Sandbox / Trope Idea Salvage Yard

This sandbox was created by participants in the TLP Discard Project thread as an attempt to salvage trope ideas scavenged from deleted or unviable drafts.

Sometimes a draft is unfixable, but the idea is decent. So we're making a depository for anyone who wants to browse and adopt one of these trope ideas (or just use them as a starting point). As a secondary function, this page can also be used to deposit ideas that you yourself may not have the time or knowledge to successfully draft. Just don't abuse the privilege.

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Anyone is free to add to this list, or adopt ideas from it. Note, however, that if your idea is coming from a deemed-to-be-unworkable draft, please post a link to the old draft if possible.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a salvage yard, not a personal storage unit. If you have an idea that you aren't comfortable with someone else potentially taking over, don't post it here.

For well-made drafts that just need some TLC, check out the TLP Adoption Drive. If you need help determining if an idea is tropeworthy, you can ask at the Trope Idea Sounding Board.

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Ideas with no source draft

• "Actor Existence Paradox" (needs a better name), for when an actor playing a real person in a Based on a True Story work would logically interact with another person who that same actor famously played. The example that springs to mind for me is The Damned United: most of the well-known beats of Brian Clough's life are depicted, with the notable exception of his interview with David Frost—likely because Michael Sheen, who played Clough, also played Frost in Frost/Nixon.
• "Identically Colored Bars", like Life Meter and Mana Meter not being visually distinct, such as in VideoGame.The Haunted Ruins, VideoGame.Cute Knight 1, and VideoGame.Epic Battle Fantasy 1.
• Hollywood Depression, when media doesn't correctly show how depression works. Hollywood and any mental health issues have similar problems.
• "Function Text": Part of a object's description in RPGs, that describes their use. A further refinement based on their specificity might be possible, such as "Restores a small amount of Health" vs. "Restores 10 Hit Points". Basically the opposite of Flavor Text. Might need to occur in tandem for Flavor Text to not be the general idea of a description. See VideoGame.Epic Battle Fantasy 1, where in-battle item descriptions are more precise than ones in the store.
• "Shout Out By Name": Directly naming someone as a Shout-Out, such as in Shout-Out's current page image. Possibly take that image and use another one for Shout-Out.
• "Effect Trigger Percentages lower than / at 50% / greater than": Deliberate setting of effect activation chance to happen less / as / more often than not. Seems relevant as it has big effects on planning and stuff.
  • Damage Percentage Threshold, perhaps? Somewhat covered by Turns Red.
  • Similarly, Guaranteed Item Drop, like Random Drop, but not random. Such as the guaranteed Seafood from Regular Fish in VideoGame.Boxxy Quest The Shifted Spires
• Some instrument trope ideas suggested in an unrelated draft:
  • Instrument Of Legend would "have a history behind it"
  • Instrument Of Plot Advancement would "be essential to the plot in some way"
  • Doing things similar instruments can't do should be even more specific, like Instrument of Murder is used for combat.
• The Dead Have No Human Rights: Acceptable Targets are made into zombies in order to remove any moral dilemma involved with killing them.
• A flashy move that you'd rarely see in a real-life game, if it isn't downright impossible. Used as shorthand to tell the audience that one player is really good.
• A character gloats about a move they just pulled, then their opponent immediately pulls off a much more impressive move. Shorthand to tell the audience that one of them is much better at the game, and the other has a vastly inflated opinion of their own skill, and is a bad sport to boot.
• Mediums Sixth Sense Stock Shout Out: Mediums that use Film.The Sixth Sense's "I see dead people": Literature.Szamanka Od Umarlakow, Literature.Whateley Universe's Essemmelle... I See Dead People is listed as one of the Stock Parodies, but is used as the general Spirit Medium trope... Maybe flip that around and make Spirit Medium a trope...
• Teacher-Teacher Romance: There's two variations in which this can play out, both of which could warrant a draft:
  • Kids think it's cute when their teachers start flirting.
  • Kids think it's gross when their teachers get together.
• Anti Hero Protagonist: Hero Protagonist, but Anti-Hero... Possibly too similar.
• Cap Raiser / Cap Dependency: A cap that is dependent on other things. Allows easier control of player progression, limiting supplies. Like VideoGame.Science Girls, where, as an Anti-Frustration Feature, skills can't be raised to levels that they're un-castable due to needing too much SP; Franchise.The Legend Of Zelda: Wallet upgrades; VideoGame.Borderlands 1 / VideoGame.Titan Quest: Inventory upgrades. VideoGame.The World Is Your Weapon: Sister's Gift LV 2: Herb Pouch raises Herb Cap from 10 to 20 ... Super-Trope of Heart Container. Technically, most Character Level systems cap HP / MP this way.
• Girls Love Princesses: Like Girls Love Ponies, but Princesses. Examples: Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Series.Wizards Of Waverly Place example, Literature.Princesses Of The Pizza Parlor...
• Protagonist Description Title: Protagonist Title, but not by name. Like Fanfic.The Fullmetal Alchemist Sister. Should do Character Description Title as a Character Title Sub-Trope first...
