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resolved Malicious Interpreter
Alice and Bob need to talk about something important, but neither of them speak the same language. Charlie, who speaks both of their languages, is employed to bridge the gap. However, instead translating truthfully, he makes things up to turn Bob and Alice against each other, confuse them, and/or uses the opportunity to learn their plans.
openParents Cannot Be People
Ron the Death Eater but specifically for parents. In canon, it's Parents as People, but the fandom villainises a young character's parents into being abusive. And even in the case of Abusive Parents or Parental Neglect, the parent's abuse will get completely exaggerated. Like a parent who in canon is overly strict gets turned into a Sadist or even child molester in fan content.
There are many reasons for this. Sometimes it's that the parents, even if they're Good Parents, get in the way of the plot and whatever risky things the younger protagonist tries to accomplish. If the child is Draco in Leather Pants, the parents need to be vilified to make the child look better. Of course, a most common reason is that the parent characters will remind certain audience members of their own parents, who they're still unwilling, or find it hard to forgive or understand.
openOutfit Maker
This person is not The Fashionista. Instead, this person creates outfits for many other characters.
Is this a case of chairs or no?
openThe Revolution Will Be Commercialized Videogame
So there's plenty of MegaCorp tropes, but here I'm thinking specifically of cases where corporations unexpectedly play the role of underdogs, or feign underdog status, in a conflict against a (stronger) government of a state.
Planet Side and Planet Side 2 exemplifies this concept with the New Conglomerate (https://www.planetside2.com/empires?empire=nc)
, who while they do include freedom-loving small-timer folks against the big bad militaristic Terran Republic, are also mostly backed by greedy corporations who seek to throw off the Republic's control to entrench the wealth of the planet.
To a lesser degree, the much more obscure 2000 space trader/combat/flight sim Terminus (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/terminus-c5n)
has a plucky Mars Consortium against the United Earth League... but instead of being exploited workers like in Red Faction, the Consortium (as per the instruction manual linked to the page) "was established in 2158 by the Martian Mining Corps and other companies operating on Mars. The new organization was planned as a way to protect the economic interests of Martian businesses and to eliminate the infighting between competitors that had gone on since the first days of the planet's colonization." and "The economic boom which followed completion of the Sol Gate Network has benefitted the Consortium enormously. They have plowed large portions of their new wealth into developing their armed forces and their presence in space."
Star Craft is also worth mentioning, with the Kel-Morian Combine (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Kel-Morian_Combine)
being a "shady, corrupt corporate partnership" who backs the underdog guilds against the Terran Confederacy but also crushes miner revolts with Goliath walkers and "also banded together in order to maximize their ability to drain the resources from the numerous worlds within the Koprulu sector." Yet, the Combine is coded as salt-of-the-earth workers, or at least their military characters (rippers) are depicted as such?
Does Killzone also count? I'm not sure how the Helghast went from a colonization company into a ultranationalist posthuman race, did the corporate leaders back the rebellion or was it folded into the Helghan state?
Submarine Titans (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/submarine-titans-bea)
has a rather goofy version of this where, as per the backstory timeline,
> 2038 Ecological organizations receive massive funding increases. Effective marketing campaigns focused on their activities to protect and preserve life on Earth strike a chord with the panicked population. The major environmental organizations buy ailing major corporations and form a conglomerate with business interests that crosses all spheres. Eco Octopus, as the hybrid organization becomes known, begins following ecologically driven business strategies and experiences a sales boom as consumers feel that ‘someone is doing something’ about the crisis.
That later evolves into the Black Octopi faction by present day 2115, against the U.N. military-descended White Sharks. So it's a corporate faction, but also an environmentalist one. Alrighty.
