Basic Trope: Character dismisses an idea because it is unrealistic.
- Straight: Alice points out to Bob narrative tropes don't work in reality.
- Exaggerated: Alice extensively breaks all of Bob's notions, taking hours to do so.
- Downplayed: Alice dismisses Bob's plan as unlikely to happen, but considers the possibility nonetheless.
- Justified:
- Bob frequently needs to be reminded this is reality, and not just a dream or the like.
- Bob's idea is based on flawed logic or outright denial of established science.
- The Coconut Effect has caused Bob to mistakenly believe certain things work in real life the way they do in fiction.
- The Elder Thing is a monster that becomes stronger if more people believe in it. To weaken the entity to the point that it can eventually be killed or contained, people are encouraged to dismiss it or stuff like it.
- Inverted: Bob strongly exerts that reality isn't present as things become stranger and stranger.
- Subverted: Bob reminds Alice that they are, in fact, fictional characters fully aware of the fourth wall.
- Double Subverted: "...which is what I would say if we were fictional characters, but we are real!"
- Parodied:
- Many fantastical creatures attack the city, causing chaos and destruction, but Alice explicitly refuses to acknowledge this situation because it's not realistic.
- "Gemstones are magic, friendship is the most powerful substance in the universe, birds fly and water is wet. This is the real world, Bob. Grow up."
- Zig Zagged: "But I was just kidding, we are fully aware of the fourth wall, right?" "Wait, you mean we're not real?!" "You didn't know?!" "Aaaaaaaaah!"
- Averted: Either nobody complains about the unrealistic or nobody brings it up.
- Enforced: "We can't let the impressionable children think that's realistic, so have the characters explain that's unrealistic."
- Lampshaded: "Reality existing at all should be impossible, so what's your point?"
- Invoked: "Oh, and before you tell me 'This isn't some TV show', I checked. This should not be happening."
- Exploited: The Elder Thing uses humanity's dismissal of stuff such as it to go unopposed.
- Defied: Alice relentlessly persues fiction so she'll be willing to accept the unrealistic.
- Discussed:Bob: I keep telling you, it's dumb. Charlie's has flying cars, sentient machines, and food that can taste like anything you want without getting allergic! And their upper limit is self-counting cash?
Alice: You know, fiction has to have its limits too. - Conversed:Alice: That sounds so ridiculous, even the movies would have someone saying "This isn't a movie" to that plan.
Bob: (pouting) They only say that in the movies so the heroes don't solve their problems the fun way. - Implied: Alice always cringes when Bob brings up a unrealistic plan, but why she does isn't explained.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice ends up in a different reality than the one she is used to. It is just as real as her own yet operate under a much different set of rules. Ultimately, reality becomes subjective to where claiming something is real loses significance.
- Alice is actually extremely Wrong Genre Savvy about the nature of reality and Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs in highly unorthodox ways, proving her wrong.
- Alice is hit hard with Reality Is Unrealistic when things start going against what she and others expected or believed.
- Reconstructed: Though Alice points out the impossibility of something happening natively within their reality, she's open minded enough to accept the unrealistic and thus only uses the phrase when she honestly believes it doesn't apply.
- Played For Laughs: Alice insists Bob's claim of sentient gelatin to be crazy, even as posters for non-anthromorphic cats and dogs run for presidency.
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