• Supernatural Underwater Breathing: A character who biologically can't breathe underwater gains the ability via magic. Not To Be Confused With Super Not-Drowning Skills, in which a character who biologically shouldn't be able to breathe underwater can anyway, just because.
• Multiple Hit Move: Like Video Game.Pokemon's Rock Blast and Pin Missile... With the randomization of the number of hits, it makes it be a very large source of random damage... VideoGame.The Other Airis Adventure has a variation of X hits total, divided randomly over Y enemies...
• Solo Character Party: A Role-Playing Game that does a Solo-Character Run automatically, not as a player choice. This changes how revival items work, because there's no second member to apply them in battle, and a few other things? ... There might be a trope for Single Character fighting single enemies, like VideoGame.Eternal Senia Hydrangea After The Rain, and VideoGame.Dragon Quest I... Some connection to The Aloner?
• "Can I Talk To You For A Moment?": Character is pulled aside and usually chastised after saying something inappropriate or compromising.
• "Why Would You Help/Save Me?": When a character wonders why someone would help them after turning their back on or hurting them, and the other person tends to be forgiving/heroic.
• "Purple Royalty": A type of Purple is the New Trope, obviously... Relate to Purple Is Powerful... It's basically the original use of purple... VideoGame.Borderlands The Pre Sequel: Aurelia the Baroness's "I am Basically Royalty" skin is a Purple level rarity item.
• "Wasted Consumable": Video Game trope where you can use consumables that have no use. RPG Maker games usually prevent it. That's too general an example, though. ... VideoGame.The World Is Your Weapon: Herbs, the game's version of Healing Potions + Antidote, can be used even at full health, and unpoisoned, which is just a waste. ... VideoGame.Science Girls: Individual healing items can be used even if the target is totally fine, but ones that affect the whole party, when used when outside battle, do prevent use, with a "No party members need healing." message. ... VideoGame.Knights Of Pen And Paper: Using an item gives a confirmation dialogue, but nothing prevents the item from being used, even if the target is at full health.
• Wacky / Friendly Cult: Cults portrayed as funny, weird, or harmless, rather than dangerous.
• Playersexual: NPCs that will date a PC of any gender, despite not otherwise being established as bisexual.
• "The Developers Knew You'd Cheat": A sub-trope of Developers' Foresight, because it's got more than 2K wicks... Meaning it's likely large enough to have sub-tropes. ... This is when the devs program things that can only be accessed through cheats, like VideoGame.Golden Sun's Mind Read messages. ... Reactions to Unwinnable by Insanity situations might be worthwhile to sub-trope too...
• "Manually Applied EXP": EXP that's not automatically put towards a purpose. It's collected and then the player chooses how to spend it. Had a "Multiple Use Resources" idea for resources that can be used for different things, like EXP or monster bait or something. Found this in my old Trope Finders: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=71215&type=lnf
• "Hold Down Button To Use": In contrast to just "Press Button To Use". Meters might be a Super-Trope of this... VideoGame.Yandere Simulator: Multiple examples, but here's one: When at a door, opening needs to hold down the button for it, and only opens when a meter is filled. ... VideoGame.Borderlands 3: Dropping items from the inventory requires that its button be held down until the meter around the icon fills to full, unlike in previous games where only a single button tap was needed to drop selected items. VideoGame.Crystal Story The Hero And The Evil Witch: Most buttons literally say "Hold" when needed to be held to finish. Like selling items, saving over games, crafting items, and reforging items...
• "Hours of Gameplay": Video Games advertising themselves about the length of expected playtime. Maybe give it a more general name, like "Expected Playtime"... VideoGame.Epic Battle Fantasy 5 Steam store page...
• "Lore Codex": In video games, a section of the menu that gathers Flavor Text as you proceed through the game. Supertrope to Monster Compendium, overlaps with Encyclopedia Exposita. (Trope Finder query)
• "Interaction Description": A Role-Playing Game trope where furniture can be interacted with to provide Flavor Text.
• "One-Name-Only Character Title": A fusion of One Name Only and Character Title, that leads to One-Word Title as a consequence. It's a Justified One-Word Title, but that's not that important enough to be a trope?
• "Last Name Only Character Title": Using someone's last name in a character title... Because usually you wouldn't refer to someone just with their last name. The choice is deliberate to be strange...
• "Ever Upwards Stat": A statistic in Role-Playing Games that only keeps increasing, and has no way of being decreased, not even temporarily. Character Level, Experience Points... Sometimes the latter it's averts this in cases where Death Is Cheap and the cost is Experience Points.
• "Dependent Values / Stats": Numbers in Role-Playing Games, calculated based on other numbers, such as in most UsefulNotes.RPG Maker games where character statistics are based on a formula using Character Level as an input.
• "Enemy Levels": Character Level, but for Enemies instead. Different from Level Scaling, in that the latter is just "Things change based on level". It doesn't mean that enemies have actual levels that actually scale.
• "Irrecoverably Deleted Item": Sister trope to Permanently Missable Content, where something that might or might not be missable in the first place can be (discarded, deleted, dismissed, etc) after getting it, and can never be retrieved afterwards if you do.
