Darth Wiki / Crappy Trope Definitions: Tropes

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A-D

• 0% Approval Rating: A carbon copy of Hated by All.
• 13 Is Unlucky: Any time there's 13 of something, even if there's no connection to the superstition that 13 is an unlucky number.
• 20 Bear Asses: A quest where you just kill X number of a certain creature and nothing else of interest happens at all.
• Abhorrent Admirer: A character is romantically/sexually interested in someone who doesn't reciprocate. Ignore the "abhorrent" part; that's just a fancy word we used to make the trope name alliterative.
• Aborted Arc:
  • A plot point raised one (1) episode ago hasn't been resolved yet.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, except you can put it on objective pages.
• A Boy and His X: Any work featuring a human(oid) main character and a non-human companion, regardless of the strength of their bond or any effect it has. Remember to use pothole markup to replace "Boy" and "X" with more precise descriptions of the characters.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: The level cap is very high by some numeric measure — level number, hours of grinding it takes to get there, what have you. This trope is especially useful for complaining that the game requires you to reach the level cap — ignore anyone who says the point is that the game can be completed well below the cap, you need your complaining fodder.
• Abusive Parent:
  • Any parent who isn't a 100% flawless Good Parent. If they lose their temper once, or make a well-intentioned but ultimately harmful parenting decision, that counts as abuse. Be sure to play up how this pushes the parent over the Moral Event Horizon even if they immediately apologize to their child.
  • Any parent who justifiably calls the young man out.
• Accidental Murder: A character intentionally kills someone, but gets the wrong victim by mistake.
• Accidental Pun: Pothole to this page when you intentionally make a pun, because obviously "accidental" is a synonym for "intentional" and not an antonym.
• The Ace: Mary Sue or Canon Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Actor Allusion: Two roles played by the same actor have coincidental and superficial similarities, preferably phrased in the form of "This is not the first time that Joe Actor has played a character with a head."
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • When talking about a work you hate, use this to describe the one joke you thought was good.
  • Use this to describe the one or few moments from a Comedic Relief Character you found annoying that you thought were actually funny.
  • Jokes that are funny.
• Adaptation Decay: An adaptation has a change from the source material you don't like.
• Adaptation Distillation: Adaptation Displacement, except you can put it on the main page.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: You like a character's redesign in an adaptation or reboot.
• Adaptational Ugliness: You don't like a character's redesign in an adaptation or reboot.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • Use alliteration when writing examples, then pothole it to this page.
  • Alliteration happens. There doesn't need to be a reason. Even if it's purely unintentional, it's worth noting that two words start with similar letters.
• Affably Evil: A villain has a polite demeanor that's anything but genuine.
• Affectionate Parody:
  • Someone, somewhere, made a parody of this work, which is definitely a trope that appears in this work.
  • As a fan of the work being parodied, you thought their parody was awesome and didn’t trigger any of your Fandom Enraging Misconceptions. Therefore, put this on the work page as a seal of approval. Don’t worry if the creators were actually ambivalent to the parodied work or if it’s flat-out a Deconstructive Parody, because it’s more important to use this to tell other fellow fans that the parody is good.
• Africa Is a Country: This trope is the only representation Africa has, so be sure to include even examples where Africa is correctly portrayed as not a single country.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Interchangable with Sympathy for the Devil.
• Album Filler: Any album song you don't like.
• The Alcoholic: Any character who has ever consumed alcohol ever.
• All Deserts Have Cacti: Cacti exist.
• All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Ashkenazi Jews exist. Or maybe just people who speak Yiddish as a Second Language exist.
• All Love Is Unrequited: A single character has an unrequited crush on someone else. That "all" is just a trick to get the trope to the top of alphabetized lists.
• All Men Are Perverts: A single or a few male characters are perverted, even if other male characters within the same work aren't. That "all" is just a trick to get the trope to the top of alphabetized lists.
• All There in the Manual: A way to complain about supplemental material that should have been in the main work to make it better.
• All Women Are Lustful: A single or a few female characters are sex-crazed, even if other female characters from the same work aren’t. That “all” is just a trick to get the trope to the top of alphabetized lists.
• All Women Are Prudes: A single or a few female characters are repulsed by the thought of sex with a given male character, even if other female characters from the same work are not. That “all” is just a trick to get the trope to the top of alphabetized lists.
• The Aloner: Any character that is shown being alone at any given point.
• Alternate Character Reading: Sick of not being able to put your Alternate Character Interpretations on the main pages? Just link to this trope instead!
• Always Second Best: Always Someone Better but again.
• Amazonian Beauty:
  • Any strong, athletic and/or muscular female character you find attractive. Being explicitly acknowledged as such is completely optional.
  • Hell, you don't even need to bother with the attractive part - any female character with any visible muscle definition can qualify.
  • Actually, forget the female part - characters of Ambiguous Gender can also qualify for this trope if you think they look feminine enough.
• Ambiguous Gender: Anyone who is canonically nonbinary.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity:
  • You can list characters who are obviously meant to be read as trans here, as long as they've never outright said the exact sentence "I am 100% definitely trans for certain, no disputes allowed." Absolutely no other evidence is sufficient to consider a character unambiguously trans, no matter how unlikely it would be for it to be associated with a cis character.
  • You can also list characters who are obviously meant to be read as cis, as long as they've never said the exact sentence "I am 100% definitely cis for certain, no disputes allowed" and are at least a little bit gender-non-conforming. (In other words, Trans Audience Interpretation, but you are allowed to put it on objective pages.) Yes, denying a character's cisness has a higher standard of evidence than denying a character's transness. Don't worry about how that could possibly have happened and just treat it as an inevitable fact of existence.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The latest episode introduced a new mystery, which is totally going to stay ambiguous forever and not get solved before the season ends.
  • A trailer doesn't reveal a certain detail about the story.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • A character is shown or implied to be straight, but you ship them with someone of the same sex (or vice-versa). Alternatively, said character once says something to the effect of "all things being taken under consideration, I understand how (person of the same sex) might be considered attractive by some''.
  • This character is absolutely, positively, unambiguously bisexual, and particularly definitely not gay. If someone adds this trope to a character you think is gay, you need to Edit War over it immediately.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • You ship this character with someone of the same sex, even if nothing in canon hints that they might be homosexual.
  • This character is absolutely, positively, unambiguously gay, and particularly definitely not bisexual. If someone adds this trope to a character you think is bisexual, you need to Edit War over it immediately.
• Ambiguously Jewish:
  • You can list characters who are obviously meant to be unambiguously Jewish, as long as they've never outright uttered the exact sentence "I am 100% definitely a Jew for certain, no disputes allowed." Absolutely no other evidence is sufficient to consider a character unambiguously Jewish, no matter how unlikely it would be for it to be associated with a gentile character.
  • You can list characters who are obviously meant to be non-Jewish, as long as they've never outright uttered the exact sentence "I am 100% definitely a goy for certain, no disputes allowed" and live in New York City or have a German last name. If the writers are Jewish, even this is unnecessary. Yes, affirming a character's Jewishness has a higher standard of evidence than denying a character's Jewishness. Don't worry how that could have happened and just treat it as an inevitable fact of existence.
  • You are an anti-Semite. Therefore, list every character you don't like here. Even if they are shown eating ham, or are uncircumcised.^{Serious note}We at TV Tropes do not condone antisemitism or bigotry of any kind. However, you just know that someone on the alt-right has tried this.
  • List any Brainy Brunette that isn't 100% confirmed to be non-Jewish. No other evidence needed.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Any sentence that could be misinterpreted regardless of its syntax playing a role.
• Americans Are Cowboys: American cowboys exist.
• Anachronism Stew: A good place to chew out people for getting their history (or prehistory) wrong. Be sure to indicate your anger with lots of bolding, italicizing, and capitalization.
• Ancient Grome: Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome existed.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Any extremely bad, scary, and inescapable situation, regardless of how long it lasts until the character dies or is freed. As long as you can use the words "immobile" and "conscious" to describe a character's state, it qualifies.^note There have actually been potholes to this trope for a character who dies a few seconds later
  • A character screams a lot while being tortured.
  • A character is physically prevented from screaming while being tortured.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Mention trivia/a fun fact when writing an example, then link to this trope.
• And That's Terrible:
  • A character calls something terrible, bad, awful, etc.
  • A statement to use in your TVTropes explanations to emphasize how bad something is.
  • Complain about works that violated Show, Don't Tell on at least one occasion. That's a bad thing.
  • So Bad, It's Horrible, except you can add it to main pages.
• Animal Wrongs Group: You dislike the protagonist of a pro-animal rights work. Heck, it doesn't even have to be characters from a work of fiction. Feel free to pothole the names of real-life animal rights' groups you don't like to this trope.
• Animeland: Japan exists.
• Annoying Laugh: Any time a character laughs and you hate the character and/or their laugh.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Literally any feature in a game that makes it less frustrating than it would be without the feature. There are no further criteria like "breaking established rules" or anything like that.
  • The devs finally deleted the Scrappy Mechanic.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Jerk Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
  • A hero that fails to be one-hundred percent selfless.
• Anyone Can Die: One or two main characters die.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Any character who points out that Jesus does not entail aliens. We were just mistaken about the “aversions are not themselves notable” policy. You’ll also note this is exactly the same as Flat-Earth Atheist.
• Arc Words: If the trailers and promotional material for an upcoming work emphasize a certain line, list it as this trope. Don't bother cutting the example once the work is released and the words turns out to be mentioned only once or twice while having little to do with the actual plot.
• Arch-Enemy: A generic catch-all term for a villain, just like Big Bad.
• Argentina Is Nazi Land:
  • A villain, regardless of whether they are a Nazi or a stand-in for a Nazi, flees to Argentina to avoid arrest.
  • A work is set during or immediately after the Peron years. Because there is no difference in the slightest between different forms of right-wing extremism, they are all identical to Hitler.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • When you're Complaining About Shows You Don't Like, save the weakest complaint you have for the end, and pothole it to this trope.
  • When listing bad or unpleasant things, intentionally list the least problematic item last, and pothole it to this trope. Bonus points if there's nothing bad or unpleasant, and you pothole the least important item instead.
  • Anything that follows the structure of The Triple.
• Artifact Title: A work is titled after an item, usually one that is crucial to the plot.
• Artistic License: A place to complain about how the author is obviously a giant idiot deliberately spreading misinformation for malicious purposes, because they couldn't have possibly known that something about their work is unrealistic but included it anyway to make the story more entertaining. And don't forget to assume everyone knows exactly what kind of minute errors you're talking about by using large amounts of esoteric jargon related to your interests and italicizing, bolding, and capitalizing examples to express your anger against Rule of Fun, Rule of Cool, Rule of Funny, and any form of stylization because an imagination is a terrible thing to have and it is unacceptable for fiction to deviate from reality.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: Fridge Horror, but with an "A" word in the front of it so it ascends to the top of the trope list where it rightfully belongs.
• Ascended Meme: Any time a work references a meme, regardless of where the meme originated from.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Something bad happens to a character you don't like.
  • The hero defeats the villain in order to stop his evil plans. Because the villain is totally the victim in that scenario.
  • Take That, Scrappy!, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • Any extremely large creature.
  • A Giant Mook.
• Author Tract: Any work that includes any reference, no matter how minor, to the author's personal views. Bonus points if you happen to disagree with said views.
• Award-Bait Song: Any romantic song from a movie you don't like.
• Awesome Aussie: Any Australian person you like.
• Awesome McCoolname: You think this name sounds cool.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Any character with violent tendencies (even if they're just having a bad day).
  • A carbon copy of Insane Equals Violent.
• Back Stab:
  • Ignore that this is specifically about attacks from the back being more effective in a game, and use this for characters getting stabbed in the back as part of the story, including non-game examples.
  • The trope's name is obviously meant to be metaphorical, so use it to describe a betrayal.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Acting which is so bad that you have to say "bad" twice to get across how bad it is. Don't worry about the fact that "this acting is bad" is obviously YMMV and this trope isn't marked as such.
• Bad Boss: A boss who's mean to their employees, even if they're just mean and not straight-up evil.
• The Bad Guy Wins: A character you don't like comes out on top, even if they're a neutral or heroic character.
• Banana Republic: Latin America exists.
• Barsetshire: Rural England exists, even if the locations are actually real and not made up.
• Batman Gambit: A plan that involves trapping the villain in a specific place. Remember that this can happen at the spur of the moment.
• Battle Bolas: Bolas exist.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Any person, in any context, being unhelpful in any way, for any reason. What's a Police Procedural?
• Beat Panel: This is a two-word synonym for Beat, in case your keyboard's curly bracket keys are broken and you can't link to one-word articles.
• Become a Real Boy: Want to make someone human? Boom, there you go. Who needs characters to wish it for themselves?
• Bedlah Babe:
  • Complain about the historical inaccuracy of this trope at length. No one has ever heard any of the things you're about to say before.
  • It is vital that you describe the subject of this trope in a fetishistic and extremely Orientalist manner, preferably potholing to tropes like Ms. Fanservice even if the character doesn't fit the definition. After all, TV Tropes is a website where you are allowed to discuss your poorly-concealed kinks on the main pages, right?
• Bee People: Anthropomorphic bees regardless of whether they are eusocial or not.
