted. Considering how the series is based on differing scenarios of the same event. Since many of the characters die early in each arc, it is too be expected because you will know more about them in a later arc in which they don't die as early.
• Vinland Saga Sort of, Askeladd dies before even getting close to completing his goal. But it was a heroic sacrifice, which makes up for it

Needs more examples.

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.

• That pic up there is the front cover of the last issue of Your Sinclair magazine. (As it says.)
• Earthworm Jim had this during the opening titles.
• As did Monty Python.
• The front covers of Stephen Pile's Heroic Failures books feature this; the back covers are the same letters crashed down into a heap.

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

• Lord Of The Rings - partly by virtue of the quasi-mediaeval setting, many of the societies and individuals are depicted In Harmony With Nature one way or another - the hobbits, especially Sam, in that farmerly-wisdom, son-of-the-soil sort of way, the elves in the spiritual "oh, the trees are talking to me" way, and Aragorn in the "I can tell you the entire life story of who walked through that hedge and bent that twig" way.
• Following Tolkien, elves in general are always like this, to the point of pompous veganism in The Inheritance Trilogy.
• American Indians are about as certain to be portrayed this way as Elves -- it's almost the entire point of Pocahontas.
• I was looking for this because I wanted to add it to the How I Live Now page - nine-year-old Piper is like this.
• Real Life example, Ray Mears.

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 for a more a detailed analysis and examples (I've essentially and haphazardly summarised it here).

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.

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

• Inglourious Basterds. (Anyone know why? The Other Wiki doesn't say...)
• The Pursuit of Happyness, whose title is taken from a misspelled piece of graffiti.

Literature

• Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. One of the narrators is an exceedingly poor speller.
• Love and Freindship by Jane Austen is an Epistolary Novel whose narrator consistently writes "freind" for "friend".

(And yes, this would probably actually go at Delibratly Mispelt Tittle or some such, with a redirect.)

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.

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• Oh... let's say... Every RPG out there.
  • Except Dream Diary.

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.

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.

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.

Professor: I'm sorry Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Professor: Urectum.

I think this may already exist, but I can't see if it does because search is offline for the moment... This refers to moments when characters (usually immature ones) crack jokes about the planet Uranus and its unfortunate name.

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Examples

• As the page quote indicates, Futurama when after testing the Smelloscope, Fry told Professor not to make him smell Uranus.
• The ending for the first Austin Powers movie. "That looks like Uranus!"
• The novel series "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" contains lots of Toilet Humour. Try and guess which planet is a central focus.

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:

• Warlocks in World Of Warcraft are one of the best-known examples. While they are capable of nuking alongside the best of Mages with the right specialization, the class's spell list includes more Damage Over Time effects. "More DoTs!" Some playstyles of Rogue, Warrior, and Priest also apply to some extent.
• Mesmers in Guild Wars
• Needs more examples, but given how common this trope is in RP Gs, it shouldn't be a problem.

(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.

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:

• Miss Congeniality - It begins with showing that Gracie to be quite "masculine", even as a girl. She psychically defends a boy from bullies, but he thanks her by telling her to get away from his face.
• Sister Act - Deloris Van Cartier shows her disrespect against Catholicism and Catholic convents by naming the apostles John, Paul, Peter and Ringo. The nun says that Deloris will be doomed to a life of sin if she doesn't change her ways. Cue the grown up Deloris being involved in a relationship with a married mob boss in Reno.

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.

(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.)

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.

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Examples

Music

• The Trope Namer is "I Took My Mom to the Prom" by Ziggens
• Bloodhound Gang's "Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me?"
• Steven Lynch's "Mother's Day Song"

Theater

• In Happy Days : The Musical, Potsie took his Mom to the Class of '59 Graduation Dance.

Web Animation

• Teen Girl Squad shows a Gender Flipped verison with Ugly Girl.
  So and So: Cheerleader Cheerleader, you're going to the prom with Cheerleader Brian?
  What's Her Face: Isn't that like going to the prom with your dad?
  The Ugly One: And we've all been there, right gals?

Western Animation

• Spongebob Squarepants: While Spongebob was lamenting about being a "prom failure", he mentioned that it was Patrick who took his mom, not him.

Real Life

• A student in Buffalo, New York took his mother to prom.

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.

Examples

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The person or entity is fully cognizant

• In 24, Andrei Drazen breaks out his supposedly dead father, Viktor Drazen, in 10 PM of Day 1.
• In X-Men II, Mystique plays a critical role in breaking Magneto out of his Oubliette plastic prison, by injecting iron into one of the security guards bloodstream so that he can kill the guard by extracting it from him and use it both as a weapon and a transportation method.

The person or entity is only partially cognizant

• In Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, Opal Koboi is broken out of her mental clinic-prison by the Brill Brothers. She is mentally cognizant, but extremely physically weak (even by pixie standards), and it takes several days in a muscle-massager to get her back into shape.

The breakout backfires on the liberators

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.

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• Star Wars's AT-A Ts are easily taken out by a tow cable around the legs. The Rancor is also an example.
• In Shadow Of The Colossus , all of the larger colossi subscribe to this philosophy.
• The Scarab from Halo definitely qualifies.
• Subverted with Godzilla. Normally, he's pretty slow. But, when he wants to move fast, he can.
• In 3.5 Dungeons And Dragons increasing size automatically lowers your dexterity, while increasing strength.
• Truth in Televison, because of the Square Cube Law.
• Real Life: crawler transporters move about 1 mph (1-2 km per hour)

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.

