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openIllegitimate Favorite
A parent has several children, at least one of them illegitimate. However, that's the one they favor, possibly to the point of their legitimate offspring becoming Well Done Son Guys and Gals / The Unfavorite / The Resenter. Often involves Arranged Marriage, since they're more likely to dote on the children they had willingly with their love rather than the Heir And A Spare required by their place in society.
And a variation where the illegitimate one isn't necessarily treated better or worse than the legitimate ones, but are instead much better in some way (physically, mentally, superpowers, etc.) e.g. a king's bastard is free of Royal Inbreeding-caused health issues; a woman in an Arranged Marriage to a Pathetically Weak man has an affair with a much stronger man so the illegitimate son is naturally much stronger, etc.), sparking similar resentment from the legitimate child(ren).
openA play in the song Music
Hey, do we have a trope for when a song is sort of like a little audio play about the characters singing the song? This is especially common in children's music, and especially when it's based on pre-existing franchises.
Like, the characters aren't just singing, they're also saying stuff like "Okay, now it's your turn to sing, Bob!"
Remember how, in "The Chipmunk Song", it starts with Dave telling the chipmunks it's time to sing, and yells at Alvin for being inattentive? And only after that does the song actually start?
(The Pokémon song "Christmas Medley" is the best modern example.)
Is that a trope?
Edited by MisterMusicopenLiteral Game-Changing Spells
I don't think there's already a trope about spells or abilities that temporarily relax or completely nullify some of the estabilished rules of the setting, especially in games?
Take for example the "Room" Moves from Franchise/Pokémon- for a max of 5 turns, they change the in-battle rules: one Room deactivates all held items, one switches the values of Defense and Special Defense for all mons, and especially Trick Room, which makes slower mons move before faster ones.
Another example that I remember could be a Yu-Gi-Oh! card that allows the user to have more than 6 cards in their hand, I guess it's called "Infinity"?
openI'm Useless
Character feels bad because they feel useless to the group
Example: Quint in the The Last Kids on Earth Season 2, episode 3
openDromaeosaurs going after large prey
It seems to be a cliche in dinosaur-focused media where pack-hunting dromaeosaurs (think Velociraptor or Deinonychus) go after large prey like hadrosaurs, ceratopsians or sauropods, despite their huge size difference.
Edited by BingChillingopenInsult Intentionally Cut Short
A character deliberately interrupts himself before he can finish saying something insulting, while saying enough of it to ensure everyone knows who he's talking about.
e.g. Bob used to work for a Corrupt Politician who employed him for all manner of illegal activities from picking up drugs to bribing officials to silencing witnesses and paternity suit cases. Whenever the subject comes up, Bob always refers to him as "the Republ- *cough* the politician", with no use of names or pronouns, the whole four words and a cough.
openOut of format episode
Is there a trope for an episode of a show with a Strictly Formula that doesn't follow said formula? Not quite Out-of-Genre Experience, but just some changes in the usual proceedings? Or are such episodes supposed to be listed as aversions of Strictly Formula?
openColors of Darkness
When it comes to usual color schemes for villains, I often see combinations of red and black, black and purple, black and blue, even black with multiple shades of cyan. Either way, they're all color combos that are usually associated with darkness. I'm also sure there are plenty of evil color combos out there that may be listed. What are they?
Edited by TheSuperShinyMegaGengaropenI can still hear them... Western Animation
A character is presumed dead, but is alive and in danger nearby. The character will yell to a mourner, to which the mourner will say that they can still hear the character, before finally realizing what the person is saying and going off to help. Usually "I can still hear them now" or similar phrases are said.
Edited by DrOlsonopenAngered Gestures of Restraint
When a character is enraged enough the point of wanting to choke a the offender, but has to restrain themselves by making strangling cupping gesture with their hands while trying to resist the urge to do so.
resolved Parting Gift
Is there a trope where a character leaves something behind when they die - like, for lack of a better description, a video game character dropping loot after defeat? Intentionally or unintentionally.
openPoison the Antidote
A kind of gambit where a first attempt at something is a feint to see what the victim does, the second is the real deal.
e.g.
- Alice wants to poison Bob, who is paranoid about poison. She puts emetics in his food, not enough to kill him but enough that he thinks he's in mortal danger, and he pulls out a vial of antidote from a chain on his neck. Now knowing where he keeps the bottle and what it looks like, Alice can replace the contents with poison, and put emetics in Bob's food again, this time successfully killing him once he downs the bottle.
- Charlie is a general tasked with taking out a fortress. He first sends a mass attack wave of Cannon Fodder and takes careful note of where the traps, snipers, artillery etc. are located. His second attack uses combined arms to specifically target those locations first, neutralizing them and quickly swamping the defenders.
openMistaking warning for outburst
You try to warn someone, but they think you're disrupting them. Here's the example:
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Food Con Castaways", SpongeBob and Patrick repeatedly annoy Mr. Krabs and Squidward in the car on the way to Food Con, and the former forces them to not make one peep until they get there. Suddenly, SpongeBob repeatedly screams, "PEEP!", and Mr. Krabs thinks he's disrupting again until everyone realizes they're going over Peep's Cliff.
openPinball Playfield Prop
AKA a "Toy." This is basically what it says on the tin. Pinball tables with figurines of some description, ranging from a statue/doll to an animatronic.
Examples include:
Physical Pinball Tables:
- Apollo 13 has a Saturn rocket (the titular Apollo 13) and the moon, which has an electromagnet in it to make balls orbit.
- Mary Shellys Frankenstein has a bust (plus both arms) of The Monster, who acts as a Popper for the balls.
- Stern's Starship Troopers has a Brain Bug.
Digital pinball tables:
- Pinball Deluxe:
- Jurassic Links has several; a quartet of dinosaur eggs (that can be hatched with a skillshot, whereupon they react when hit), a bronosaurus figurine, and an animated golf cart being chased by a T-Rex.
- Rydes has a diner in the Town section, a gas pump in the Garage, and a quintet of traffic cones that play a honking car horn SFX.
- Tradewind is studded with various toys (a mine, a windmill, and some pine trees on table 1, and a gem mine and more pine trees on table 2. In the Galactic Trade skin it's changed to a centrifuge and cooling stack, and the trees are kept in biodome sattelites). It is a very quest-heavy table, with various Toys needed to be hit in order to collect and refine various resources.
openAngelic/divine possession
Inverse of Demonic Possession, this is when a divine being possesses someone in order to closely see the mortal world, or to "talk" to certain people directly, or to assert more influence in the immediate surroundings, etc.
openNo need to act through the phone Film
A scene that reveals a Twist - Bob recieves a call from Alice, who sounds like she's feeling one thing (scared, in love, friendly). Then we cut to Alice's side of the conversation, and she's acting cold and unemotional. It becomes clear she's lying to Bob about her feelings, and since they're on the phone, she doesn't need to fake the facial expressions to sell the lie.
It feels like it doesn't make much sense to me - if someone's pretending to be crying, even on the phone, they'd probably be making the facial expressions regardless - it'd be harder to act by only changing her's voice, but not her physicality. Especially if she's used to lying in person to begin with.
openClasses in shooter games
When shooters have classes such as
- Standard soldier
- Heavy weapons guy, low damage but typically high fire rate and have abilities that increase their survivability
- Sapper, guy who builds stuff
- Sniper
- Medic
I was wondering if there was a trope in which an otherwise ordinary character secretly works as a journalist/podcast host/gossip columnist/etc...
Examples: Teresa/Tara from Shrinking Violet/Radio Rebel, Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton