Constant Failure

Is there a trope for shows or at least episodes which end with *everyone* failing? Where neither heroes nor villains manage to achieve anything and left with nothing? Failure Is the Only Option seems to be about a completely different thing, Status Quo Is God is close, but I'm thinking more along the lines of a comedy about a bunch of losers, like Invader Zim where often neither Zim nor Dib are able to win, and their failures are played for laughs.

Selfcest Shipping?

Is there a term for when two versions of the same character are shipped in fandom? Not talking about Screw Yourself which is about canon instances of such a trope, but the fanon variant, usually between characters as portrayed by different actors or after a large personality shift. The most infamous example would be Oncest from The Lorax but it's still a case in some other fandoms.

Edge-of-the-map empire

On a map of a fictional setting that does not depict the entirety of the setting, there's an empire that controls some territory on the edge of the map. However, what you see of that empire on the map only represents their outermost territories - the majority of the empire is not on the map, and the true size of the empire may be larger than all the other countries on the map combined. Hordes from the East are often depicted this way, as are other "outsider" factions.

Examples:

- The Qunari from Dragon Age

- The Empire of Nilfgaard in The Witcher games

- Russia in the board game Diplomacy

- The Mongols in any strategy game about medieval Europe. (Crusader Kings, Total War: Medieval, etc.) In other strategy games set in Europe, Persia often ends up as one as well, since making the Urals the easternmost border splits Iran in half.

Advertising to Nostalgia

Is there an advertising trope about advertisers trying to seem down-to-earth, personable, and nostalgic? For example, they name their products after people (Amy's, Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima. etc) and feature vintage images on their packaging or in their ads (Old Mcdonald's farm, old dutch ovens, etc). It's a supertrope to Grandma's Recipe.

What Example is this

This excerpt from an Nostalgia Critic episode on the 2000 film X-Men: "When it came out, nobody took comic book movies seriously, mostly because they followed the source material even less than this film did. So attempting to be taken seriously, talking about prejudice while also trying to be somewhat faithful to a source nobody took seriously, was kind of risky. It had to take baby steps, find a middle ground, so that future comic book movies could take more chances and risk higher budgets."

Evolving Motto

A character or company has a motto that, for some reason or another, gets changed to better fit the situation or the current times.

Some examples

• The General Insurance commercials: The old motto used to be "For the best car insurance rates in town, call 1-800-GENERAL now!" But as the Internet became more prevalent, they eventually changed it to "For a great low rate you can get online, go to The General and save some time!"
• Pokémon: Jessie, James, and Meowth tend to change their motto every few seasons. One time when they used their old motto again, they expressed how good it felt.
• Quidditch Through the Ages: After eighty years of failure, the Chudley Cannons officially changed their motto from "We shall conquer" to "Let's all just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best."

Faux Tragic

In universe characters treat something as tragic when it shouldn't be, usually played for humor. Like crying over spilt milk.

I thought I remember having it, but...

Oblivious Pain Slinging

A sister trope to Oblivious Mockery and Oblivious Guilt Slinging where two characters are talking, one character's words secretly hurt the other but they don't let it show. Usually played for laughs.

For example, Bob is hopelessly in love with Alice, and Alice is so hopelessly ditzy she doesn't notice (or Bob knows they can't be together for some reason but he still hangs out with her, Alice has serious misandry issues and Bob is the only exception, etc.). Instead she sees Bob as her best friend and pours out her heart to him on multiple occasions, the audience seeing how much it hurts him to hear her talk of her boyfriends, along with phrases like "All Men Are Perverts, and sometimes it seems you're the only one who isn't interested in dating me", "I wish I could find a boyfriend as patient and understanding as you, but better-looking/rich/taller", etc. Conversely, Bob and Charlie are talking about Alice, both in love with her but only Charlie mentions it, and he's a much better prospect than Bob, so Bob says nothing but every word of Charlie's hurts him.

Doesn't have to be romantic, could be Bob talking about how he loathes group X and Alice is secretly part of that group, Alice is announcing her plans which put Bob's in jeopardy but he has to hide it, etc.

Possible Double Standard Trope?

Basically, quite a bit of works have a mostly all-female cast, and the heroes will all be female, but the Big Bad is a male (example: every Pretty Cure series). This seems to be suggesting that men are inherently more evil and suited to villainy than women.

Females Are More Innocent does this too, but I think that trope requires a female villain/antagonist (just one who is portrayed as less evil than the men). What about a work where there are no female villains, just female heroes and male villains, because it never crossed the mind of the author that women can be evil?

Obligation love

A character is with their romantic partner partly out of a sense of obligation to said partner.

So is TokenMinority like SeldomSeenSpecies but for people?

I'm trying to look for a trope where a story depicts someone who is from a country/ethnicity/nationality/race that usually isn't represented in media? Would this be Token Minority? Although some of the examples I had in mind may not really count "minorities" as most people would consider them in the West.