• "Gifted School": Schools for the academically talented. VideoGame.Yandere Simulator's Akademi High, which has, or had, entrance exams. LightNovel.A Certain Magical Index: Tokiwadai Middle School, a One-Gender School for girls, whose students must be Level 3 or higher, in the rankings of their intellect-based Psychic Powers... LightNovel.Classroom Of The Elite's Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing School? It's "dedicated to instruct and foster the generation of people that will support the country in the future.", whatever that means... ... Then there's the non-Japanese examples...
• "Making Room": The Super-Trope to Making Room for Baby... For when the reason isn't a baby... Like maybe a couple just married, and want a new home together... Even though I wanted it just to trope Fanfic.Dungeon Keeper Ami: Around Chapter 200. Being vague to avoid spoilers... "Just got too many minions for current residence... Need to find a new space..."
• "Ambiguously Queer": Missing Supertrope to Ambiguously Bi and Ambiguously Gay at least — there have been edit wars over which of those two things a character is, when the whole point is that it's ambiguous.
• "Designer Imposed Caps": A type of Cap that is clearly made to limit a player. The intent makes it different from other kinds of caps. Like the Bethesda Games ones where Damage Reduction is stopped below what'd be an expected maximum of 100%... There's likely a valid functional difference between stopping below, at, and above 100%. The following is a Sub-Trope of this, so this encompasses the rest.
• "Powers Of Ten Minus One"-type caps. A.k.a a "Counter Stop" in Japanese... A shorter term could involve "Limited by Number of Digits" or something. "Digit Count Limit"?
• "Multiple Item Stacks at Cap": A subversion of Cap where item stacks are capped, but you can have multiple stacks. VideoGame.Cute Knight 1, VideoGame.Terraria, VideoGame.Titan Quest for potions...
• "Work Medium Title": A type of Work Info Title, Super-Trope to The Eponymous Show, The Something Song, and Title: The Adaptation... For when the title includes the medium of the work. Like VideoGame.Kittens Game, VideoGame.Yandere Simulator, VideoGame.Goat Simulator, Literature.Diary Of A Wimpy Kid... Can be Subverted or something with movie adapatations and stuff, which change the medium, but not the name... Making a Non-Indicative Name...
• Darkness is Smoke: Seen It a Million Times. When moving darkness—such as in the case of a Living Shadow, or when Casting a Shadow—is depicted as though it were some sort of thick smoke. In some cases it even somehow reflects light enough to have highlighted regions!
• Danger Moves Across: The protagonist is standing more or less still—perhaps unawares, perhaps on alert. And then, just for a moment, a half-seen danger stealthily and swiftly passes across the view, or a portion of it. This may happen in the foreground, with a blurred shape momentarily sweeps across the screen; or in the background, perhaps moving past an open doorway. Either way, the protagonist may well notice nothing—only we, the audience, are aware of their peril.
• Hand Check: A character confirms their state by checking their hands. When the work is viewed in first-person, this may have the additional benefit of informing the audience of the character's state, too.
  • Examples: Half-Life 2, on first getting the HEV suit, and Showdown Bandit.
• Single Unit Of Multiple Items / "Actually Four Items? Actually Four Mooks snowclone": Video Game Inventories counting multiple items as one, which leads to grammatical strangeness with 1 of a plural, like "You got 1 Sticks". Boxxy Quest series: Antivirus Berries; Science Girls!: "Kumquats", whose description says it's a handful.
• Knock-Out Ending: Ending a story / chapter with the character going unconscious. Usually sleeping... VideoGame.Megaman Battle Network... Fanfic.Dungeon Keeper Ami: "Trapped (second half)", due to My Skull Runneth Over...
• List Title: A title that's also a list. Because punctuation matters in titles, commas make lists, and I need more evidence for Punctuated Title TLP. Look at Alliterative List entries that are also Alliterative Titles. Also Literature.Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
• Timeframe Title: To Hell and Back (Arrowverse) Chapter 16, the Christmas Episode, is titled "Beebo Day", a.k.a alternate Christmas; Try some Stock Episode Titles...
• "Yearless Story" or "Timeless Story": For stories where the exact year of events cannot be pinned down, in whatever time system is used In-Universe, like Fanfic.A Certain Droll Hivemind; Fanfic.Dungeon Keeper Ami, VideoGame.Brave Hero Yuusha, etc. ... A bit against "Timeless Story", because some stories do note seasons at least... But that might just be a Downplayed variant?
• "Restriction Tropes": For restrictions, doesn't have to be Video Game ones, but these are the easiest to find: No Item Use for You, No-Gear Level, Cap, Timed Mission.
• Art Lover and Art Hater: Contrasting character tropes about a character who loves art and a character who hates art. Both are used to show facets of the character's personality and interests; the Art Hater, for example, may be too serious or literal to appreciate it, or they just find it boring. The Art Lover is more creative and open-minded, but may over-exaggerate the actual quality of some art.
