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Does This Remind You of Anything?

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Does This Remind You of Anything? (trope)
Cookie Monster is trying to avoid a heroin' amount of food poisoning... right?

"Second to get on, first to get off!"
Geoff Ramsey describing falling off a train, Let's PlayGTA VTrain Hopping

Any situation which is made, sometimes for comic effect, sometimes for dramatic effect, to look like another situation — not in the sense that it is mistaken for that other situation by any of the characters, just in the sense that we the audience see the resemblance; the characters do not. Alternatively, it can refer to an ersatz of something more familiar that the audience would immediately recognize in subtext, in order to make it look less Anvilicious, but it doesn't always succeed in fulfilling the latter. The situation doesn't always have to mean anything sexual, however it is the most common use of the trope.

This sort of situation can lead to a Mistaken for Index plot if some other character hears it out of context. May result in Getting Crap Past the Radar if it alludes to something that would normally get censored. Similar to Innocent Innuendo/Visual Innuendo in that each of these tropes attempts to draw suggestive ideas from the audience; however Innocent Innuendo/Visual Innuendo attempt to trick the audience into thinking the situation is different from what it really is, whereas this trope is upfront about the situation and merely draws parallels to those suggestive ideas. Not to be confused with Ironic Echo, which can easily use this trope's title as a Lampshade Hanging, or with Shout-Out, which is when a work blatantly references another work in some way.

Sub Tropes include:

See also Freud Was Right, which posits that characters can apply this to everything thanks to psychological subtext, and Freudian Slip, when the symbolism reveals what the character is really thinking. Compare also That Came Out Wrong, when the words that someone say unintentionally "reminds" the listener of something else. When played for horror, Psychosexual Horror can be used to reference themes of sexual development and sexual activities.


Example subpages:

Other examples:

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    Asian Animation 
  • Happy Friends: In season 13 episode 28, after an incident set by the queen of Planet Gray which causes Big M. to lose, the king imposes laws so that his residents don't speak about the incident nor the name of the queen... for many years. In the real world, that's similar to how Chinese censorship works. This show happens to be Chinese.
  • In the Noonbory and the Super 7 episode "Pongdybory's Cold Feet", Pongdybory insists he can still drive despite his cold being a blatant impairment.
  • Running Man:
    • Try to think hard of how Liu inserted a tracker on Mr. Suitcase's metal hiney.
    • There's something on Miyo's table in her room in one scene. Is it a vase used for design purposes or an urn that is used for cremation?
      • It's an incense burner.
    • The way how the crystal is used to brainwash the D.V 7 (except for Dr. Mala) is unsettling in real life.

    Audio Plays 
  • Big Finish Doctor Who Special: The Last Adventure: In The Red House, the transformation from Wolverine to proto-human is treated very much like drug-taking: with a sensory rush, some people being unable to deal with it, and others becoming addicted to the sensation. And local law enforcement is looking to stamp the practise out, and hunts down the illegal parties where it takes place.

    Pinball 

    Podcasts 
  • Find Us Alive is being written and produced during the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it shows in its themes. Its premise—being trapped and having to cope with a new way of living—is especially resonant post-2020. Harley summarizes it neatly:
    How did we as a species get so good at turning everything mundane? I mean- look at me. I’m sitting here longing for the days of my previous status quo. You know, the status quo where I worked for a secret shadow-government organization that contains and studies things that literally break every law known to science. That was my normal. For years. It’s amazing, the things you can... get used to.
  • Invoked by the Interstitial: Actual Play players when discussing how Roxanne and Ennora are separate entities despite their similarities, and agreeing that referring to the latter with the former's name would be equivalent to deadnaming them.
  • During the 2016 Presidential election season, The Hidden Almanac ran a storyline about a local election for District Court Judge, growing more pointed as it goes on.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • In WWE's Ministry of Darkness storyline, The Undertaker revealed that he had abducted Stephanie McMahon during a segment that began when he and the Ministry crashed a match involving Sable, where he eventually grabbed Sable by the throat and forced her to her knees, with her head at the level of his waist, at which point the cameraman apparently decided to make his holy mission to invoke this trope and make it look like Undertaker is receiving a blowjob from Sable in the ring.

