Basic Trope: When a character with superpowers is in too much of a bad mood, they lose their powers.
- Straight: Alice has telekinesis, but when she's sad, she can't use it.
- Exaggerated: All it takes is minor irritation and Alice's telekinesis is completely gone.
- Downplayed: Alice can still use her telekinesis when she's sad, but it takes a lot more effort.
- Justified:
- Alice has to be happy to use her telekinesis.
- To use her telekinesis, Alice has to be focused — being in a bad mood distracts her.
- Inverted:
- Alice loses her telekinesis when she's very happy.
- Alice gains telekinesis when she's sad.
- Alice's telekinesis is more powerful when she's sad.
- Subverted: Alice is seen crying and unable to use her telekinesis, but it turns out she's crying because someone took her telekinesis.
- Double Subverted: The reason they even managed to take it was because Alice was having a terrible day, which made the telekinesis easier to remove.
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged: Alice's telekinesis sometimes works when she's sad, sometimes not, and sometimes it's unreliable when she's sad.
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't have any superpowers.
- Alice has superpowers, but they work just fine when she's sad.
- Enforced: The writers wanted to put Alice into a plot that would've been solved if she could have used her telekinesis but didn't want to make her sick or have someone steal the powers because that would lead the plot in the wrong direction, so they went for the old standby of powers not working when sad.
- Lampshaded: "Why do powers never work when someone's sad?!"
- Invoked: Bob grants Alice telekinesis, but every time he gives someone powers, there's a catch, and this is what he chooses for Alice.
- Exploited: The villain, Charles, sings Alice a sad song to prevent her from using her telekinesis.
- Defied: Bob grants Alice telekinesis and specifically ensures that they still work while unhappy.
- Discussed: "I know this lady with telekinesis but it never works when she's sad. What gives?"
- Conversed: "What's with that thing where negative emotions are like Kryptonite?"
- Implied: Alice is never seen using her telekinesis when sad.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama: Alice's powers are shorting out because she's literally depressed, or Bob died, or some other serious reason.
- Played for Horror:
Back to Psychosomatic Superpower Outage.
