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openThe B(etter)-Team
In a work where the main cast are entertainingly dysfunctional assholes (Team A), there's a similar team on the same side made up of far more competent, successful, intelligent etc. people (team B), who are occasionally seen at work, outclassing the main team by a mile (and the main reason the work isn't about the better B-team is that it's funnier to see the assholes screw up or get bitten by karma). If they meet there's potential for overlap with The Resenter / Unknown Rival.
- Exterminatus Now has an Inquisitorial team that mirrors the main characters in terms of appearance and abilities, except they're all highly competent (instead of middlingly skilled and lucky) and actually enjoy each other's company.
- Eight Bit Theater has the real Light Warriors, who have similar classes to the main party but are actually good at their jobs, managing to find epic weapons by raiding dungeons (although they also serve as Butt Monkeys who repeatedly get their stuff stolen by the main cast).
- Any Macho Disaster Expedition plot that shows the men as bungling idiots and the women as competent.◊
openWork didn't predict the USSF/other services
Is there a trope (or trivia item), akin to Technology Marches On, where an older work set in the future, for example attributes a spacefaring enterprise to the US Air Force, whereas we now have the US Space Force and it is a much more apt fit for such a mission (and yes I'm aware it is still kind of under the purview of the USAF, but likely as time goes on it will be seen as more distinct and specialised)? I guess an alternative which the trope could encompass would be if works made during the early days of aviation presumed that planes would always be associated only with air forces but, quite soon after it became apparent that navies could also field them (and then helicopters too) via aircraft carriers. Or, going further back, at first planes were largely operated as a corps under armies, but these nascent organisations soon rose to become their own service branches.
Edited by FlashStepsopenCopy the enemy's idea
For example, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Malfoy uses his enemy Harry's idea from the previous book of the Room of Requirement for illicit business, and Hermione's idea of the enchanted coins for secret communication.
I don't think this is Stealing the Credit, because Malfoy brazely says he stole the idea, rather than the credit for it.
openAirport runway attendant gag
Is there one about a flying character being directed to land by somebody on the ground with flags, like in an airport? Two examples of this are Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where Hagrid directs the flying carriage to land, and Shrek, where somebody directs the good witches from Sleeping Beauty to land on their broomsticks.
open"Dude, Not Funny" as an Audience Reaction Trope.
When a joke is meant to elicit laughter, but at least a few other people in Real Life find it offensive. It's just like the in-universe trope but as a YMMV trope.
openEvidence is a too-early claimed year
The evidence against a person's apparent identity is that he makes a claim, using a year which is too early for this claim to make sense.
- Live action TV
- In Monk episode "Mr. Monk Meets Dale the Whale", Dale's doctor, Christiaan Vezza, claims to be named after Dr. Christiaan Barnard. However, he claims to have been conceived in 1965, and Dr. Barnard wasn't famous until 1967.
- Theater
- In ''The Music Man, Marion was certainly suspicious about "Professor" Harold Hill, but she knew he was lying when he said he's "Gary Conservatory of Music, Gold-Medal Class of Aught-Five" since the Gary Conservatory of Music was only founded in 1906.
resolved Non-Descript City-World
Is there a trope on the phenomenon where the entirety or most of a story takes place within a generic city landscape that is either unnamed or has a very generic name?
openI can't think of that many examples for this, but...
A character is given a new name by a different culture, either because they're directly joining that culture or as a show of gratitude, renown, becoming The Dreaded, etc.. See Rusty being renamed to Firepaw in Warriors for an example of the first type. Might also include a person given themselves a new cultural name, such as the real life Muhammad Ali.
I was originally trying to find whether any historical examples of this existed, so real-life terminology would also be helpful.
openThis feels trope-y, but I can't place it
So, there's a scene in a movie I was watching where a character (a teen boy who's been captured by the villain) regrets that he never had a chance to apologize to his uncle (whom he had a spat with at the movie's beginning, before the plot kicked into gear)- and then the scene cuts to the uncle, who is worried about his missing nephew and lamenting that he was too hard on him.
It feels like a trope is in play here, but I can't seem to find anything specific...
resolved Everybody Followed Fashion in the Past Live Action TV
A flashback scene will feature characters wearing stereotypical fashion items of the era, to an exaggerated level, even if in the series' present time they just dress in clothes that might be common in different settings, such as suits, white shirts, and so on.
For instance, in The Simpsons, Dr. Hibbert has a short hairdo that doesn't really stand out, but in flashbacks he'll have jheri curls, braids or dreadlocks depending on the era.
Even Homer wears a nondescript white shirt and jeans, but is fashion-focused on flashbacks, like in That '90s Show, he wore an 8-Ball jacket over a hoodie... even though when the show actually aired in the 90ies, he had the same white shirt.
Might be a Justified Trope in that characters might care more about fashion when they're young, but still...
openA story references its adaptation and the author's less known works
Not sure if this is the same trope or different ones.
- An adaptation changes some of the original's designs. Then later the original references those designs as easter eggs.
- A story includes characters from the author's other works. One Recurring Extra is the protagonist of another, much more obscure story, and a few more are from an abandoned and unpublished story concept.
openReversed Reversal
A situation that can be played for drama or humor: something with a binary state (an on-off switch, a MacGuffin and an identical-looking decoy, etc.) keeps getting switched from one state to the other.
- A Jame Bond movie has Bond switch the Big Bad's computer tape with an audio one. Unfortunately, he disposed of the real one by putting it down the Bond Girl's bikini, who interpreted this as her needing to switch the tapes, which she did.
- In Asterix, two hostile Gaul chieftains (both Too Important to Walk and are carried on shields) are negotiating, with one turning his back on the other. His shieldbearers believe they're supposed to do the same, ruining the chieftain's attempt at drama.
- In Good Omens, three babies are present in the maternity ward, an American politician's son, the Antichrist and a third one. There's a Satanic plot to switch the first two babies out, but because two of the cultists do so separately, the Antichrist ends up raised by a perfectly normal couple instead of being in a position to start Armageddon.
- Often seen when playing Uno, when a player uses a reverse card but the next also uses one.
openDescribe this power set
Taromancy: Gaining insight into the future by using tarot cards.
Astrology
Cold reading
openLet's all agree that it happened like this.
To hide the truth and/or escape potential pursuit by law enforcement a group of people agrees on a fake made-up testimony.
Edited by sohibilopenDescribing an observant character
What is the difference between “Sherlock Scan” , “Eagle-Eye Detection”, and “Hyper-Awareness” ?
((Trying to describe a doctor/nurse character who can accurately diagnose a patient’s illness even without tests/equipment))
openPets realize someone isn't to be trusted before their owner.
Is there a trope where a pet or animal senses that someone they just met is evil? And they growl or go on the attack before their owner or friendly human finds out the same thing?
openWhen a door is closing from the top to the bottom and someone slides underneath it at the last secon
And if they run towards the closing door and it actually does close on them before they get through, is it subverting, inverting or averting?
A character who was white and red-headed in the source material is portrayed as black in an adaptation. (Starfire in Titans, Jimmy Olsen in Supergirl, Ariel in The Little Mermaid-)