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resolved Karmic Misfire and some kind of misguided retaliation Film
In The Burning, Cropsy is on Roaring Rampage of Revenge five years after he got violentely burned and disfigured following a prank by a group of kids. However, none of his victims on screen were part of this group. He attacks one of his prankster, but that one survives with a minor cut on face.
resolved Misses out a vital word
Is there one for when somebody misses out a vital word, which completely changes the meaning of what they say? For example, in Fawlty Towers:
resolved Wealth fakeout?
Someone mistakes something for a valuable thing like gold or diamonds. Mistaking pyrite for gold is one common example. If the character is dumb enough they might mistake something like chocolate coins for gold.
resolved Literally incomprehensible adults
To illustrate The Generation Gap, adult or older characters are shown speaking in a way that's literally incomprehensible, whether that's gibberish, sounds, or a foreign language.
resolved Treasured Object Clue
A character finds an object treasured by another character abandoned somewhere, clueing them in that something's wrong, usually that the other character was abducted or captured with a struggle.
resolved Relating to Death and power-ups.
Is there a trope for a character getting a status buff after another’s death? In South Park: Phone Destroyer, Butters has multiple buffs for his defeats (treated as deaths by the characters), including temporary invincibility for his allies, Super-Speed for allies and leader, a small heal, and an energy boost for his team.
resolved Bad at motivational speaking
A character tries to give others an inspiring speech, but they lose focus and end up leaving their comrades demotivated more than anything else. e.g., going into way too much detail about how bleak the odds are, going off on a tangent or non-sequitur, giving lame advice, and so on.
resolved Ringing telephone jumping around, receiver flying off
Is there one for this? A ringing telephone is often drawn as jumping around, with the receiver flying off, which in the real world would make a phone stop ringing, but this never seems to happen in cartoons.
resolved Tropes about body modification and/or costume waering
I wrote this entry on a popular theory video, but I'm unsure what trope fits better. I'm between Latex Perfection and World of Masks. Does anyone have any suggestions?
- The "Skin Theory" is a Sponge Bob Square Pants theory proposed by You Tuber Doug Woolever. It states that in Bikini Bottom, the use of body modification and full-body disguises is not only common but also socially acceptable. This stems from the unexpectedly numerous gags (especially in the first 4 seasons) revolving around the removal of skin, use of fake body parts, disguising as someone else, revealing human anatomy underneath the character, among others.
- Notable instances of this include:
- Squidward wears an orange salmon suit in Dying for Pie, which would be the equivalent of a human wearing someone's skinned flesh.
- In "Imitation Krabs," Spongebob takes off the head of a fish, mistakenly thinking it was Plankton in disguise, only to reveal a smaller fish inside. Even stranger, the fish says, “Everyone at the Head Enhancement Clinic said nobody would notice!” Implying that this phenomenon is so widespread that there are different facilities around the modification of different body parts
- Sponge Bob uses a fake tongue that looks and functions identically to a real one in "Karate Choppers."
- The con man in "Chocolate with Nuts" uses a disguise of himself wearing bandages instead of putting the bandages on himself.
- The Gainax ending of "I Had an Accident," where a gorilla, played by a live-action actor in a gorilla costume, was perfectly disguised as Patrick
- Sandy wears Sponge Bob and Patrick as clothes at the end of "Survival of the Idiots."
- And the most damning piece of evidence , in Doug’s opinion, is the fact that the entirety of "Muscle Bob Buff Pants" revolves around Sponge Bob wearing fake, human-looking arms that are sold to the masses as an infomercial product. The other fish don’t notice that Sponge Bob is wearing large, miscolored arms, which could be a joke on them being too stupid to notice, but Doug interprets this as being nothing out of the ordinary since these disguises are so normalized in their society. Not to mention that the shark in the commercial looks nothing like his old photo and a gag where Sandy rolls up her sleeve to show a muscular, photorealistic, human-like arm.