Examples:

• Frozen: Kristoff is Sami, which the general American/Canadian audience doesn't know of.
• Elena of Avalor: A show made in the U.S. and Canada, Season 3 features a kingdom of Jewish Latinos. Also, another kingdom seems to be based on Argentina.
• The Japanese Visual Novel Fate/hollow ataraxia introduces Luviagelita Edelfelt, who is Finnish. However, she might as well be from any other non-English European country since it mainly just serves the purpose of her being exotic to the Japanese audience since she comes from a lesser known European country (as opposed to Russia, Germany, England, France, etc.) and nothing specific about her Finnish background is brought up. The Tohsaka family also has some Finnish blood since an Edelfelt married into their family around the 1940's.
• Young Justice does its best to represent people from various backgrounds and identities:
  • Artemis and Jade/Cheshire are half Vietnamese and half French, their mother is Vietnamese, Jade/Cheshire's daughter Lian is a quarter Vietnamese and three-quarters white.
  • Ed (El Dorado) and his parents are Argentinian.

Da Conductor

Is there a trope for dictatorial orchestra conductors in the same vein as Da Chief and Da Editor?

No Title

Do any tropes cover pet stores being depicted in a negative light? I had a TLP for this but I think it's Too Rare To Trope. What about a shady pet store employee?

picture doesn't match the description Literature

Is there a trope for when a book has both a picture and description of something but the picture doesn't match the description?

Dramatic Circle Western Animation

Not exactly a Cerebus Callback, but an already dark and tense moment that gets similarly repeated later on but the context of the circumstances make it even darker. If it can count as the former Trope however, please let me know.

neglectful boyfriend

Is there a trope for a boyfriend (or girlfriend for that matter) who is just neglectful rather than staight up abusive? I.e he might just leave for days without telling her where she's going, or refuse to hold her hand when she's scared, or if they are having sex only thinks of himself an doesn't care if she's having fun or not.

Byronic Hero

fan of decadence

Is there a trope for when a rich person (or royalty) is depicted holding an elaborate fan (as in a hand fan, not a Deadly Rotary Fan) and waving it at themselves? Seems to be a pretty common image but I can't name an example off hand.

Boss Trope Videogame

Is there a trope for a video game boss that's designed to be an easier version of a much more difficult boss, so it's sort of like a practice boss before you face the real threat? I had thought of Warm-Up Boss, but that's specifically for bosses at the end of the tutorial or first level, and I was thinking of some examples that can happen throughout the game.

Business woman learns to love. Film

I could have sworn that this was a trope, generally from 80's-00's films. Where the love interest or female protagonist is a hard working, no non-sense executive who tends to be a workaholic, learns to love again because of the guy; who tends to be a slob, underperforming, slackster emotionally-cognizant type.

Is this a trope or a subversion/inversion of an existing trope? I think this has happened in movies like What Women Want and The Proposal, maybe Intolerable Cruelty and Pretty Woman might be adjacent to this kind of thing??? I think even Family Guy made a reference to it.

Recursive Corrupter

A Future Me Scares Me character attempts to become The Corrupter to their own past self, to ensure their own existence via Stable Time Loop.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy twin franchises

Two works or franchises that share a creator, themes, and (in the case of games.) gameplay, with one in the sci-fi genre and the other in the fantasy genre. E.g. Starcraft/Warcraft, Warhammer 40k/Warhammer Fantasy, Mass Effect/Dragon Age, or Fallout/The Elder Scrolls.

Assisted by a child Videogame

I'm looking for a trope where, when the player does certain things, NPC children will come up to the player and interact with them. Example:

• In this setting, there's one child that randomly wanders around the town that serves as the player's home base. Should the child's wandering put them near the player, or if the player walks up to them, they'll hold up a low-tier item and offer it to the player.
  • If the player has just come back from a battle, and is low on health, they may offer a piece of food, or another small item, that will restore just enough health that they can survive long enough to get a proper healing potion.
  • Should the player's health be critical, said child will not only seek out the player if they're nearby, but will begin to offer actual healing items like small health potions.
  • If the player's health is near-full, the child will mostly ignore the player unless approached, but will start to offer various "trinkets" ranging from Vendor Trash, to food, all the way up to rare items like small gemstones that would normally never be found in the hands of a child, but would be a god-send for the player.
  • If the player drops a small item on the ground, and subsequently forgets it, the child will pick it up, and will offer it before anything in their "inventory."

Intelligence equals asexuality

Do we have a specific trope for characters being portrayed as having little or no interest in sex as a result of being highly intelligent?

Burning Through the Ranks

Is there a trope where in the military or some other organization a person quickly climbs up the ladder to higher and higher positions? I don't mean Field Promotion where they would be given the position becuase it needs to be filled. But where they either earned it through exceptional skill or through corrupt means.