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• The end of the film Repossessed (hopefully not a spoiler, given it's a goofy comedy).

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:

• Trope Namer is Marvel Comics Daredevil (don't confuse with that other guy) from Earth X. He was funny, immortal character, that was very similiar to Deadpool. Most of the fans, and characters as well suspected, he's in fact Deadpool. Wich at some point started to piss him off.
• Many characters from Code Geass suffers from this. Suzaku and Euphemia are often compared to Kira and Lacus. Lelouch has the same with Light from Death Note.
  • This troper knows a girl that didn't like Shirley, because she reminds her Inoue Orochime.
• Many people compares Naruto to Son Goku, because both of them started as funny kid with inhuman abbilities, and get character evolution trought many advetures, Trainings From Hell, Heel Face Turns, Face Heel Turns and battles with repeatedly strongest enemies to become more serious and ridlicousy strong person, but still keeps their friendly personality.
• Goku himself is often compared to Superman, because of their familiar origins and powers. This result in flame war.

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.

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).

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• Okami
• It doesn't seem that way in Evangelion until it turns out they are clones of the angels (I'd spoiler tag that, but it's Eva).

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.

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Examples:

• Erin Brockovich shows why most people have a NIMBY reaction: in the movie's case, toxic substances are leeching into the water supply.
• Real Life inversion: The town of Flora, IL lobbied to get a prison in their city, for the jobs. They went so far as to cut a rap video and sent it to the governor.
• The term NIMBY is used in at least one Sim City game (makes sense, as you're playing a city planner).
• Law And Order Special Victims Unit often run into cases where they have to deal with former child molesters who face this problem when they get out of prison.
• Truth In Television: In Florida, during the hunt for Serial Killer Danny Rollings, police at one point suspected a man named Edward Humphries committed the murders and arrested him. It took almost a month to clear Humphries name, but eventually the police did release him with a statement that Humphries was no longer a suspect. Despite Humphries innocence, residents of Humphries' home town came forward with statements that they did not want the police to release "a serial killer" back into their town.

Because the Mona Lisa is such a famous piece of art(Small Reference Pools at work again), the painting in its entirety--or the lady-in-the-painting's enigmatic, not-quite-reaching-the-eyes coy smirk--show up quite a bit in Homages, Shout Outs, and outright parodies.

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Examples:

Film

• At the beginning of Hudson Hawk Leonardo da Vinci is shown with the Mona Lisa, which is finished except for the mouth. Then we see why: when the model opens her mouth, she has very bad teeth. The joke is that da Vinci decided to give her the enigmatic smile so he wouldn't have to show the teeth.
  • This joke is also used on Time Squad.
• Mona Lisa is one of the painting captured and burned in Equilibrium
• Parodied outright in Asterix & Obelix & Cleopatra. To their credit, Monica Bellucci makes a hot Mona Lisa.

Literature

• Parodied in The Far Side, with a painting of some guy with a gigantic nose and one of the viewers comments "Gad that's eerie, wherever you go the nose follows you!"
• Discworld's Mona Ogg, painted by Leonard of Quirm, and implied to be of the witch Nanny Ogg in her younger days. The teeth follow you around the room.

Live Action Television

• Used a few times in Terry Gilliam's animations for Monty Python's Flying Circus.
• In the Doctor Who serial "The City of Death" the villain gets daVinci to paint several copies of the Mona Lisa so he (the villain) could sell them multiple times to facilitate his evil plot.

Other

• In Spaceship Earth at Epcot, one scene is the lady posing for the painting and rapidly losing her patience because Leonardo has been Distracted By The Shiny.

Real Life

• Salvador Dali painted one with himself as the "lady".
• Street artist Banksy has a work with Mona Lisa holding an PRG on her shoulder.
• Marcel Duchamp's "L.H.O.O.Q" is Mona Lisa, with a goattee and a mustache drawn on, and the letters LHOOQ (a french slang accronym meaning roughly "she has a hot ass")
  • Further parodied with THIS Harry Potter fan-art.

Video Games

• Animal Crossing: Wild World lets you buy the Mona Lisa from Tom Nook. He calls it the "famous painting".
• There's also a mission in Elite Beat Agents where the agents help "Leo" paint his masterpiece. Try and guess what it is.

Western Animation

• Seen in the art collection of Atlantis in one Sponge Bob Square Pants movie.
• Daria has a Mona Lisa smile, a description popular in Fan Fic.

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

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

• LA Confidential: there's a whore service that specializes in them.
• In Rat Race there was an entire busload of Lucille Ball impersonators.
• Oceans Twelve had an extended gag in which the character played by Julia Roberts impersonates...Julia Roberts.
• Pulp Fiction and the waiting staff at Jack Rabbit Slims. "That's Jane Mansfield. That's Mamie Van Doren." "Where's Marilyn Monroe?" "I guess its her night off."

Live Action Television

• In one episode of CSI New York, the killer commits suicide by reenacting Marilyn Monroe's death.
• One of the episodes of Niptuck centers on two Marilyn Monroe impersonators (and rivals) who each go to a respective brother to get a surgical leg up on the competition. After one nearly dies of medical complications, they're given the inspirational speech to work together to make even more tips. The episode ends with them both curled up in bed with the advising doctor.
  • A Michael Jackson impersonator has also appeared on this show.
• Parodied in an episode of Maid Marian And Her Merry Men where they discover there is a celebrity impersonator of Robin Hood, who the Sheriff hires to frame Robin. That's right, professional celebrity impersonators in The Dung Ages.
• The Mentalist (I think) had a corpse found by a Charlie Chaplin & a Marilyn Monroe imprsonator who were walking home from their jobs; they had to stand there and be gawked at along with the crime scene until they were interviewed by the cops.