• Orthographic Theme Naming and Topical Theme Naming, for Alliterative Family vs. Musical Theme Naming. Just split Theme Naming along those lines. There might also be Group Theme Naming with Family Theme Naming as a Sub-Trope and Theme Twin Naming as a Sub-Trope of that.
• Eat the Victim's Food: An unsuspecting character gets killed by someone else and the killer then decides to help himself to a bite of the tasty snack the victim picked out. (This was on YKTTW many years ago, but the draft can no longer be found.) Very close to Enemy Eats Your Lunch, but doesn't fit its Example as a Thesis; it suggests Robbing the Dead covers this, but that seems to imply taking items of serious value, whereas this is more likely to be played for Black Comedy.
• "Company Crossover", a type of Crossover like Company Cross References, but with more crossing over betweem works of the same company, like Batgirl & Supergirl in The New Batman Adventures E20 "Girls' Night Out" as a crossover between DC Comics franchises.
• "Holding Open Spacetime": Using physical force to hold open non-physical things, like the edges of a tear in spacetime. Webcomic.Rusty And Co: Used for the edges that lead to the Psion's location.
• "Mercy Rule": A game ends early because the outcome has become a Foregone Conclusion. Sounding Board post
• "Single Antagonist / Single Antagonist vs. Multiple Protagonists": And the reverse, because it feels like numbers matter a bit, for some reason?
• "Counting Tropes (Index)": Subindex of Number Tropes for things like Counting to Potato, On Three, etc.
• "Immoral Protagonist": Not full on Villain Protagonist, like, The Demonata: The protagonist advocating smoking.
• "Installment: Series Title And Specific Subtitle": Usually part of Numbered Sequels, unless it's N+1 Sequel Title. Occurs in works with Harry Potter and Acacia. I suppose Artemis Fowl does count, it's just a sort of rare overlap with Named After First Installment in non-Numbered Sequels cases. High overlap with Character Name and the Noun Phrase?
• "Royal Protagonist": Like Ruler Protagonist and Princess Protagonist, but doesn't have to be a Princess or the Ruler, can be a prince, like Amaterasu-no-mikado of The Five Star Stories.
• "Elemental Portal Network": Portal Networks connecting certain elements like Harry Potter Floo for Fireplaces, Shadow Walker for shadows, Portal Pool maybe for water / reflective surfaces...
• "Tiny Particle Transformation Teleportation": My misuse of One to Million to One.
• "Only Child Protagonist", like Conveniently an Orphan, but regarding siblings, not parents.
• "Instant Teleportation" and "Slow Teleportation": Teleportation Tropes we don't have. Then there's some Extradimensional Shortcut-s that look instant on the outside, but inside feels slow. Like Triptych Continuum's the between...
• "Imported / Derived Trope": A Fanfic Trope Trope about tropes that are only known to occur in the derived work due to the source work. For instance, Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons teleportation is Flashy Teleportation only because it's flashy in Fallout: Equestria. Because the effect is never said until Chapter 31 after a dozen teleports or so, which make it seem Stealthy, which it isn't.
• "Adjective Title": A possibly Missing Super Trope to Verbed Title, referenced in Funny.Lindsay Ellis 2017 Episodes:
  • Lindsay's annoyance at the title of Disney's Gigantic, referencing a Missing Super Trope to Verbed Title, Tangled, and Frozen (2013).
  Lindsay: Disney, we really need to have a sit-down about these adjective titles, because it's getting kinda silly.
• "Lost Key Item Quest Failure": From looking at UnwinnableByMistake.The Elder Scrolls, Morrowind's needing the misplacable Tools of Kagrenac and "Threads of the Webspinner" items for separate quests. Basically Permanently Missable Content that leads to Unwinnable quests.
• "Freeze-Frame Cover / Poster Shot": The barest aversion of Covers Always Lie, where the scene appears, but not for long. Like Film.Ghostbusters II: Where the poster uniforms are only seen in a montage.
• "Level Select (Menu?)": Menu where players can select which level they want to play. Usually appears in puzzle games? Cloud, see here, Khimera Puzzle Island, etc.
• "Prologue" and "Epilogue": Fanfic.Kitsune has both. Sub-Tropes and related as obvious: Beginning Tropes, Ending Tropes, Action Prologue, Prolonged Prologue, Distant Prologue, Fake Action Prologue, Distant Finale (Distant Epilogue is a redirect), "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue, etc.
• "Single Phrase Dialogue": Like "Double, Double" Title but for dialogue. Some relation to Department of Redundancy Department? Perhaps just a single line. Like Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! Legendary Weapon Fusillade Flavor Text: "Dakka dakka dakka". Or Noh of The Story of Noh.
• "Manual Humor": A sibling trope of Textbook Humor and intentional cousin to Manual Misprint, where the manual for a video game (or possibly some other kind of software) includes random jokes about things that are mostly completely extraneous to the game.
• "Unusual List Numbering": Going on the Index of Lists, like Unusual Chapter Number. Example: A Certain Droll Hivemind:
  I had devised a plan for my actions for this period.
