Basic Trope: AFAB characters are at a reproductive age where they should be menstruating, yet are never shown to.
- Straight: Alice never menstruates.
- Exaggerated: Women and other AFAB individuals don't even appear to have reproductive systems; babies just materialize without explanation.
- Downplayed:
- Alice has never been shown during menstruation.
- Sometimes Alice gets regular periods, and sometimes she goes for years without one.
- Alice has pads and tampons in her purse, yet what they are for or menstruating itself is never shown.
- Justified:
- Alice lives in an Alternate Universe where human reproduction works differently.
- Alice has been taking extended-use birth control pills (or is always skipping the placebo week with regular ones) so that she doesn't have periods.
- Alice has some kind of hormonal problem (such as polycystic ovary syndrome, for example) that prevents ovulation and periods.
- Alice is a Transgender woman and does not have a uterus, ergo no periods.
- The entire story takes place where over a span of time where it’s plausible Alice wouldn't be on her period during any of it.
- Alice is currently pregnant, and always gets pregnant again quickly after giving birth.
- Alice is sterile (whether she's been born infertile, or she had an operation such as a hysterectomy) and cannot have periods.
- All of the female characters in the story are either too young or too old to have periods, so the topic is never dealt with in-universe.
- Alice is a Half-Human Hybrid that has her non-human half's estrous reproductive system.
- Inverted:
- Alice menstruates perpetually.
- All Periods Are PMS
- Everyone menstruates perpetually, even men.
- The story focuses very heavily on periods.
- Alice menstruates despite not having a uterus.
- Subverted:
- Alice goes for several months without menstruating, only to discover that it's because she's pregnant.
- Alice is not exactly a human.
- Alice is older than she looks and is actually too old to menstruate.
- Alice is younger than she looks and is actually too young to menstruate.
- Double Subverted:
- The pregnancy is ectopic and she requires a hysterectomy, preventing her from ever having a period again.
- The hormones involved shouldn't be affecting her periods.
- None of the women in the setting menstruate.
- Parodied: No waste ever comes out of a woman. Not even carbon dioxide.
- Zig Zagged: Alice never seems to menstruate, but then it is discovered she's pregnant. Yet even after giving birth she still doesn't, with her childhood friend Beth revealing they're a Human Subspecies possessing Bizarre Human Biology- But...
- Averted: Alice gets her period once a month.
- Enforced:
- Reproductive processes are not relevant to the plotline, and so are not dealt with in-story.
- Alice is the heavily-armoured protagonist in an action-adventure game, so removing her periods is an Acceptable Break from Reality.
- Lampshaded: "You know," said Bob to Alice, "of all the lame excuses you've used as to why you don't want to sleep with me, your period has never been one of them."
- Invoked:
- Alice becomes an adventurer in the hope it'll make her periods stop.
- Alice has a hysterectomy, or starts taking the Pill and always skips the placebo week so she won't have any more periods.
- Exploited: Beth, in a Love Triangle with Bob at the center, convinces him Alice is pregnant with another man's child given her lack of periods.
- Defied: Alice pretends she's trying to get pregnant so she has an excuse to talk about her periods.
- Discussed: "If this were a movie, I'd probably be doing something productive right now instead of curling up in a little ball of cramp-induced self-pity," moans Alice.
- Conversed: "Hey, ever notice how female characters like Alice never seem to keep a box of tampons in their inventories?"
- Plotted A Good Waste:
- The author forgot that women menstruate, or was too embarrassed to mention it. Or just thought it would be too gross.
- Mentioning it serves no purpose, so the author doesn't mention it.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice feels like she's not a real woman because she can't menstruate, causing her to go to extreme lengths to "prove" her womanhood.
- The fact Alice has never menstruated yet suffers no reproductive issues makes her a genetic marvel, with scientists trying to steal her biological samples to become the historical inventor of a "Period Cure"- Thus massive amounts of sabotage, delaying progress.
- The absense of periods is one of the first signs of a Sterility Plague. Worse still over 50% of the population are asymptomatic carriers.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice lives in the future, where Applied Phlebotinum allows women to safely turn their menstrual cycles on and off at will.
- Becoming extremely famous for never menstruating, Alice freely assists scientific research in trying to create a gene mod from herself- Thus no need for sabotage since she only cares about helping her fellow women.
- Played For Laughs: Pads and tampons exist, but nobody has any idea about what they're used for.
Back to No Periods, Period