Real Life

• Real Life Example: Actor Robert Sacchi has made his entire career on the fact that he's a dead ringer for Humphrey Bogart.
• Woman wrestler Shelly Martinez, better known as Ariel in WWE and Salinas in TNA, has done Bettie Page porn.
• The vast majority of Scott Innes's voicework is impersonating Casey Kasem's higher-voiced roles, such as voicing modern adaptations of Shaggy and parodying Casey's Gatchaman work in Megas XLR.
• Rich Little mostly just does voice impressions, but for The Movie of The Late Shift he played Johnny Carson.
• The Universal Studios theme parks have celebrity look-a-likes wander around occasionally as photo/autograph opportunities for the tourist. Why someone would want an autograph from a Marilyn Monroe or Charlie Chaplin impersonator... So Yeah.

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.

• Beansidhes Wail is *Loaded* with *asterisks* for emphasis, and also Capitalizes Every Word ~ Tildes are used in place of dashes.

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.

• Eldar in War Hammer 40000
• Captain Olimar and Snake in the Super Smash Brothers series. Snake is a Game Breaker when mastered.
• The whip from Secretof Mana is difficult to learn but its worth it as its one of the few melee attacks that can reliably hit many bosses.
• Yoshimitsu from the Soul Calibur series.
• Regal Bryant from Tales Of Symphonia has a unique fighting style that can be hard to master but very rewarding.
• Flonne from the Disgaea series takes some knowledge of the game's mechanics to truly get the most out of her. Unlike other examples, her power comes from mastering the gameplay rather than the character. Flonne embodies both Magikarp Power and Game Breaker. Nerfed in Disgaea 3.
• Truth In Television
• Infantry in World In Conflict. I've seen people do crazy things with it (like controlling half the map on their own), yet was never able to do even half as good, for all my efforts.
• Wizards in Dungeons And Dragons.
• Net Hack
• Guilty Gear
• Virtua Fighter
• Undead in War Craft 3.
• Many Nintendo Hard games that are tough for the right reasons apply here. Mega Man Zero is a prime example.
• Dwarf Fortress
• Geese Howard's Raging Storm in the King Of Fighters series.
• Cyrus from Dawn Of War 2.
• Final Fantasy Tactics.
• The Bicycle Kick from First Encounter Assault Recon

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:

• This situation occurred in Ikki Tousen, when one of the characters was stabbed in the spine. The doctors said that he may be permanently paralyzed and never wake up from his coma. Then, at the last few minutes of the show, said character raises his hand into a fist.
• Also happens in Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai, when Shion discovers that Satoshi had never been demoned away, but rather had succumbed to the Hinamizawa Syndrome and was forced into a medicated coma so that he wouldn't kill himself. Irie says that Satoshi has suffered massive brain damage, but has a good chance of recovering. Then, a split second before the scene changes, we see Satoshi shed a tear.
• It happens at the end of the childhood section of Fable 2.
• The first Sheriff of Nottingham in series 3 of Robin Hood. Though it takes him a surprisingly long time to return from his Not Quite Death.
• A Chinese soap titled Freezing Point ends with (long story) the protagonist in the hospital in a coma, her fingers twitching back to life as her love ones surround her and beg her to Please Wake Up.
• When The Pale Man comes to life in Pan's Labyrinth, it starts first with this trope.
• "Wiggle your big toe..."
• This trope was used in the obligatory Or Is It ending of the sixth Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear book, Army of Terror. Eppon's finger twitches on the final page, implying that Gog's ultimate weapon is not only alive, but survived having its head blown off with a cortex bomb.
• In the recent film of The Incredible Hulk, Emil Blonsky indicates his impending revival by his fingers coming to staccato life as Gen. Ross is walking away from his hospital bed. Even though his fingers are almost fully wrapped up in bandages and his whole arm and hand are in a suspension cast. Now that is a commitment to this trope.
• This is how the characters in Rent realize Mimi is alive.
• It was subverted in Season 5 of Desperate Housewives. Edie is accidentally electrocuted, falls down... then we get a close up of the Twitching Hand right before the credits. The following episode starts with the character already cremated, IIRC.

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:

• Oh boy, Metroid. Being able to transform into a ball must be the most common ability in the galaxy. The early games were justifiable, since the ruins really were built just for Samus (or dug out by creatures that were just as small as Samus' ball form), but when she starts branching out in the Prime series it gets a little ridiculous. The bomb slots and spinners in the first game were bad enough, but in the later games they started trying to make it sound reasonable, with... slightly awkward results. I mean, come on. "Kinetic orb cannon?" How many times do you have to fire "small, spherical objects" over those distances?
  • The doors in the Prime series were also fun. Why would you ever need a door that can only be opened by cold? (Although they did give a convincing explanation for the standard shoot-and-it-opens doors - to keep nearby wild-life from getting through.)
• The Legend Of Zelda is equally guilty, but Minish Cap is the king. "Oh no! An upside down mine cart! Good thing I have my wand of turning things over!" (This is something you actually do in the game.)

Up For Grabs, Do We Have This? Exactly What It Says On The Tin.

See also Underwater Ruins. Sometimes an Evil Lair. Compare Atlantis.

