The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to You Know That Show and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Game that needs you to do something outside the game Videogame
Example: In Who Framed Roger Rabbit there's a 1-800 number that you're supposed to call. As in actually call, using a landline or cell.
Ashamed of what I was
After a disastrous event, a person feels contempt for himself (and the group he was in) for letting it happen so easily. It’s mainly because they were so easily misled.
Fan Example: In Star Wars, sometime between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, a group of people will be talking about how the Empire came to be. among them is a Jedi who survived Order 66. One person will ask how the Jedi Council, guardians of peace in the galaxy, could allow the Emperor to gain control of the Republic, crumble it and reign control of the Empire. The surviving Jedi (before or after revealing himself as such) says with a tone of contempt: “The Jedi Council were a bunch of fools who trusted the wrong people.”
Edited by JohnShel91
Vicariously using your kids to get back at an enemy?
Is there a trope for this? I'll try to describe it as best I can:
A is enemies with Z.
A and Z are both in the same line of work.
A has a child, B.
A persuades/allows/suggests to B that they also take up the same line of work.
A is secretly wanting B to become better than Z in order to embarrass or spite Z.
"I want to change"?
So basically, a trope where a character either believes they are headed down a dark path, and wants to change before they become beyond redemption. Do we have that?
Just Married
Do we have a trope for the "Just Married" signs that get stuck on the backs of the couples' cars? Or ships, planes or whatever other vehicles they might be using? Tin cans trailing on strings may or may not be included.
Edited by Tallens
Character is ironically told "have fun"
Is there a trope for when a character is told "have fun" before doing something scary or tedious?
Pulling someone away from brutally beating someone Film
it's a trop where someone takes a weapon or simply just punches someone into a bloody pulp,usually to the person that either kidnapped them or caused them harm..so they give them a senseless beatdown.
But then someone else pulls them away from the beating to calm them down usually saying "Stop!, Stop!"
perfectexample was in the last of us, where joel pulled away ellie after smashing her attacker in the face with a mchete
It's okay to be gay?
There have been a lot of Queer Romance songs related to lgbt rights and pro-lgbt rights songs lately. Is there a trope for that?
Chasing your own tail
A tailed animal — typically a dog or a cat, and especially one a juvenile one — is driven to chase their own tail for one reason or another; knowing or eventually realizing that their quarry is actually part of their body is optional.
Do we have a trope for this? It's definitely not Chasing Your Tail, which although its name gives that impression, is actually about a Boss Battle in which both the player and the boss run around in circles chasing/running away from each other.
Edited by MarqFJA
Hanky blowing
I can't believe it's not a trope already, so...
A character is crying and is offered a handkerchief to dry those tears... except instead of doing just that, he or she also blow his/her nose, loudly, to the disgust of the hanky's owner...
Buddy-cop protagonists put siren on top of unmarked car.
The protagonists receive word from their dispatcher that there is an emergency nearby and they plop the siren on top of their previously incognito car, usually accompanied with eye-contact and a cliche line like "let's roll." Also which films do this if you can think of any?
Edited by spyingcomet85
Heroes Make Great Villains
What's it called when a hero (whether by Face-Heel Turn or Mind Control or some third thing) becomes a villain, and they're actually REALLY proficient at it, sometimes even better than any other villain in the series/film/whatever?
Hidden Limbs Trope?
Is there a trope where it turns out someone has body parts that are unexpected? {like, say, a flower character popping out of the ground to reveal they have legs?}
Um...
Is there's a trope involving wearing food as clothing?
Acting out a daydream?
What's the trope for when someone is imagining something and then gets so absorbed that they start doing it in real life? Hypothetical example: Alice imagines herself as a singer in front of an audience, and then in reality, Bob goes, "Alice! Why are you serenading the microwave?!"
Edited by Unicorndance
Awkward Backwards Shuffle
Alice says something to Bob that Bob finds uncomfortable or awkward (eg. "I need some blood for my experiment. Do you know that a person can bleed 40 litres of blood in one go?") and Bob takes a few steps backwards. Bob may or may not turn and run after a few steps.
"Don't make me turn this car around!"
Is there a trope for a driver (most often a parent) threatening to turn a car around and go home if their passengers don't behave?
Spoilers from real life Anime
So there is a situation where a character is based on a historical character and so we know, sort of, what is going to happen at an approaching moment in the timeline. Like, Lincoln is entering the Ford Theater, etc. Depending on the looseness of the history, it might be a foregone conclusion or a buildup of tension for "how will they handle this?" - it was the latter in the particular anime I am troping on.
Is there a trope for this?
Go to the doctor, get a lollipop
Seen this in Friends and Questionable Content at the very least. I can't find this at Doctor Index, Healing and Curing Tropes, or anywhere else. There's even a webtoon called Doctor Lollipop. Since candy is seen as a kids' thing, seeing an adult accept the lollipop shows that they're still young at heart.
Edited by NateTheGreat
Shield... grinding(?)
I've wondered, do we have a trope for when a weapon... well how to properly explain... ah
You have your normal energy shield and some big baddy (or good guy) fires a weapon on it, the projectile will stop at the barrier (but retain its kinetic energy somehow) until it breaks through the shield, magically regaining its momentum as if it would have never stopped, justified with missiles, though used by everything else as well.
Edited by Sergey_Smirnov
Chekhov's Baby
Is there a trope for when a pregnant woman appears in the first act (so to speak), she will inevitably give birth in the third (usually during or after the climax)?
Science vs Cool
When a scientific view is updated due to finding new data, people resist the change for entirely un-scientific reasons, usually that it's not as interesting as previously thought.
For example, Calvin And Hobbes has Calvin present his report on T Rex in a way that proves it's a predator and not a carrion feeder, for the sole reason that it's cooler that way. Similarly, Dumbing Of Age's Walky earns Dinah's ire when he says he prefers featherless dinosaurs à la Jurassic Park to the real thing. And of course the whole "Pluto is too a planet" thing.
Edited by Chabal2
Which figure of speech or trope?
If everyone grows up with high self-esteem, who's gonna dance in our strip clubs?
Edited by bob-lablow
behind a stack of things Film
Can you help me with examples of scenes with a short character is carrying a stack of things, boxes for instance, and are behind it and it is impossible to see the character? Is there a trope for this?
groups Literature
What trope is used to describing being put into various groups? for example, the Four Houses of Hogwarts in Harry potter, the Cabins in Percy Jackson, the Factions in the Divergent series, and to a lesser extent, the districts in the Hunger Games.