No matter how hard you try... you can't see the subject matter of these tropes.
Compare This Index Happened Offscreen.
Tropes:
- Invisibility: Having the ability to be impossible to be seen by others.
- Behind the Black: A character is somehow unable to see a cardboard cutout or other two-dimensional object from the side view.
- Chameleon Camouflage: A character seamlessly fades into the background.
- Curtain Camouflage: Hiding behind a curtain.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Other characters are oblivious of how mean or evil someone is in spite of how obvious it is that they're a bad person.
- Dramatic Curtain Toss: If you're going to reveal something big, hide it behind a curtain and fling it off.
- Dramatic Disappearing Display: You know a game is getting serious when its user interface vanishes.
- Everything Fades: Enemies in a game disappear without a trace as soon as they're killed.
- Failed a Spot Check: Not noticing an intruder or something missing until it's too late.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: A regular or recurring character who, for whatever reason, is never fully visually depicted.
- Hollywood Chameleons: Chameleons in fiction have their color-changing ability depicted as enabling them to blend in with anything surrounding them.
- I Can't See Myself: A phrase, or something to the same effect, uttered by someone who discovers, upon looking in a mirror, that he or she has just become invisible.
- Invisibility Cloak: A device that enables invisibility.
- Invisibility Flicker: The Invisibility Cloak temporarily fails to function.
- Invisibility Ink: A substance that makes whoever gets covered in it invisible.
- Invisibility with Drawbacks: When invisibility isn't the perfect superpower.
- Invisible Aliens
- Invisible Anatomy: A character has body parts that are invisible, usually appendages.
- Invisible Block: A hidden platform that can be used, but isn't visually depicted.
- Invisible Grid: A set of spatial constraints in a video game that cannot be seen by the player and determines the actions taken by a character in certain contexts.
- Invisible Introvert: Characters with stealth powers tend to be shy or asocial.
- Invisible Jerkass: An invisible being uses their invisibility to do mean things.
- Invisible Main Character: A story where the main character temporarily becomes invisible.
- Invisible Means Undodgeable: When a person or object is invisible, people will always run into the invisible person or object.
- Invisible Monsters: Monsters that cannot be seen are confronted. When used in live-action works, the invisibility is often a convenient excuse to not spend money on the special effects needed to bring the monsters to life.
- Invisible President: The President is absent in scenes set in the White House, often to prevent the work becoming an Unintentional Period Piece.
- Invisible Stomach, Visible Food: You can still see the food that an invisible person eats while it is being chewed, swallowed, and digested.
- Invisible Streaker: An invisible person wears clothes that are still visible, requiring them to strip in order to be truly invisible.
- Invisible to Adults: A supernatural creature that can only be seen by children.
- Invisible to Normals: Supernatural creatures can only be seen by a select few.
- Invisible Wall: Invisible walls in video games that keep the player in the gaming area.
- Invisible Writing: When there's a hidden written message on something that can only be revealed via a special method.
- I See Dead People: A character becomes able to see ghosts, who are otherwise invisible to everyone else.
- Knight's Armor Hideout: Avoiding detection by slipping into an idle suit of armor.
- MacGuffin Blindness: A character seeking a MacGuffin somehow doesn't recognize it when it's right in front of them.
- Nobody Here but Us Birds: A person in hiding feigns an animal noise, usually as some sort of signal.
- Perception Filter: Invisibility via being unnoticed.
- Radar Is Useless: Characters make no apparent reaction to airborne or spaceborne events that should have been blindingly obvious.
- Right Behind Me: Insulting someone without realizing that they're standing behind you.
- See the Invisible: Finding a way to make an otherwise invisible character or object visible.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: An important character is absent from the work's promotional materials.
- Smoke Out: Creating a literal smoke screen to cover up a get-away.
- Step into the Blinding Fight: Blinding your enemy as a tactic to shroud your attacks
- Technicolor Ninjas: Someone is somehow a master of stealth, despite wearing a suit so brightly colored they should theoretically stick out like a sore thumb.
- Too Strange to Show: Something is so bizarre its very nature defies depiction or description.
- Undisclosed Funds: If something goes for a lot of money, we won't know exactly how much.
- Visible Invisibility: Gimmicks a work of fiction uses so that invisible characters can still be seen by the audience.
- Visible to Believers: Only those who believe in a creature or object can actually see it.
- Wallpaper Camouflage: Someone wears a certain outfit or paints themselves in a way so that they blend in with the walls of the room.
- Weirdness Censor: Something prevents people from noticing the oddness around them.
- You Can See Me?: A person thinks they are invisible, but finds out that the person they're approaching can see them.
You still can't see it. Stop staring. And don't try to do that thing where you look right next to the thing you're trying to see and let your peripheral vision pick it out. That won't work either.
