
Art
A character makes a form of art, for instance, a story or a drawing, that says something about them.
It could be about their personality in general, for instance a Nature Lover will draw outdoor scenes, and somebody afraid of wolves might write a story about Savage Wolves.
It might also be more situational, for instance, someone who misses a person might draw said person, or a hungry character might start drawing food. In some cases, the art might represent a repressed memory. In extreme cases, the artist is psychic (perhaps they're a seer or Mad Oracle) and is making art based on a vision they have.
Sub-tropes:
- All Art Is Autobiographical: When this is said to apply to all art.
- Art Reflects Personality: When someone's art parallels their personality in general.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": A character writes a story about themselves as an amazing person who has all their wishes come true.
- Intimate Artistry: A couple's art relates to their bond or lack thereof.
- Love Doodles: A character scribbles things relating to their crush.
- Mustache Vandalism: Someone draws a mustache on someone else's picture to mock them.
- Revenge via Storytelling: A character tells a story about something bad happening to somebody whom they hate or are angry with.
- Sweetie Graffiti: Someone makes a graffito relating to their romantic interest.
Can overlap with Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book, Age-Inappropriate Art, Goths Have It Hard, True Art Is Angsty, One-Track-Minded Artist, Roman à Clef, or in-universe examples of Author Appeal, Author Phobia, Creator Recovery, or Creator Breakdown. Compare Boggles the Mind, Troubled Toybreaker, ...And That Little Girl Was Me, Muse Abuse, and But You Were There, and You, and You. If subverted, it could lead to Mistaken for Brooding (if the art is sad), or Mistaken for Profound (if the art seems deep).
Examples:
- Dad: While most of Dad's songs are simply bragging about how great he and his dance moves are, others have more to do with his feelings, whether shallow or deep:
- "True Value" is about how much he loves that specific hardware store chain. He spends most of it just gushing about the store and its products, but also throws in a line where he talks about wanting to destroy Neighbor's shed, has a Verbal Backspace, and then insists he'll build his own instead.
- "Quantum Ranger" is gushing about the show Walker, Texas Ranger, another thing he likes.
- "Dad Loves Mom" is Dad proclaiming his love for Cheryl, while also discussing some aspects of their relationship — such as that she scares him when she's angry and that he feels the need to keep her happy so that she stays with him.
- "Diane" explores Dad's attraction to Diane, Cheryl's best friend, and the inner conflict he faces, knowing it's forbidden but being hopelessly in love.
- "Dad Loves You" is a song about how much Dad cares about the viewers, discussing how he'll never abandon them and intends to always be a good father to his community.
- "CFBDSIR 2149-0403" is a shift away from Dad's usual music as it's actually a song from the perspective of Andan, Dad's actual and repressed identity. He talks about how he's unhappy and trapped, doesn't understand why he's being forced into this role and "family", and feels betrayed by his home base. He declares his intention to "stay alive and stay feeling" while doing what he's told to so that he can eventually learn the truth.
- In Cleansing
(based on The Loud House), Luan writes a story about a sad girl who wants to be a comedian, because she herself wants to be a comedian and is currently in a funk.
- Future Is Bright (Danny Phantom): After accidentally revealing his identity as Phantom to his parents, and being unable to have a true discussion about it due to his parents being both in prison and across the country, Danny is in a pretty bad mood when he goes to Harley for his weekly therapy session. She decides that said session will utilize art therapy, so she covers a spare room with sheets, brings in open paint cans, and tells him to go nuts. He does: first he throws globs of paint at the wall while venting about how upset he is about the situation. After getting it all out, he starts actually painting pictures while telling Harley why he feels the way he does. Harley invokes this by showing Bruce pictures of Danny's paintings to show how the therapy went.
Harley: [showing Bruce pictures] He made the mess on the right first, then the sky on the left, and he did the clock last. Polka dots are mine, though!
- Gal Pals: Lincoln does a drawing of the chaotic argument his family is having, and of him being unhappy, since he ended up suffering gravely from the argument.
- Mystery of the Self-Loathing Loud
(based on The Loud House):
- Subverted when Luna is revealed to have written a song about wrist-slitting, which causes her siblings to fear she was the one who wrote the suicide note. As it turns out, however, she just wrote it because writing about heavy topics was trendy.