• Berserk Button:
  • A character gets angry for legitimate and sympathetic reasons, like when the villain hurts their loved ones.
  • Something that slightly annoyed a character once.
  • A catchier and funnier name for Hair-Trigger Temper.
  • A list of dozens among dozens of things that annoyed a character, so also a catchier and funnier name for Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Best Beer Ever: Gush about beers you like. What do you mean this was renamed to Beergasm?
• Bestiality Is Depraved: You don't like the story's Interspecies Romance.
• Beware the Nice Ones: A character that has ever been nice to someone becomes aggressive.
• Beyond Redemption:
  • Moral Event Horizon, except you can put it on objective pages. If a character commits an act that you believe makes them permanently evil, pothole this trope.
  • A carbon copy of This Is Unforgivable!.
• Beyond the Impossible: Any time something impressive happens. Being impossible according to the setting's rules is not required; being really, really cool and hard to do is the sole criteria.
• Bifauxnen: A female character wears a suit. Actually looking androgynous is optional.
• Big Applesauce: New York City exists.
• Big Bad:
  • The most important antagonist in the show, even if most of the problems the main characters face have nothing to do with them. For example, the most frequently recurring jerk character in a Slice of Life show.
  • Something you can easily pothole whenever you name the bad guy of a work in an example, even if another trope works better in the example’s context or they aren’t the work’s Big Bad at all!
• Big Bad Wannabe: Complain about Big Bad characters you think are ineffectual, regardless of the author's intent.
• Big Beautiful Man: Any fat male character you like, even if he's not portrayed as being particularly attractive.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Any fat female character you like, even if she's not portrayed as being particularly attractive.
• Big Damn Heroes: Really badass heroes.
• Big Damn Movie: Film adaptations in general, including those that are still as lighthearted as the source material or adaptations of already-dramatic source material.
• The Big Easy: New Orleans exists.
• Big Good: Any Hero Protagonist.
• The Big Guy: Character who is physically larger than the other heroes.
• Big "NO!": Pothole to this trope whenever talking about something that you really didn't like.
• Bitch Alert: The introduction to a character that you hate.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: If a generous character does something mean or evil out of stress, rant on how they were a horrible person all along, regardless of the author's intent.
• Black and Nerdy: A black character shows any sign of intelligence. Unnervingly close to The Whitest Black Guy.
• Black Sheep: Part of a series isn't like the other installments — in other words, the black sheep of the series. It's not like the trope name is a preexisting term for something other than works.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Any time a character lies, even if it isn't incredibly blatant.
  • A work you don't like is described positively on its packaging and in its promotional material.
  • A character says something that’s untrue, even if it’s a false prediction or something they are unaware of.
  • Pothole here every time you lie while editing a page.
• Body Horror:
  • Any gory scene. Ignore that the horror has to not be the direct result of violence in order to qualify.
  • A character has the power to alter their body in any way (Rubber Man, Voluntary Shapeshifting, Sizeshifter, etc.) If it's not Played for Horror, you just have to describe it as more disturbing than it is. A bonus side-effect of this is that you can then add that as a Nightmare Fuel example, which makes the work look Darker and Edgier (and therefore better)!
• Bokukko: A tomboy. She doesn't even have to speak Japanese, let alone refer to herself with the boku pronoun.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Exactly the same as a Cliffhanger; it has two trope pages because we like it extra much.
• Boomerang Bigot: Someone who is prejudiced against Australians.
• Boss Arena Urgency:
  • The arena gets more dangerous as you damage the boss.
  • The arena steadily gets more dangerous, but you're supposed to survive for long enough.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Demonic Spiders, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Bottle Episode: Use this only when an episode takes place in a single location, even if it's expensive in other ways.
• Brain Bleach: Pothole to this for anything you find squicky, even if there's no in-universe brain bleach involved.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When listing a mixture of harmless things and unpleasant things, intentionally list the most unpleasant item last, and pothole it to this trope.
• Breakout Character:
  • Any well-liked character regardless of if their popularity has influenced the work's development later on. Yeah, this definition would be YMMV, but we don't have time to do a TRS thread.
  • Gush about Ascended Extras you like.
  • If you hate an Ascended Extra and think they ascended for the sake of pleasing fans who do like the character (regardless of whether they're a Base-Breaking Character), complain about both the character and the character's fans (in the latter case, be sure to call them Fan Dumb at least once).
• Britain Is Only London: London exists.
• Buffy Speak:
  • Pothole to this page every time you use "thing" and/or the suffix "-y" to describe something.
  • Complain about dialogue not being as sophisticated as you think it should be.
• Bullet Hell:
  • This term can be used interchangeably with Shoot 'Em Up. Even if the difficulty comes from the speed of the bullets rather than their patterns, it can still qualify.
  • Also, use this trope to refer to any time a large amount of bullets are fired in any media. It's not like we have another trope for that.
• Bulungi: Sub-Saharan Africa exists. This is completely redundant to Darkest Africa.
• Bury Your Gays: Any LGBT character who dies even if Anyone Can Die on the show or if there're plenty other LGBT characters who survive.
• The Bus Came Back: Any time a character who hasn't made an appearance in a while returns, even if they were never Put on a Bus.
• But Not Too Black: Ignore that this is about In-Universe colorism, and just list every black character whose skin is lighter than Wesley Snipes'.
• But Not Too Gay: There is a gay character, but he has one non-stereotypically gay interest (like football).
• Butt-Monkey: This trope is purely comedic. If there's an example about a character who's a frequent target of abuse, but said abuse isn't Played for Laughs, it's misuse. If anyone told you there's a purely comedic subtrope, but that this isn't purely comedic itself, they're lying.
• But Wait, There's More!: Marks the point where a list or explanation you are writing becomes long.
• But Your Wings Are Beautiful: Winged Humanoids that are pretty. And never mind that it was renamed to Freakiness Shame.
• Buxom Beauty Standard:
  • Gush about busty characters you think are attractive. It's not like this is exactly the type of misuse that got it renamed from Buxom Is Better.
  • Breasts exist.
• Call-Back: Any reference or similarity to an earlier event regardless of its impact on the story.
• Camp Gay:
  • flamboyant gay people exist.
  • Be sure to automatically list this as a trope for any Campy man in any work released before 1995 regardless of their actual sexuality.
  • Pothole to this trope instead of Camp. You know, because campiness and gayness are inextricably intertwined with one another.
• The Capital of Brazil Is Buenos Aires:
  • Brazil exists, and is portrayed correctly.
  • A character makes a geography mistake.
• Captain Ersatz: Like Expy, except it starts with the word "Captain" and ends with "rsatz" instead of "xpy." Since they're the same, the full name of the trope is technically "Captain Ersatz/Expy", so make sure to always list it that way.
• Captain Obvious:
  • Pothole to this page when you make an obvious statement as a joke.
  • If you can't be arsed to add proper context to a trope, just say something along the lines of "obviously this trope is present" and pothole it to this trope.
• Car Ride Games: Go-karting and similar activities.
• The Casanova: Lemon Stu, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Cast Full of Gay: One or two characters are homosexual.
• Casting Gag: Just like Actor Allusion, make flimsy connections between two roles played by the same actor even if it's to say that they play a different kind of character. For instance, the actress was seen buying flowers in one short movie scene in 1978. In a later film shot in 2005, her next-door neighbour was named Rose!
• Category Traitor: A replacement for the removed Hypocritical Fandom, except you can put it on creator pages for when someone likes a work that conflicts with their own fictional works.
• Cessation of Existence: People cease to exist completely when they die, corpse and all. The main point of the trope is what happens to a person's body, not their soul or consciousness, after death.
• Character Shilling: Someone saying something positive about a character you don't like.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: A video game mocks or punishes you for using its built-in cheat codes.
• Cherry Blossom Girl: Any character named Sakura, even if her name isn't a Meaningful Name. It's not like the trope had to be renamed due to misuse or anything.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: A recurring character is absent from the newest episode.
• Church of Happyology:
  • Any religion you don't like. Especially if it's a Real Life religion.
  • This wiki's mandatory code for the real-world Church of Sci***ogy, because we're scared of saying their actual real name for some reason.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Any character who is even remotely weird or quirky. Can sometimes be interchangeable with The Ditz.
• Clueless Aesop: Any poorly-handled message, even if the problems were caused by plain bad writing rather than the restrictions of the work's medium or target audience.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Any work with more than one swear, even if it's just two with a significant amount of time between them.
• Colon Cancer: A title contains a single colon due to being split into two parts. There is no requirement for the amount of colons to be excessive.
• Combos:
  • A combo is a sequence of hits where, if the first hit connects, the target cannot act in any capacity until it is over. A combo is also any other thing any game has ever called a combo, whether it has anything to do with the previous sentence or not.
  • Someone orders a meal combo.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: The sequel to Panty Shot.
• Comically Missing the Point: Pothole to this trope to accuse real-life people of being too stupid to understand something. It's not like it was renamed because of this issue.
• Commie Land: Communist countries, current or former, exist.
• Common Mary Sue Traits: Any character who has more than two of these is automatically a Mary Sue and therefore bad. Remember to remind us of their badness at every chance you get.
• Continuity Snarl:
  • Complain about plot points that are contradicted by earlier installments in the series, even if they happen in a non-canon Spin-Off or Alternate Continuity.
  • Any continuity error, no matter how minor. It's not like we have Series Continuity Error for those.
  • A synonym to Retcon.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character:
  • The protagonist of a sequel is slightly different than the hero of the previous installment.
  • The protagonist of a sequel is not the hero of the previous installment.
• Cool Old Guy: Any old man you like.
• Cool Old Lady: Any old woman you like.
• Corny Nebraska: Nebraska exists.
• Cosmic Horror Story: Any work where a monster/alien tries to destroy the world. Whether the entity is an Eldritch Abomination or the heroes can defeat the threat for good is irrelevant.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Idiot Plot, but it goes on the main page.
• Country Matters: Pothole this every time you use the c-word, either when you're insulting a character that you don't like, or when a vagina is shown on screen.
• Countrystan: Central Asia exists.
• The Cover Changes the Gender: A song is originally sung by a singer of one gender. Later, it gets a cover by a singer of the other gender, but no lyrics need to be changed because the original song did not use gendered words.
• Crack is Cheaper: Expensive items exist.
• Crapsaccharine World: Any society that has a serious problem, regardless of whether it is systemic or even a monstrous injustice at all.
• Crapsack World:
  • Bad things happen sometimes, therefore clearly this whole fictional world must suck! A work can qualify for this trope even if we only see bad stuff happening to one person or a small group of people, and nothing indicates that the whole population of the world is as miserable as them.
  • Sneak in Complaining About Shows You Don't Like by saying that since the show sucks, clearly it would suck to live in that show's world.
• Cringe Comedy: A work is so bad, it makes you cringe.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: A cooler name for Messianic Archetype.
• The Cutie: Like Moe, except it's not YMMV. Just list any character you personally think is cute, and gush about how much you love them.
• Darkest Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa exists. This is completely redundant to Bulungi.
• Darkest Hour: Any moment where the hero feels defeated. Synonymous with Heroic BSoD.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A character who isn't a villain wears a black shirt. All black t-shirts are a symbol of darkness, and not just a common article of clothing that anyone can wear.
• Dark World: Any world filled with darkness, especially if it's called a dark world in the work. Since the trope name is basic English that can't possibly mean anything else, the idea that it's a reference to something more specific than that is absurd.
• Deadpan Snarker: A character makes one or two snarky comments. The "deadpan" part is optional.
• Deconstruction:
  • The highest badge of honour a work can earn, awarded for being dark and cynical and therefore awesome. Look for any excuse to describe your favourite show as one so that everyone will know how intelligent and sophisticated it is!
  • A work features a demolition crew.
  • A work features the Deconstructivism movement of postmodern architecture.
• Deep South: The southern United States exist.
• Defog of War: This is what we call de Fog of War mechanic in video games. It's a pun, see? No game has ever contained any mechanic involving clearing up a bunch of fog all in one go, so there's no need for us to use this title for such a thing.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • Intentionally word something in a redundant way, then pothole your redundant wording to this trope, using a pothole.
  • Intentionally word something in a redundant way, then pothole your redundant wording to this trope, using a pothole.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • Intentionally word something in a redundant way, then pothole your redundant wording to this trope, using a pothole.
  • Intentionally word something in a redundant way, then pothole your redundant wording to this trope, using a pothole.
• Deus ex Machina: You don't like how a situation was solved.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Any instance when a video game gives attention to detail, even if it's for a situation that's not unlikely for the player to run into.
  • A synonym of Easter Egg.
  • You really like a new feature the developer thought to add, and feel the need to gush about it. Is it something players are likely to encounter? Doesn't matter; add it anyway.
  • A game doesn't break whenever you do something slightly off the beaten track. Because that's definitely this trope and not just basic QA work.
• Dirty Old Man: An elderly character is sexually attracted to someone.
• Disco Dan: A character who enjoys disco music.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Any time a character you like is punished, even if they did something legitimately dangerous and illegal. It's completely up to your personal judgment if it fits this trope or not.
• Distinct Double Album: Any double album. Whether or not there are any distinctive differences between the two discs is irrelevant.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: This is for when a situation looks or sounds sexual when it really isn't. Nobody's disputing that. But all those examples involving situations that look or sound inappropriate in a non-sexual way? They're wrong.