    Radio 
  • An extended gag in one of Denis Norden's monologues on My Word! involves him finding an ex-girlfriend "walking the streets". Even after it becomes clear he means she's a traffic warden, the metaphor continues.
    "If it wasn't for men like you, there'd be no need for women like me!"

    Stand-up Comedy 
  • George Carlin's 1991 routine "Rockets and Penises in the Persian Gulf" points out all of the phallic and sexual innuendos of the first Gulf War. "Imagine an American President using the sexual slang of a thirteen-year-old to describe his foreign policy."

    Tabletop Games 
  • Paranoia is loaded with political and social commentary, but while sticking to themes on the Red Scare does a variation with mutants. All of them are executed upon discovery except for a small few who are forced to wear yellow armbands at all times (black if their uniform is yellow) and not allowed the same privileges or freedoms as the rest of Alpha Complex, which already doesn't have much. Player opinion is out on whether or not this is meant to represent Jewish people or oppressed minorities in general.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Descriptions of the biological principles behind Tyranid biomorphs are uncomfortably sexual. Especially the Pyrovore.
    • Absolutely anything to do with the Dark Eldar. Torturing people to death then eating their souls is essentially their version of sex, and it just gets worse from there. "My playthings break so easily." And on a related matter, absolutely anything to do with Slaanesh.
    • One of the funnier ones involving the Dark Eldar are the ones among the kabals who secretly trade recordings of Wyches in the arena, as certain named ones are far more popular than others. While the Wyches fight purely gladiatorial combat, they must remain graceful and beautiful, and those who watch the recordings get an almost euphoric reaction to them. In other words, they're secretly trading bootleg sex tapes! (And since the gladiatorial fights are usually to the death, bootleg snuff tapes!)
    • A non-sexual example of this trope: The Imperium's citizens are encouraged by the official state religion, the Ministorum, to hate, fear, and persecute psykers, even though the Imperium could not function at all without themnote . We should also mention the entire Imperium, under that same state religion, worships a psyker.
    • Slaanesh, hermaphroditic god(dess) of hedonism, is one giant drug abuse metaphor. Seriously, their worshipers give us too many examples to choose from.
    • In another non-sexual example; the [1] Genestealer Cults]] note  are usually made up of the disaffected and impoverished. Working people of the Imperium desperate for any way out of their miserable lives in the depths of Hive Worlds, turn to anything to get out of it. This "anything" turns out to be a lying, manipulative Cult that talks a good game about enlightened higher beings descending from on high to give them a better life, only to knowingly get them all killed by either the authorities, or at their own masters' hands. The only difference between them and the general perception of Heaven's Gate, the Branch Dravidians at Waco, or the people of Jonestown, is that the higher beings they preach about do show up to bring about The End of the World as We Know It...in the form of the Tyranids, a Horde of Alien Locusts, there to devour them along with everyone else.
      • The above subtext ie also very occasionally is applied to most Chaos Cults.
  • In one of the Werewolf: The Apocalypse tie-in novels, the signature characters Albrecht and the Margrave each take out their respective ancestral BFS. Albrecht is pleased to note that his is bigger.