  
  0: Do not be killed
  0a: Especially by the Accelerator
  1: Sleep
  2: Eat ice cream
  3: Acquire more ice cream when reserves of ice cream are depleted
  3a: When acquiring more ice cream, engage in study of kittens, puppies, and other forms of wildlife seen along the way.
• "Bitter Exes": An ex-couple hate each other (the opposite of Amicable Exes).
• "Forced to Create": Against their will, a character is forced to create something for someone else, whether they're already a creator or not.
• "Dialogue Branch Dissonance": When the options presented by a Dialogue Tree prompt turn out to be misleading due to unclear wording or omission of information, which often results in the player character's reaction not matching what the chosen dialogue option implies.
  Yahtzee: It's not clear if "doubt" means to raise a single disbelieving robot eyebrow or to accuse them of secretly masterminding the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• "Psychic Teleportation": Teleportation as a type of Psychic Powers. Tropable because it's sorta nonsensical? How does mind powers relate to physically distorting space? Example raiding from Teleportation and Teleporters and Transporters: Perry Rhodan. Presumably the earliest version might be John Carter of Mars with its mixing of Astral Projection and Teleportation. Also making because Teleportation's too broad to be Overdosed.
• The Dissenter Is Always Right: The inverse to The Complainer Is Always Wrong, where the character who complains and disagrees with everyone else is proven right.

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Ideas with a source draft

• A trope about a character's reaction to hair loss. Source.
• Characters who give thanks profusely/excessively. Source.
• A trope about characters standing on chairs (or other objects) in order to deliver an important or emotional speech. Source.
• A character has been bullied to the point where they no longer even try to resist the bully due to broken spirit. Source.
• Characters suffer an isolating communication breakdown, often during an apocalyptic scenario. Related to Impeded Communication- distinct? Source
• A trope about a character bleeding from the ears due to a loud or harsh noise, subtrope of Ear Ache and possibly related to Brown Note. Inspiration
• A Useful Notes or just generally education page on Cryptozoology. Source
• A trope in aggregate about heroes have Playing with Fire powers tying into how fire is considered powerful and heroes are commonly Hot-Blooded. Would need to ensure that it doesn't quickly decay into "every heroic character uses fire". Source.
• Nervous Squiggle Mouth: Animated or comic character has an curved zig-zag line for a mouth to indicate nervousness. Source
• A woman wearing a hoopskirt jumps into water and uses her skirt to float, or uses the dress as a parachute. Source
• A trope where works make fun of horror movies (etc.) for having incredibly stupid casts. NOT "people in horror movies are stupid" — that's Idiot Ball or Plot-Induced Stupidity. Source
• Flushing the antagonist/monster out of hiding as a strategy. Source.
• Kidnapped by a Relative: Someone that is...kidnapped by a relative, which would have different motives and repercussions as if its done by a stranger. Source.
• Trade Gone Wrong: The trend in fiction for trades to always go wrong somehow. Source.
• Xenophobe's Inn: A Trauma Inn in the xenophobic village in the middle of nowhere Source
• Personified Doubt: Ever have doubts deep-down about some idea of yours, and imagine them being expressed by others? This is for characters, often a form of Imaginary Friend, who seem to represent these doubts on someone else's part, as a form of foil. Source.
• Self-Inflicted Amnesia: A character purposely gives themselves permanent amnesia to hide dark secrets or get rid of painful memories. Source.
• Benched In Hospital: "character gets injured and this causes them to get benched for a while, because they're at the hospital/in recovery" Source.
• Satellite Family: A subtrope of Satellite Character for family members, used to characterize another character as family-oriented or to make them more relatable. Source
• Someone is shoved against the wall. Since we already have the trope You're Insane!, the title and scope of this draft, Are you out of your mind?, could be retooled to be about the action of slamming someone up against the wall.
• The army forms an aisle while yelling encouragement at one heroic unit, volunteered to storm the castle, go on a suicide mission, or heroic sacrific. Source: This seems like it could be something trope-shaped, but the examples and description are lacking. Also, the name "Cat Call Advance" is terrible.
• Death by Debris: Character gets killed by getting hit with flying/falling fragments. Source draft has neither description nor examples.
• Male Bob Haircut: A male character wearing his hair in a bob cut. Appearance trope about a feminine-looking bob haircut on a man. Needs a fresh start-over draft if someone wants to restart it as a genre- or setting-indicator instead of solely an appearance trope.
• The concept of a Casanova or Celibate Hero disliking porn because they're "real men" could be a trope. Inspiration
• This Needs Salt: No New Stock Phrases, salting food is People Sit on Chairs, more specific ideas in the comments might be worth a draft
  • putting salt on non-food to indicate that the character is about to attempt to eat it
  • salting food that normally isn't salted
  • using a ridiculous amount of salt / salting for a ridiculously long time to show the character is...