• Don't Explain the Joke:
  • Pothole to this trope whenever you're explaining a joke.
  • Someone explains a joke, even if nobody cares.
• Doofy Dodo: Dodos existed.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom:
  • Any time the word "doom" is used in a work.
  • Pothole to this trope any time you use the word "doom" as well.
• Double Standard: Now that Hypocritical Fandom has been cut for being flamebait, you should use this to complain about a work's fandom being hypocritical. As an added bonus, it's not tagged as YMMV, so you can put it on the main page if you want to.
• Downer Ending:
  • Use this instead of Bittersweet Ending, either to complain about how much you hated the ending, or to make it sound Darker and Edgier (and therefore cooler) than it is.
  • An episode ends with a dramatic Cliffhanger, even if the next episode sets everything right. Because that totally counts as an "ending".
  • When the ending was intended as a Happy Ending, but people found it sad. It's not like we have Esoteric Happy Ending for those.
  • An ending that was intended as happy, but some oversight on the writer's part means it's not actually that great for everyone.
  • A character you don't like doesn't die.
  • Any ending you don't like.
• Dramatic Irony: Irony gets Played for Drama. There's no way that a name like that could have a more specific meaning.
• Dramedy: This is a cool genre, so if possible, you definitely want to shoehorn your favorite works in there for extra Coolness Points. All you have to do is point out one serious moment and one funny moment. Actually belonging to the genres of comedy and drama is optional.
• The Dreaded: In video games, use this for characters you dread having to fight against, such as That One Boss, an Early-Bird Boss, or a Wake-Up Call Boss. Bonus points if it's a multiplayer game so you can essentially accuse a character of being a High-Tier Scrappy on the objective tropes list.
• Dreadful Musician: Any musician you don't like.
• Dream Team: Any collaboration.
• Drinking Game: Sinkhole here whenever you complain about something that happens a lot in a work.
• The Driver: Anyone who drives.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • Complain about the way a character you like died even if the scene was climactic and impactful on the story.
  • Someone dies by having something fall on them, even if it's not anticlimactic.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: You and/or other fans think a male character looks feminine.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • Pothole to this page when you want to complain about jokes you found offensive or in poor taste. Disregard the In-Universe Examples Only warning on the page.
  • Any attempt at Black Comedy that you didn't like. If a show you hate has plenty of dark jokes, feel free to accuse every single one of them of this trope.
  • Anything you don't find funny, even if it isn't Black Comedy.
  • This is not a trope at all. It's actually the Signing-Off Catchphrase that must be used at the end of every Dethroning Moment of Suck example regarding any usage of Black Comedy Rape.
• Dude, Not Ironic:
  • Misusing irony. Having a character point it out is optional.
  • If a troper misuses irony, add this as a sub-bullet.
• Dull Surprise: Complain about bad acting.
• Dumbass Has a Point: An unintelligent character gives a valid argument that the author didn't intend to be taken at face value.

E-M

• Eagleland:
  • The United States exists.
  • An American portrays their country overly positively or overly negatively. Ignore that this is specifically for portrayals of the US from outside.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: An older installment in the series has mild differences compared to later installments. Bonus points if it's something that was inevitable (the first game in a video game series has worse graphics because it's on 15-year-old hardware) or subjective (the earlier installments were better or worse).
• Ear Worm:
  • Use this to gush about music you like, and as with Awesome Music, forget about context. It's not like this trope's In-Universe Examples Only status is related to a Zero-Context Example problem with out-of-universe examples.
  • On top of gushing about music you like, you can also use this to complain about music you found annoying. The example being in-universe is optional.
• Easier Than Easy: Any video game that is too easy for you, regardless of its difficulty options. You should use this to get away with complaining about games being too easy on objective trope pages.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Complain about villain redemptions you don't like.
  • Complain about a hero not being constantly condemned for doing something you didn't approve of.
• Easily Swayed Population: People believe the Villain with Good Publicity.
• Easy Evangelism: A character is convinced by hard evidence.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • A catch-all term for any big, scary monster!
  • Any life form that's remotely weird, such as a Portuguese man o' war.^note There used to be a real life subpage for the trope, which featured exaggerated descriptions of things that are merely unusual, including Portuguese man o' wars. Near the end of its life, it also featured the notice "No listing of individual persons in this section, no matter how unattractive you may find them." Since the trope is by definition impossible in real life, the real life subpage was added to the Permanent Red Link Club and the trope was added to the No Real Life Examples, Please! index.
• Eldritch Location: A scary and spooky place.
• Emphasize EVERYTHING: It is very important that you seriously abuse both WIKI MARKUP and THE READER'S EYEBALLS by emphasizing the most IMPORTANT or even unimportant parts of every example you write. What do you mean this isn't an Administrivia page!?
• Endearingly Dorky: Ignore that this is about In-Universe reactions to dorkiness, and use this to gush about characters you think are cute.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: Someone helps others just to improve self-esteem and attain self-actualization.
• Epic Fail: Want to complain about something you don't like? Just pothole it to this page. Don't care that it violates the In-Universe Examples Only warning on the page.
• Epic Rocking: Really awesome music.
• Eskimo Land: The Inuit exist.
• Ethereal White Dress: Any woman who wears a white dress. It's not like the trope had to be renamed because of misuse.
• Even Evil Has Standards
  • Committing something evil isn't in their interest, so they won't do it.
  • A villain or morally grey character refuses to do something that isn't evil in the slightest bit.
  • The villain commits an act of kindness. Whether it's genuine or a facade is irrelevant.
  • A villain helps save the world because they'd die if they refused.
• Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Lethal Chef but more specific.
• Everyone Has Standards
  • A character expresses discomfort with something that makes perfect sense for them to be uncomfortable about.
  • Something that you really don't like happens in a work and a character makes a single, maybe non-serious comment about it. Thus, this is the perfect opportunity to basically write "This is so dumb, even the characters think so!"
  • A mild example of a Child Hater refuses to blow up an orphanage, and other similar scenarios.
• Everyone Is Bi: One or two characters are bisexual.
• Everything is Big in Texas: Texas exists.
• Everything's Better with X: Every trope with this format of title means essentially the same thing:
  • X makes things better in-universe, so if X causes a problem or is a villain or exists without particularly improving the protagonists' lot, list it as an inversion or aversion. Doesn't matter which, those are the same anyway.
  • The story contains X, so list it as a straight example to gush about the story or a subversion/inversion to bash it.
  • The story doesn't contain X, so list it as an inversion to gush or a double subversion to bash.
• Everytown, America: Small towns in the United States exist.
• Evil All Along: If a heroic character does something mean or evil out of stress, rant on how they were a horrible person all along, regardless of the author's intent.
• Eviler than Thou: Villain A is more evil than Villain B. Whether or not Villain A defeats Villain B to show that Villain A is the bigger threat is irrelevant.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: A work's title gives some information about its contents. Saying that JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is about a character nicknamed JoJo who has an adventure that is bizarre is descriptive enough to qualify^note That was an actual example on that page, by the way. It was only deleted after this trope was added to this page.
• Excuse Plot:
  • Any relatively simplistic plot, even if it's used as more than justification for the gameplay or action onscreen and it receives focus.
  • Any plots or premises you dislike for the content that comes out them (like the gameplay, the fight scenes, or the illustrations).
  • Cliché Storm but it's on the main page.
  • Complain about a plot you don't like. Read this as "Excuse for a Plot".
• Expy: This character is kind of like this character, and we'll pretend it's not a coincidence. Bonus points if the "copied" character is extremely obscure, or is several characters — after all, it's totally possible and not contradictory for one character to be a blatant reimagining of several distinct other characters simultaneously. Since this is the same as Captain Ersatz, make sure to list it by its full name of "Expy/Captain Ersatz".
• Eyepatch of Power: A character you like that wears an eyepatch.
• Facepalm: Pothole to this trope whenever you're talking about something you dislike or think is stupid.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Narm, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Failure Hero:
  • A hero screws up once or twice.
  • Anti-Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
• False Utopia:
  • Any society that is realistically flawed, and its flaws are revealed gradually over the course of the narrative. Even if it's legitimately still a good society, or if it was never pretending to be a utopia to begin with.
• Familiar: Something that reminds you of something else.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Any time a character suffers a horrifying death, regardless of the target audience of the work.
• Fan Disservice:
  • Any fanservice that doesn't match up with your own sexual orientation. For example, if you're a straight male, any Mr. Fanservice is this.
  • Any time a character you don't think is sexually attractive is seen without a shirt, even in a non-sexual context.
• Fantastic Racism: Instances of racism you think are actually pretty cool.
• Far East: Any country east of Afghanistan is mentioned in any capacity. Ignore that this is specifically for mixed depictions of Japan and China.
• Fat Bastard: Any fat character that you don't like.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Similar to And I Must Scream above, any scary, painful, and unpleasant situation. It's completely up to you to decide if a character would be better off dead.
  • Any punishment, no matter how minor, that doesn't kill the victim. Because people would rather off themselves than peel those potatoes.
• Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Any fat man from the Southern United States who wears white. Ignore that this is a subtrope of Villain in a White Suit; being a villain is optional.
• Faux Action Girl: Any female character you don't like that lost a fight once.
• Feminist Fantasy: Any work that contains at least one Action Girl. Because any woman who isn't a Damsel in Distress means that the writer is being progressive, even if she's mostly used for Fanservice and/or the story is mostly focused on a male protagonist.
• Feral Villain:
  • A sapient villain who acts in a savagely vicious manner.
  • An antagonist who is clearly a nonsapient animal acts nonsapient.
• Fiery Redhead:
  • Red hair exists.
  • This red-headed person got angry once.
• Five-Man Band:
  • Any group of people, even if it's not five people, can be shoehorned here. You can also pick people who never interact or are not even aware of each other's existence. If two of the roles are duplicated, you add extra tropes like Tagalong Kid and Team Pet or the characterization is ignored for the role (for example, putting a male character in the role of The Chick, which isn't even a trope any more), don't fret. You're doing it right!
  • Since the trope description uses a rock band as an analogy, that means that every band ever is an example, no matter how many members it has or whether they fit the roles.
  • No matter what, please ignore the Example Indentation in Trope Lists and put the tropes in sub-bullets beneath the main Five Man Band entry.
• Flanderization:
  • Complain about your favorite character being changed in a way you don't like.
  • A synonym for Took a Level in Jerkass.
• Flat Character: A character you don't like.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Any character who points out that Jesus does not entail aliens. We were just mistaken about the “aversions are not themselves notable” policy. You will also see that this is exactly the same as Arbitrary Skepticism.
• Flat "What":
  • Pothole to this trope whenever you're talking about something confusing or weird (which includes insulting a work's creator for making something so awful that you can't understand why they would make it).
  • The word "what" as a whole, said in any tone of voice.
• Flyover Country: The central United States exist.
• Foe Romance Subtext: The hero and the villain have one moment of Belligerent Sexual Tension that is Played for Laughs and never brought up again.
• Foil: Two characters who are kind of similar but also a bit different, regardless if they even interacted.
• Forced to Watch: Holding someone's eyes open and forcing them to watch something, like propaganda or brainwashing.
• For Great Justice: Any time the word "justice" is mentioned, regardless of context.
• Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Any plant growth or infestation that's of warm colors, it doesn't have to do with the season following summer!
• Four Is Death: This doesn't have to be an intentional reference to the superstition. Anytime there's an association between the number 4 and something bad, it's an example, no matter how tenuous. Even if the work is made in the West and has no East Asian influence!
  • A team of four bad guys.
  • Something bad coincidentally happens four times.
  • Something bad happens to the fourth character we see.
  • Someone dies in the fourth episode of a show. Bonus points if people die in most episodes anyway, so there's nothing else that's special about this death.
  • You don't like the fourth installment of a series.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Like Five-Man Band, any group of people can qualify as this, no matter how many people there are. So long as each member has acted kinda like a certain temperament once, they can qualify. Feel free to wage an Edit War with other fans over which character falls into which role, because it's not like this is a sign that they fall into none of them.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Any time a bad guy happens to glance vaguely in the direction of the camera.
• Freestate Amsterdam: Amsterdam exists.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse:
  • You don't like a character's Freudian Excuse. In other words; Unintentionally Unsympathetic, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • A villain has a Freudian Excuse but is portrayed as unsympathetic. No one has to call them out for their excuses in the story!
• Freudian Trio: There are three characters, whose traits differ to some extent.
• Friend to All Living Things: Interchangeable with Animal Lover and/or Nature Lover.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • When you are complaining about something you don't like, pothole to this page to emphasize just how many flaws there are with that thing.
  • If you just finished complaining about something and are about to start complaining about something else, throw in a pothole to this trope so people will know just how much worse the second thing is compared to the first.
• The Fundamentalist:
  • You hate the protagonist of a work that pushes an opinion you don't like.
  • A religious person is very devout, and you hate them, particularly if it's because of their strongly held religious beliefs. Proceed to complain about them, especially if they're a real person.
• Fun with Acronyms: Initialisms exist. The full name being clearly shoehorned for the purpose of the initialism being interesting is not a requirement, nor for that matter is the initialism being interesting.
