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opendidn't think this through Western Animation
A situational trope. One character will develop a plan designed to solve a certain problem they're encountering. However, due to their failure to plan ahead, there is a massive gaping flaw in their plan that they — and perhaps the audience — missed. As a result, they are now in a situation where, rather than winning, they are stuck with either a stalemate or an outright loss. Sometimes this may occur because the character never thought that their plan would actually progress as far as it did in the first place. Other times they were in a rush to make the plan and so didn't have time to think about downsides. It frequently results in Blatantly Self-Defeating situations.
A more comedic, simple version of Didn't See That Coming. See also And Then What?, when the flaw is not knowing what to do if the plan succeeds, and Who Will Bell the Cat?, when the flaw is that a vital step of the plan is something no one wants to do. May be the result of What Could Possibly Go Wrong? if the character is overconfident in their plan's success. If the person pointing this out is sufficiently annoyed, this can lead to What Were You Thinking?. May also lead to a This Is Gonna Suck or an Oh, Crap! for the schemer when he realizes how screwed he really is. The audience's usual reaction to this is "What an Idiot!" Compare It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time and Missing Steps Plan. May overlap with a Gift of the Magi Plot or But Not Too Challenging.
Often overlaps with The Troublemaker. May be caused by someone offering Proof of Commitment.
No Real Life Examples, Please! People have far too commonly ran into a problem like this at least once or twice, so said examples would most likely be redundant.
resolved Trope about physical marks of TheChosenOne Western Animation
Happy New Year! I'm editing the Bevanfield page, and I'm trying to add an example from their version of Aladdin: Aladdin is the only blue-eyed Chinese person in China, which marks him as The Chosen One to open their version of the Cave of Wonders.
How do we call the trope where The Chosen One has a special trait (like eyes of a certain colour, hair of a certain colour) that marks him as such?
resolved Owl House Enemies to Lovers Western Animation
I’m trying to find the specific enemies to lovers flavored trope that would best fit Lumity.
openRomantic fantasy til death Western Animation
The trope is someone falling in love with another character or object. They then do a romantic fantasy where they imagine spending the rest of their lives together. They go on a date, get married, have kids together, grow old together, and occasionally die together, sometimes even seeing the graves. Two examples include:
Spongebob: Just one Bite Episode - (Squidward imagines marrying, having kids and growing old with a krabby patty) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0707313/
(Example with time stamp https://youtu.be/5RjqWHNVcck?si=ESuhEYpYT957G8uU&t=151
)
Smiling Friends - (Pim imagines marrying, having kids, growing old and dying with a woman named Jennifer): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16527132/
Muppets most wanted - (Miss piggy imagines marrying, having kids and growing old with Kermit - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2281587/
)
There are more examples but I can't think of any others off the top of my head lol. This trope always kinda creeped me out seeing the entire life cycle til the grave lol but it's always played as so wonderfully romantic.
resolved Cultural Difference Mistake Western Animation
Is there a trope for when a story mistakenly portrays a member of a culture as being in the wrong subculture - for instance, an American show portraying an English aristocrat as a Cockney-accented, Ale-swilling Lower-Class Lout? After all, they're all british, right? They're all the same.
openA character conspicuously missing by the producer's financial or empirical reasons Western Animation
I only read from an allegedly now deleted tweet that the producers of a Paw Patrol spinoff decided to ditch Zuma's physical appearance altogether because he's seen to not be attractive enough for the target audience. I believe similar examples have happened throughout many forms of media. Is there a trope for this kind of phenomenon?
openRodent Teeth Western Animation
so, I know there is a trope for Goofy Buckteeth, but is there one when it applies specifically to rodents?
Specifically, rodent characters. For example, if you look at a lot of rodents in fiction such as Beavers or rats, the buckteeth are on the outside. In reality, they're actually inside their mouths (But they are highly visible).
openAaron A. Aaronson (and similar) Western Animation
Someone looks up an alphabetised list of names or a phonebook and the first name on the list is something like Aaron A. Aaronson. That name or variations appears in The Simpsons ("Sideshow Bob Roberts" & "And Maggie Makes Three"), Hot Fuzz (2007) and TAWOG ("The Deal"). They might all just be referencing each other though.
resolved Mini versions of the character in their brain Western Animation
When a character has internal conflict which is represented by versions of them bickering in their brain. Usually in animation but I could imagine it in other formats too.
Examples: Spongebob: https://youtu.be/18fLWU8C68Q?feature=shared
Given: https://youtu.be/H9k1NdBMJPY?si=4Yzp2knKcR0K-24Q
Kaguya-sama Live is War s2e14 (This may be a meme edit but the original scene is still fairly represented here and I couldnt find a better depiction of it): https://www.reddit.com/r/kaguya_memes/comments/g3zdbv/kaguya_wright_love_is_justice_kaguya_goes_to/
This is also the whole conceit of Sanders Sides I guess.
Similar to what's going on with Inside Out, but not because those emotions aren't mini versions of Riley.
openScene not known about until later airings Western Animation
What is the trope for when the original airing of a TV episode skips over a scene present in the original cut that doesn’t become known about until later airings?
Examples:
- The Loud House:
- The original airing of the episode "House Flip" in the UK skipped over the scene where Lucy suggests hiding Flip in the morgue. Since the UK is well-known for bowdlerizing the series by cutting out scenes with dark or suggestive humor, this scene was not known about until the episode aired in other countries.
- In the original airing of the episode "Sleepstakes", there was an abrupt cut, which caused viewers to not know about the scene in Mr. Grouse's house until it aired again.