    Visual Novels 
  • Amnesia: Later gives the player an option to ask Kent and Ikki about a competition they had, where they went out to find beetles. Ikki explains that it started when they talked about each having found a huge beetle during their childhoods, arguing about whose beetle was actually larger. Kent says that his beetle was at least 8cms long by eyesight, while Ikki argues that his beetle was as big as his hand, only for the former to point out that the latter was a child at the time. Ikki retorts that he was in sixth grade, so he wasn't a small child anymore. It doesn't get any less innuendo-ridden from there.
  • Artificial Nexus has a heavily Double Entendre-laden conversation when picking open a door using a paperclip, provided they checked the door before acquiring the paperclip:
    Susan: It's really tight! But I think that I can get it in deeper!
    Hank: Keep going. The more of the length that you can get in, the better it will be for you.
  • In The Eden of Grisaia, having stayed away all night without eating anything, Makina and Michiru instantly fall upon a container of jam and messily devouring it. A similarly hungry and sleep deprived Sachi follows in moments later, asking Amane whether she thinks it sounds like two girls competing to get something a bit more risque in their mouths before continue to try making triple blowjob sound effects.
  • To make a point about perspective in Ever17, You (which is, incidentally, not a second-person pronoun, but a nickname for the character's incredibly long given name) has Kid try to put a pen back in its cap with one eye closed. This is made all the more amusing by the pair's Unresolved Sexual Tension, along with You being two years older.
    • To anyone listening to the conversation but not actually seeing what they're doing, it sounds exactly like a porn movie. You is probably aware of that.
    • This trope is exactly what the authors were aiming for in that scene; the things those two say in that scene are right out of a hentai. Which is a bit ironic considering this is one of those visual novels without any actual H scene.
    • In a different scene near the beginning of Kid/Coco's route, You attempts to make Kid laugh off his amnesia. If you refuse to do so, she'll resort to... sticking her finger up Sara's nose. Sara proceeds to moan sensually as "she and her senpai become one."
  • Fate/stay night reveals in its third route, Heaven's Feel, that Sakura is subjected to torture every night in the basement by her adopted grandfather by being violated by the bugs he can create using his powers. Not to mention that her adopted older brother Shinji regularly beats her and rapes her. Then when this is revealed about Sakura and that she's become a vessel for the Holy Grail (which contains Angra Mainyu, who will use her to be "born"), the Sinister Minister Kirei Kotomine refuses to prevent this because he believes all things have the right to exist (and because he wants to destroy the world), which eventually leads to Sakura's boyfriend Shirou fighting him for her.
  • Monster Prom: Zoe's attempt to live life as a high-school girl is framed as an allegory for a transgender person undergoing transition. She is sometimes identified as Z'Gord by the cultists and other members of the student body, and is exclusively referred to as Z'Gord by Leonard, hateful little bastard that he is. Throughout the game, Zoe repeatedly says that she doesn't want to be known as Z'Gord anymore and just wants to live a normal life. Add on top of that the fact that Zoe's voice actor is non-binary, the parallels are obviously intentional.
  • Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II: If she dies, Ai Kashiwagi is found stripped of her clothes and covered in handprints, disturbingly reminiscent of an aftermath of rape.
  • Tavern Talk: If Fable finishes the first quest by talking down the werewolf, they help him cope with his lycanthropy by reminding him that even if he finds the cure for it, it still won't undo the damage he did in his wolf form, and he has to learn to accept his new life as one. Fable also takes him to the werewolf community near Ashen Grove for further support, and the Innkeep likens it to group therapy for a long-term mental disorder.
  • Tsukihime: Makes Shiki's killing of Arcueid is somewhat... questionable.
    Arcueid: It was your first time and you were that skilled?
    • Also, during the scene where he stalks her prior to this, he makes several references towards getting excited about "wanting to *** her", and the "long hard object in his pants". After a couple screens of this, it's mentioned that the blanked-out four-letter word is kill, and the object he's talking about is his knife. Then after Arcueid has been killed by Shiki, she chases him down to "make him take responsibility" for his actions. Not helped that the player can have Shiki rape her in an act of craziness in an alleyway, which later results in Arcueid giving into her vampiric impulses and killing him.

