"Wacky is filling your car's gas tank with 3-octane gasoline. Absurd is filling your car's gas tank with a ferret."
These tropes are here to screw with your mind. These are tropes about the absurd, dadaism, nonsense, non sequiturs, the surreal, and the bizarre.note
Categories:
Tropes:
- Abstract Scale
To measure the immeasurable. - Absurdism
Life itself is the absurdity. - Acid-Trip Dimension
A space-time rift that looks like an LSD trip. - Ad Dissonance
An advertisement in a work is ironic or otherwise inappropriate to the action. - Alien Geometries
Spatial arrangements that cannot be explained by the ordinary laws of physics. - Appeal to Audacity
Something is declared true because nobody in their right mind would make up such a ridiculous story if it were false. - Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?
A non-sequitur answer when a more obvious solution is expected. - Bathos
The lofty or serious juxtaposed with the ludicrous or commonplace. - Big-Lipped Alligator Moment
A totally random event is inserted into a serious story, then never referred to again. - Bizarrchitecture
Buildings built in impossible or nonsensical ways. - Bizarro Apocalypse
The apocalypse is strange and/or surreal. - Bizarro Elements
Elemental Powers out of the ordinary. - Bizarro Episode
A Big-Lipped Alligator Moment that takes up a whole episode, though the episode itself is internally consistent. - Bizarro Fiction
Literary genre known for high weirdness, shock horror and gross and surreal narratives. - Bizarro Universe
An Alternate Universe where everything is the opposite. - Breathless Non Sequitur
A change in subject with no time to react to the previous topic. I'm on a horse. - Calvinball
The game's rules are whatever you feel like. - Camp
Completely tasteless, over-exaggerated, theatrical style, usually So Bad, It's Good. - Chewbacca Defense
You pretend you can win the argument if you get the other guy to shut up by any means. - Cloudcuckooland
A strange and obscure place with strange people and customs. - Cloudcuckoolander
A character who is just plain out there. - Contemplating Your Hands
Fascination with hands while on drug trips. - Collector of the Strange
Collecting the weirdest and most bizarre stuff possible. - Crazy-Prepared
Prepared for any and all situations. - Cue the Flying Pigs
If something impossible is said to only happen if X will happen. - Cutaway Gag
Non sequitur humor tossed in. - Dada
Confusing anti-art movement. - Dada Ad
A strange and/or frightening ad that doesn't even make sense when the product is revealed. - Dada Comics
Comics consisting of surreal, non-sequitur humor. - Deranged Animation
It's animated and totally not made on drugs, we swear. - Digging to China
Tunneling straight through molten core? Seems like a good idea. - Disney Acid Sequence
A music sequence in a strait-laced film passes through a sudden Art Shift into Deranged Animation territory. - Dream Land
A world comprised of dreams.. - Drop the Cow
Breaking a lull in the plot with a spontaneously silly event, a.k.a. a deliberate Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. - Eerily Out-of-Place Object
An otherwise ordinary object made unsettling by being found somewhere impossible. - Le Film Artistique
Indie True Art film that most people don't bother even trying to understand. - The Freakshow
A show that involves people with odd physical deformities or features and people with strange or dangerous talents. - Gainax Ending
A deliberately hyper-symbolic, surreal or nonsensical ending. - Giant Foot of Stomping
A big foot comes out of nowhere and stomps someone to death. - Giving Up on Logic
The situation has become so strange, surreal, or stupid that someone gives up trying to make sense of things. - The Grotesque
A super-ugly/deformed character that induces fear, pity and curiosity in others. - Grotesque Gallery
A group of creatures who appear ugly or gross, arranged in a way to unsettle even more. - Happy Place
Troubled people curl up and go away in their heads to a place where everything is warm and fuzzy. - A hat... wait.
- Hitler Ate Sugar
Just because someone evil did something doesn't make that thing evil — but people treat it like it was. - Implausible Deniability
A character consistently denies doing something, even despite incontrovertible evidence. - Incomprehensible Entrance Exam
An exam to qualify for membership makes no sense to anyone except the examiners. - Indecisive Medium
A work in a certain medium behaves as if it was in another medium. - Insane Troll Logic
A line of rationale so illogical and demented that it defies attempts to rationally argue against it. - Is It Always Like This?
