Metafiction is crazy, man! We had to do what it said!
Tropes:
Main topic:
Sub-indexes:
- 2-for-1 Show: A Show Within a Show has equal prominence as the main plot.
- Actor Allusion: A work references the career or personal life of one of the actors involved.
- Addressing the Player: The game talks to the player directly, rather than as if they were a character in the game.
- All Part of the Show: Genuine chaos during a show is misinterpreted as an intentional part of it.
- Always a Live Transmission: A work that would probably be pre-recorded still appears to be happening live.
- Animated Actors: Fictional characters act as if they're in-universe actors performing on the show.
- Ascended Meme: A meme is made officially canon by the work it is derived from.
- Audience Participation: A performance requires the audience to say things in response to what the characters say.
- Audience Participation Failure: The audience disrupts the performance by not giving the expected responses.
- Audience? What Audience?: Other characters can't see the metafictional elements that one character can.
- Author Powers: A character's godlike powers are justified by being the author of the work itself.
- Author's Retaliation: A character is made to suffer due to offending the author of their own work.
- Behind the Black: Character's aren't aware of what the audience can't see, even if it violates in-universe logic.
- Better Than a Bare Bulb: A work or creator tends to apply Lampshade Hanging extensively.
- Body Wipe: The camera makes contact with a character as it transitions to a new scene.
- British Humour
- Cast Incest: Related characters are played by actors who are lovers in real life.
- Catch the Conscience: A show or story is put on to trigger the conscience of an audience member.
- Celebrity Paradox: The people involved in a work of fiction may not exist in that work's reality.
- Character Blog: A character has their own account on a real life social media website.
- Commercial Switcheroo: The real commercial interrupts or replaces the fake commercial.
- Company Cameo: Companies that worked on and/or distributed a piece of media receive references in-universe.
- Conversational Troping: Characters talk about tropes in fiction despite being in fiction themselves.
- Death by Genre Savviness: A character tries to use their knowledge of how things usually happen in stories similar to their current situation, but gets killed anyway.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: The work features an in-universe playing/whistling/humming/etc. of a song from the soundtrack.
- Diegetic Visual Effects: What seems like special effects turn out to be an in-universe part of the setting.
- Direct Line to the Author: A work is presented as if it really happened and was later recounted to the actual creators.
- Easter Egg: Some of the work's content can only be revealed by the right real-life circumstance or audience interaction.
- End-of-Series Awareness: The ending of a series has the characters acknowledge that their show has come to an end.
- Epistolary Novel: A novel is presented as if it was a compilation of multiple other writings.
- Expy Coexistence: A parody or imitation of a copyrighted character is established to coexist with the character they are copying.
- External Retcon: One work explains or re-tells the events of another work as if the new one was the "real" story.
- Fake Interactivity: A work, often for children, prompts Audience Participation that has no actual effect on the work.
- Fourth Wall: The invisible wall between a work of fiction and the real world.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: A character talks directly to the audience or points out that they're in a work of fiction.
- Breaking the Reviewer's Wall: Someone discussing the work directly interacts with the characters in it.
- Exploiting the Fourth Wall: Characters use their access to metafictional elements to their advantage.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Characters within the work respond to letters from real life fans.
- Fourth-Wall Observer: A character who addresses the audience but is the only one who acknowledges the fourth wall's existence.
- Fourth Wall Psych: A subversion of Breaking the Fourth Wall.
- Fourth Wall Shut-In Story: An author becomes trapped inside their own fictional world.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: A character threatens to harm the audience.
- From Beyond the Fourth Wall: Entities, items, or influences come into the story directly from the real world.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A character makes a statement that makes sense in-universe, but can also be interpreted as acknowledging that they are in a work of fiction.
- Logging onto the Fourth Wall: Real audience members can visit the website from within the story.
- No Fourth Wall: The fourth wall is broken so frequently that it may as well not exist.
- No Inner Fourth Wall: No Fourth Wall for the Show Within a Show.
- Noticing the Fourth Wall: A character makes the shocking realization that they exist within a story.
- Reaching Through the Fourth Wall: A non-real concept passes through the fourth wall and becomes a real, physical person, object, place, animal, or event.
- Scolding the Fourth-Wall Breaker: A character is reprimanded for breaking the fourth wall.
- You Bastard!: The audience is called out on enjoying the characters' suffering.