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:

• The Lord Of The Rings: Sauron and The One Ring.
• Harry Potter: Lord Voldemort and the Horocruxes.
• Order Of The Stick: Big Bad Xykon is a lich, an inherently evil magical being who is dependent on enchanted objects to survive.
• Dungeons And Dragons, on which Order Of The Stick is based, also had such beings.
• Star Wars: The Death Star (it doesn't take that much to set off the explodium).

Questionable examples:

• Inu Yasha: Naraku gets much of his power from collected shards of the Jewel of Four Souls, but has made powerful enemies in doing so, So Yeah.
• Lampshaded in The Matrix, the rebel humans are dependent on (presumably nonsentient) machines that power their life support and equipment; if their enemies were to find the location of all the rebel humans' vehicles and bases, or gain control of them, they could defeat the rebellion quickly. The humans could just turn off their machines, but they would probably die if they did.
• Real Life: modern civilization gets a large portion of its energy from oil, keeping the supply flowing can be a challenge and vulnerable to enemy action, it is of non-infinite supply, and its use has ecological implications as well.

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

• In Sand Chronicles, the main character's rival sports D-Cup breasts (Considering it's from Japan, that's large)
• Subverted in Kimodo No Jikan, where one of the main characters is an incredibly early bloomer with breasts that would put a full grown woman's to shame. And she hates it.
• Averted in Azumanga Daioh, where Sakaki has huge breasts, and is very self conscious about them.
• Louise in Zero No Tsukaima, in very much a Pettanko. Saito has said there was "nothing" there, and considering almost every other female in the show is extremely busty, Louise really gets aggravated over this. Violently aggravated.

Live Action TV

• In War At Home, one episode delt with the friend of the main character's daughter getting implants, and the main character want some for herself.
• My Big Boobs and Me and My Small Breasts and I. Both shows were amazing and approached the subject with sensitivity. On the big breast side, one of the women who had a breast reduction referred to her breasts as Frankenboob. There were women who wore cup sizes EE or M. At the other end were women who considered themselves to be unattractive freaks because of their breast size. Amazing shows about a topic that bother women way more that they will admit.
• Also, somethingverted in House when someone needed exploratory surgery, but she was trying to hide her diagnosis from NASA, so it was unacceptable to have unexplained surgical scars. So they gave her breast implants as a cover.

Literature

• Inverted in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. One girl in Margaret's class, Laura Danker, has unusually large breasts at age 11...which makes every other girl assume she's a slut. Margaret's lowest point in the whole book is when she bullies Laura for this, and then finds out it's not true.

Video Games

• In Castlevania Judgment, Aeon informs the designated Pettanko Maria Renard that she will get her wish in time, but that her obsession will also fade. Indeed, by the time of Symphony of the Night, She Is All Grown Up physically and mentally.

Western Animation

• Played with on As Told by Ginger. The popular girl stuffed her bra, and one episode dealt with high school girls trying to prove she stuffs.
• In The Simpsons # episode where Marge gets implants, at first life seems considerably better for her. Everyone is nicer, she gets a new job as a model, she gets free things for no reason other than her cup size. But then the problems start, Her back starts hurting, she gets an unnecessary amount of attention from local slobs, and her boobs get in the way of everyday activities.
• There was an episode of South Park where Bebe started developing early, and she was treated better by everyone, and all the boys were fighting over her. This made Wendy jealous, who then went to get ridiculous implants that were immediately mocked.
• Subverted in one of episode of Family Guy, Louis decides to wean Stewie off breast milk. Her breasts grew two cup sizes, and where nothing but trouble to her. Of course, they did aid the plot later on, similar to when Marge got implants.

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.

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

• The Star Ocean games
• Monster Rancher 1 and 2

Examples of Type 2

• Pokemon
• Monster Rancher 3

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:

• There are clear reasons for a port not to turn out well.
• Gamers largely are not aware of them, and may even ignore those when told so.

This could also be just about the fallacy or about porting games in general. Which would you all like?

Examples are moved to the first reply to save space here.

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.

• The Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Arnie says this to John Connor.
• In Watchmen, The Comedian says that mankind have been trying to kill each other off since the beginning of time, but it's only now that they have the firepower to finish the job.
• In The Day The Earth Stood Still, original version, I believe this is one of the reasons why Klaatu / GORT were on Earth, but I haven't seen it so I might be wrong.
• There's a song by Papa Roach about this.
• Seen it five hundred trillion times.

(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)

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

• League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.1&2 did this with Victorian literature.
• Black Dossier, the sequel to Lo EG, did this with mostly 1950s mostly British mostly literature.
• League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol.3 is going to do this with, consequently, early 20th century, 1960s and 1990s-2000s fiction.
• Albion (created with Alan Moore's assistance) did this with 1950-70s British comics published by IPC.
• In Twilight of the Superheroes, a script submitted by Alan Moore to DC, he wanted to do the same with the DC Universe.
• The original script for Watchmen was this: a crossover of several Charlton Comics characters intended for deconstructing the superhero genre from a modern viewpoint.
• Top Ten, despite being written by Alan Moore, is NOT this. Here Massive Multiplayer Crossover is used just for comedy and to build a damn good story.
• Is Lost Girls this or not? I don't know really. Yeah, it features a crossover and redefines the crossovered books, but the similarities kind of end there.