• Gainax Ending:
  • Any ending you found confusing or shocking. Even if it made perfect sense in the context of the story, the fact that you were confused/shocked by it is enough to qualify it for this trope.
  • Any ending you don't like.
• Gambit Roulette: Complain about plans you don't like.
• Game Mod: Use this to list every mod a video game has that you think is cool. It's kinda like Fanfic Recs that way, but it goes on the main page because reasons.
• Gamer Chick: Any girl who has ever played a video game.
• Gaslighting: A synonym of "lying". Any time a character isn't 100% honest, it's gaslighting. Feel free to bring this misuse outside of TV Tropes, and accuse people of gaslighting you whenever they tell a lie!
• Gasshole: Flatulence exists.
• Gay Paree: Paris exists.
• Gender-Blender Name: Do not, under any circumstances, do any research on a name to determine whether it is male or female. If a name ends in O, it must be masculine, and if it ends in A, it must be feminine. So be sure to Sink Hole Consuelo Vanderbilt’s first name to this trope; it’s not like anyone here speaks Spanish. Furthermore, you may have heard that Japanese names that lack suffixes are unisex. This is a total lie. There is a male Sakura in anime? Add it immediately!
• Generic Doomsday Villain:
  • A villain you dislike and find lame. Whether they have a clear personality and goal is irrelevant.
  • Any simplistic villain.
• The Generic Guy: Characters you hate for being more normal than everyone else in a work.
• Genre Blindness: Any character who doesn't magically know the work's genre and common tropes associated with it. Obviously, if a car breaks down in the middle of the woods at night, the first thing any remotely sane and intelligent person would think is "I must be in a horror movie. I'd better stay in the car with the lights on and the doors locked until morning."
• Genre-Busting:
  • Use this to downplay a work you like being in a genre you normally don't like.
  • A work you think is too cool to be labelled anything, even if the labels are accurate.
• Genre Deconstruction: Any work you like that, however briefly, touches on the consequences of its genre's tropes. Use this as a jumping-off point to talk about how deep and intelligent this work is, and be sure to paint everything else in its genre as mindless, lowbrow shlock so it looks even better by comparison!
• Genre Savvy: A character does something smart (or uses common sense).
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • Ignore that Demographically Inappropriate Humour exists. Those two pages are just synonyms, and this is the preferred Pot Hole because the name is super catchy. There's no need to prove that your example violates the standards a censor board sets for the work's rating, because the more examples your favorite show has here, the edgier, more sophisticated and better it is.
  • Any instance of swearing, fanservice, or violence, regardless of blatantness or the show's target audience/rating. If a character manages to clearly say "asshole" in your show, it's totally because the censors failed to notice the word, and not because they knew it was there but decided it was acceptable given the show's rating.
  • A work published on the internet has something inappropriate in it. Ignore the fact that most of the Internet has no Radar watching it for inappropriate content.
  • Any joke that was attempted on Animaniacs. Don't mind that Parental Bonus or that other thing that doesn't exist are things; the show itself states it "made the censors cry", therefore there was no plausible way the censors simply decided to leave in the oh-so subtle "Finger Prince" joke. The same goes for any show you grew up with and now understand the jokes.
  • A moment that was acceptable in its country of release was removed by another country's censors. This is an obvious case of the original censor screwing up rather than those standards being different in different countries.
  • Any Double Entendre.
  • Any time something is implied rather than stated outright.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
  • Any boss that is even remotely unexpected, especially if it's an Eldritch Abomination or just looks unusual compared to other bosses in the game.
  • A strange-looking boss, even if it's completely expected.
• GIS Syndrome: Complaining About Shows You Don't Like because they do this.
• Gilligan Cut: Any comedic cut.
• Girls with Guns: A trope that describes a girl that uses guns. Ignore the description, it's not a genre: so long as one female character uses firearms, it qualifies for the trope, even if said girl is not the main character or her getting into gunfights isn't the main focus of the work.
• Girly Girl:
  • If a girl wears a skirt/dress even once (even if there's no other choice), is seen near the color pink, has anyone even slightly more Tomboyish around her, or has long hair, she is the girliest girl to ever girl a girl.
  • Be sure to mention that she's feminine, nice, kind, or gentle. These are all only related to being feminine. Tomboys are never tender, and girly girls are never mean or unpleasant.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: A Girly Girl wore pants once.
• Glorious Mother Russia: Russia (or the Soviet Union) exists.
• Gonk: Any character you personally find to be ugly-looking, regardless of whether everyone else in the show is drawn in a similar manner to them or not.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: A character punches any other character at any time for any reason.
• Good Parents: Any parents that aren't abusive can have this trope added to their character sheet to pad it out.
• Grammar Correction Gag: Any time anyone (including the audience) criticizes anyone (including the author) for making spelling mistakes.
• Grossout Show: Complain about shows you dislike for having at least some unpleasant visuals.
• Grotesque Gallery: Any series with character designs you find to be ugly or dislike.
• Guide Dang It!: Every puzzle or game mechanic you couldn't figure out on your own. There's no way the game actually gave you enough hints to figure them out yourself and you just weren't intelligent enough to notice them.
• Hand Wave: An explanation you don't like.
• Harder Than Hard: Any video game (or part of one) that is too hard for you, regardless of its difficulty options. You should use this to get away with complaining about games being too hard on objective trope pages.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Any time a non-villainous character does something morally-questionable. Clearly, the author wants us to copy every single thing the heroes do.
• Hated by All:
  • Any character who's disliked by one or more other characters.
  • The Scrappy, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • Love to Hate, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • So Bad, It's Horrible, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Hate Sink:
  • Any character you despise, regardless of whether the work actually wants us to hate them or like them.
  • Literally any antagonist.
  • The Scrappy, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • Love to Hate, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • Complete Monster, except you can put it on objective pages, the character doesn't need to be exceptionally heinous, and there's no approval process.
  • A character is hated by multiple characters In-Universe. Even if the character isn't loathsome in the slightest.
  • Jerk Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
• Have a Gay Old Time: If 4chan or Encyclopaedia Dramatica or any other troll site innovates an offensive slang term, or an innocuous word is used sexually in obscure Internet erotica and never in real life, add the example. Clearly, the original definitions have gone the way of the dodo.
• Have a Nice Death: Somebody says "Have a nice death!" as a Pre or Post-Mortem One-Liner.
• Hell Is That Noise: Since Most Annoying Sound is specifically about video games and toys, use this trope to complain about annoying sounds in other media.
• Here We Go Again!: A work you dislike gets a sequel.
• Hero Killer: A character who kills a hero.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: A hero that you think isn't very heroic.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Non-villainous character has a dog.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: When the hero cracks jokes about how much they suck. Perfect Pothole Magnet for your Troper page!
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: A straight couple that lives together.
• Hidden Depths: Use this to gush about characters you like.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Any time a villain is revealed to be behind or takes the place of another villain.
• Hilarity Ensues:
  • Funny things happen. No, that isn't the same thing as Rule of Funny or Funny Moments.
  • An action by a character has consequences on the plot.
• Holiday in Cambodia:
  • Southeast Asia exists.
  • Using this trope for any country other than Cambodia is misuse. After all, it's in the title.
• Holier Than Thou: You dislike the protagonist of a work that pushes an opinion you don't like, but don't hate them enough to accuse them of being The Fundamentalist.
• Hollywood Atheist:
  • You dislike the protagonist of a pro-atheism work. It doesn't have to be a fictional work, either. Real people who are vocally supportive of atheism are also fair game for criticism if you use this trope.
  • Complain about atheists you don't like, especially if they're a real person.
  • Contrariwise, if you are an atheist, use this trope to complain about any atheist character in any work made by anyone who believes in God, even if the character isn’t portrayed as unreasonable or selfish.
• Hollywood California: California exists. Alternatively, Hollywood in particular exists, even though that would result in this trope being named "Hollywood Hollywood".
• Hollywood New England: New England exists. Alternatively, the story takes place in a New England town that happens to be named "Hollywood".
• Homing Lasers: Straight laser beams that the user tracks their intended targets with.
• Horror Comedy:
  • A Black Comedy in which you can feasibly finagle several examples of dark humor into being "scary". See Nightmare Fuel for more information.
  • A series which has both scary moments and is comedic, AKA 95 percent of all series in existence.
  • Use this to sneak Narm in horror onto objective pages.
• Hula and Luaus:
  • Hawaii exists.
  • The name is literal and refers to hula and/or luaus appearing in a work, regardless of whether anything depicted is stereotypically Hawaiian.
• Humans Are Bastards:
  • Exactly the same as Humans Are the Real Monsters (see below) but this name is cooler because it has a swear in it.
  • The humans on the side the audience roots for fail to be morally perfect.
  • A human does something evil, period.
  • While we're on the subject, feel free to talk about this trope as if it were obviously objectively true in real life, because there's no way calling real people "bastards" could possibly conflict with the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement.
  • A trope where you can complain about humans you don't like. Bonus points if most of the things that make the humans in question "bastards" are exaggerations at best and nonsense you made up to justify your hatred of them at worst.
  • A character In-Universe believes this to be the case. It's not like there are other tropes that cover that.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters:
  • Any human character behaves maliciously towards a non-human character.
  • A work with sapient non-human characters has at least one unsympathetic human character.
  • While we're on the subject, feel free to use this trope interchangeably with Humans Are Bastards (see above). Most people won't know the difference, and this name is better because it doesn't have a swear in it.
  • A character In-Universe believes this to be the case. It's not like there are other tropes that cover that.
• Hypocrite:
  • Accuse characters you don't like of being poorly-written and having inconsistent motivations. And if you hate the work badly enough, accuse the creator of being a hypocrite as well (after all, work creators are totally exempt from the No Real Life Examples, Please! rule).
  • Since Hypocritical Fandom has been cut, you should put Hypocrite on YMMV pages in order to write examples that would have previously been listed under Hypocritical Fandom.
    • One fandom likes an aspect of a work, while another fandom dislikes it. In other words; a Broken Base you don't like, or a Base-Breaking Character you don't like.
    • You hate a work, so you should demonize the fandoms by making up hypocrisies that few fans would make.
    • A single fan dislikes a work for a hypocritical reason.
    • You saw fans complain about one installment for one reason while complaining about another installment for the opposite reason. Obviously, someone who couldn't care less about a work they found too dark wants something sickeningly happy where nothing bad happens and nobody is ever sad, or else they're a hypocrite.
    • Friendly Fandoms between two works with conflicting themes. For instance, any fan of Berserk must refrain from liking Slice of Life works, otherwise they'd be a hypocrite.
    • Someone likes a work that conflicts with their own fictional works.
• Hypocrite Has a Point:
  • A character gives a hypocritical, yet valid argument that the author didn't intend to be taken at face value.
  • Since Hypocritical Fandom was cut, feel free to write hypocritical arguments on a work that you reluctantly agree with. Since this is subjective, you should put this trope on the YMMV page.
• Hypocritical Humor: You personally think a humorous statement a character made is hypocritical to how they have acted in the past.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: The trope name is literal, so a character being right-handed counts.
• I Am Very British: Someone is stereotypically British. Being either a Fake Brit or a real Brit whose real accent isn't Received Pronunciation is optional, as is the use of a Received Pronunciation accent (or an imitation thereof).
• Idiot Ball:
  • What an Idiot!, but it goes on the main page.
  • Any time a character does something idiotic. No matter if it's consistent with their character traits, flaws, or normal level of intelligence.
  • There is no such thing as Phlebotinum-Induced Stupidity. Anything that functions in the manner described by this nonexistent trope is, in fact, "a literal Idiot Ball". Especially if it's round, but even if it isn't.
  • Idiot Plot, but it allows examples.
• Idiot Hero: A main character you don't like who sometimes fails to instantly figure out the best plan of action.
• I'm a Humanitarian:
  • A character cooks and serves a human being as if they were animal flesh. It doesn't matter if they eat humans regularly or if humans are their primary source of food. You will notice that this is the exact same definition as To Serve Man, so feel free to use them interchangeably.
  • A character eats humanoids like Rubber Forehead Aliens who are very obviously played by humans. It doesn't matter if those humanoids aren't considered human or are a kind of livestock in-universe.
  • A character follows the ideology of humanitarianism.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: The word "impossibly" is being used figuratively for the sake of exaggeration, so this trope applies to any extremely cool outfit.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Complain about outfits you don't like. In other words, WTH, Costuming Department? but you can put it on objective pages.
• In the Back: Ignore that this is about characters getting hit from behind as part of the plot, and use this for games where attacking from behind deals bonus damage.
• Incest Subtext: Whenever any siblings don't utterly hate each other. Heck, you can use it even if they do utterly hate each other. Make sure to make your examples as fetishistic and advertiser-unfriendly as possible or they don't count.
• Inconsistent Spelling: A name is spelled differently from how you expect it to be spelled, even if the spelling is consistent in the work.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness:
  • Any hero, or simply any nice person you love.
  • Any hero who achieves the Heroes' Frontier Step, even if said hero later retires and becomes a simple Nice Guy.
  • Invert this trope to make Complete Monster, except it's allowed on objective pages.
  • Add it to the hero at anytime, even if the story hasn't ended yet, with said ending otherwise making sure that the hero will be incorruptible after all.
• Informed Attribute: Any character that you don't like whose competence is described as anything other than completely nonexistent.