- Subverted again when Luan is revealed to have made a joke where one person asks, "Want to hang?", and the other replies, "From a tree? Sure!" As it turns out, she was just trying out Black Comedy.
- Played straight, but in two different ways, with Lori and Lucy writing dark poetry together. Lori is indeed the writer of the suicide note and is trying to cope, but Lucy is just a Goth.
- Monsters, Inc. 1: Boo draws a picture of Randall because she's afraid of him, and she later draws herself holding hands with Sulley because she likes him.
- In Rango, Rango draws a box in the condensation on his tank (he's a lizard) because he's thinking about living in a box.
- The Rescuers: Penny, an orphan girl, draws a picture of herself, a man, and a woman, indicating that she wants to have parents.
- In Tangled, Rapunzel realises that all of her paintings contain the sun logo from the flag of the kingdom she was born in. This means that, even though she hasn't been there since she was a baby, she has a subconscious memory of it.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg draws a picture of himself frowning, because he's feeling guilty about letting Rowley take the blame for scaring some little children, when actually Greg himself did it.
- Eddington: Louisa Cross, the wife of the protagonist Sheriff Joe, paints and makes dolls of weird pale creatures with no mouths that are heavily implied to reflect her trauma from being sexually abused as a child most likely by her father. Joe tries to encourage her by having a proxy buy some dolls through her web shop, but when charismatic Conspiracy Theorist Cult leader Vernon Jefferson Peak visits the house, he seems to understand her art much more intimately which impresses Louisa.
- (500) Days of Summer: After Summer breaks up with Tom, Tom's greeting cards take an unpleasant turn, to the point that he ends up leaving the company altogether and making another go at being an architect.
- Played for Laughs in A Mighty Wind, the depressed Mitch Cohen releases a sequence of increasingly alarming solo albums starting with "A Cry For Help" where he's posed in a straightjacket in a mental hospital, and "Calling It Quits" where he's standing in an open grave that he's digging with a headstone reading "RIP Mitch Cohen" in the background.
- Parasite (2019): On the wall of the Park family room is a drawing by their youngest son of a scribbled figure with black eyes. Unbeknownst to them, as well as to the Kim until halfway through the film, this is actually Park Da-song's attempt at capturing the face of Geun-sae, a man who has been living beneath their house for years and scavenging food and supplies from the upstairs levels. One night, Da-song happened to see him in the midst of one of these thefts, but he noticed only the eyes that quickly noticed him and left.
- Rags: Much of Charlie's music centers around his current emotions and problems:
- "Nothing Gets Better Than This" is about how he feels comfortable and happy at the pawn shop, which he's open about not wanting to leave; it's his place to escape from his Wicked Stepfather and be close to his deceased mother through her old piano, and he frequents it enough to be friends with the shop owner.
- "Someday" is about his desire to be a musician, discussing how seriously he takes his dream and how he received encouragement from his mother. He even mentions that he'll be "king of the palace", which is the name of the restaurant his mother once owned, and that he's now relegated to being an unpaid employee at, thanks to Arthur. It's the song that acts as the movie's Glass Slipper, and Kadee's interest in "Rags" is in part because she believes he sings about authentic things. Naturally, when she begins the hunt for him, the other versions of "Someday" are all much shallower, while Andrew's lyrical theft only results in a meaningless cover for a song he has no personal connection to.
- "Not So Different At All" is heavily implied to be about Charlie's own friendship with Kadee, who shares some of his same trauma (a deceased mother) and has similar insecurities about her music. By performing it at the Majesty Records concert with her in the audience, he's essentially singing to her about how they're very similar despite their obvious differences in wealth and privilege. Fittingly, this song is the one that makes Kadee first take an interest in "Rags".
- "Me and You Against The World" caps off the film, with Charlie and Kadee singing together on stage, finally both with the confidence and support they need to thrive. The song itself is about how they'll be okay to face the future together, because they have each other to lean on.
- Rocketman (2019): While most songs are simply portrayed as normal songs with no special meaning or are performed in a non-diegetic emotional number, there are two times when Elton and Bernie essentially collaborate on a song that captures their shared feelings and desires.
- The writing of "Your Song" is portrayed as being a love song that Elton and Bernie are writing for each other. Bernie is putting his emotions towards Elton down on paper, quite literally telling him through lyrics that the song is his gift. Elton then responds with the actual music, singing directly to Bernie that the song is for him. It encapsulates the love they have for each other, their feelings coming out in a creative outlet.
