Basic Trope: A person looks for an excuse to do something nasty.
- Straight: Alice hopes Bob will do something stupid or unkind so that she can feel justified in unleashing a Humiliation Conga on him.
- Exaggerated: Alice spends every second of her waking hours (and she never sleeps) watching Bob for anything he does wrong so she can justify her view that humans are jerks and bring about The End of the World as We Know It. May involve some kind of Forbidden Fruit.
- Downplayed:
- Alice hopes Bob will do or say something stupid or unkind so she can feel justified in tripping him.
- Alice only uses gentle kicks to train Mr. Woof out of bad behavior.
- Justified: Alice wants to see herself as having standards, so she watches Bob for bad behavior so she can have an excuse for messing with him.
- Inverted: Alice looks for good behavior from Dracone so she won't have to lock him up.
- Subverted: Alice appears to be persecuting the innocent Bob and looking for things to get him in trouble, but then it's revealed there is evidence that Bob did something wrong for which he hasn't been punished. Alice started pursuing him after it came to light.
- Double Subverted: Then it's revealed that Alice planted that evidence herself because she's been looking for an excuse to harass Bob for years.
- Parodied:Bob: Ow! Why did you hit me?Alice: You didn't say "Good morning, O lovely and talented one" when I came in.Bob: Wow, talk about reaching. You really are one sick fuck.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice just does what she feels like without looking for an excuse.
- Enforced: The writers want to show that Alice is a hypocrite, so they have her look for small excuses to do things she wants to do anyway.
- Lampshaded: "Just stay away from Alice; if she wants to trip you up, she'll find grounds to do it."
- Invoked: Alice confesses to Charlie that she hates Bob but she won't do anything to him because there isn't a good reason. Charlie responds, "Well, just wait until you find a reason."
- Exploited: Bob gauges Alice's level of tolerance and annoys her by approaching her limit without ever reaching it just to spite her.
- Defied:
- Bob calls Alice out on her hypocritical worldview.
- Dracone, Bob's brother, beats Alice up for not only for unleashing a Humiliation Conga on him, but for actively looking for reasons to do so. He then publicly executes Alice via Torn Apart by the Mob so that anyone who tries to invoke this trope will know the consequences of doing so.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: It doesn't take long before Alice just decides unleash a Humiliation Conga on Bob while knowing she doesn't have good reason.
- Reconstructed: But then Alice feels so horrible about it that she stops the humiliation midway and decides to resume waiting for him to screw up.
- Played for Drama: Alice finally seizes on a reason to hurt Bob, except that it's a flimsy reason and her actions go well into Disproportionate Retribution. Bob is left emotionally broken, and all of Alice's friends yell at her before ostracizing her.