• Informed Judaism: Any Jewish character who isn't Hasidic. Because as we all know, secular Jews do not exist.
• Informed Species:
  • A place to complain about the designs of stylized or anthropomorphic animals (especially those in animated works), because everyone knows it is unacceptable for works of fiction to deviate from reality.
  • Non-traditional depictions of mythical creatures, because there is only one correct way to imagine imaginary beings. Our Monsters Are Different? What's that?
• Injun Country: Native Americans exist.
• In Name Only: Use this to complain about an adaptation you don't like of a work you like, regardless of how faithful it is to the source material. Suggesting it doesn't deserve to be linked to the beloved source material is the highest Medal of Dishonor a hated adaptation can get.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Any argument that you think makes no sense, regardless of author intention. This is great for agenda-based editing, since you can just go to the page of a political work you disagree with and pothole anything that bothers you to this page.
  • If an argument you dislike contains Logical Fallacies, link to this trope instead to further emphasize your dislike, even if the fallacies aren't overly ridiculous.
• Interactive Narrator: A character, sometimes part of the story proper and sometimes completely external to it, who acts either as the storyteller or as a framing device. Don't worry about that "interactive" word, it's just there to make the title a WikiWord because there was a devastating curly bracket shortage in the late 00s.
• Invincible Hero:
  • God-Mode Sue, but you can put it on the main page.
  • Any overpowered hero. Never mind that they have their fair share of defeats.
  • A heroic character in a fighting game that's also a High-Tier Scrappy, even if they're only strong because the developers didn't balance them properly.
• Invincible Villain:
  • God-Mode Sue and/or Villain Sue, but you can put it on the main page.
  • Any overpowered villain. Never mind that they have their fair share of defeats.
  • A Monster of the Week that goes undefeated (or gets defeated in every encounter, but escapes before they're punished) for most of the episode, only to be ultimately slain by the protagonist in their final encounter.
  • Any Arc Villain that doesn't get killed off until the end of the season.
  • A villainous character in a fighting game that's also a High-Tier Scrappy, even if they're only strong because the developers didn't balance them properly.
  • Any villain that doesn't get defeated because the story was Cut Short, even if they weren't potrayed as overpowered. They might've been eventually defeated if the story continued, but hey, who can tell?
• Irony:
  • Anything that's coincidental. No exceptions.
  • A traffic jam when you're already late.
  • Rain on your wedding day.
  • A free ride when you've already paid.
  • That's where the actual meaning is the exact opposite of the literal meaning.
  • It's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
  • The same day you ran Elliot down, is the same day you ruined his life forever.
  • To be crushed by a giant gorilla... on your birthday!
  • Going into the woods to find the tortoise, but instead getting lost yourself.
  • HOW VERY IRONIC. THAT A LIFE HANGS IN THE BALANCE. uPON YOuR WILLINGNESS TO DRAW ME SOME PORNOGRAPHY. THE VERY PORNOGRAPHY. WHICH YOu HAVE SPENT A LIFETIME DRAWING. IN YOuR SPARE TIME. BECAuSE YOu PRESuMABLY ENJOY DOING SO.
  • A bunch of idiots who don't have a chance against me!!!!!!!!
  • When someone gives that bastard the benefit of the doubt, only to walk into a trap.
  • I think it would be ironic if everyone was made of iron.
  • I didn't like it outside the bubble. It was very ironic.
  • Two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number.
  • Walked up to a girl and I gave her a kiss,
    She said "Let's go to your place, I'll suck your dick.",
    I said "Hell yeah, bitch! That's so ironic!"
  • He could save others from death, but not himself.
• Isn't It Ironic?:
  • A carbon copy of the Irony trope, except it looks cooler. Also, you won't have to use those pesky curly brackets.
  • A character gets into a traffic jam when they're already late.
  • Complain about works using a song in the wrong context, even when it's intentional on the creator's behalf.
• It Makes Sense in Context: Intentionally describe a scene in a confusing way, then pothole it to this trope.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Any game with an interesting Game Over screen. In other words, a synonym for Have a Nice Death or Game-Over Man.
• It's Cuban: Cuba exists.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Exactly one character went to an Ivy League school.
• Jerkass: Every villain ever. Because destroying the planet is the rudest thing that you can do. And it's not like we have Evil Is Petty for villains who are also jerks.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • A jerk gives a valid argument that the author didn't intend to be taken at face value.
  • A full-on villain has a legitimate argument.
  • Strawman Has a Point, but it goes on objective pages and is interchangeable with Villain Has a Point.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A character is hinted to have a nicer side, but it turns out they don't.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: A jerk that's so loathsome that the trope had to use the word "jerk" twice to get across how horrible they are.
• Joisey: New Jersey exists.
• Joke Character:
  • Any silly-looking character in a video game, even if they're as strong as the more serious characters. No, there's no such trope as Fighting Clown.
  • Any weak character, even if they're presented seriously and are only weak because the developers didn't balance them properly.
  • Low-Tier Letdown, but you can put it on objective pages.
• Joke Item:
  • Scrappy Weapon, except that it goes on the main, objective page.
  • Another word for Nerf Arm, a funny yet powerful weapon.
• Justified Tutorial: Much like Justified Trope, this is a tutorial that has any reason whatsoever for it to exist. Because, you know, normally, tutorials serve no purpose whatsoever and are just there to waste players' time.
• Kangaroos Represent Australia:
  • Kangaroos exist in the work. Any connection to Australia is optional.
  • Kangaroos and Australia exist.
• Karma Houdini:
  • A villain whose story arc is still ongoing and will likely be defeated at the end of the season.
  • Complain about a character not receiving the amount of comeuppance you think they deserve.
• Kick the Dog:
  • A dog is kicked or otherwise harmed. This counts even if the character had a good reason for hurting the dog.
  • A character commits a cruel act for a pragmatic reason.
  • A villain commits an act of animal cruelty.
  • You think someone is being mean. This is is an especially valid use if the perceived meanness is targeted at a literal dog.
• KidAnova: A young Lemon Stu, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Killed Off for Real: A character dies. Despite what you might think from "for real", this applies under all circumstances, even if deaths in the setting are already always permanent, and regardless of whether or not they might have been faking it. Bonus points for adding this trope immediately after the character dies, and they come back to life later — that makes it a subversion, and everyone knows subverted tropes are the coolest kind.
• Killer Rabbit: A rabbit that kills people.
• Kill 'Em All:
  • A character kills lots of people or orders a massacre. It's not like it was renamed to "Everybody Dies" Ending precisely because people kept using it this way.
  • One or two main characters die.
• Kill It with Fire:
  • A cooler way to say Playing with Fire.
  • Pothole to this trope whenever you're talking about something disgusting.
• Kill It with Ice: A cooler way to say An Ice Person.
• Kill It with Water: A cooler way to say Making a Splash.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Anyone who has a cat.
• Knight of Cerebus: The coolest, edgiest villain in a work. Feel free to add as many as you want.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • Use this to demonize a character you don't like. Point to the times where they treated someone poorly to make them sound like a sociopath who does whatever they want with no regard for others, even if said incidents are rare and/or the "victims" deserved it.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic but you can put it on objective pages.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: You and/or other fans think a female character looks masculine.
• Large Ham:
  • A character says a line of dialogue in an unusually loud and bombastic way, but you like the character and love the line of dialogue, so it's very important that you add this character to the examples and OVEREMPHASIZE every other word in the quote.
    Character from show that you love: THIS QUOTE ISN'T ACTUALLY THIS AGGRESSIVE WHEN DELIVERED ON THE SHOW!!!!!!!!!!
  • Make extra-sure to list one line of dialogue from every character in the show at least once on a separate bullet point or people won't fully understand just how GLORIOUSLY HAMMY your show is.
  • Anyone who shouts even once.
• Land Downunder: Australia exists.
• Land of Dragons:
  • China exists.
  • A location has a lot of dragons in it.
• Land of Tulips and Windmills: Holland exists.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Reveal spoilers that you believe are well-known rather than appearing in promotional material, merchandise, or official sources. Basically sneak in It Was His Sled on the main page. Never mind that this trope was renamed for this exact reason.
  • The sequel references events from the previous entry.
• Latin Land: Latin America exists.
• Laughably Evil:
  • You personally find the villain to be funny, regardless of the author's intent.
  • A villain that has many scenes of pure narm.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Lava (or magma, for that matter) exists.
• Lethal Chef: A chef who is also skilled in combat.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • A synonym of Fighting Clown, a humorous video game character that's as powerful as the more serious ones.
  • If you want to be boring and use the correct definition (a normally weak character that has a secretly powerful skill), be sure to disregard Example Indentation in Trope Lists and list it as "Joke Character / Lethal Joke Character" or put it on a second-level bullet point below the Joke Character entry.
• Let's Play: Someone, somewhere, did a Let's Play of this game, which is definitely a trope that appears in this game.
• Light Is Not Good: A character who isn't nice wears a white or light-colored shirt.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Someone's who's a bit better of a fighter than most.
  • World of enhanced strength, durability, and speed.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Any lesbian who isn't butch.
• Literal Metaphor: You can list things that are definitely not examples of the trope, as long as the trope title kinda sounds like it could describe them and you pothole the entire example to this.
• Little "No": Any time someone says "no" when it isn't a Big "NO!".
• Logic Bomb: This is just a funny pothole, for use whenever you describe something that doesn't make sense in your personal opinion.
• Lovecraft Lite:
  • Any work where it is possible to punch out Cthulhu. It doesn't matter if punching out Cthulhu had serious repercussions and side effects or if punching Cthulhu explicitly only delayed the inevitable and there was really no point in punching Cthulhu in the first place.
  • Any Cosmic Horror Story you feel isn't hopeless enough, or better yet, any Cosmic Horror Story you dislike. This trope is the perfect place to rant on and on about The Taming of the Grue and how the whole point of the Cthulhu Mythos was that all the horrors from beyond the stars were supposed to be unknowable and H. P. Lovecraft is rolling in his grave. Also, be sure to mention at least once how August Derleth COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT OF LOVECRAFT'S WORK AND IRREVOCABLY TAINTED THE ENTIRE GENRE, preferably with a few potholes to negative YMMV tropes.
• Lost Forever: What do you mean, they renamed this to Permanently Missable Content? This is for anything that's forever lost, regardless of circumstance. TV show got cancelled and no DVD release? Event items in an MMO? Character that dies permanently if they run out of HP? Misplaced your keys and can't find them? All valid examples.
• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: A female character's father is a scientist.
• Made of Iron: Characters who are robots or cyborgs.
• Made Out to Be a Jerkass: The episode portrays a character as a jerkass, but you think they were right to act this way. That's totally not Informed Wrongness.
• Madness Mantra:
  • A character repeats a phrase to steel themselves or bolster their courage.
  • Any time a character says something over and over. No exceptions.
  • When listing your example, just write out the repeated phrase a dozen times or so rather than actually explaining how the example is related to the trope. After all, the only thing which prevents an example from having context is how physically long it is!
• Manchild: Complain about characters who act in a way you consider immature. For extra fun, pothole the character's name to this trope in other examples, even when their perceived immaturity has nothing to do with that trope.
• Marijuana Is LSD: People smoke marijuana.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Any love story whose setting is one of the places named Stockholm.
• Mayincatec: Mesoamerican and Andean cultures exist(ed).
• Meaningful Name:
  • A work's title is representative of its content.
  • You happen to be a fan of name etymology, so feel free to use this trope to construct the most hackneyed, obviously conjecture-based explanation for why the a character has the name the have beyond "the author thought it fit them". If you don't pothole to at least three off-site links, one of which is Wikipedia, you're doing it wrong.
• Me's a Crowd: A synonym of Self-Duplication.
• Meta Guy:
  • Any character who has ever lampshaded anything ever.
  • Whenever your favourite character lampshades anything, pothole their name to this trope to make said character (and thus you for liking them) seem more intelligent and observant.
• Mighty Whitey:
  • A white person is a hero. The part where they specifically save ethnic minorities who are shown to be helpless without them is optional.
    • If the protagonist is white and also considered by many to be a Designated Hero, then this is mandatory!
  • Also, it definitely can NOT also apply to characters from works made by non-white cultures who do similar things, such as an anime where a Japanese man saves poor African tribesmen. That's just misuse, after all "white" is right there in the trope name!
• Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: Any relationship between a white man and an Asian woman.
• Mind Screw: Anything that you find confusing, including any work that involves Time Travel, Parallel Universes, Or Was It a Dream?, and/or generally trippy imagery.
• Minnesota Nice: Minnesota exists. Also, this trope refers specifically to Minnesota, and not to anywhere else in the Midwest.
• "Mister Sandman" Sequence: In addition to signifying the time period of Period Piece works and scenes, this can apply to Unintentional Period Pieces, because it's completely necessary for fiction to remind viewers what their own time period is, and the creators obviously knew that future viewers would think the work is dated.
• Monster Fangirl:
  • Someone who likes a Cute Monster Girl, or vice versa.
  • A character supports a Non-Malicious Monster.
  • A character has any kind of positive opinion on a villain.
• Mook Maker:
  • A Mook can make more of itself.
  • A Mook can summon other mooks but clearly isn't the one actually creating them.