- "I'm Still Standing" is depicted as being a song Bernie wrote to celebrate Elton's recovery, and he encourages him to find a piano at the rehab to play it. Elton finally singing it at the end then adds the extra meaning of it being his personal triumph to celebrate, first singing it to the people in his rehab as he prepares to leave.
- The Wedding Singer: Lampshaded in the song "Just Kill Me" that Robbie wrote half before and half after Linda dumped him and undergoes a complete tonal shift in the middle.
- American Girls Collection: In "A Smart Girl's Guide to Boys", writing sad songs is listed as a way to deal with being dumped by a boy.
- Andy Griffiths' Just Series: In "Kittens, Puppies, and Ponies", Andy writes a story about some cute animals dying a gory death because he was angry that he lost a writing contest.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
- In one book, Rodrick and his friends get given a school project to see if watching "violent" movies made them think aggressively, where they watch horror movies and then draw their resulting feelings. Manny ends up watching the movies too, and draws really scary drawings.
- In one book, Manny draws two arguing people, and a third, smaller person crying with ears covered. His parents, Frank and Susan, think he drew himself crying over them arguing. In actuality, it does depict a real argument, but one had by his brothers, not his parents.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Luna was so happy to finally have friends that she painted those friends (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville) onto the wall of her bedroom to admire and honor them.
- I Am Jazz: At one point, Jazz, a trans girl, draws herself with a Personal Raincloud to illustrate her dysphoria.
- Judge Dee: In "The Chinese Maze Murders", a smart-aleck painter is discussing his works with the judge, who is rather conservative in his views on art. The artist stops just short of being condescending, but the judge feels he got the better of the encounter as he realized the artist used the exact same face for his female characters, showing that he was deeply in love with her.
- Ramona Quimby: In "Ramona Forever", an early sign that Mrs. Quimby is pregnant is that Mr. Quimby has been doing doodles of dollar signs and babies.
- The Worst Thing About My Sister: When Marty is denied dinner as punishment for egging Katie, Ingrid, and Alicia (the Girl Posse at her school), she draws a picture of her superhero persona Mighty Mart throwing eggs at the bullies, and she also draws her very skinny because she's so hungry.
- The Brittas Empire:
- In "Sex, Lies and Red Tape", Carole writes a manuscript called "Mistress of Kinvara". The manuscript focuses on a struggling receptionist who is working her way up through the ranks, much like Carole is doing.
- In "Brussels Calling", Helen reacts to her son Jonathan's English teacher giving her a poor grade for work she did for him so poorly that she attempts to drive over the teacher with a car. When lawyer John Rawlinson, who is drafted into the case, suggests helping her by arguing that the act was spur-of-the-moment, Helen reveals that she had done drawings that suggest otherwise and that she intends to burn them, showing her violent and vengeful streak.
- Drake & Josh: In "Honor Council", Drake is put on trial for supposedly putting Mrs. Hayfer's car in her classroom. One of the pieces of evidence is his notebook, which features multiple doodles of his teacher being harmed, such as having a piano falling on her. It's Played With; Drake does hate Mrs. Hayfer, but he wasn't the one who put the car in the room — Mindy, his accuser, did.
- Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities has the episode "Pickman's Model''. The titular Pickman is a brilliant but controversial Mad Artist. He's introduced drawing a still life along with a class of students, but instead of a realist or abstract depiction, he adds wounds, decay, and traces blood using his finger while staring intensely at another student. To no one's surprise, he's mentally unstable and later expelled. This trope is reinforced later in the episode, showing his apartment and house as dirty, messy, and full of disturbing art that inspires madness.
- Psych: It's subtle, but in the season one episode "Who You Gonna Call?", the client of the week is an artist named Robert who has painted several impressionist-style pieces that depict feminine figures in his home, foreshadowing that Robert is part of a Dissociative Identity Disorder system which has a trans woman as a member.
- In Spaced, Brian begins the series as a stereotypical tortured artist whose work depicts "anger, fear, pain, and aggression", but when he starts dating Daisy's friend Twist, he finds himself only being able to paint cheerful-looking pictures of flowers.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- In "Home Soil", when given a musical instrument to play, a girl plays a sad song because she's sad that she was kidnapped.