- Functional Genre Savvy: A character's interpretation of situations leans towards the genre they're in.
- Genre Savvy: A character who knows what to do in certain situations due to being knowledgeable on how similar events happen in specific works of fiction.
- You Watch Too Much X: One character thinks another's Genre Savvy take on a situation is excessive.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: Video game characters explain how the controls work.
- Hidden Track: The general information about the work doesn't disclose the existence of part of the work.
- Hostile Show Takeover: A villain tries to take over the hero's show as their own.
- How Is That Even Possible?: A character points out that an action or event can't happen in real life by asking in bewilderment how it can possibly happen.
- I Should Write a Book About This: The main story is implied to be written by one of the characters in it.
- I Wrote Our Story: A character writes a story within the main story based on the main story or its characters.
- Imagine Spotting: One character can inexplicably see another's Fantasy Sequence just like the audience can.
- In-Character Commentaries: The audio commentary on the home media release of a work consists of the actors pretending to be their characters recounting their experiences in the movie or television episode.
- In-Universe: Metafictional tropes occur within the story, such as characters in the story having the same Audience Reactions real life audiences do.
- Inspiration Nod: A work contains a Shout-Out or shared element with the work that inspired it.
- Intrepid Fictioneer: A character in the main work enters into one or more Shows Within a Show.
- Lampshade Hanging: Characters point out when a trope is in play or address the tendency for the trope to be present.
- Left It In: A character comments that the scene they're currently appearing in will or should be cut, but it's not.
- Left the Background Music On: Background music turns out to be coming from an in-universe source and is then turned off.
- "Let's Watch Our Show" Plot: Characters watch and commentate on the actual episodes of their own show.
- Life Embellished: The story is directly based on the author's life, except way cooler.
- Literary Agent Hypothesis: Fans theorize that the work comes from the creator retelling events that actually happened.
- Medium Awareness: Characters are shown to be aware that they are in a work of fiction.
- Meta Casting
- Meta Fic
- Meta Guy
- Meta Twist
- Metafictional Device
- Mutually Fictional
- Mythology Gag: An adaptation makes a reference to one or more of the previous continuities.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: A work mentions factual information that sounds like made-up nonsense, followed immediately by a disclaimer that the information is accurate in spite of how outlandish it may sound.
- Nested Story
- Nested Story Reveal
- Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!
- Opening Shout-Out: The series references its own title sequence.
- The Player Is the Most Important Resource
- Playing a Tree
- Pushed in Front of the Audience
- Postmodernism
- The Power of Language
- Production Foreshadowing: A work unintentionally alludes to another work that the same production company wouldn't produce until much later.
- Production Throwback
- Rage Against the Author: The characters try to defy what the author wants to do with the story.
- Rainbow Speak
- Reading Ahead in the Script
- Real World Episode: An episode where the characters find their way into the real world.
- Recursive Canon: A work of fiction somehow exists as a work of fiction within its own reality.
- Recursive Reality
- Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: The future shows a film series to still be ongoing with more sequels being made.
- Refugee from TV Land: An in-universe fictional character finds their way into the work of fiction's "real world".
- Retroactive Legacy
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse
- School Play
- Scrapbook Story
- Screen Tap
- Sequel Snark: A joke is made about the movie getting a sequel.
- Self-Parody
- The Show Must Go Wrong
- Show Within a Show: A work of fiction within the work of fiction.
- Sorting Algorithm of Tropes: With many a Sliding Scale.
- Speech-Bubbles Interruption
- Sudden Game Interface
- Theory of Narrative Causality
- This Is Reality: A joke where a character points out that the real world isn't some cartoon, unaware that they actually are in a work of fiction.
- Title Drop: A work's title is mentioned within the work.
- Trapped in TV Land: Someone gets trapped inside a work of fiction.
- [Trope Name]
- A True Story in My Universe
- Unconventional Formatting
- Video Games and Fate
- Visual Title Drop
- Who Would Want to Watch Us?: The characters of a television show laugh at the idea of someone making a show starring them.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Characters remark about the writing having quality that leaves a lot to be desired.
- The World as Myth
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Someone thinks they know what needs to be done based on what they've seen done in fiction, but are foiled by not knowing the kind of story they're actually involved with.
- You Just Ruined the Shot: Someone attempts to be a hero, but learns the hard way that the "disaster" was really a movie scene being filmed that their efforts have just ruined.