Other Authors

• Kingdom Come. To some extent, it actually fulfilled the idea of Twilight of the Superheroes (though Your Mileage May Vary).
• Breakfast Of The Gods does this with breakfast cereal mascots.
• Planetary kinda did this with various fiction characters and genres. "Kinda", because most of the characters there are pastiches or Expys, and most genres are deconstructed in self-containing stories, regardless of the series' Massive Multiplayer Crossover premise.
• J.Michael Straszynski's The Twelve did this with twelve WWII-era Timely Comics superheroes, centering on the differences between modern and 1940s culture.
• Fables does it with fairy-tales and nursery rhymes.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit did this with Toons.
• This trope, combined with the Literary Agent Hypothesis, is the main premise of P.J.Farmer's Wold Newton Universe.
• Most of Bleedman's webcomics (Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, Grim Tales From Down Below) do this with various kids' cartoons. Though Your Mileage May Vary about how much of these comics is really Deconstruction, and how much is just Darker And Edgier and Author Appeal.
• The Web Original series There Will Be Brawl does this with Nintendo games. It uses a preexisting Massive Multiplayer Crossover established by the Super Smash Bros franchise.

So you thought you selected Awesome Mc Coolname for your alter ego, so why is everyone laughing?

Examples:

• In the story-within-a-story of Stolen from Gypsies, one character actally the hero's love interest in disguise is a rakish highwayman who took the name "the Dim Avenger". While the intended meaning of Dim was "dark", the character tends to get asked if their name means they are stupid.
• In Spiderman The Animated Series, this trope is combined with Get Thee To A Nunnery, as Spider Man is amused by the name of retro hero the Whizzer, especially given his yellow costume.
  • Also in the Spider Man universe, the Shocker gets this, presumably because his name is also a term for a sexual act
    • Being a Deadpan Snarker, Spider Man does this a lot.
• In the first novel of the Evil Genius Trilogy, one character early on is a Jerk Jock who is trying to chose a sufficently threatening villain name, but all of his choices lead the others to laugh at him (e.g. choosing the Decimator, and then having it pointed out that decimate literally means "kill 10%")

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:

• Super Smash Bros Brawl has Pit and (to an extent) Meta Knight, neither of which is either a Glass Cannon or a Mighty Glacier. Pit is a more annoying case because he uses speedy arrows that cause interruption to make the lives of decent players miserable. Meta Knight at least uses close range attacks to fall into this.
  • Closer, though still not flat-out, typical examples are Ike and, to an extent, Lucas and Sonic. Ike's moves are overly powerful even for what you'd expect from a guy who carries his two-handed sword with one hand, and he lives long too, but his moves lag, so most characters have no problem breaking through. Lucas is a Glass Cannon, especially with his Up Smash, which is very powerful, but it is telegraphed, allowing even a slow player to punish it every time if they're smart. Sonic moves fast and...that's it, though whether that makes him qualify is debatable.
• Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has Tabitha and her ridiculously powerful CO unit that provides basically no boosts to her other units early on. Infantry and indirect flooding, the very thing that makes her overpowered for most people, keeps her from being a Game Breaker.
• Zangief from Street Fighter IV. He has a spammable spinning attack that average/new players will get creamed against, but it is severely punishable by expert players.

Up For Grabs.

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:

• The Nutty Professor does this.
• Happens all the time on Saved By The Bell (hell, SBTB may as well be the trope namer).

And lots of other stuff.

I don't think we have this. Do We Have Should We Have Needs A Better How Did We Blah Blah Blah.

Robots specifically made for Spying or Espionage missions. Needs A Better Title and Needs A Better Description.

Needs a Better Title

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:

• As shown in the picture, Superman in all his adaptations.
• Batman usually. Sometimes shown having his costume in his briefcase.
• Spider-Man. Again though, sometimes shown having his costume in his backpack.
• It's implied Team Rocket from Pokemon does this, since their reveals involve pulling off their disguise to reveal the uniform underneath.
• Parodied in Futurama in the episode "Less than a Hero" Leela plays this strait, tearing off her cloths to reveal her Clobberella costume. Then tearing off her costume to reveal another set of identical clothes, claiming "It was brisk, I dressed in layers". Of course, the joke is, this would have meant she was wearing her costume under her regular clothes, even though her costume had sleeves when her regular clothes don't!
• The Incredibles characters used to do this before superheroics were outlawed, and they did it again at the very end, with the very last shot of the film being Mr. Incredible imitating Superman's iconic use of this trope.
• In the animated version of Teen Titans, when Robin is forced to go to a prom with a girl. At one point he rips off his prom suit to reveal his costume.
• Parodied in Sky High where teen heroes-in-training practice changing into several different outfits, including "super-suits", civvies, and athletic uniforms, via ye olde telephone booth, spoofing Superman's tendency to change in phone booths in the past.
• Spoofed here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1344#comic
• In the Fatal Fury anime movie, Kim Kapwan somehow disintegrates all of his clothing, revealing his fighting ouitfit below (all in the middle of a party where no fighting was expected to actually take place -talk about Crazy Prepared.)
• Captain America used to wear his suit under his civilan clothes, including strapping his shield to his back.

Up for Grabs

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.

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:

• Trauma Center, in the last mission.
• The stage play Pippin. "Let's see you do that without music!"

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.

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.

