Wasn't this already covered when the trope was in TLP? I'm pretty certain it was discussed there
So, if I can provide context to the image, and the trope at large:
Crash the economy: the first sentence is: "A character, either deliberately or unintentionally, triggers a catastrophic economic collapse—stock markets plummet, banks fail, or currencies become worthless overnight."
The image, from the The Fairly OddParents! episode "The Good Old Days!" shows an old-timey Cosmo accidentally flipping the stock market chart while chasing his and Wanda's sentient wands, so that it looks like there's a major economic crash, which causes Chester Ubetcha to panic, and as a result, old-timey Dimmsdale ends up in a Great Depression.
I can understand that the aftereffects are not shown, but in terms of visual shorthand, this clearly illustrates the trope in the accidental sense.
The problem is we don't see Cosmo actually doing that in the image, as he's in the background and the part most people won't pay attention to. If it requires an explanation to point that out then it's likely not a good image.
Pull
Pull and see if anyone has a more illustrative image
Déjà vu, tell you what I'm gonna do, when they reminisce over you, my GodI don't think there is a pre-existing image, but here is my suggestion for someone else to doodle:
A rising economic chart, that suddenly goes into a steep decline. The crash point being highlighted.
Caption under the image "The moment Dr. Evil took the global economy hostage"
It's a simple enough concept, representing the trope in question, the culprit doing it deliberately and also an in-joke for those who get the reference (but doesn't require to know Austin Powers to get the trope itself)
Stock image for reference: https://imgur.com/a/3xhS6CE
Edited by Tropiarz on Nov 1st 2025 at 8:53:04 PM
Here's my suggestion, apologies if the caption is a bit off
I’ll lift my face, and run to the sunlight.![]()
do you think you could make the text in the above image a bit more visable?
It's better, at least. I feel like an ass for asking you to change it again, but if possible do you think you could give the text borders for extra visibility? If that's too hard don't worry about it, it's a nitpick





The trope is that a character crashes the economy. The image shows the economy crashing, but not that someone is personally responsible for that; so that's illustrating the title rather than the actual trope. I think we should pull this for being misleading.