- In "Hero Worship", an orphaned boy paints an abstract painting of the disaster that killed his parents. Seeing as he wrongly blames himself for the disaster, he denies that this is what it represents, claiming it's "just a painting".
- In "Haven", a guy named Wyatt Miller keeps drawing pictures of the same woman. It turns out that she's a woman he's been dreaming about and has the hots for, and then she turns out to be Real After All.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: In "Equilibrium", Dax writes a little tune that she starts playing and humming all the time. It turns out to be a subconscious memory of when her symbiont was in another person.
- Star Trek: Voyager: Zigzagged in "Author, Author" — the EMH writes a holonovel (an interactive, holographic story) which seems to be about a very twisted version of his life (his mobile emitter, a device that allows him to move freely, is restrictive, and all of the crew abuse him except for Five of Eight, who's his Love Interest and is clearly based on his real-life crush Seven of Nine). The real crewmembers worry that the EMH feels he's being abused by them, but he elaborates that he's thinking of his "brothers", the other EMH Mark Is, who are being used as laborers.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- Averted Gaze R tells the story of two siblings, Dahye, a college student, and Dawoon, the high school dropout and their parents' favorite. Dahye starts noticing her brother acting weird, drawing creepy paintings of naked people on his room's walls, and writing a disturbing, violent story on his computer about her. Growing scared of him and his behavior, Dahye, with the help of her aunt, discovers that he has a severe mental issue, which turns out to be schizophrenia. The paintings reflect the voices in his head telling him what to draw.
- Ghost Trick: Detective Jowd is spending his prison time painting faces he wishes to never forget. Sissel reaches him in time for Jowd completing his final painting: The appearance of Sissel himself.
- The further you go down the timeline in UFO 50, the more the games begin to reflect the metanarrative of UFO Soft. The credits of Mortol dedicate the game to the memory of Melda Smolski, director Gerry Smolski's mother. It's implied Smolski may have been going through a Creator Breakdown at the time, as the game involves using and killing Expendable Clones to navigate levels. Vainger, Campanella 2 and Star Waspir involve an outside force corrupting a once benign location, reflective of the employees' opinion regarding Tao Nemuru and his flunkies coming into the company. Mini & Max features references to nearly every game UFO Soft had made up til that point— and after that marks the End of an Age for UFO Soft as management starts using the games and employees as vehicles for what art they want to create, indicating the employees saw Mini & Max as their "last hurrah".
- TheOdd1sOut: In "A Book I Made as a Kid", this is played with — James remembers having to write a book for school when he was nine. He titled the book I Do Not Like This Family, and drew several disturbing illustrations, including being made to do chores while the neighbourhood kids have fun. He notes that this might have made his teacher worry that he was being abused or that his parents' marriage was unstable, but then notes that while he was partially inspired by hating chores, he actually had a great childhood.
- Clarissa (Yungbluth): Played for Horror thanks to the subject matter and response. When Clarissa is in art class, she draws images that reflect her dark and tragic family life — primarily having an abusive father who often molests her. She draws one picture of a sadistically gleeful wolf eating a chipmunk who is obviously terrified, as well as a picture of her family in which her father has evident devil horns. Her teacher simply encourages her to make the chipmunk happy and interprets the family picture as showing stability and love — Dramatically Missing the Point of Clarissa's drawings and ignoring her cry for help. In the same scene, she also dismisses the signs and problems depicted in her other students' family drawings, missing every indication that they're unhappy or struggling. She does notice that Clarissa's wolf and chipmunk picture looks very much like a sex scene... but simply assumes it's childhood ignorance and not the intention.
- Not Always Learning: In this
story, a teenager writes a story for a school project, involving a teenage boy murdering bullies. The teachers were worried that the writer wrote it because they were actually wanting to kill people, but in actuality, it was based off a dream they'd had, which they only had because they'd recently seen Heathers.
- The Onion: This
article claims that Edgar Allan Poe's morbid writing was because of his sad, and that after cheering up, he wrote much happier poems and stories, then went back to sad stories after injuring himself.
