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 Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Find a Trope:
openPerson punches something hard and it hurts their hand
Is this a trope? I can't think of a fictional example but it's definitely Truth in Television, due to the whole "equal but opposite reaction thing" (i.e if you punch someone in the nose, the same amount of force is applied to your fist. It just takes a lot less force to break a nose than a fist.)
openCan Quick-Travel Anywhere You've Been?
Wondering before I create a TLP for it. It's a common restriction on both Teleportation and fast-travel systems in open-world games where you can only go places you've been and/or can clearly visualize.
open"Square Peg, Round Hole" Educational Game Engine Western Animation
I've seen a handful of old educational games parodies where the game clearly uses an engine or gameplay mode not meant to be educational, but given a visual makeover to look so. For instance, a religious game is just a shooter where the player character shoots "conversion rays" onto unbelievers instead of shooting "bullets" at bad guys.
I don't know much about real games following that format, other than Chex Quest.
openWhy do we even have that?
Characters have something incredibly random lying around that, when brought to their attention, usually elicits a "why do we even have that?"
openHair Ears?
Like Ears as Hair but inverted. I originally thought this would fall under Hair Intakes, but turns out what I’m thinking of is a completely different style—it’s more like unnatural tufts of hair sticking out at each side of the head, instead of bunched up on top.
EDIT: after a bit of digging I found some◊ images◊
Edited by unfortunatezoruaopenKept awake by soft sounds
There's nothing worse than being kept awake by sounds that are easy to ignore during the day. A creaky floor, wind in the trees, a leaky faucet dripping into the sink, the sound of insects when camping, distant car honks, etc.
- In the Garfield and Friends short "Peace and Quiet" it's a faucet tripping on a pan in the sink.
openThe Act of Parental Abandonment
Parental Abandonment is a trope where parents aren't around, aren't shown, or are dead. What is the trope for the act where a parent or guardian literally abandons their child, like in a forest, park, or even in the middle of the street? For example, Rukia's sister abandoned her when she was a baby because she could not care for her. Another example is Billy from SHAZAM! (2019), who was abandoned at a fair by his mom. Abandon the Disabled and Doorstop Baby would probably be subtropes.
openRace / Species / Group Identifying Feature?
Race / Species / Group Identifying Feature?
It feels like a trope, something to go in this passage I made on Power Tattoo's description, bolding for this post only:
openThis adjective doesn't describe it... an even more extreme adjective describes it
When a character says something like "It's not great." (Beat) "It's amazing!"
Edited by jandn2014openBest school ever
A specialized training school (e.g. cooking, arts, etc.) that's famous for its high-standards and graduates from that particular school is almost guaranteed to become the cream of the crop of that field.
openCannot keep the NDA
Do we have a trope where an actor or producer, someone closely associated with a work, ends up accidentally (or purposefully) giving away spoilers for a future project? This can be as little as a "the sequel is underway" or as big as Luke, I Am Your Father. No matter what, it seems that they will inadvertently give away some secret they're supposed to be keeping followed by the rest of the cast and crew giving off a Rapid-Fire "Shut Up!".
Sometimes the audience will catch on, sometimes they'll completely miss the spoiler.
Not necessarily Did I Just Say That Out Loud?, in that the person knows they said it. Neither is it Accidental Public Confession due to the fact that the person knows the public does not know this information and they know their microphone is on.
openThe phonebook is a bedtime story
Do We Have This One? A young character asks an older character to read them a bedtime story. The older character, for whatever reason, has no suitable bedtime story material and tells the kid so, to which the kid responds that the adult can read them anything. Cut to the adult reading the phonebook (or some other logically inappropriate material) and the kid falling asleep. Bonus if the kid is actually enjoying it.
An example would be in Cold Pursuit, Nels reads Ryan the snowblower manual as a bedtime story.
Edited by Hello83433openSemi-specific situation that involve irony?
Bit of a specific situation, so I'm not sure if there's a trope, but it goes like this: Alice is shunned/ignored/excluded/bullied, or perhaps seen as a loser. Whatever form it takes, she's not considered socially desirable, and very few (if any) people care abut her.
Years pass. Alice grows up, and becomes famous/rich/successful. The same people who wouldn't have given her the time of day all those years ago, are now trying to act chummy with her. Alice's response doesn't matter - only that their opinion of her has changed due to her fame/wealth/success/etc.
Example: Winona Ryder was bullied for wearing boy's clothes, culminating in an attack that left her needing stitches. She was expelled instead of her bullies. Many years later, she ran into one of the girls that helped beat her up. Said girl asked her for an autograph, to which she responded "Go fuck yourself."
Example 2: Jessie J's 'Who's Laughing Now', directed at classmates who put her down as a child, but now act interested in her due to her fame.
Edited by ParadoxicopenGod is a pair of hands.
God is depicted as a pair of giant disembodied hands (or maybe just one hand) reaching out from the clouds, possibly with a giant booming voice accompanying them.
Is there a trope for this? Feels like it's common enough to be one, but I can't find it.
openComputer Misunderstands Command
Do we have a trope for the type of gag in which a person using a digital assistant of some sort, similar to Google's Siri or Amazon's Alexa, but their voice commands are always misunderstood.
For example, in Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Drac tells his smartphone that he wants to go on a date, but instead she tells him the day's date.
The LEGO Movie also uses this gag in which Benny asks the computer in the villain's lair to deactivate the shields, and instead it tells him that there are no movies with that title showing in his area.
openInversion of ButterFace?
In Real Life, we plus-sized women have Seen It a Million Times. "Oh, it's a shame you're so heavy. You have such a lovely face. If you lost weight, you'd be really gorgeous."
Is there a trope associated with this, or is it simply an inversion of the Butter Face, where the face is beautiful but the body looks hideous and unsexy?
Edited by BradyLadyopenTropes about big rubber stamps
Are there any tropes concerning cartoonishly big rubber stamps, stamping things, or seals of approval?
Edited by Drakos25openSelf-aware story
A story that's considered self-aware and plays with the tropes you'd expect of it, like Frozen.
Exactly what it says on the tin.