    Web Animation 
  • The Amazing Digital Circus: In "The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor", Zooble admits to Caine that they've been sitting out the last few adventures due to their self-loathing and how uncomfortable they feel with their body, and Caine providing them extra parts to rearrange themselves doesn't really help much despite his good intentions. It's pretty much the dynamic between a trans person dealing with gender dysphoria and a parent trying their best to help.
  • Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination):
    • In "Why is Circus Baby Changing!?" Freddy is harassed by Shadow Bonnie and feels more and more scared As the shadow stalks him, this is reminiscent of how some people feel like someone is stalking them and are afraid that the stalker will show up to hurt them.
    • In "Poppy Playtime vs Rainbow Friends" Huggy Wuggy expresses his opinion about how Rainbow Friends copied Poppy Playtime because both games are similar, Bendy comments on horror games with characters based on cartoons that become killers and Freddy talks about how he started the horror genre thanks to Five Nights at Freddy's, all this while they say that their concepts are completely original.
    • In "Poppy Playtime vs Garten of Ban Ban" Huggy Wuggy tells Jumbo Josh about how sick he is of there being horror games about killer company pets that go rogue with experiments, even comments that the more of those games come out, the more it feels like the magic is gone.
  • Helluva Boss:
    • During "Unhappy Campers", Millie admits to Moxxie that she feels like a third wheel when compared to him and Blitzo and that all anyone seems to think she's good for is killing, a meta-commentary on how the fanbase views her as a Satellite Character to Moxxie, and otherwise is only good at killing things.
    • "Mastermind": Andrealphus sneeringly calling Stella "the wholesome parent" in the court when announcing Stella should get full custody of Octavia uncomfortably draws to mind real-life custody battles where one parent is favored over the other based on the latter parent having a non-heteronormative sexuality. The fact that Stolas' affair with Blitzo (which just so happens to be the same sex) is the essential reason why Stolas is in that court and also why his and Stella's heteronormative marriage broke down in the first place only drives that parallel further home.
  • Inanimate Insanity:
    • Fan and Test Tube's fight over the egg during Fan's elimination in Mine Your Own Business has often been compared to a real life divorce and custody battle, so much so that it's a popular meme amongst the fandom.
    • Bot's robotic reveal and subsequent design and voice change is a very obvious metaphor to transitioning in real life, a point that's heavily supported by them coming out as nonbinary later on in their arc.
  • RWBY:
    • In Volume 4, Sun has never before visited Menagerie so Blake explains the history of the island continent. As a sop to equality, the kingdoms' leaders gave the Faunus an isolated, out-of-the-way continent that is two-thirds desert and therefore only habitable along its coastal regions. This has been used to relocate and confine the Faunus away from other kingdoms, crowding them into limited space and expecting them to disappear from radars of other kingdoms' leaders. Not only is Menagerie an unsubtle reference to the use of Australia as a dumping ground for the undesirables of European and American societies, and the continuing plight of the Aboriginal Australians, but it's even located on the south-eastern portion of Remnant's world map.
    • In Blake's Volume 5 Character Short, Ilia reveals she was able to attend school in Atlas only by hiding her Faunus heritage. She was able to pass for human and wasn't even allowed to tell her human friends anything about her own family to protect the secret. As a result, she was forced to go along with the Faunus racism her human friends indulged in to avoid suspicion. She tells Blake that she's often asked why she bothers to fight for Faunus rights when she can have an easier life "passing for human". In real life, "passing" is a term that refers to people from disadvantaged groups, such as racial, ethnic, gender or sexual orientation, who pass as another group to escape segregation, discrimination and persecution.

    Web Video 
  • American High Digital:
    • The "POV: You Find A Rubber Band" videos have a flick-ready rubber band being treated just like a gun, complete with police chases. Lampshaded in the second video when Tommy questions exactly why the homicide unit would actually be involved.
    • "Poppers" has Tommy finding out about them at a party and later dealing them to the students for goods... the poppers in question being the toy type.

Top

Don't pet the Werewolf.

Elena gets offended when Clay pets her while she's in wolf form.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (4 votes)

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Main / DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything

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