• Dungeons And Dragons seems to be the ur example.
  • One of the few things Neverwinter Nights 2 changes for the better is allowing automatic identification based on your knoweldge skills
• Nethack is probably the only example that acctually adds to the game, as idenitfying your (most likly cursed) stuff is a large part of the difficulty.
• Arcanum requires magick items to be ided by a.Travling to a Gypsy, all but one of whom (the first) are annoyingly at opposite end of town you enter from. b.maxing divination (this costs the same amount of points as maxing any other school, so it is on par with resurrecting the dead, instantly reaching a location on the world, map insantly killing any foe, perfect mind control, Baneful Polymorph, or an increase to your speed and a decrease to the enemys (in a game where speed is a game breaker) in cost.
• Diablo and the sequel are an example of the "minor hastle" version, just use a scroll of ID or talk to Cain and that is it.

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:

• Ruby Quest
• Joan Quest
• Dorf Quest
• 4856298560 other Imageboard Adventures started on 4chan's /tg/ board.
• MS Paint Adventures, having its own site which provides plenty of time for the artist to draw new panels, thus somewhat resembles a Webcomic (it's even listed on our Wiki as such). It uses its forum for suggestions, and tries to emulate the simplicistic graphic style of real Imageboard Adventures.

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:

• Doctor Doom's mother was an Exotic Dancer Magical Gypsy.
• In the beginning of Ultima IX the main hero must find a tent with a Magical Gypsy, who would teleport him to Britannia.
• Seen It A Million Times.

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:

• Doctor Doom, the embodiment of Eastern European Anti Villain Evil Overlord. He's a Roma, who were (and sometimes, still are) severely persecuted in Europe. Of course, a criminal who stole the throne and dabbles in dark magic surely won't add any bad vibes to the stereotypical Roma image, right?
• Magneto, the most well-known nemesis of the X-Men, who's often treated as an Anti Villain by writers. He's a Jew (he even was a victim of Holocaust)... and a mutant.
• Watchmen - Adrian Veidt. There are many hints in the novel (and even more in the movie) at him being homosexual.
• Noh-Varr, the Marvel Boy, seems to fit this trope. That is, if you consider Kree a minority (they do get a similar image).
• V from V For Vendetta - Not so much a villain, like a Well Intentioned Extremist. He is a victim of England's fascist regime's death camps. We don't get to know what exactly led to his imprisonment, but we do know that most of the prisoners there were oppressed minorities of some sort.
• William Shakespeare's Shylock from The Merchant Of Venice. He's more of a Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds, and much of his villainy is in fact caused by him being Jewish in a time and place rife with anti-Semitism. He gets a nifty monologue on the subject ("Hath not a Jew eyes?").

Inb4 Flame War.

Disclaimer: This Troper doesn't condone of any Double Standard ideas mentioned in this article.

Disclaimer 2: These disclaimers will be deleted when the article's loaded. Please, don't comment them. :)

OK, Do We Have This One?

In many works of fiction (including political propaganda) there's Us. An there's Them. "Them" may be Enemies or Allies, or a Neutral Power, or even a savage Proud Warrior Race whom We are "civilizing". Doesn't matter. This trope fits all.

There's Our hero and Their hero. They meet and interact. And lo, this trope sayeth: Our hero must be a man, Their hero must be a woman. Amen.

This trope is really Older Than Dirt. Long ago, in many cultures, a man was deemed head of the family. When he married a woman, she was to join his family, his clan, his tribe. When a (male) leader of one tribe married a (female) member of another tribe's royalty, in many cultures it meant that the bride's tribe became vassal to the groom's tribe. So, to sum it up, in royal marriages, the tribe represented by a woman became vassal to a tribe represented by a man.

This notion, common in most patriarchal societies, was often used in fiction and propaganda. Thus, to show the conquests of Our nation, they showed the conquests of the male hero. If Our hero is sent to defend or liberate Their nation, he will romance a woman native to Their country thus showing Our noble power. If They are the enemy, Their female hero will understand the wrongness of Their ways and defect, being persuaded by falling in love with Our hero. If They are a "primitive" "wild" "savage" people, expect a beautiful native girl being civilized by Our Mighty Whitey (or whatever race We belong). If... well, there were many variants. But, whatever the case, this trope is just used to subliminally show Our superiority to Them, whoever They may be. Yes, that's it.

Note that nowadays this trope doesn't need any romantic relations between Our Man and Their Woman to exist (though they surely help). Most of the time, it would be just that: We are represented by a man, They are represented by a woman. They may have strictly work relations, the woman may be equal to her male partner in all ways... but the trope is still there. Hiding...

Note: When They are Our enemy, and Their hero is Our hero's main nemesis, the latter is much more likely to be a man. Because, well, then he's playing the role of, you know, not a sex "conquest", but a sex rival, and... oh, come on, why am I even explaining all this?..

Disclaimer: This trope may surely be considered an example of Double Standard, however Tropes Are Not Bad. Just because a work of fiction features Our Man and Their Woman, it doesn't automatically become sexist (except, when it does). And, especially nowadays, the use of this trope isn't always intentional. Please keep this in mind when judging this trope's examples.

This trope is the main cause (and maybe a supertrope?) of many smaller tropes: Capulet Counterpart, High Heel Face Turn, Mad Scientists Beautiful Daughter, Green Skinned Space Babe - you name it. NOTE: I'D LIKE YOUR HELP IN MAKING A LIST OF SUBTROPES / TROPES CAUSED BY THIS TROPE. THANKS! This trope itself is caused mainly by Sex Face Turn and/or Love Redeems, multiplied by an obsolete pro-male Double Standard.