I would go further, with more examples from obscure early '00s PC games, but I just wanted to point out that something like Gigacorp vs. Iron Coalition from Allegiance (2000) or Tri-Tachyon vs. Hegemony from Starsector isn't what I'm talking about (the Submarine Titans one might not count either): these are examples where after a civilizational collapse/calamity of some kind, a surviving megacorp is able to take on the militaristic remnant state government. So it's a conflict between polities on par with one another. As opposed to some kind of frontier war of independence undertaken by corporations trying to pass themselves off as the little guy.
Oh, and of course the Star Wars prequels do this, with the Separatists consisting mostly of megacorps! I just realized that might be the best example of this!
This would also be a sub-trope of The War of Earthly Aggression, except the revolters are (most likely) not The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-style prospectors, though amusingly in that story because they are libertarians they probably would also be for big business.
Anyway, the idea of corporations claiming to be oppressed and rebelling is just amusing. Economically-speaking, I'm not sure if it'll even make sense. War against the government is not good business. And you might have to do the unprofitable work of governing if you win.
Edited by StrategosRiskopenMisplaced machinery / environment dissoance
You find an industrial machinery in an environment, where it doesn't logically belong, like orphanage.
openAscendedFanon or ShoutOut Videogame
Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished, a mod of Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, mentioned an unseen character by the name of Jeremy in its latest Thymed Event, which has been confirmed to be a reference to a Fanfic on Archive of Our Own. (its noted the work itself hasn't been canonized, but both the fanfic and the Thymed Event have a zombie called Jeremy who works for ZCorp that Miss Information knows.)
Not sure if a single character from a single fanfic that afaik isn't super well known counts as Fanon.
Edited by Dromeoresolved Lighting the cigarette for someone else
I checked The Smoking Section and I didn't see it.
I have seen where lighting someone's cigarette while it's in their mouth is a kind of flirtatious behavior. Usually it's a man who lights a cigarette for a lady as if it's an intimate gesture and flirtatious.
- I don't remember where exactly (a Tex Avery cartoon perhaps?) but I know I've seen this comically exaggerated where several men rush to be the one who lights a cigarette for a lady.
- I saw a similar gag in a comedy movie (Airplane! perhaps?) where a woman put a cigarette in her mouth and instantly several men's hands came from off camera to light it for her.
- One episode of The Andy Griffith Show had a beautiful woman in jail, and when she put a cigarette in her mouth Barney rushed to get a match to light it for her, as if it was his privilege to light a cigarette for a pretty lady.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Vic Fontaine gives a special cane to Nog which has a lighter built in. Nog asks what it's for, and Fontaine says, "You never know when a lady's gonna need a light." Later we see Nog using it to light a cigarette for a pretty lady, and she gives him a flirtatious look before walking away (and he follows her but we don't see anything else).
resolved Fear-Based Shapeshifter
A creature that shapeshifts into a person's greatest fear. For example:
- The boggart from Harry Potter.
- The Grom from The Owl House.
- The titular character from It.
openPlayful Maniac
The villain has every opportunity and intent to kill their victim. But they don't do it right away for the sole reason of "playing with their food" or they treat it like a game or they want to keep the fun for a little longer. Basically, when a killer keeps their target alive for longer for a non-pragmatic reason.
openAttack To Interact
Instead of having a Context-Sensitive Button, starting dialogue with an NPC is tied to the act of attacking them. Examples include The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games and Thank Goodness You're Here!.
openDouble standard censorship
Do we have a trope that particularly covers how sex and swearing are subject to more scrutiny than violence? I couldn't find anything in the Double Standard index, and the closest I got was the description of Censor Decoy on the Censorship Tropes index (not on the page itself).
In terms of In-Universe examples, Undertale has a free text prompt in Mettaton EX's boss fight, and he'll call you out for typing a swear and say, "Now stand still while I murder you." Forever After takes place in a "family friendly" realm that uses a Magical Profanity Filter and Scenery Censor that the characters repeatedly try to bypass. And yet the place has no qualms with violent deaths being displayed in full.
openResumed Relationship
Two people had some kind of relationship (not necessarily romantic: boss and employee, teacher and student, etc.) a long time ago. They meet again, and one (or sometimes both) carries on as though the relationship resumed from where it left off.