- Call Me Kevin: Played for Laughs. In "BitLife but I become a terrible popstar", he names many of his albums after events in his character's life. His very first album is called "Please by this im scared" — lead track "im desperate". He's almost arrested on the false charge of killing a nun; he later creates a song called "I Killed The Nun" and plays it off as a publicity stunt. He does the same when a lady accuses him of being her baby-daddy, despite that he's a virgin; he calls it "The baby ain't mine", with the lead song as "Virginity rocks". When he struggles to find a non-charity gig, he drops an album named "I hate charity". Then he adopts a ton of children, including a boy named Shaggy, and drops an album called "I just adopted 8 kids", with a song called "Shaggy Is The Worst One". When he decides he wants to run for president, he titles an album "VOTE FOR ME" and calls the song "legit want to be president". His cry for help album is simply called "help"; "im broke" comes after he blows all his money on his failed campaign, the track being titled "I want another yacht".
- Daniel Thrasher: A few skits involve a character (usually Hoodie Guy) creating music on the spot that has to do with their current desires or emotions, which the other character will usually react to in confusion or concern.
- In "When you accidentally write a song that already exists 6
", Daniel keeps writing songs that have to do with food. When asked, he admits that he's just hungry.
- "When musicians rage play
" features Hoodie Guy launching into furious, impromptu songwriting when he learns Daniel has eaten his last granola bar. He claims to just be writing a new song, but it's just keysmashing, and his working titles are between "fire blood", "perma-hate", and "midnight wonder of death".
- "When your cat writes a song
" has Hoodie Guy's cat write a song about how he wants to annoy, hurt, and then murder Daniel — with lyrics that openly gloat that he's singing specifically about Daniel while Hoodie Guy only hears meows.
- In "When you finally write a hit song, but your cat is dead
" has Hoodie Guy launch into a song about how he's happy, life is going great, and that he really loves his kitten. Daniel ultimately can't go through with breaking the bad news and just points out to the audience that they've all seen the title.
- When you write a song about heartbreak
" has Hoodie Guy write a tragic heartbreak song for his piano class assignment... and he makes it all about The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air not being produced anymore. He admits that this is the biggest heartbreak he's ever experienced, and that he was just missing his favorite TV show.
- In "When you think you're being subtle
", the characters are in art class and showing off their paintings. Elitist brags about his superior artistic abilities and mocks the "less meaningful" art of everyone else... while revealing his own painting to just be the words "ME LIKE FEET" covered in rainbow scribbles. He talks so much about there being a "deeper meaning" that everyone starts to think he's doing reverse psychology to make an actually secret statement... But in actuality, he's just convinced his art is way more subtle than it is, and he really just wanted to share his foot fetish.
- In "When you accidentally write a song that already exists 6
- Angelina Ballerina: Subverted in one episode of The Next Steps — Ms. Mimi plays sad music on the piano, so one of her students thinks she's sad, but it turns out she isn't; it's just her taste in music.
- Arthur: In "1001 Dads", when Buster is explaining that sometimes he wishes his parents were still together, he's shown in a Flashback drawing himself and his parents.
- As Told by Ginger: Subverted in “And Then She Was Gone”. Ginger writes a poem about a girl who wants to disappear and this causes those around her to think she’s become suicidal, but she just made that for school and isn’t troubled in any way.
- In an episode of Big City Greens, would-be painter Gloria is anxious about how her art isn't selling, and we see her latest painting is of her screaming inside her screaming mouth inside her screaming mouth. She shows her parrot, asking "Is it too on the nose, or what?".
- BoJack Horseman: In the final season, Diane's writing suffers terribly as she becomes mired in depression while attempting to write her memoirs. However, when she starts taking antidepressants, she becomes less inclined to wallow in her past, instead writing an upbeat middle-grade novel. Believing that this means the antidepressants are inhibiting her introspective abilities (and thus preventing her from finishing her memoirs), she stops taking her antidepressants and soon becomes completely non-functional. In order to avoid her getting slammed with penalties for failing to turn in a book on time, her boyfriend submits the upbeat novel to her publisher, where it gets approved. Diane tries to have the kids book withdrawn, as she thinks it doesn't represent her "true" self, but Princess Carolyn advises her that just because the book is aimed at kids doesn't mean that it can't be authentic or meaningful.
- In Daria, Jane Lane's art is an accurate barometer of her outlook on the world. When angry or annoyed, she is seen to be stabbing the canvas with a paintbrushes in a very aggressive manner. A typical painting by Jane might be of the school's Star Quarterback, dressed as a caveman, dragging his Brainless Beauty cheerleader girlfriend by the hair.