This trope is sometimes subverted: if Their woman just doesn't accept Our nation's/ideas' superiority (that would be Dating Catwoman and a few similar tropes), or if the idea remains basically the same but the genders are switched (so, a woman is acknowledged as a symbol of Our power instead of a man).

Examples:

• Bond. Just... James Bond.
• I'll add more examples later, OK? And I'll highly appreciate any input from you.

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.

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.

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:

• To Love Ru, as seen in the picture.
• El Goonish Shive used this on Nanase once.
• A rather disturbing instance in Hunter X Hunter, as seen in the entry on Peek A Boo.
• Scott Mc Cloud does this in Making Comics when he talks about talk bubbles. When he mentions the placement of talk bubbles, the panel shows him as Michelangelo's David with his hair and Nerd Glasses, and his speech is covering where the statue's penis would be.
• DC Comic's "Harley and Ivy" miniseries shows us the women's shower at Arkham Asylum. What isn't concealed by Censor Steam is covered by Harley's lengthy monologue.

I'm sure there are more examples out there...

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.

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Examples:

Sadistic Choice Examples:

Video Games

• World In Conflict: One mission has the player defending Fort Teller from a massive Soviet assault. The Soviets believe the Fort had the American's anti-nuke program but the Americans know it's a bust. They have to stop the Soviets from taking the Fort and realizing this thus leading to millions of deaths from Nuclear strikes on major cities. The player is ultimately overwhelmed with an overwhelming force of Soviet tanks on the way. Colonel Sawyer is given authorization to nuke the area to stop the Soviets but Bannon points out that if everyone retreats the Russians will know something is up. Bannon stays behind to hold the Soviets off and the player orders the strike. After doing so Sawyer utters this phrase knowing full well the necessity of it.

Web Original

• Minesweeper: The Movie
  Sweeper: What if we get an eight?
  Captain: Then God Help Us All.

Big Bad Master Plan Examples:

Film

• The Albino Code:
  Captain Fascist: Officer Howard. We are dealing with an Albeeno, which means: He has red eyes, evil in his heart, and create a storm the likes of which the human race has never seen. God help us all.

Live Action TV

• Deep Space Nine:
  Captain Sisko: If we do nothing, the Dominion could sit behind that perimeter for the next five years rearming themselves. And when they're ready to come out, God help us all.
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer:
  Rupert Giles: There's a reference here to the journal of Desmond Kane, pastor of a town called Sharpsville. "May 26, 1723. Tomorrow is the Ascension. God help us all."
  Giles: It was the last anyone heard.
  Wesley: Of Kane?
  Giles: Of Sharpsville.
• Lost Season 4's first episode's teaser ended with Pierre Chang saying, "God help us all" if the energy of the Orchid were released. The episode "The Lie" ended with Eloise Hawking saying, "God help us all," if Ben couldn't get the Oceanic 6 back to the island.

Video Games

• Command And Conquer: Yuri's Revenge:
  President Michael Dugan: My god. That maniac is really going to do it. May god help us all.

Whele a joke is made about plonouncing "R's" and "L's" in Japanese, or other plonunciations.

Thele is an image on Supeldickely that gave me the tlope name (having to do with the Frash Bally Arren-San. The editol seemed to be a lacist dick. How do I get that image?) Crealry a Serf-Demonstlating Tlope, rike the "Arr Brue Ently" or "Candre J

... Prease lemembel that this is not rimited to Japanese. If so, we'd be reaving Kim Jong-Ir arr arone

• Thele was an extended joke in Dlawn Togethel about this and dliving, with a quote going something rike:

Apparently we don't have a page for drive-in theaters and their appearances in fiction. I think we should. Anyone agree?

Equivalent of title drop

• The Morrowind boxart appears on the shields of the Ordinators.

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.

• Examples:
  • Sam Beckett takes on the "Aura" of the person he has leaped into in Quantum Leap. Episodes such as the one where Sam leaped into a Monkey confirmed Sam is actually leaping in his own body.
  • In Dead Like Me, the reapers look different to their true form to living people. We see "Un George" in scenes through a living person's perspective.
  • In Big Bad Beetleborgs, a unique casting change occurred and instead of an official departure removing the character Jo from the cast, when Shannon Chandler left the series, her character remained. Rather ambiguously; halfway through Season 1, Wolfgang, while playing with a magic book accidentally caused Jo to change in appearance. Brittany Konarzewski took over Shannon's role in the guise of actually being the original Jo with a new look and voice. To counteract this, Flabber used his magic to make her look and sound just like Jo, but to everyone who did not see his spell to do this. So the viewers, Flabber, Drew and Roland could still see Jo in her new appearance, but the Hilhurst monsters as well as their family and friends could see her as she looked before. The psychological impact this would have on her brother and best friend was never addressed.

Needs A Better Title and Needs A Better Description.

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.

• Obscure Sports Quarterly in Dodgeball
• The aforementioned "This Weeks' Trade Publication" on Have I Got News For You, in which magazines such as "Spoon Collectors' World" provide some of the headlines.

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:

• Averted in Attack Vector: Tactical. Ships have radiators, and in battle, they are retracted, making the ships only able to fight for very limited time before the crews are roasted (info from here).
• Discussed in this Darths And Droids strip.
• An application of this trope to a planet happens in this Irregular Webcomic strip, saying why ecumenopolis is not possible in real life.

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

• Haruko of Fooly Cooly has a concealed one on her person◊ as a boobytrap of sorts.
• The 3rd Keroro Gunsou movie has Keroro whipping out the Kero Ball to salvage an emergency, then hitting a button, only for a boxing glove to come out of it and right into his own face.

