The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
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openHard is easy but easy is hard
A character has difficulty with something easy, but finds it easier the harder the activity or subject matter gets.
e.g.
Alice can't add 2+2, but can resolve differential equations in her head.
Bob gets seasick on a perfectly calm sea, but put him in a storm at sea and he never loses his balance even standing on one leg in the rigging.
Charlie can't peel a banana without setting the house on fire, but can make a 5-course dinner with half an hour and an empty fridge.
Daniel can argue Shinto philosophy in literary Japanese for hours, but answering a yes-no question in Japanese takes half an hour because he can't pronounce them.
Ed can kick a field goal so it bounces twice against each post before going in from two fields away, but ask him to toss a ball to someone five feet away and it ends in disaster.
etc, etc.
Edited by Chabal2openNon Adultery
Two characters in a relationship independently decide to cheat on each other, but due to various coincidences (and possibly alcohol) end up unknowingly sleeping with each other. Usually they then "realize" that sex with other people isn't actually different from sex with their spouse, and return to their marriage.
A variation is for both people to place ads in the newspaper's singles column, get an answer, and discover it's their spouse.
Edited by Chabal2open"Take your kids to work" episode Western Animation
Usually seen in cartoons, in this episode the parents take their children with them to work. An alternative could be "Take your daughter to work". I've seen this in The Loud House and Lampshaded once in an episode of Phineas and Ferb by Vanessa.
If I'm not mistaken, this is not very common in media nowdays, so it could very well be a Dead Horse Trope.
openProgressively Immoral Recounting
A gag where the description of character's actions start out as heroic, then not quite heroic, then outright evil.
Something like this:
- "My great-grandfather hid Jews in his basement during WW 2." -> "He made them pay rent." -> "We haven't told them the war's over."
- Bob saves Alice from a gas leak. -> Bob was nearby because he's stalking her -> Bob orchestrated the gas leak in the first place.
openSudden Weight
Do we have a trope for when a character plans to hold something that seems light but, immediately upon taking hold of it, find themselves weighed down because it's so much heavier than expected?
Basically character A takes an item from character B. A can hold it just fine but the moment B takes hold they're pulled to the floor by the sudden and unexpected weight.
openCreatures that pursue through unusual mediums Literature
A horror trope in which there is some supernatural creature following a character, but they travel through a strange method. Often this is the subject of a photograph that gets closer to the camera (i.e. "The Sun Dog" by Stephen King), but I'm not looking for the Creepy Changing Photograph trope, but a more general trope about the monsters themselves.
In "The Hounds of Tindalos", the hounds pursue the narrator through corners/angles, hence he tries to build a room that has no corners in it.
In "Details" by China Mieville, there is a monster which appears in cracks/clouds/small details, and as usual appears to get closer to the viewer until it catches them.
In the "Mirror Mirror" episode from Amazing Stories, there is a killer who appears in mirrors and also gets closer and closer to the viewer.
open“WHEEEEEEE”/“AAAAAAAA”
Usually found in Western Animation, to my knowledge. Two characters are experiencing some kind of event, probably falling or sliding somewhere unexpectedly, and one character is having the time of their life while the other is terrified.
openWait, You Forgot Your X!
I'm looking for a trope for when someone leaves in a hurry, and someone yells for them that they forgot something but they're already gone, usually used for comedic effect, and fairly common in Western Animation.
For example, when a man finds that all of the food at a hamburger restaurant is made of insects, he runs off. The waiter, however, yells for him, "Wait! You forgot your fries!" while holding up a bag of worms.
Does that trope exist?
openImmortals Do Historical Work
Is there a trope for the tendency of immortals (or at least very long-lived characters), when they have a day job in modern times, for said job to be very past-oriented (historian, museum curator, history teacher, antiques dealer, etc.)?
openHere's How I'm Framing You
A subtype of Evil Gloating, usually found in crime fiction. The villain has captured a hero or several heroes and is explaining how he's going to make their deaths look like by fabricating evidence, from the point of view of a neutral observer, and often also pinning his crimes on them. "Alice, you were breaking into Bob's office for whatever reasons, with this lockpick. Bob, you thought it was a burglar, and shot them with this gun that you had on hand. Upon realizing that this is your friend Alice, you were grief-struck and committed suicide. Open and shut."
Edited by BeansidheopenFix The Fuse Box
The lights are out and someone has to go into the Creepy Basement to repair the fuse box/generator; bad things usually ensue. We have Power Outage Plot, but that's for whole narratives whereas this is usually one quest in a video game or one murder in a horror movie.
openSand message washed away by the waves
Seems to be a really popular visual trope, but do we have a specific page on it?
openGift finding plot
I've noticed we have a couple of drafts in the TLP about giving gifts. I'm wondering if there's a supertrope about characters trying to find a gift for someone.
open"We can mourn them later"
Everyone are mourning their fallen friend Bob (who just died), but one character (let's call her Alice) says what they have to keep moving, or they would end up dead too. It's portrayed as reasonable, not insensitive.
Do we have any tropes for either the situation, or Alice's role in it?
openPerson punches something hard and it hurts their hand
Is this a trope? I can't think of a fictional example but it's definitely Truth in Television, due to the whole "equal but opposite reaction thing" (i.e if you punch someone in the nose, the same amount of force is applied to your fist. It just takes a lot less force to break a nose than a fist.)
openAwning trampoline
This seems pretty common in video games (especially platformers) and cartoons but I don't seem to find a trope for it. A character jumps out a window or off a roof and lands on an extended awning, which bounces them into the air.
openLow Health, Screen Turns Red Videogame
A trope where if you are low on health, the screen turns red and/or blood gets on the screen. Usually it starts at the edges and gets more intense and closer to the center the lower on health you are.
Edited by DromeoopenYour Tax Dollars At Work
A character complains about an expensive and wasteful project by the government/the police/the armed forces or general incompetence, usually with some variation of the phrase "For this we pay taxes?!" or a sarcastic "Our tax dollars at work."
Sometimes it's just annoyance at government officials, such as a man complaining that for all the taxes he pays the city still hasn't fixed that pothole on Main Street, or the police wanting to know where he was in connection with a crime. Sometimes taken to its illogical conclusion by The Karen via "I pay taxes which pay your salary, therefore you work for me!"
Edited by Chabal2
I've noticed that CD commercials seem to get parodied a lot, probably due to having been an omnipresent part of pop culture for a bit. This bit from The Simpsons has the defining features that I'd say define what gets parodied: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWDTRdvq4NQ
The one feature I'd say feels most iconic is the scrolling text with all of the tracks on the CD, with songs occasionally being highlighted as a snippet of said song is played.