- Alice was Bob's subordinate, then leaves for a different job, then comes back with a higher position than Bob. Bob still sees Alice as an employee rather than his boss and gives her instructions.
- Carl was Diana Smith's student in university. Later he joins her department as a professor in his own right, but where all his coworkers including Diana are on a First-Name Basis, Carl only ever refers to Diana as Professor Smith.
- Frank was Ed's drill sergeant before Ed's promotions made him a general. When in the same room, both Ed and Frank still act as though they're still in boot camp.
-
- One Cringe Comedy scene in Discworld has Rincewind (who left the University years ago) get caught by a professor and instantly reverts to panicky-student mode ("Please sir, it's Rincewind sir")
- In Ben Hur, it's been said Messala's actor was told to play him as though he and Judah were lovers and wants to resume the relationship.
- Jay in The Great Gatsby keeps trying to resume his relationship with Daisy, despite Daisy being married, having a kid, and never having had the kind of feelings for him he thinks she had.
openPre-Incident Suspicious Behavior
I'm having a brain glitch and can't come up with the right search terms to find this even though I'm pretty sure we have it? But scenes like Character A and Character B get in a nasty argument, or Character C snaps that Character D deserves to die, and then C or D dies in what may or may not be an accident while A or B is present, with those previous incidents looking like evidence A and B could have intentionally just stood back and let it happen.
openAll-Inspiring Hero as a trope
I'm wondering if there's something for this. A protagonist that inspires everyone around them to be better in some way. Lotta shonen protags are like this (Luffy from One Piece, Midoriya from My Hero Academia) but there are some western examples too, like Luz from The Owl House or Superman. We have a trope for this, outside of Ideal Hero?
resolved Thankful Ghost Ending Film
After the hero beats the supernatural dead guy, the ghosts of his previous victims show up and say something like "Thank you, with him gone for good we can finally let go of this world" and then disappear into heaven.
openHaunting the Narrative
I'm looking to see if there's a trope related to "haunting the narrative
", a phrase that describes the effect an absent character has on the story (besides Stuffed into the Fridge, which is more for when characters are killed for shock value, and tend to have little impact afterwards).
An example of 'haunting the narrative' would Rose Quartz from Steven Universe, who affected the story both by her actions (starting a rebellion against the Diamonds) and by her absence (the Crystal Gems grieve her loss, then start to question their thoughts on her when certain secrets start to come to light).
Edited by wcomicfan92openSingificant text reformulation
I’m looking for a trope for when someone composes a letter, text message, email, etc, and their edits are shown in the form of crossings-out, backspaces, deletion, etc.
This is done to show a character’s conflicting thoughts underneath their final decision. For example, Bob might write a ranting email to Alice over some poor work she’s done, before reconsidering and writing something more professional.
Different to Verbal Backspace since 1. It’s an actual backspace (or can be) 2. It doesn’t involve a response from someone else
Examples:
Film:
- Tomorrow Never Dies: Elliot Carver personally writes the headline of his newspaper’s coverage of the sinking of the Devonshire and the machine gunning of its survivors (which he frames the Chinese air force for). First he types out “17 British Sailors Killed”, before realising he can make it more sensationalist, and replaces “killed” with “murdered”.
- Searching: When David sees that Margot has not come home and hasn’t taken the garbage out like he asked, he attaches a picture of the full bin to a rant about how she treats the home like a hotel. Before sending, he reconsiders, deletes the rant, and instead sends a more fatherly "call me".
Video Games:
- Mass Effect 2: The Shadow Broker’s files on Tali show a session log from when she was writing condolences to the families of the soldiers in her team on Haestrom. She often backspaces while trying to get the words out, as she is unable to find the words that pay proper respect to their loss.

A character's personal room has a large over-sized fish tank as a decoration that stretches across the room.