Comics

• Green Arrow has (in)famously used a Boxing Glove Trick Arrow.
• In the Carl Barks comic "Back to the Klondike," Scrooge Mc Duck's "burglar batterer" is a gigantic boxing glove that drops from the ceiling.

Film

• The Boxing Glove Mallet in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with a red boxing glove at the end. Used by a cop in this clip at 0:55, and again by Eddie Valiant at 4:40.
• The Joker used an extendable boxing glove device in Batman (1989), starting about 2:45. This glove is also red.
• It just occurred to me that Hellboy's Right Hand Of Doom might have been inspired by this...

Toys

• The short-lived Xevoz modular action figure line features interchangeable body parts and weapons, including 'gag parts' that fly in the face of the general action theme - the Razorclaw figure includes boxing glove hands.

VideoGames

• Spring-mounted boxing glove in Day Of The Tentacle, which is powerful enough to knock a main character across the room. Fortunately she was a bit loopy to start with
• Hitmonchan in Pokemon, IIRC...
• Subverted in Punch-out!, Lil' mac's gloves are green
• Rival Schools' Tiffany wears over-sized boxing gloves as a part of her cheerleading/fighting costume.
• Red boxing gloves on springs are one of the weapons in a battle game in Super Monkey Ball.
• In Sonic Battle, Tails and Amy each use boxing gloves in one of their attacks (Amy just punches wearing them, Tails summons one on an extending spring).
• M Bison in Japan, Balrog in the US, and sometimes just called the Boxer. At least the red boxing gloves are still there.
• Taz: Wanted has these as "Whack-In-The-Boxes", which must be disabled before destroying them.
• The Killing Gloves of Boxing alternate weapon for the Heavy in Team Fortress 2.
• Wario can use one attatched to a spring in Wario: Master of Disguise.
• The second boss in Wario Land Shake It had Wario using a red boxing glove on a spring attached to a unicycle to attack him (or more precisely, knock spanners and tires at the boss and smash up his race car). There was also an enemy in Super Mario Sunshine that was just a red boxing glove on a spring, and that just knocked him off a ledge or the like.
• Ricky in The Legendof Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages wears these. In fact, they are his Iconic Item and in both games, you have to retrieve them before he will help you.

WebOriginal

• I shudder to think of how brutally Strong Bad could make fun of names and spelling errors, if he didn't have to type through his boxing gloves.

WesternAnimation

• The Joker from Batman, more so for the DCAU version, along with his sidekick Harley Quinn. It goes wrong one time when Harley tries to headshot Supergirl with a boxing glove gun, and it rebounds off Kara's head harmlessly to score a direct hit on Harley herself.

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

• Black Lagoon has Roberta, an unassuming housemaid who turns out to be the "Bloodhound of Florencia". So known because she was an assassin for the FARC known for her never failing to kill a target.
  • There's also Sawyer "The Cleaner". She cleans up messes, usually these messes are people who haven't exactly died yet. Not that it stops her for very long.
  • Revy is also known as "Two-Hands". And there's little mystery why, given the way she fights.
• Trigun: Vash the Stampede
• The Dirty Pair get their show named after their infamy....
• Sanosuke Sagara of Rurouni Kenshin is nicknamed "Zanza" because his name is "Sanosuke", and he wields an oversized zanbato.

Film

• As noted on The Butcher, General "Bloodbath" McGrath in Wild Wild West (1999).
• Boris the Bullet Dodger from Snatch. He dodges bullets.

Literature

• "71 Hour Ahmed" from Jingo

Tabletop Games

• Kharn the Betrayer earned his title after slaughtering his way through two Chaos Space Marine legions, one of them his own. We're not sure if he refers to himself that way, since he usually only says things like "BURN! MAIM! KILL!," "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" or "RAAAAAAGGHHH!!!"

Video Games

• The Elder Scrolls IV get's you "The Hero of Kvatch" and "The Hero Of Tamrial" from the main quest, Arch Mage (and lesser titles you get as you rise in the guild before that) from the Mages Guild quest, Head of the Fighter's guild, Grey Fox from the Thieves Guild, Knight Of The Nine for the quests from the Knights of the Nine expansion and Sheograph, god of madness from the Shivering Isles expansion. When you get them, certain NP Cs will mention them (most notably the first, which causes the vast majority of NP Cs to say "You're the one who closed the gate! The Hero Of Kvatch!?" as their default line and the Mages guild titles, which make everyone in the guild greet you with "Hello [rank]").
• In Overlord your jester follows you around in your castle and hails you with various titles depending on your actions ("Saviour of Elves", "Abuser of jesters" etc).
• In Fable you can either earn your title, or you can buy them from the appropriately named "Title Vendor".
• World of Warcraft lets you earn titles by completing achievements, which you can then chose which one to show, if any. This is just to show off, as NPC's won't care if you conquered Ulduar or became exalted by your factions capital cities.

Web Comic

• Richard from Looking For Group has so many of these it's used for a Running Gag.

Real Life

• Too many, some of whom probably didn't deserve them.... 'Vlad the Impaler' probably deserved his, though.

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.

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Examples.

• Family Guy when Peter discovers that beating up Lois is the perfect way to bond with Stewie.
• Black Books when Bernard and Mannie take time out from an argument to insult Fran.

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:

• Okami, the celestial mirror.
• Animal Crossing, that... thingy outside your door that resembles a mail box.