- Doug also proposes 3 sub-theories that, alone or in conjunction with the others, could explain the in-universe reason for this.
- The ritual aspect: the citizens of Bikini Bottom wear costumes in a complex ritual to worship a deity, such as the Flying Dutchman, who appears on "Halloween" because he found Sponge Bob’s disguise to be insulting. Doug does note that this theory doesn't explain every instance of skin/costume wearing, however.
- The mass psychosis element: the citizens have gone insane and become obsessed with costumes. As exemplified with Tom suddenly yelling aggressively upon the mention of chocolate in "Chocolate with Nuts," the insanity wouldn’t be that out of character. But Doug does state that a big catastrophic event would have had to happen so that everyone would be affected, such as a parasite outbreak or the effects of pollution in the oceans.
- The costumed human hypothesis: the citizens in Bikini Bottom aren't sea creatures but humans in disguises that are acting out rehearsed acts for the viewers' entertainment, and not only that, they are acting on dry land, which not only explains how they can breathe underwater but also answers the show's many instances of fridge logic around its setting, like the presence of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, fire, and other bodies of water.
- Notable instances of this include:
resolved Fantasy Compound Words
The more classically High Fantasy a work is, the greater the chance that it's overflowing with compound words used as "local color" for the world.
This establishes that whatever is being referred to is essentially recognizable but possibly with a fantasy twist, and it also saves the writer from having to exposit every word in their conlang (eg. the difference between writing "redberry" and "rathraz, which As You Know is a small red berry").
Places will get expository names like Waterdeep, Riverrun, Talltrees. Items will get names like vinepaper, glowlamps, pipeweed, strongbrew, etc.
It's the fantasy equivalent of We Will Use WikiWords in the Future.
Edited by MonaNaitoresolved Storyline-exclusive villain. Literature
In Give Yourself Goosebumps, there’s usually two different storylines you could follow, depending on an early choice you make. Is the main villain considered a Big Bad if they only show up in one of the storylines? Or is it a slightly different trope?
resolved Fake quote
When a work uses a fictional quote at the beginning instead of a real one. The fictional quote is also based on the lore of the work.
Edited by SoyValdo7resolved The Hero and the Bard
Basically a typical fantasy set up in which the hero of the story travels around the land almost exclusively only on the company of their friend, The Bard. Which tags along because they want to live an adventure, and narrate the exploits of their friend the great hero for generations to come to remember. Wanting to be the ones to write about their legend.
Examples I can think of are Xena and Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess, Gotrek & Felix from Tabletop Game/Warhammer Fantasy, and Geralt and Dandelion from The Witcher. Is there a named trope for that?
resolved Character's horses becoming motorcycles Film
What's the name of the trope where an often immortal/timeless character who classically rides a horse as part of their character now rides a motorcycle so as to fit into and adapt to modern society.
The only examples I can find are in Good Omens S 1 E 5 where The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse now ride motorcycles instead of horses, and Ghost Rider, who's predecessor rode a flaming horse.
resolved Passenger Takes the Wheel
While a vehicle is in motion the driver decides he has more important things to do, e.g. take part in a gunfight, and tells the person in the passenger seat to take the wheel. The passenger is almost always a Non-Action Guy and thinks the driver is crazy, but has no choice.

Is there a trope where the protagonist truly respects their opponents skill so that their response/counter relies on their opponent doing well (or even overcoming their limitations?) instead of what the protagonist group does.
Examples:
1. Kuroko no Basket, Blue Lock: where the protagonist positions themselves by assuming that their team's defenses will fail to stop an opponent (typically for opponents that were once their close friend and thus there's an element of faith that they will overcome their plan)
2. Frieren: Frieren tells her apprentice that a proctor (who is somewhat her bitter peer) will pass her because that proctor's intuition has never been wrong. Which means instead of finding a way to outsmart the proctor, Frieren just believes that although they don't like each other, she trusts that her peer will choose the right thing to do.
Edited by ArtificialDream