  • A Mook splits into several smaller Mooks upon being defeated.
• Moose and Maple Syrup:
  • Canadians exist.
  • Any Canadian Media or Canadian Series regardless of whether it deals with Canadian stereotypes or not.
• The Moral Substitute:
  • A work that is similar to a work you like, but is targeted towards a religious or political group you disagree with. Remember to subtly imply that the work is inferior due to being an imitation and that the target group is worthy of being mocked for being too sensitive and needing their own version.
  • If the Moral Substitute turns out to not be that bad compared to the original, it's a subversion. After all, being inferior to the original is a critical part of this trope.
  • If you really strongly disagree with the group the work is targeted at, then it's an inversion, since the group in question is evil, and therefore any work made specifically for them must be immoral.
• More Dakka: Automatic weapons exist. Bonus points if you happen to think the weapon in question is really cool.
• The Movie:
  • A book is adapted to a movie.
  • A show has a movie with a brand new cast and separate continuity.
  • A movie made and released before its respective show came out.
  • A great way to type out less when referring to a work in an example. There's no need to properly type out The Simpsons Movie when just putting a double bullet below an example from the show and saying "In The Movie," will suffice.
• Mr. Fanservice:
  • Any male character you find attractive.
  • Post this on the pages of actors or musicians you lust over.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Any female character you find attractive.
  • Post this on the pages of actresses or musicians you lust over.
• Must Be Invited: A party or other kind of event that requires an invitation to attend.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Pothole here any time you construct a phrase in the form "[broad category] and [narrow category or single item]".
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: A character introduces themselves.
• My New Gift Is Lame: Since "gift" is sometimes used as a synonym for supernatural powers, this trope covers characters being granted powers that make their lives worse somehow.
• Mysterious Antarctica: Antarctica exists, in any capacity.
• Mystical 108: The number 108 appears in any context. Symbolism optional.
• Mystical India: India exists. For that matter, Persia exists.
• Mythology Gag: This part of this work is kind of like this other installment from the same franchise.

N-Z

• Name Order Confusion:
  • You personally were confused by foreign name orders. Yes, that would be an Audience Reaction — the lack of a YMMV banner for this must be a mistake.
  • Non-English name orders exist.
• Nazi Nobleman: When this trope appears in a work, you are to complain, vehemently, about the historical inaccuracy—never mind that many officers of the German armed forces were indeed noblemen, never mind that most of those noblemen indeed preferred Nazism to democracy irrespective of their opinion on Hitler as a leader, and never mind that almost all of them were fully on board with the regime’s antisemitism, including the Holocaust—the July 20 plot existed, therefore all nobles were anti-Nazi. And furthermore, it is of utmost importance that the reader comes to believe that the Troper who added the example is a Wehraboo, so keep up those Justifying Edits!
• Network Decay:
  • A network keeps airing a show you don't like.
  • If someone claims that a network you like is suffering with this, overload the example with Justifying Edits and move it to the Unique Situations subpage. This strategy is foolproof and will demonstrate your love for the network, even if the change is as drastic as moving from scripted dramas to game shows.
• Never Say "Die": Any work where defeated characters are not explicitly referred to as dead. Remember to also list aversions every time death is mentioned.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • Use this to complain how a work would have been more successful had they done a better job with marketing.
  • A work doesn't end up going the way you thought because your speculation based on the trailer was incorrect, regardless if the footage in question still makes perfect sense in context.
• Nice Guy: Every character falls under either the Nice Guy or Jerkass tropes, so add this for everyone who doesn't go out of their way to make others miserable.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Pothole here whenever you're talking about any action that had a negative outcome. Being called out for it is optional. If you hate the character who performed the action, this is a must!
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Anything that can be described with three or more adjectives.
• Nobody Poops: List aversions at any moment in which a character needs to potty. Disregard that the trope is lampshade-only because bathroom breaks in fiction are as common as no bathroom breaks in fiction.
• No Fair Cheating:
  • A character who cheated in-story is punished for it in the end.
  • Adultery is portrayed as bad, and the adulterer is punished for their deeds.
• No Fourth Wall: In addition to the standard definition of "this work never actually pretends not to know that it's fiction", keep in mind that when a work which normally pretends it's not fiction briefly acknowledges that it is, that's also this trope — we call it "a No Fourth Wall moment", because there is definitely no other trope that fits that situation more precisely.
• No Hugging, No Kissing:
  • One or two characters are asexual.
  • Characters never hug or kiss. Nobody's disputing that. But showing sexuality or romance? Perfectly fine.
• No. Just... No: Pothole this to any line about something you think is stupid, disgusting, or you just don't like, ignoring the fact that it was renamed to "No. Just… No" Reaction, making it In-Universe Examples Only.
• Nominal Hero:
  • A catchier term for Anti-Hero. Why Anti-Hero would have a sub-trope for itself is a mystery.
  • A ruthless hero with good intentions.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
  • Jerk Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Non-Indicative Name: When a name, such as a work's title, used to mean something relevant, but things changed and now it doesn't, then it becomes a Non-Indicative Name. The process of a name losing meaning isn't a trope of its own, and should never be considered, because we're lumpers around here.
• Non-Malicious Monster: A good place to get angry about antagonistic predatory animals. Don't forget to shove down the readers' throats about how all predators are just animals trying to survive, and forget that the prey are also trying to survive as well.
• Noodle Incident: Any time someone mentions "the [x] incident".
• No Plot? No Problem!: People don't care much for a game's story.invoked
• Norse by Norsewest: Scandinavia exists.
• Northern Irish and Nasty: Northern Ireland exists.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy:
  • You find a character attractive, and cannot BELIEVE that every other character is not gazing at them 100 percent of the time without immediately getting aroused and forgetting what they were doing.
  • A character wears skimpy clothing, and no one comments on it. Bonus points if its historically inaccurate, so make sure mention at length how the sight of a bare midriff would have turned every Victorian man in a 500 mile radius into howling bonobos with a room-temperature IQ. Ignore any sort of Artistic License – History or mythologizing/stylizing of the past going on, it's very important that people realize how bad the work is because of this.
  • You personally do not find the Fanservice in the work appealing.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood:
  • Downplay or ignore an evil and/or loathsome character's actions and/or flaws by listing their (usually) genuine Pet the Dog moments.
  • Designated Villain, except you can put it on objective pages.
• The Nothing After Death: This means "there is nothing after death", in the sense that when you die, you're gone. There is no other possible interpretation of that phrase that you might need to worry about when considering subtle trope distinctions.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Pothole to this trope to emphasize how weird and unbelievable something is. It's not like this trope has already been renamed before to prevent it.
• No True Scotsman:
  • If you hate certain fans of a work you like, pothole to this when claiming they "aren't real fans". It's not like that crosses into calling people Fan Dumb (which totally isn't Flame Bait), and it doesn't matter that the wiki has restrictions in place to prevent this from being applied to real people.
  • A non-Scottish actor pretends to be a Scottish character.
• Not So Different: A similarity exists between these characters. This is great for complaining about supposedly heroic characters you don't like, by pointing out vague and unintentional similarities between them and the villains. For example: "The villain is a mass murderer, but the hero also kills a few Mooks in self defense, so he's nearly just as heinous". Characters actually noticing and pointing out their similarity is optional. It's not like we renamed the trope to "Not So Different" Remark for a reason.
• Nuke 'em: Nuclear weapons exist. Failing that, something remotely comparable to a nuclear weapon exists.
• The Nth Doctor: A trope that must be potholed whenever you mention The Doctor on a trope page.
• N-Word Privileges: Every single reference to the N-word should be potholed to this trope, regardless of who's saying it or whether they're discussing how only black people can use that word.
• Obviously Evil: Obvious Judas, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Oddball in the Series: An installment of a franchise has one or two anecdotal and mild differences with the others. Then seize the opportunity to complain about it.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Scary and shocking things in general.
  • Any time a character says "Oh Crap!"
  • Any moment which might make the audience briefly panic.
  • Pothole to this page to emphasize how scary something is.
• Oireland: Ireland exists.
• Oktoberfest:
  • Bavaria exists.
  • The story takes place during Oktoberfest.
• Older Than They Look: You personally think someone looks young for their age. In-universe acknowledgement is optional.
• Omnipresent Tropes:
  • Tropes that can be used to pad out the trope list of almost any work.
  • Tropes that are so common there's no point in listing specific examples, so just list a bunch of vague statements like "almost every [type of work] has this".
  • Since People Sit on Chairs refers to concepts that are too common, while anyone who says No Trope Is Too Common is lying, this category is filled to the brim with Chairs.
• Only in Florida: Florida exists.
• Only in It for the Money: Use this to complain about your least favorite author being a hack that doesn't care about making quality stories.
• Only in Miami: Miami exists. Sub-trope of Only in Florida.
• Oop North: Northern England exists.
• Opening a Can of Clones: As the name suggests, this is a trope exclusively about clones and doppelgangers. We have no idea why there are so many examples on the page talking about time travel, resurrection, and multiverse theory instead — this is clear misuse and they should be removed.
• Orcus on His Throne:
  • A character doesn't spend the entirety of their screentime in action.
  • People Sit on Chairs, except you can add it to main pages.
• Original Character: A new character introduced in an Intercontinuity Crossover. That is most definitely not its own trope. Bonus points if you don't like the character in question.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • A running gag that has been done so many times that even the writers are kinda starting to get sick of it.
  • Repeat something over and over in something you write, then add a pothole to this trope somewhere in the text.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: You think this character isn't as strong, or just not as awesome, as other characters.
• Overused Running Gag: Screw the In-Universe Examples Only rule, this is a page for recurring jokes of which are overused according to the audience.
• Pac Man Fever: A work changes a minor detail or gets something slightly wrong about your favourite game, even if it's just a nitpick or obvious Artistic License? Stick it on there!
• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: A pufferfish appears in a work. That's it. This especially applies if the pufferfish in question lacks the spines referenced by the trope name, such as if it's a fugu (and if it is a fugu, the fact that it's poisonous doesn't have to be relevant to the plot).
• Parental Bonus: A less wordy name for Demographically Inappropriate Humour.
• Parody Sue: Mary Sue, except you can put it on objective pages. Since 'parody' is in the trope's name, no one will know that you're unironically stating that a character is poorly written.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Any time a good guy kills a bad guy, because shooting someone who was trying to murder you counts as evil.
• Perky Female Minion: Any female minion that isn't (entirely) stoic.
• Perverse Sexual Lust:
  • Ignore that it's under In-Universe Examples Only and gladly talk about how much you want to bone the Action Girl.
  • If not you, how about bringing up cults sexually revolving around a certain character? They are definitely works and not real life organisations.
• Pet the Dog:
  • An evil character commits an act of kindness which is later revealed to have a selfish purpose.
  • A character is hinted to have a nicer side, but it turns out they don't.
• Physical God:
  • A really powerful Reality Warper, especially one who appears to have no limits on their power. The character qualifies even if they are neither worshipped in-universe nor treated as divine by the narrative.
  • A Person of Mass Destruction.
• Piss-Take Rap: Any rap song you don't like.
• Place Worse Than Death: Any Crapsack World in a work, even if it isn't a comedic jab towards a real-world location.
• Platform Hell: Any Nintendo Hard level in a Platform Game.
• Polar Bears and Penguins: The Earth's polar regions are portrayed accurately.
• Police Brutality: Cops get into fights.
• Political Correctness Is Evil: Ignore the No Real Life Examples, Please! warning, and use this to complain about the political left, whether by accusing the work of being a propaganda piece or decrying that a work you like was ruined by their censorship.
• Political Overcorrectness: Complain about something you think is too politically correct.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Disregard the No Real Life Examples, Please! warning, and use this to call real-life people bigots. Alternatively, use this to praise people who criticize something you think is a victim of Political Overcorrectness.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Disregard the No Real Life Examples, Please! warning, and use this to call real-life people bigots.
• Pom-Pom Girl: Cheerleaders exist.
• The Pornomancer: Lemon Stu, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Any character who could be called a villain does anything that could be considered in any way pragmatic. No, there isn't some more specific meaning that you're missing; that's really all there is to it.
  • Use this to invalidate any apparent redeeming qualities a villain might have (especially qualities covered under Even Evil Has Standards) if you want the villain to be a Complete Monster.
• Precision F-Strike: Any instance of the word "fuck" that isn't being said multiple times in a short timeframe or at a high volume. For extra fun, insert gratuitous swearing into your fucking examples for emphasis and then pothole the swear to this trope.
• Predators Are Mean: A good place to get angry about antagonistic predatory animals. Don't forget to shove down the readers' throats that their prey constantly struggles to survive, and forget that the predators are also trying to survive as well.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: Anyone who doesn't wear shoes 24/7 clearly prefers not to wear them at all. It's not like this was renamed from "Does Not Like Shoes" for clarification.
• Prehistoric Monster: An excellent place to rant and rave about Artistic License – Paleontology and how dinosaurs are just animals trying to survive. Because modern animals are never ever portrayed in a similar manner, and only prehistoric life suffers from this.
• Preserve Your Gays: Any LGBT character who survives even if there're plenty other LGBT characters who die in the work.
• Pretentious Pronunciation:
  • Use this trope to tell people how to pronounce things correctly. It's not like we renamed it from It Is Pronounced Tro-PAY for this very reason.