A normal person wanders into a crazy place. - It Runs on Nonsensoleum
A "scientific" device that runs on something impossible or nonsensical. - Little People Are Surreal
Little people are used as part of a surreal scene, because they're relatively rare and unfamiliar in real life. - Makes Just as Much Sense in Context
It doesn't. The Epileptic Trees remain epileptic unless you possess Fridge Brilliance. - Mind Screw
Something that relies too heavily on symbolism/surrealism/absurdism/metaphors to be understood in a conventional matter and lacks a clear-cut explanation (on purpose). - Museum of the Strange and Unusual
Find here what you can't find in any other museum. - Mushroom Samba
Ingesting something hallucinogenic results in trippy visions. - Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant
An innocent character who constantly creeps out those around them. - Non Sequitur
The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. - Non Sequitur Environment
A new area suddenly appears with no logical transition or source. - Non Sequitur, *Thud*
Saying something random after being clobbered. - Nonsense Classification
A classification that doesn't make any sense at all. - Noodle Incident
An event in the past that's referenced but never explained. Usually Played for Laughs. - "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer
This is/was real. Really. - Oddball Doppelgänger
An unholy dead ringer of an often sane character. - Our Monsters Are Weird
Monster may or not be terrifying, but is definitely surreal. - Oxymoronic Being
Someone or something that is innately self-contradictory. - Paradox Person
This person should not be possible to exist by the laws of the setting but somehow still does. - Personal Dictionary
Changing the definition of a word to suit your purposes. - Puff of Logic
When a convincing argument causes something to stop existing. - Quirky Work
A work that audiences don't think makes much sense. There's no way someone could have come up with it unless they were high — oh wait, they did? - Reality Is Out to Lunch
An area where the laws of physics or reality just stop applying. - Refuge in Audacity
Do something outrageous enough and everyone will be too dumbfounded to interfere or punish you. - Reminder of Impossibility
Tell somebody that they are unable to do what they are doing, and they will experience reality as they stop. - Runs on Ignorance
For when things only work when you don't understand them. - Saharan Shipwreck
A shipwreck is found in the Sahara. Isn't that weird? - Scaled Up
Turning into something reptilian. - Serial Escalation
A consistent escalation in whatever the heck a work is doing. - "Shaggy Frog" Story
An anecdote or fable with the point that is has absolutely no point. - Springtime for Hitler
There's nothing just as crazy as failing at failing. - Still Fighting the Civil War
Some people just can't get over the fact that "their side" lost some conflict long ago. - Success Through Insanity
A crazy character is more effective and/or awesome because of their craziness. - Surreal Horror
It's scary and it makes no sense. - Surreal Humor
Rule of Funny meets Dada. - Surrealism
Art movement which wanted to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, by irrational juxtaposition of images, illogical scenes, dream logic or pure Mind Screw. - Surreal Music Video
Mind Screw. Music video edition. - Surreal Theme Tune
A theme tune with random lyrics that has little connection to the show. - Taken from a Dream:
A character brings something from a literal dreamworld into reality. - Testosterone Poisoning
Rated M for Manly exaggerated to absurd levels. - Thought-Aversion Failure
Ordering someone to not think about something is impossible and inherently paradoxical. - The Treachery of Images
This is an image. But it doesn't exist. - Trippy Finale Syndrome
The grande finale takes place in some trippy and abstract realm. - True Art Is Incomprehensible
Anyone can understand this tripe, it can't possibly be artistic! - The Tyson Zone
Some celebrities allow their reputation to become so bizarre that any story about them is believable. - Violation of Common Sense
Do something stupid enough, and you'll be rewarded. - Wackyland
A place where the laws of physics and logic no longer apply. - Waking Non Sequitur
A strange outburst from someone whose mouth is awake and functioning a split second before their brain is. - The Walrus Was Paul
The creator of a work outright admits it was deliberately made to confuse the audience and poke fun at their attempts to find meaning in it. - Wave of Babies
A wave comprised of infants. What else? - Weird Aside
A person mentions something utterly weird in passing as if it were quite normal. - Weirdness Coupon
If someone is "weird", it's acceptable that they do things that normal people couldn't get away with. - Where the Hell Is Springfield?
A city or place about which the work gives conflicting clues where it is located. - The Wonderland
An alternate world that is indistinguishable from dream reality. - Word-Salad Horror
A random string of disturbing, ominous but ultimately meaningless phrases can indicate that something really creepy is going on. - Word-Salad Humor
Take Inherently Funny Words and try and combine them to make a funny sentence. - Word Salad Philosophy
"I believe in Meaningless Meaningful Words." - World Gone Mad
Nothing makes sense in this place. - World of Chaos
World Gone Mad doesn't begin to describe this place. - World of Weirdness
A world where real-life elements co-exist with various fantastical elements and the weirdest stuff imaginable.