- The Casagrandes: During the original airing of the episode "Home Improvement", there was a glitch that caused viewers to miss the scene where Casey eats the fuego-flavored chips and burns Nikki's bangs. This scene only became known about when the episode reran.
openHeat Wave Equals Anger Western Animation
I remember an episode of Arthur where, in the midst of a heatwave, seating arrangements get changed and a massive argument breaks out. Given Burning with Anger is a trope already, is there room for one where a heat wave sets off people's tempers?
resolved Faster than the Speed of Gravity Western Animation
A character's holding something, but either because he's afraid of what he sees approaching, or because there's something he wants elsewhere, he he bolts away, so fast that the object he's holding hasn't even fallen down, and we see it floating in the air without nobody around.
A related trope: The character's sitting in an office chair, and he leaves so fast, the chair is left spinning with leftover torque from his impulse up.
openWraparound static background Western Animation
I'm looking for something like Wraparound Background, or maybe Unnaturally Looping Location, but I am not sure it fits either.
In the Stop Motion animated film Savages (2024), Kéria, the protagonist, is getting lost in the jungle. There is a scene in which the camera is still, as well as the background. Kéria tries to use her phone to find her way home, walks offscreen, then appears again in the scenery from a different location.
Wraparound Background is about animated backgrounds, and this one is still. In fact it is a crafted scenery, so there may have been a willingness to use a bit longer, but it does convey the idea that Kéria is lost quite well.
Unnaturally Looping Location seems to suggest that the place is special, but I think this is an animation trick, not a plot one.
opendeliberately wearing an item upside down or in reverse orientaton Western Animation
Is there a trope for deliberately (i.e. not out of clumsiness or ignorance) wearing items like clothes or jewelry in an orientation opposite to the "correct" one already established ? May or may not reflect characterization.
I'm looking for this kind of trope because at the end of the most recent Miraculous Ladybug special (Miraculous World London), I've noticed the new big bad puts on the previous' big bad brooch but she wears it upside down.
The brooch is butterfly-shaped with four wings, and the previous big bad Monarch wore it with its longer wings pointing to his neck.
Conversely, the new big bad is shown wearing it with longer wings pointing downward. I wonder if this worth mentioning, at least until it is confirmed to not be a blopper.
Thx!
openBrainy Blonde Western Animation
The exact opposite of Dumb Blonde. A blonde who is smart, sometimes even genius level, but may have to fight against being assumed as stupid due to her hair color.
I couldn't find this trope, does it exist?
resolved Face in the Binoculars Western Animation
Combined with Binocular Shot. I've seen this in 6teen and the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. A character is looking at/for someone through binoculars, pans away for a moment, and when they pan back, the person they were looking at/for is glaring at them with their face taking up the whole binocular shot. Sometimes used as a Jump Scare but just as likely to be Played for Laughs.
openMain Character Can’t Be Naked, Yes, Even if Animated Western Animation
Ok, this is a weird one, you know how in some movies they got that R-Rating and want nudity in there, but the main heroine doesn’t wanna be naked, so they get some random extras. It’s fairly common, take Total Recall or something, you have the three-boobed lady, but the main actresses are not naked. It makes sense in film, maybe the actress has a no nudity clause or they didn’t pay her enough.
Somehow this translated over into animation and video games. And I am specifically referring to shows/games where they clearly have the age rating to show nudity and show it with NP Cs or side-characters. Yet, even should the main character be naked or in a sex scene, they get their nudity censored. It’s like the both got approval to include nudity in their show/game and then go out of their way to not show the main character naked. This boggles my mind.
Examples: - The Legend of Vox Machina - It features nudity from random women in Scanlan’s stories, but when it gets to Vex famous and hilarious nude scenes, it’s all convenient censoring. [This is what got me thinking and inspired this question]
- Netflix Castlevania - Lenore, the vampire seductress side-character has a full on sex scene breasts and all, while Sypha, the main girl, has her sex scenes as well, but never shows a nipple.
Videogames: - The Last of Us Part II - We got that infamous sex scene with brief nudity with the second playable character. But the main boxart girl Ellie has her own sex scene (nothing is shown) and then a scene with her naked back, examining her wounds, not sexualized… and no breasts are allowed.
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla - Has a random scene with a topless hooker in a brothel, clearing the game for nudity. But then Female Eivor is never topless, not even for her sex scenes or when doing a side-quest about joining a nudist colony.
Edited by Shirokurouresolved Two Whirlybirds With One Stone Western Animation
A character is being chased by two or more flying enemies, such as fighters - he'll manage to shoot one in a way that makes it lose control and crash into the second, getting rid of both.
Also happens during car chases: shoot one of the cars' wheel, it'll steer to the side and crash on the other
resolved Suddenly having a watch Western Animation
I've seen this now and then in cartoons. It's not a common trope but not an extremely rare one I think. It's when a character looks at their wrist and suddenly is conveniently wearing a watch to tell the time, such as when they are late for something, despite not normally wearing a watch at all, and it's gone the next scene. The only examples I can think of about this trope was in Happy Tree Friends I think (specifically Lumpy and his was blue) and Sponge Bob Squarepants (might of been a scene with Patrick, but maybe Sponge Bob himself did it too, not sure, and if I remember correctly Patrick's "sudden watch" was golden), but I'm not sure which episodes of the shows.

People eating, usually around a campfire, and someone outside the campfire who is hungry attempts to steal their food, but to no avail; they are caught. The people around the campfire usually have a pre-existing hatred for the thief. Happens in Wander Over Yonder episode "The Buddies", and in "The Sneetches" portion of the television special "Dr. Seuss on the Loose".