  • Complain about pronunciations you think are unintuitive.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • Like Designated Hero, except it goes on objective trope pages. Use this to complain about protagonists you dislike.
  • The protagonist or someone on the protagonist's side does something morally ambiguous, even if they aren't treated in the right for doing it.
• Psycho Lesbian: Any villainous woman attracted to other women. Her being unhealthily obsessed with the heroine in order to imply that homosexuals are incapable of true loving relationships is optional.
• Pun: Pothole to this page whenever you make a pun.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The perfect trope for when you're itching for a pothole. Awkwardly force it in for some Sweet. Pothole. Action.
• Pungeon Master:
  • A character made a pun once or twice.
  • A character made an Accidental Pun on at least one occasion.
• Purple Is Powerful: A character you like wears purple.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • A Damage-Sponge Boss you can defeat with a Cheese Strategy.
  • A boss with a unique mechanic. You know what? Scratch that, it can even be a semi-unique mechanic that the game doesn't attempt to hide from you.
  • A boss that takes even a modicum of critical thinking to defeat successfully.
  • Little known fact: this trope can actually mean whatever you want! Use it to list any and all bosses in the game which you personally found hard or defeated unconventionally.
  • Complain about how the solution to the boss is too hard to figure out and make sure to give needlessly elaborate and detailed instructions on how to beat it.
• Puzzling Platypus: Any time platypuses are mentioned. Mentioning that they are weird is optional. After all, the site cut Everything's Better with Platypi so examples could be listed here instead.
• Queer People Are Funny: An LGBT+ character is at any point involved in a comedic moment. Because this trope is praising the queer community for their great sense of humor, and not about demeaning jokes being made at their expense.
• Qurac: The Middle East exists.
• Raptor Attack: An excellent place to rant and rave about Artistic License – Paleontology. Be sure to use lots of esoteric jargon that assumes everyone knows as much about dinosaurs as you do. Don't be afraid to shame the creators for being stupid science-hating, anti-intellectualists and accuse the work of trying to spread horrific misinformation that will irreparably damage science's credibility.
• Rated M for Manly:
  • A character is manly.
  • A man is manly.
  • Pothole this trope to any example, mention, or perceived mention of manliness in the work. The trope name is quirky and must therefore be sinkholed everywhere!
  • This is the exact same thing as Testosterone Poisoning, so feel free to use them interchangeably. Both trope names have that quirky, "wild west" era feel to them, so it's obligatory you sinkhole either or both of them whenever possible.
• Really Gets Around: Lemon Stu, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Real Men Wear Pink:
  • A male character wears pink.
  • A male character is outwardly feminine and isn't considered all the more traditionally masculine for it.
• Real Women Have Curves: The supertrope to Buxom Beauty Standard and Chubby Chaser.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A character insults another character.
• Reconstruction: Like the opposite of a Deconstruction, but even more awesome!
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In addition to normal examples, make especially sure to list absolutely every character who has red eyes but isn't evil as an aversion. This is very, very important.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • A work contains a character who wears red and another character who wears blue.
  • A work contains a high-energy character and a low-energy character.
  • A work contains two non-identical characters.
• Refuge in Audacity: A joke that is so inappropriate, it goes back to being funny^note Most of this misuse probably comes from the trope Vulgar Humor, which actually fits this definition, and used to be called "Refuge in Vulgarity", possibly causing confusion between these two tropes.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • An excuse to sneak in complaining on objective pages. Things like "Why is this awful show still running?" and "Why does the final level suck so much when the rest of the game is so awesome?" totally count as legitimate mysteries.
  • Any mystery within a work or series, even if it does eventually get an answer in a later installment or in supplemental material.
  • An extremely trivial mystery that is unanswered because the author didn't intend for it to exist in the first place ("why is this specific Memetic Bystander present in the background of this scene when this contradicts these overthought facts?").
  • A mystery that is unanswered simply because the fans didn't do enough research yet ("what is the name of the stock music that plays during this scene?")
  • The same as Fridge Logic, except that you can put it on the main page.
• Roboteching: Bullets whose trajectories are not straight.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: A group of people are killed or otherwise harmed by falling rocks or other heavy objects.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Any use of CGI in a live-action work, especially if it's particularly unconvincing but meant to be taken as real.
• Rule of Three:
  • Any time there is three of something.
  • The third item in a list with more than three items.
• Rule 34: Someone, somewhere, created pornography featuring the characters from this work, which is definitely a trope that appears in this work.
• Rule 63:
  • A character's gender is changed in-universe by magic or similar phlebotinum.
  • Someone, somewhere, drew genderbent Fan Art of this work, which is definitely a trope that appears in this work.
• Running Gag: A Pot Hole you use whenever you type out a running gag used in a work.
• Ruritania: Eastern Europe exists.
• Sadistic Choice: When your opponent in a board game forces you to choose between two or more bad moves. Hey, it frustrated you, so your opponent must be sadistic.
• Sadist Show:
  • Complain about shows you think are too "mean-spirited".
  • Any show that contains at least one joke made at a character's expense or where bad/unfortunate things happen to characters, especially if you dislike the show. This is especially true if the character that has encountered misfortune is one you like or consider The Woobie.
• Sailor Earth:
  • Mary Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • A Sixth Ranger in a canon work.
• Sarcasm Mode: Pothole to this page when you make a sarcastic comment.
• Satellite Character: A place to complain about characters you dislike for having little focus and development or for not interacting very much with more relevant characters.
• Satellite Love Interest:
  • One half of a pairing you despise.
  • Any Love Interest character you dislike.
• Scarf of Asskicking: A character you like wears a scarf.
• Science Is Bad:
  • Chastise all media as propaganda to destroy scientific knowledge and intellectual institutions! Don't forget to cherry pick examples in a series that has also portrayed science positively.
  • Any and every time an invention goes wrong.
• Scotireland: A character speaks with a Gaelic accent.
• Screwball Squirrel: A work contains at least one squirrel. The squirrel(s) being mischievous is optional.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Chaotic Good, but you're allowed to list it on objective pages.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A work had a Jumping the Shark moment, therefore pothole this to say that you gave up on the work right there and then.
• Semper Fi: U.S. Marines exist.
• Serial Escalation: Like Beyond the Impossible, any time something impressive happens. They didn't use to share a name for nothing. Just formulate your example as "how much more [adjective] can [thing] get?" and you can add almost anything. Bonus points if the thing is a negative meta fact, such as "How much worse can the writing get?"
• Series Fauxnale: The end of a major segment of the work, like a series — that's British for "season", and the American and Commonwealth Spellings rule means we can't ever rename it ever. It's also spelled "fauxnale" instead of "finale" by accident, because the troper who launched it had French as their first language. This bizarre and improbable set of coincidences adds up to making it look like this trope might have something to do with "series finale but not really" when it's definitely completely unrelated to that.
• Serious Business:
  • Anytime anyone is serious in any work.
  • Describe a character's interests here, but overexaggerate and flanderize them to make it seem like those interests are more important than life itself for them, preferably by potholing to Berserk Button and using overemphasized phrases. Example: "Do NOT get in the way of Alice eating a sandwich or she will string you up by your balls and fillet you over hot coals" if Alice is noted to like eating sandwiches.
• The Shangri-La: Tibet exists.
• Shaped Like Itself: Use a description to describe something as being like something, then pothole it to this trope using a pothole to this trope.
• Shared Universe: A cooler way of contextualizing a Crossover, even if no other sort of connectivity exists.
• Shoot the Dog:
  • A dog gets shot.
  • A synonym of Mercy Kill.
• Shout-Out:
  • This part of this show is kind of like this other show. Bonus points if the other show wasn't released while the episode was being written.
  • Remember to also list any Shout-Outs the show has received. It's not like we have Referenced by... for that. ^note In fairness, most examples that fit this definition were probably added before Referenced by... was a thing on this wiki.
  • Don't forget that retroactive Shout-Outs qualify as Shout-Outs too! An excellent way to sneak Hilarious in Hindsight examples onto the main page.
• Sickeningly Sweet: A way to sneak a complaint about how sweet something is if your Sweetness Aversion example isn’t allowed.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: A pairing you don't like.
• Silver Fox: Any elderly character you find attractive. Being intentionally portrayed as such is optional.
• Sincerity Mode: Like "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer, pothole to this whenever you want to emphasize how unbelievable yet true something is.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Exactly what it sounds like, a person who swears a lot. Whether or not they swear harder or more frequently than other characters in the work is irrelevant.
• Small Name, Big Ego: The creator of a work you don't like, when they try to defend themselves against trolls who insult their work.
• Small Role, Big Impact: A character you like who doesn't get much screen time.
• The Smart Guy: Einstein Sue, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Smelly Skunk: Skunks exist.
• Smug Snake: A character who got rejected by the Magnificent Bastard cleanup thread.
• The Sociopath:
  • Like Hate Sink above, any villain or unsympathetic character qualifies.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: So Bad, It's Good but for jokes! Like So Bad, It's Good, this goes on the work's YMMV page if it doesn't happen In-Universe.
• South of the Border: Mexico exists.
• Spaghetti and Gondolas: Italy exists.
• The Speechless: Any time a character is not currently actively in the process of speaking.
• Spexico: Spain and/or Mexico exist.
• Spicy Latina:
  • Latinas exist.
  • You personally find a Latina in the work attractive. Be sure to describe them as fetishistically as possible or your example doesn't count.
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • A work with a comparable setup to a past/contemporary work, but a distinctly different execution. And the difference in execution is that one sucks while the other doesn't.
  • Also remember to throw in a potshot at the worst fans of the work by contrasting the different reasons why you hate them (e.g. "Fans of Work A are always whining about how much the new episode sucks, while fans of Work B mindlessly praise it and reject any criticism").
• Spoiled Sweet:
  • Every rich character who is not a (complete) Spoiled Brat.
  • Any child who's spoiled without being a Spoiled Brat, regardless of how much money their family has.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • Complain about characters you feel receive too much focus.
  • Creator's Pet but you can put it on objective pages.
• The Starscream: Any time the trope-naming character Starscream from Transformers makes an appearance in a work, even if he's not portrayed as plotting to overthrow the Big Bad.
• Statuesque Stunner:
  • Any tall female character you think is attractive. Being intentionally portrayed as such is optional.
  • Tall women exist.
• Stealth Pun: Any pun or wordplay, no matter how obvious. The "Stealth" is just there to save you the burden of typing curly braces.
• Story Branch Favoritism: Complain about Story Branching routes you don't like, regardless of the route's content and/or gameplay.
• Story-Breaker Power:
  • Like God-Mode Sue, except it's an objective trope and not Flame Bait so you can put it on any page you want!
  • A plot is easily resolved by a character with superpowers.
• Straight Man: A heterosexual male character.
• Strawberry Shorthand:
  • Any time strawberries are mentioned or shown for any reason.
  • Any character who is named "Ichigo" even if it's not a Meaningful Name.
• Straw Character: A character who pushes an opinion you don't like, even if they're portrayed as right or the author was going for Both Sides Have a Point.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Ignore that this is specifically about mooks in video games, and link to this whenever someone dies due to being overconfident.
• Summer Campy: Summer camps exist.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Any action or plot point that is slightly realistic.
  • A supernatural power turns out to have some unforeseen drawbacks. Because magical powers are totally realistic.
  • Pessimistic Hard Truth Aesops. Because cynicism and realism are totally synonymous with each other!
  • Just list whole pages' worth of things not going as characters expect!
• Superdickery: A character acts like a dick.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Interchangable with Alas, Poor Villain.
• Take That!: A page you link to whenever you make a hilarious insult against a work you don't like.
• A Taste of the Lash: An alternative name for Whip It Good, as in a character who uses a whip as a weapon. What do you mean Whip It Good was disambiguated because of People Sit on Chairs? Well, they clearly forgot to get rid of this completely identical-in-every-way trope, so use this to replace Whip It Good going forward. No need to actually read the trope description or anything.
• The Tetris Effect: A character plays an addictive video game, even if thoughts of the game don't end up being overly persistent when they stop playing.
• That One Case: A funnier name for That One Level when referring to a difficult section from a game in the Mystery Fiction genre. Don't worry about it being an objective trope, you can put it on the YMMV page anyway.
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: Tokyo exists.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
  • Any sentence that ends with "bitch", even if the speaker is actually calling someone else a bitch and not just adding that word there for emphasis.
  • The word "bitch" as a whole, said in any context and in any tone of voice. If you write an example that contains the word "bitch", be sure to pothole the word to this trope.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • A page that should be linked to before describing:
    • A very bad work ("The work I'm about to describe sucks").
    • A difficult part of a video game ("This level is going to suck").
    • A Useful Notes page on a real person who is controversial.
  • Pothole to this page to emphasize how scary something is.
• Those Two Guys: There are two male characters that are associated with each other in some way.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Nazis exist.
• Tipis and Totem Poles: This is not a trope about how indigenous Americans are commonly portrayed as one homogeneous monoculture. That Native Americans exist is a trope on its own.
• Title Drop:
  • Pothole here whenever you say the trope name in said trope's article.
  • A work named after a main character or primary setting mentions its main character or primary setting in the dialogue dozens of times.
• Toilet Humour: Urine, faeces, and/or flatulence exist.