- Generation O!: In "Girls Rule, Boys Drool", Molly is angry at Buzz, so she writes a song about how boys are dumb, pathetic, and overall inferior to girls. This sets up friction between the male and female students at her school, and causes Chadd to question his friendship with Molly.
- The Loud House:
- In "A Star is Scorned", Lily draws herself, her big sister Lola, and Heart Symbols as a way of telling Lola she loves her.
Lily: "Lily, Lola, love."
- Lucy, being a goth, commonly draws spooky drawings and/or writes spooky poetry.
- In "Dream a Lily Dream", Lily is asked to draw what she's been having nightmares about, since she's only two and thus lacks the vocabulary to explain in words. She draws the creations of her Child Prodigy sister Lisa, Trashy and Tentacle.
- In "A Star is Scorned", Lily draws herself, her big sister Lola, and Heart Symbols as a way of telling Lola she loves her.
- Martha Speaks:
- In "Martha's Life in Crime", an about six-year-old Helen meets Martha the dog for the first time and wants to adopt her. At one point, she draws her and tries to write Martha's name under the drawing.
- In "Martha's Blue Period":
- Helen worries that her dogs (especially Martha, who was being particularly mopey prior) miss her when she's away at art class, so she draws Martha crying so much that she floods the house.
- Then, when T.D. texts Helen that Martha is "eating the sofa" (he intended to say, "eating something inside the sofa"), Helen draws Martha eating everything in the house.
- Finally, T.D. sees the dogs trying to pull off Truman's boots when he's wearing a pirate costume and texts Helen that the dogs are fighting off pirates, so Helen draws such a fight. Mr. Vadinchi the art teacher lampshades it when he asks Helen if she ever draws anything besides her dogs.
- In "Martha the Hero-Maker", Helen and her friends are trying to write stories because they're bored with having to babysit Jake. Helen writes a story about herself being bored babysitting Jake, inspired by what's really happening.
- In "The Case of the Shattered Vase", Martha writes a story about a vase breaking and the Lorraines mistaking the elephant, Jeffy, who broke it for inanimate objects because it was dark. She wrote this story partly because she herself had broken a vase earlier, and partly because Helen had mistaken some spilled peanut butter for interdimensional goo in the dark.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "The Ruler", Marc and Nathaniel create a comic that is a very thinly-veiled statement of their love for each other. The main conflict of the episode ensues when Nathaniel's mother Shirel, who does not approve of his "friendship" with Marc, finds and reads a copy of Marc's script, puts two and two together, and tries to drag Nathaniel out of school in front of his friends.
- Moral Orel: In "Orel's Movie Premiere", Orel shows his seemingly innocuous stop-motion movie to his family and friends. Though Orel narrates the film with naivete and glee, the film portrays a few people close to him as actual monsters: Clay is an alcoholic wolf (a "puppy" as Orel puts it) that beats Orel senseless, Revered Putty has the body of a gorilla, and Principal Fakey is a giant, lustful cobra. The fact that Orel remains cheery through all seems to be cluing in the deeper trauma Orel has, despite how oblivious he is to all of this.
- Muppet Babies (2018): In "Rowlf Gets the Blues", baby Rowlf writes a song about how he's sad that he misses his mother, who's on a trip.
- Peg + Cat: In "Peg Meets Cat", an about one-year-old Peg wants to keep Cat, but has trouble explaining this to her mother as she's still pretty much preverbal. Ramone gives her a twig so she can draw what she wants, so baby Peg draws herself, "+", Cat, and then "= 2".
- The Penguins of Madagascar: In one episode, Mort develops an obsession with hugging King Julien's feet, and starts drawing pictures of his feet everywhere.
- Pinky and the Brain: When trying to tell a scary story, the Brain, being a math nerd, writes a story about someone doing a calculation wrong.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Daphne writes a song called "The Trap of Love", about heartbreak and claiming that love is just a trap. This is because she was having drama with her boyfriend Fred, who likes laying traps.
- The Simpsons: In "Lisa's Sax", a five-year-old Bart draws himself in the rain, bleeding with knives in his back, and the word "SAD", because his Sadist Teacher made him sad.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "The Paper", Squidward is confused that SpongeBob is having a blast playing with a "worthless" piece of paper, so he takes up various activities to prove (to himself, at least) that paper isn't fun. In one scene, he tries painting a bowl of fruit, but he gets distracted by SpongeBob's cheerful laughter from outside and ends up painting a picture of himself with the paper.