    • ... thinking about something else
    • ... disgusted by the food
    • ... angry at the chef / host
  • pulling a salt shaker out of Hammerspace
  • having a character salt a ridiculous big pile of food to show that that character is planning to eat it all(maybe followed by an Ambulance Cut)
  • salting food underwater
  • having a normal cartoon animal turning into a Funny Animal to salt some food and then turning right back to normal
• Ask A Busy Mother: "A common advertisement, this is, as the name suggests, where a busy mum discusses how great The Product is, how much time it saves, how happier her kids/husband/dog are now." Source
• Useful Notes/Aleatoric Art: Art produced by method determined by chance. Source
• Uplifted Trope: A trope that's fallen out of favor because of constant Deconstruction is made popular/desirable again. Source
• Clingy Child: When a child clings to a person, usually their leg, for fun, to get what they want, or just because. Source
• A comedy trope, wherein someone makes up a convoluted family relation that turns out to be a lot less convoluted than it's intended to be, as is almost immediately pointed out by the listener. Source
• Chain Of Evidence: Investigating by finding and examining evidence one piece at a time. Source
• Dummy Trade Gambit: This is a two part gambit, consisting of I) giving your trade partner false or incomplete information/goods because you suspect/know they will not complete their end of the bargain, then II) telling them you will only complete the trade once they have met your conditions. Source
• Celts With Claymores: A Useful Note on Medieval Celtic countries. Source
• A Useful Note on Dementia, preferably a bit more accurate than this: Source
• Crit or Miss Attack: An attack that either does critical damage or nothing at all. Source
• Destruction Is Cool: "Destruction and Violence are Awesome. As this is nigh-universal, examples should be kept to subversions, lampshades and other surprises." Source
• Character Name In…: A title trope where the work’s title is “<Character Name> in <Title>. Source
• Hybridization Plot: A plot about a character (usually but not necessarily evil) attempts to create a chimera/animal hybrid/half-human half-animal, or hybridize people and some other creature. Source
• Happy Hero Serious Show: A serious/dark story with a happy, comedic hero. Source
• Hero is seen as an outsider until they save a little girl from some kind of threat, then they're accepted as one of the locals (or at least well-regarded by them). Source
• Gasoline To Flames: A fire breaks out, and somebody mistakenly dumps gasoline, alcohol, or some other flammable substance on it by mistake. Source
• Collective "No": Everyone says "no" at the same time, usually in response to a particularly dumb idea. Source
• Kissing The Proxy: One character asks another to close their eyes for a kiss, then has them kiss something else instead. Source
• Muscles on Muscles: A cartoon sight gag where a character's so swole, their muscles have muscles. Source
• Ridiculous Fictional Award: An in-universe fictional award that's ridiculously specific or just plain ridiculous. Mostly played for laughs. Source
• Punching Bag of Hate: Taking out one's frustrations on a punching bag that looks like/bears a picture of an enemy. Source
• Tycoon Game: A subtype of Simulation Game where the point is to run a business empire of some sort. Like SimCity but for capitalism. Source
• We Have an App for that: Could work as a modern day equivalent of Specific Situation Books. Source.
• Undercover Robot: Robots infiltrate the ranks of humans to take over/destroy them. Source.
• Everyone Gets a Trophy: Everyone is awarded for competing. Source.
• "No Save" Attack: An attack that prevents anyone killed by it from being revived by their friends in a game where that's normally possible. Source
• Take That, Replacement Scrappy!: Writers effectively haze the replacement for a departed popular character. Source
• A video game dungeon that's extremely large but can be completed relatively quickly; the remainder of the dungeon merely allows racking up loot/EXP/gold/etc. Source
• Toss the Treasure, Treasure the Person: Character goes through hell to obtain item for another character, only to find that the other character just wanted them safe. Source
• Snake Swing: Gag where a character swings on a vine, only to see that it's really a snake. Source
• Forbidden Trope: An inversion of Enforced Trope where highers-up disallow creators from using a certain trope in the work. Source
• Diegetic Commercial Break: A show lampshades, or makes a fourth-wall breaking joke about, a commercial break. Source.
• Clock Countenance: The face of a living clock will sport humanoid features. Source
• Kachou Fuugetsu: This is a Japanese-specific trope about a "flower, bird, wind, moon" motif. The draft was abandoned without ever establishing the significance of the motif, so it never really went anywhere. Source
• Mexico is Yellow: A specific form of Color Wash that, for some reason, has Mexico affiliated with yellow or orange tones. Could possibly be expanded to location or temperature-specific washes. Source
• Phone CPR: Slamming on the hook or carriage of a traditional phone in an attempt to make it work again. Form of Percussive Maintenance that's outdated/a Forgotten Trope with the proliferation of wireless and cell phones. Source
• The Splits Are Sexy: As it existed, it was mostly just a list of female characters performing the splits. The draft claims that these examples are for fan service, but doesn't really attempt to prove that point. Source
• Robots eat metal: Needs a description that's way more than just "Exactly What It Says on the Tin". Maybe mention how acquiring new metal for self-repair without eating it in an anthropomorphic way is Boring, but Practical, whereas garnishing the practical action with eating motions makes the robot character more anthropomorphic, quirky and endearing? (Source)
• Bumbling Eavesdropper: Often a comedy trope, this is about eavesdroppers who trip, stumble, or otherwise give away/almost give away their position. Source
• Get Ready: A video game prompts the player to get ready just before the action starts. Source
• New Love Interest Looms: Someone knocks on the door of their ex, only to meet the new love interest. Source
• Induced Friendly Fire: "A character tricks two enemies into destroying each other." It would act as a supertrope to things like Set a Mook to Kill a Mook or Deadly Dodging. Source
• When a detective uses gloves improperly or not at all while collecting evidence. Could also be broadened to using pens and other contaminating ways of gathering evidence. Source
• Pals With a Professor: A younger character/brilliant professor duo who have access to Cool Science Things and go on adventures. Source
• Nazi Counterpart / Fascist Counterpart: An Evil Doppelgänger that follows a totalitarian system from an Alternate Universe. Source
• Only women and black men are drawn with lips; other men are portrayed as lipless by default. Source
• A character is given a great opportunity, but that would mean abandoning her friends, so the friend try to point any negative thing to convince the character of not taking the opportunity. Source
• A character tries to use a Euphenism, but it sounds worse than the actual word. source
• Angelic Choir Reveal: The brief musical sting of an angelic choir used to punctuate the appearance of something divine. Source Source 2
• Universal Jurisdiction: American military or police operate worldwide without the consent of local authorities. Source
• Kill it with Lightning: The best way to get rid of something is to zap it.
