History Main / CondensationClue

* ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'' cites a ghost's writing "Get out!" in the fog of your bathroom mirror ''every damned day'' as a sure sign that said ghost is of the "Attention Whore" type. Death may also use this trope to verify it's accepted your offer to avert your foretold demise by doing it TheGrimReaper a favor, if the writer can't come up with anything better.

* ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'' cites a ghost's writing "Get out!" in the fog of your bathroom mirror ''every damned day'' as a sure sign that said ghost is of the "Attention Whore" type.

* ''Literature/HowToSurviveAHorrorMovie'' cites writing "Get out!" in the fog of your bathroom mirror ''every damned day'' as a sure sign that the ghost haunting you is of the "Attention Whore" type.

* In ''VideoGame/DarkFall : The Journal'', you need to re-start the hotel's running water so you can steam up one of the bathroom mirrors and expose a lyric.

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars]]", when Sarah Jane is trapped in the "Decadron Crucible" on Mars, the Doctor tells her to "R-E-L-A-X" by writing in the dust/condensation on the surface of the tube (for bonus points, he even writes it backwards).

A family-friendly sister trope of CouldntFindAPen. AnIcePerson may use ''frozen'' condensation to leave messages this way, etching them in frost. Often a subtrope of InvisibleWriting.

A family-friendly sister trope of CouldntFindAPen. AnIcePerson may use ''frozen'' condensation to leave messages this way, etching them in frost. See also InvisibleWriting.

* Turning on the steam room's taps in ''VideoGame/{{Morpheus}}'' fogs up the door to reveal a bible verse, which doubles as Grace Thermon's stateroom code.

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* On ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', when Steven traps himself and a girl in a bubble-shaped, soundproof magic shield, they both breathe on the sides and draw in the resulting condensation to try and convince Onion to break it and free them. Steven tries to get him to use a harpoon gun with a complicated drawing. Connie just writes "harpoon gun".

* In the suspense/horror film ''Patrick'', the titular telekinetic coma patient causes the words "You are mine" to appear on the fogged bathroom mirror of a nurse his damaged brain has become obsessed with. When she reacts by yelling how repulsed she is by his psychic stalking, he makes the mirror de-fog and then shatter explosively, cutting her badly with its shards.

* Used in an EncyclopediaBrown story where two spies in a hotel pass information to each other without being caught. The first took a shower and drew the info on the mirror, then waited until it faded to leave (he opened a window to speed the process). The second went in and took a shower, copying down the message as it reappeared on the mirror, then wiped the mirror down so no one else would notice.

* ''{{CSI NY}}'' had this in 'Unspoken'...the villain opens fire at a political rally and though no one is hit, he realizes Lindsay saw him. He goes into her hospital room wanting to kill her and writes 'I'm sorry' on the window. He doesn't kill her, because he realizes she's a mother and has a big thing against hurting kids, but the next morning, Lindsay's husband, Danny, is standing by the window with his coffee, and the steam reveals the would-be killer's words.
* In ''CSIMiami,'' they use this principle to reveal shoe prints after a woman is electrocuted while taking a bath.

* Adelaide finds a message written on glass in a window overlooking a steamed-up laundry in the pilot episode of ''Houdini & Doyle''.

* On ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', when Steven traps himself and a girl in a bubble-shaped, soundproof magic shield, they both breathe on the sides and draw in the resulting condensation to try and convince Onion to break it and free them. Steven tries to get him to use a harpoon gun with a complicated drawing. Connie just writes "harpoon gun".

A family-friendly sister trope of CouldntFindAPen. AnIcePerson may use ''frozen'' condensation to leave messages this way, etching them in frost.

* In the 2005 remake of ''Film/TheFog'', one of the four teens whose boat is first to fall prey to the haunted fogbank goes into a trance and draws a set of scales on the window. Presumably this is to foreshadow the ghosts' motive of [[spoiler: payback for their murders at the hands of the town founders]].

In ''Literature/TheDemonsGrave'' Nora gets an unsettling message on her bathroom mirror from an unknown entity near the beginning of the book.