• Tomboy:
  • If someone is not the most Girly Girl in the world, ever wears blue or pants, doesn't curl her hair or keeps it short, or anyone else around is even slighty more more girly than her, she's a hardcore tomboy.
  • Bonus if she plays outside. Feminine girls never play outside, ever.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: A Tomboy wore pink or a skirt once, has long hair (bonus if it's curly, cause curly hair is girly hair) or was nice to someone.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Tokyo exists... in anime.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • A character you don't like dies or has something bad happen to them.
  • The name is purely figurative and refers to characters who are extremely stupid, especially if you think they are. Whether their stupidity leads to their death is irrelevant.
  • Forget characters, use this for any Real Life person or group that does something you find to be extremely stupid. After all, what better way to insult someone than to imply they shouldn’t live?
• Too Funny to Be Evil:
  • A funny character turns out to be Good All Along.
  • Every single character with a sense of humor are genuinely the good guys.
• Too Powerful to Live:
  • A powerful character dies. How powerful they are, and how they'd impact the story, is irrelevant.
  • Too Cool to Live, except you can put it on objective pages.
• To Serve Man: A character or creature eats humans. It doesn't matter if they eat them without cooking or otherwise preparing them first, or are an unintelligent animal that primarily eats humans. You will notice that this is the same definition as I'm a Humanitarian, so feel free to use them interchangeably.
• Toros y Flamenco: Spain exists.
• Trademark Favorite Food: A character is seen enjoying a certain food a few times.
• Tradesnark™:
  • Snark about trademarks being marked as trademarks in contexts that you personally find silly. You might think this would constitute an Audience Reaction, but it doesn't, because reasons.
  • Complain about trademark and copyright enforcement you don't like. Again, the fact that this isn't filed under YMMV shouldn't give you pause — actually, it just means that TV Tropes officially considers your complaint an objective fact about the work.
• Tragic Dropout: A character doesn’t finish secondary school, even if they go on to have a successful adult life and career.
• Tragic Villain:
  • Any villain with a sad backstory, even if they're enjoying their villainy instead of feeling that they have no choice.
  • If you like a villain or Jerkass, list your headcanon on why they're actually tragic figures, even when the story states otherwise.
• Trans Equals Gay:
  • A transgender character just happens to be attracted to the gender they were assigned at birth.
  • A transgender character just happens to be attracted to their actual gender.
  • You personally use the word "gay" as an umbrella term like "queer" to cover the entire LGBT spectrum including transhets.
• Trope:
  • Any page on this wiki that isn't about a work. This includes...
    • Audience Reactions and Trivia (aka "YMMV tropes" and "trivia tropes"). Disregard the part where it is clearly stated that they are Not a Trope. Of course, this means that audience reactions and trivia can be Played With, because the author was clearly trying to play Broken Base or The Scrappy and it's totally not just you trying to shoehorn in a complaint.
    • Useful Notes whose topic appears in the work. If a story is set in New York, link to UsefulNotes.New York City (instead of an actual trope like Big Applesauce or The Big Rotten Apple).
    • Just for Fun pages like X Meets Y or Better Than It Sounds. It's up to you to decide if they should go in the main trope list, the YMMV page, the Trivia page, or even a separate page in the JustForFun/ namespace, because that's completely valid usage of that namespace..
    • Indices that don't explicitly have the word "Index" or "Tropes" in their name, such as Plot Twist. It's not like the index almost certainly contains a trope that more precisely represents what you're trying to convey.
  • A Creator who appears in a work. As with the Useful Notes mentioned above, Creators are perfect for padding out a work's trope list.
  • You can even place examples of objective tropes on YMMV pages if it makes a work you like sound bad, as a way to shoehorn in complaints, or when you're not sure whether or not it qualifies.
• Trope Codifier: Your favorite use of the trope! Bonus points if it's from a niche, obscure, and/or recent work.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Any key modulation in any music, irrespective of its form. Whenever it happens, make sure to complain about it—if the trope were not inherently bad, it wouldn’t be discredited.
• Trumplica:
  • Use this to list any unpleasant wealthy and powerful character, and insinuate that the real Donald Trump shares his flaws.
  • Use this to list any pleasant wealthy and powerful characters, and insinuate that the real Donald Trump shares his good qualities.
  • Any character (or even a real person) whose views are similar to Donald Trump's, even if it's coincidental.
• Tsundere:
  • A jerkass character that you ship with someone.
  • A Jerk with a Heart of Gold who is in love with someone.
  • A female character who has expressed more than one emotion, ever.
• Turns Red: This is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — a character or object literally changing color to red, such as because of intense anger.
• Überwald: Romania exists.
• Uncertain Doom: A character is left in a critical situation in a Cliffhanger and will very likely revealed to be alive in the next episode or season.
• Understatement:
  • Pothole to this trope in order to emphasize how something is so good or bad that your own words cannot do it justice.
  • Pothole your own understatements to this trope.
• Undignified Death:
  • You don't like how a character was killed off.
  • A character gets killed off sooner than you wanted.
• The Un-Favourite: Any character who's disliked by one or more other characters.
• Universal Tropes: Tropes that are so basic to the very structure of storytelling itself that they appear in almost every work.
• Unreliable Narrator: Use this to justify bad or criticized parts of your favorite work by claiming that it's only happening from one character's point of view and actually, to be fair, what really might've quite possibly happened was something entirely different from what was shown on-screen. It doesn't matter if there's little to no evidence the work has an unreliable narrator or even if the story is in third-person omniscient style!
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
  • Any gender reveal, period, regardless of whether it's portrayed in a negative light or not. Don't worry, no one will point out that there are tropes that better suit what you're describing or that framing all gender reveals as "unsettling" is a ROCEJ violation.
  • You are transphobic, so pothole this trope to any time a character comes out as trans, or better yet, any time a transgender character appears in a story.^note  TV Tropes does not condone hate speech of any kind; please do not actually do this.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist:
  • The protagonist is unambiguously evil, even if they are likable.
  • Designated Hero, except you can put it on objective pages.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
  • The Jerkass behavior of the protagonist is Played for Drama.
• Varying Tactics Boss: A Boss Battle whose attack pattern order is determined by Gameplay Randomization.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Genius Bonus, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Viewers Are Morons: Whenever something is explained in a work you don't like. Obviously, the writers are so terrible, they aren't above insulting the audience's intelligence. Or the fans are so stupid they wouldn't be able to understand anything without constant explanations.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • A villain gives a valid argument that the author didn't intend to be taken at face value.
  • A mean or selfish character gives a valid argument.
  • Strawman Has a Point, but it goes on objective pages and is interchangeable with Jerkass Has a Point.
• Villain in a White Suit: Any villain who wears white. Being Wicked Cultured and/or a mobster is optional.
• Villainous Friendship: Two villains that both work togther and don't (entirely) hate each other.
• Villain Protagonist:
  • An unlikable protagonist. Never mind that everything that they do is legal.
  • A protagonist that commits evil deed that the author didn't intend to be seen as evil.
  • If you hate a character, use this to exaggerate their negative traits or actions.
• Villainy Discretion Shot: A villain's atrocities are offscreen. The crimes not being treated with the horror they should be is optional.
• Villainy-Free Villain: Designated Villain, except you can put it on objective pages.
• Violation of Common Sense: This is Exactly What It Says on the Tin — an easy excuse to complain when a video game violates your personal idea of what constitutes common sense. The only misuse of this trope is if it's used for non-video-game examples. There are no other criteria.
• Violent Glaswegian: A Scottish character does well in a fight. It doesn't matter if they fight enthusiastically or reluctantly, and it certainly doesn't matter if they're from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee or the Isle of Skye.
• The Virus: Fictional diseases.
• Waif-Fu: A female anime character you want to marry.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: A normally fully clothed character is shown without a shirt.
• Walking Spoiler: Any character that is involved in a plot twist or has a Secret Identity or secret motives, even if they do plenty of other stuff that isn't a spoiler. Bonus points if said plot twist happens early on or is a minor and inconsequential one.
• Wall of Text: Whenever you don't feel like reading someone else's comment, just pothole to this.
• Walls of Tyranny: Any settlement with an oppressive regime surrounded by a wall.
• Weasel Words: Use these if you want to make a definitive statement, but can't actually find anything backing up your claims. Experts agree that weasel words are a writer's best friend!
• Wham Episode: Technically, any good episode can qualify, but try to limit yourself to the definitions below to keep the "Stop Having Fun" Guys from getting too upset. If you end up listing more than half of the episodes of the show, you're doing it right.
  • Any episode that progresses the plot, even if the "progress" ends up being undone via Snap Back, Negative Continuity, or Reset Button.
  • An episode that starts a new Story Arc, even if the arc ends with everything going back to normal.
  • A pilot with a First-Episode Twist.
  • Any episode which contains a Wham Line or Wham Shot, even if the majority of the episode is about something else.
  • Any episode that has any kind of emotional impact whatsoever, regardless of its effect on the story.
• Wham Line:
  • Any line of dialogue that reveals any new information, even if it was heavily foreshadowed. Bonus points if the line is in a recently released trailer and is only surprising if you had no idea what the trailer was for before the line.
  • Any dramatic and memorable line that describes something that just blatantly happened onscreen (like announcing a character is dead right after they get beheaded) also qualifies.
  • Things that aren't story related, like announcing the work's release date or a new entry in the series are also fair game for this trope.
  • A line of dialogue that reveals something that the audience knew for years, maybe even decades.
  • Any line that has any kind of emotional impact whatsoever, regardless of its effect on the story.
• Wham Shot:
  • Any shot that reveals new information in a recently released trailer like a character showing up even though it's common knowledge by the time of the release.
  • The moment in the first trailer for a work where an iconic character, item, or logo appears. Because merely learning what a work is counts as a radical change.
  • Just like Wham Line, the shot doesn't have to be whammy for the audience. You can put examples of characters being surprised upon seeing something.
  • Any shot that has... well, you know by now where we're going with this one.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: You like this person's eyes.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: An important character or important plotline are suddenly dropped from the story.
• What If?:
  • Alternate name for the Alternate History trope.
  • Any time a character asks a question starting with those words.
• What the Hell, Hero?: A character does something you disapprove of. Heck, it doesn't even have to be a character. Feel free to pothole to this trope to accuse the work's author of writing something you didn't like.
• What Year Is It?: Any time a character asks someone what the current date is.
• Where da White Women At?: A black man and a white woman are in a relationship.
• Wicked Wasps: Any mention of the furless flying stinging insects.
• A Wizard Did It: A mage is revealed to have been the culprit or mastermind.
• Women Are Delicate: A woman is present and does literally anything.
• The World Is Just Awesome: Gushing About Shows You Like, except you can put it on objective pages.
• World of Action Girls: One or two characters are an Action Girl.
• World of Badass:
  • One or two characters are badass.
  • A lot of characters are capable of fighting, but they're too incompetent to be threats.
• World of Buxom: One or two female characters have larger than average breasts.
• World of Funny Animals: One or two characters are animals.
• World of Ham: One or two characters are hammy.
• World of Jerkass:
  • A series has many characters that you hate.
  • As previously noted, simply being evil makes you a jerk, so the series is full of villains. Affably Evil, what's that?
  • The protagonist is loathsome, if not outright villainous. The other characters don't matter, as one character can make up a world if they hinder it enough.
  • One or two characters are jerks.
• World of Muscle Men: One or two characters are muscular.
• World of No Grandparents:
  • One or two characters have no known grandparents.
  • List aversions at any moment a grandparent appears or is mentioned by another character.
• World of Pun:
  • A pun is made once or twice throughout the work.
  • A single Pungeon Master appears in a work.
• World of Snark: One or two characters are snarky.
• A Worldwide Punomenon: Literally any time a pun is made. Especially if you're the one making it. Ignore that it redirects to World of Pun. Nobody clicks those "fun" potholes anyway.
• Written-In Absence: On Recap pages, use this to list every character that didn't appear this episode.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: A character who makes at least one bad decision.
• Xanatos Gambit:
  • A character has a complex plan.
  • A cooler version of Batman Gambit. You should always use this trope in place of Batman Gambit for characters that you like, and be sure to gush about how awesome and cool and mind-bendingly sick their plan was to differentiate it a from normal old Batman Gambit, even if it aligns one to one with the definition of that trope.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: The word "blitz" is in the title.
• Yandere: Any cute female character who happens to be Ax-Crazy.
• Yodel Land: The Alps exist.
• You Bastard!:
  • A character calls somebody a bastard.
  • A character does something bad, and some people in the audience want to call the character "bastard" in response.
  • A character has parents that never got married.
  • Any instance of Video Game Cruelty Potential you think is excessive.
• You Can Panic Now: A character tells another they can panic. Ignore the part where it says "nothing to do with This Is No Time to Panic". That's just FORKS propaganda. What do you mean, this trope was renamed to Media Scaremongering specifically to prevent this type of misuse?
• You Talk Too Much!:
  • You think a character talks for way too long. In other words, a Character Filibuster you don't like.
  • In the Characters page, apply this trope to the character with the most dialogue.
• Younger Than They Look: You personally think a character looks older than they actually are. In-universe acknowledgement is optional.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: A character is Hated by All and also has a plan. No need for any kind of connection between these things.

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