• Deus Ex Aquam: A hero slowly rises from a calm lake shortly before kicking ass. But how many of these aren't direct references to that one scene from Apocalypse Now?
• Character refuses to take sides in an argument because both sides' arguments are ridiculous. Source
• Alleged Legend: A character is famed for apocryphal exploits — deeds attributed to them, but weren't actually done by them. Source
• New Adult Literature: A genre of sorts, essentially "Young Adult but for a slightly older market", comments on the draft came to the conclusion that this was at the time mostly a marketing scheme by publishers, but if the scheme succeeded the result would be a real genre, so the discussion would be tabled for "a year or two" until the outcome was clearer. Source
• Hallway Hallway GHOST Hallway: Characters in an open elevator see each floor as they pass by; most of these floors are empty but one contains a monster or other Jump Scare. Source
• Vicarious Trauma: Being Forced to Watch or walking in on something horrific, or having a close loved one or housemate who's suffered a massive trauma, can cause trauma in itself. Source
• Threadbare Duds: A character's clothes are tattered and raggedy. Would need work to make it not just an appearance trope. Source.
• NPC Exit Convention: The tendency of NPCs that have finished talking to the player to wander off in some direction where the player won't be able to follow once they regain control. (Mother 3 has a humorous subversion of this.) Source.
• Exposure to a dangerous substance or item that should kill a character instead grants them superpowers. Would be the supertrope to I Love Nuclear Power. Source
• Alibi Worse Than Crime: A character needs an alibi, but the alibi is worse than what they actually did. Source
• Historical Sex Life Upgrade: A historical figure is portrayed as having a more active sex life than the historical record suggests. Source
• A character steers the conversation back to the plot after a digression. Source
• The female character of a team is played up as an equally capable member of her mostly-male team, but is relegated to demeaning secondary roles (Fanservice, assisting male characters, having their work taken over by male characters, etc.). Source
• Faux Smart Guy: Subtrope of Informed Attribute where the supposed intelligent and/or tech-savvy character never actually puts their intelligence to use. Source
• Prank Scare: A fakeout Jump Scare caused by a character pretending to be a murderer to scare their friends. Source
• Adult Daycare: When parents take their kids to an event that is only targeted at children, there is a special zone for adults to enjoy something in the meantime. Source
• A character seductively beckons using the "come hither" finger gesture. Source
• Location Specific Enemy: A type of Mook that appears in only one level of the game. Source
• A character walks through a crowd that stares at him and talks behind his back, indicating his social isolation. Source
• A panel in a comic is split in two to ensure the reader sees the setup of a joke before its punchline. Source
• Added For Scale: Something of recognizable size is included to ensure audience knows something is huge. Source
• Car Bonnet Shot: Camera Trick where the main focus is on the road as it would be seen if the camera were sitting on the hood of a moving car. Source.
• Fake Fight, Real Issues: Characters have to stage a discussion or argument, but ultimately bring up their real issues with one another. Source
• Video game characters use vague dialogue when talking about specific things so that the voice clips can be recycled. Source
• Quantum Unmasking: Character A discovers the identity of the villain at the same time that, somewhere else, the villain reveals himself to Character B. Source
• Jaded (Time) Looper: A characterization trope where a character going through a "Groundhog Day" Loop for an extended period of time slowly becomes more apathetic and embittered. Source
• Like Canon Unless Noted: Everything in a fanfic is just as it is in the canon work, unless or until the author specifies otherwise. Source
• Backlash Backlash: Source draft is awful, but a trope about backlash against some other backlash has merit.
• Death Tether: A character is killed by being attached to something that falls. Source Draft has loads of examples to mine.
• Made in a Villain's image: Source
• Discovery Triggered Bomb: A bomb that only goes off when it's discovered. Source has tons of examples to mine.
