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resolved Unaware he's insulting himself Western Animation
Bob and Alice have a relationship - say, they're married. Alice has a secret Bob doesn't know about. When Bob talks about someone with a similar secret (or even about Alice, without knowing it's her), he says stuff like "Boy, that lady's husband must be a real idiot not to realize she's (doing the secret). What a loser."
resolved Inversion of ToServeMan
I read a story where it is the humans that eat the sentient beings and not the other way around. Do we have a trope that’s the inversion of To Serve Man? Unless I Failed a Spot Check, it’s not on the page.
resolved Place name stand-in?
This is when place names are used as shorthand for a government/organisation/whatever based there. You often see it in news broadcasts in a form like "Washington informed Tehran..." or similar. Is this a trope, and if not, should it be?
resolved Flanderized Riches Live Action TV
A character starts the story being relatively well-off, but as he suffers Flanderization, he's retconned into being very rich, a millionaire, billionaire, or one of the richest people in the world.
resolved Minor character with implied bizarre background Live Action TV
A recurring extra is given a few lines or a minor plot thread in a long-running show, and the joke is he has knowledge and/or skills that suggest a freaky backstory, like being in witness protection or on the run from the mob/cops, having Once Killed a Man with a Noodle Implement, being Ambiguously Human, being incongruosuly intelligent (or having a Worthless Foreign Degree), having extreme or incomprehensible beliefs, et cetera. Sometimes happens to an Ascended Extra.
Edited by Mac_Rresolved Coincidental premature rejection Live Action TV
Is there a trope for the comedic scenario wherein Bob is about to ask Alice for something, but Alice, coincidentally, talks about how much she hates it when people ask her that.
For instance:
- Bob (short on cash): Alice, can you do me a favor?
- Alice: Sure, I miss spending time with you. Ever since I won all that money, a bunch of parasites showed up trying to borrow some. I want to kill them, greedy bastards.
- Bob: Right... what a bunch of jerks...
- Alice: So, what did you want?
- Bob: Nothing, just looking for my keys - oops, they're in my pocket, thanks, bye.
resolved Is there a Karen/Caren trope?
I'm talking about female characters who are entitled and bossy beyond reason, not Nice to the Waiter, would always demand to see the manager if even the slightest thing is off. Frequently Caucasian in the popular mindset and stereotypically treats racial minorities like garbage, though I'm not sure yet if a Karen/Caren necessarily has to be White or if just being a privileged race in a given culture would be enough.
This probably encompasses several tropes, but I struggle to find a single Character Trope currently on TVT that pertains to this type.
resolved He wasn't ''shooting'', he was ''shot'' Live Action TV
A character (usually a bad guy) points his gun to a good guy or hostage. Then, we hear a bang - we're led to believe the bad guy pulled the trigger, but actually, another good guy shot him, thus saving the target's life.
resolved Alien Jerk Anime
What's the trope for when the alien (or time traveler, whatever) goes to our world, and won't shut up about how humans are backwards and filthy, stupid savages who should be exterminated at a whim?
resolved Unqualified but surprisingly competent
Character somehow ends up getting a job that, in theory, they are woefully unqualified for. However, due to persistence, hidden talent, and good old fashioned common sense, they end up being really good at it. In some cases, they might turn out to be better at their jobs than other, theoretically better qualified characters.
Sometimes happens in prince-and-the-pauper type stories like Dave, Trading Places, or King Ralph, but other examples might include Tommy Boy, Critical Condition, or the MASH episode featuring an ordinary soldier who was pretending to be a surgeon (and was actually good at it).
resolved Figure out the which player is secretly the monster game Videogame
There a few recent games like Deceit or the Secret Neighbor Spin-Off of Hello Neighbor were players play as a group trying to complete tasks to escape but some players are secretly a monster trying to pick the others off one by one
Is there a name for this genre?
Edited by jormis29resolved Previously Unmentioned Magic in a Mundane Setting
Is there a trope for when a series that appears to take place in a strictly mundane setting suddenly introduces magic to the story in a manner that doesn't really affect the plot?
In the case I'm looking at, a series has run for 90+ installments in a setting that resembles the late 1800's before mentioning that there's no such thing as gas or electric lighting. All the scenes that take place at night are apparently lit by mana-powered light globes invented by a magician. Up till this revelation, there is no indication of magic, magicians, or any "mana-powered" magitech in the series, and the reveal that magic is part of this setting does nothing to alter the plot or trajectory of the series.
resolved Dousing something in gasoline and setting it alight Film
Where a bad guy douses a car (or person) in gasoline, then drops his cigarette or lighter on it to get rid of it - also done when he covers the target, walks away leaving a trail of gasoline, then lights the very end of the trail so he's further from the conflagration.
resolved Objects look monstrous in the dark
It's a recent trope, something about how the brain makes us think objects look like living things, especially in the dark.
resolved Surprise Celebration Outburst Subversion Live Action TV
Alice wants to surprise Bob - either a surprise party, dinner, gift or something. Thus, she pretends she's not doing anything special, and ignores Bob's attempts at reminding her. This drives Bob mad and he goes on a rant trashing Alice, saying their relationship is over, revealing secrets and so on... then he finds out about the surprise, but it's too late.
resolved Baby Talk
Is their a baby equivalent to Animal Talk, eg babies can talk to each other and understand adults but adults can't understand them eg Rugrats, Baby Geniuses, Look Who's Talking, Arthur and sometimes Family Guy
Edited by jormis29resolved Hallucination POV
I'm thinking of the thing that happens in visual media where a hallucination is revealed to be a hallucination by the view switching to a different camera angle and at the same time switching to showing the reality. (Or, alternatively, switching from the reality to the hallucination.)
For instance, two characters are talking, and then the camera switches to a wide shot that reveals that one character is actually alone in the room and talking to thin air. Or there's a group of characters where one is insisting that they can see something that nobody else can see, and when the camera is pointing over that character's shoulder the audience can see it too but in the wide shots it's invisible.
Do we have a page for that?
resolved Boring Vacation Slideshow
An incredibly boring activity that only the person doing it will find fun: showing off a picture slideshow of their trip or vacation. Usually a comedy trope, I've seen this one multiple times.
- The Simpsons does this three times:
- In "Krusty Gets Busted", Homer is not looking forward to seeing Patty and Selma's vacation slides of their trip to Mexico. He stops on the Kwik-E-Mart on his way home, leading to him seeing Krusty (actually Sideshow Bob) robbing the store. Bart and Lisa do end up watching the slideshow, and don't enjoy it.
- In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", Patty and Selma kidnap Mac Gyver. However, he starts getting too interested in escaping from their house and annoys them nonstop. To get him away for good, they tie him up and show him pictures of their vacation; he's begging to be let go by the end of it.
- In "Flaming Moe's," Homer has a boring night watching Patty and Selma's vacation pictures, so he goes to find a drink in the kitchen; he doesn't have any, leading to him creating the Flaming Homer that sets up the plot of the episode.
- In Arthur, one of Francine's embarrassing memories in "Kids are from Earth, Parents are from Pluto" is having her dad stay in class on an open night. When the teacher shows slides of a field trip (mostly just pictures of trees, narrated in a boring and slow voice), he falls asleep and snores loudly.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants, "A SquarePants Family Vacation" has a framing device of SpongeBob inviting his friends to something they'd all enjoy, only for it to turn out to be his vacation slides. They're all disappointed and want to leave, but he manages to keep them in for long enough to show them.

Do we have a trope for when someone who is treated as an employee of a certain business or individual is revealed not to have ever actually gone through the hiring process?