• The Phone Tells You The Danger Is Here: Long title aside, the idea of being warned over the phone that someone in the same room as you is dangerous is tropeworthy. Source
• The Org Chart of Evil: The good guys have a chart of who is involved in the bad guys' organization. Source
• The box art depicts several characters looking in one direction together, but one person is looking in a different direction, hinting that they have ulterior motives or will betray the other characters. Source
• But Doctor, I Have to See Him!: No New Stock Phrases, but the idea, which is when a character protests a "no visitors" policy that keeps them from a loved one, is tropable. Source
• Both of a character's parents are dead/missing, but only one is given narrative attention. Source
• Dexterous Boxing Gloves: A character wearing boxing gloves does something that would normally be highly impractical and cumbersome or even impossible with them on. Source
• Depression Hobby: character immerses themselves in a hobby just to cope with grief or depression. Source
• Characters who can perfectly imitate the sounds of inanimate objects. Source
• Genre of children's shows where the cast are all different types of emergency responders. Source
• The standard style of print ads in The '50s. Source
• A self-titled album that's usually referred to by fans as its color. Source
• A big boss places you near its chest, while the camera allows you to see its head. Source
• Cancel The Next Meeting: A character encounters something so important, weird, or disastrous that they immediately intercom their secretary to cancel their later appointments. Source
• A universal range dogwhistle Source
• A Useful Notes page for filming FPS techniques Source
• A page about using Santa as a metaphor for Jesus. Source
• Dangerous Disguise: An impostor is attacked by the enemies of whoever he's impersonating. Source
• Mirror of Misperception: A character with body image issues sees their reflection differently. Originally posted as Mirror of Anorexia.
• Token Gay Option: A Gay Option is significantly not as fleshed out as the straight romance options. Further discussed here, note that "significantly not as fleshed out" will need to be defined (a shorter route length? But Not Too Gay? Hide Your Lesbians?) and "token" may not be the best word to use in the title. Source.
• Easily-Cleared Mind: An idiot forgets everything (which isn't much) to learn a new skill.Source.
• Something Spacey This Way Comes: A character discovers something approaching from faraway. Draft.
• The only characters in a work with a shared racial background just happen to be related. Alternatively, somebody assumes characters of the same race to be related and gets chewed out for being offensive. Source.
• Trendy Dance Craze: A work references a real-world dance craze (the Sprinkler, the Harlem Shake, the Floss, etc) to make a character look trendy. Source.
• A subtrope of Clothing Damage about the seat of one's pants splitting, revealing their underwear or their bare bottom. Source.
• And You Thought It Would Succeed: A work is originally expected to be successful, but becomes a flop instead. Source
• The Ginger Spice Effect: A Boy Band or Girl Group declines in popularity due to the departure of a member. Source
• Welcome Sign of Doom: If you come across this sign, you'd better turn back immediately. Source
• Edgelord Parody: Similar to Parody Sue and Testosterone Poisoning, a trope for characters whose angsty, edgy, grimdark traits are exaggerated for laughs. Often seen with parodies of Emo Teen characters. Source

Ideas from TRS efforts

• Hollywood Steering: A trope about inaccurate driving styles; supertrope to Driving a Desk and Driver Faces Passenger. The TRS thread cut it when it failed to gain any examples.
• Ramping Shot: A trope covering a Camera Trick in which the camera moves and zooms in for dramatic effect. However, the TRS thread noted that it was severely underperforming, with examples barely having much context.
• Sudden Coming Out: A character unexpectedly (in-universe or otherwise) reveals that they are LGBT. The TRS thread found only 7 usable examples under this definition.
• Twinkle Toes Samurai: A trope that covers how samurai tend to be dainty in their footwork. The thread noted the original's barebones description, while examples lacked much context. However, there is a tropable concept.
• Virtual World: an index for immersive online environments, such as games like Furcadia and Mole's World. TRS thread that cut the original page decided that it was a viable idea, but so old and below current standards. The thread contains the contents of the old page.
• Laser Show: A VFX trope. The use of real-life (low power) lasers as a visual used in stage shows. Cut from Frickin' Laser Beams TRS because they didn't fall under any Energy Weapon use.
  • Music.Jean Michel Jarre: Part of most Jarre concerts. There used to be laser projections, today there are laser scanners, and let's not forget the Laser Harp.
  • Music.Perfume:
    • Their concerts feature liberal use of green ones, specifically. In fact, for their 2013 European tour they had to import the machines from Japan.
    • Used liberally in the dance shot of the "Laser Beam" PV.
    • Behold this jaw-dropping live performance of "Mugenmirai", from Perfume's Perfume x Technology series.
• Cult Soundtrack: The TRS thread for this trope agreed on redefining this trope as "a soundtrack that is more popular than the work it came from". Some examples of this can be found on this sandbox.
• Re-Ditto: The opposite of Divergent Character Evolution, where two characters become more similar over time. The TRS thread cut it for not thriving, with only 4 of the 11 examples being valid.
• Matchmaker Game: A type of show that focuses on simulated dating. A TRS thread noted its anemic description, ZCE's, and archaic markup, but felt that it can be a viable genre page.

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