You know, that thing where...

The world of superheroes has all types. Some gain their powers through Training from Hell and gain Charles Atlas Superpowers, while others get them from some form of Applied Phlebotinum. Trouble is, most heroes with the latter form have an Achilles' Heel of some kind, could be a Weaksauce Weakness, some Kryptonite Factor, or a Power Nullifier, that can rob them of their powers. When this happens, these heroes are left utterly useless, as their entire hero status rested on those powers. But sometimes, we will run across a hero who can still dish it out when their powers are gone. Basically, he's been Brought Down to Normal, but he/she isn't useless or helpless.

These heroes (or villains) may be Crazy-Prepared and trained in non-powered fighting in case of just this occasion. Or, they may have gotten their powers after learning five forms of martial arts. Or, maybe they just plain didn't use their powers to kick ass anyway. Or, they're just that Badass that they don't need powers to kick you into next week.

This is the implication that a character who dislikes a particular thing is secretly a practitioner of that thing.

This especially comes into play when ethnicity or homosexuality is involved. Such a character is likely to believe in negative stereotypes about his own group (no matter how irrational), and hate himself for it, or live by those stereotypes so they become self-fulfilling prophecies. If Fantastic Racism is in play, such as with Differently Powered Individuals, the person may try to suppress the trait that makes them part of the hated group, or use said power as a weapon against them.

The Boomerang Bigot is a character who thinks that all members of Group X are an inferior race/species... even while being a member of Group X themselves. Despite the obvious contradiction, the Boomerang Bigot doesn't see anything wrong with their view, and will continue to proudly persecute Group X.

Differs from You Are What You Hate in that there is no ignorance, secrecy, or self-doubt involved. The Boomerang Bigot knows they're a member of the targeted group — and others know it, too — but remains unabashed about holding their views, possibly in an odd form of Honor Before Reason. However, it is possible for the two tropes to overlap. A bigot's membership in the hated group might be secret to most people but known to a few. If he continues to sincerely express hatred towards the hated group, even when in a situation where his secret will not be exposed, then he might show shades of both Boomerang Bigot and You Are What You Hate.

A character enters what should be a serious situation for them, and yet seems completely bored with the events. Instead of giving the occasion his full attention, they seem more invested in the snack they rather conveniently happen to be eating.

A character is so angry, pissed off, or shocked that he or she is literally unable to form a coherent sentence. Other strong emotions are sufficient to render a person unable to speak proper English (or whatever language is being spoken at the time), but shock, anger, and pure rage are the most common. It usually takes a little while for him or her to recover, at which point he or she explodes into rage normally.

Looking for a place to set the disaster of the week/alien invasion/supervillain's base/origin of the bad guys etc? Well, you can use the classics: New York, Tokyo, London or Paris for the first three and places like Russia, North Korea or the Middle East for the last. Of course, you may think that's too cliché. Another alternative is having the last three take place in a fictional town in the middle of nowhere and have the villains come from some equally-fictional Ruritania or Qurac.

You can't spell sympathetic without pathetic!

If being good were as easy as most cartoons make it out to be, everyone would be a saint. Truth is, sometimes Being Good Sucks. Doing the right thing doesn't always feel good, is hard to pull off, and is often very painful, sometimes even harmful, to yourself and others. Being good requires a Heroic Sacrifice, keeping your word, and thinking of others before yourself. It means swallowing your pride, owning up to and apologizing for your mistakes. Oh, and it also means doing the above without expecting a reward (even a spoken thank you), refusing one if offered, and most ego-crushing, accepting the punishment for being good.

In some family-oriented shows, instead of using completely made-up swear words, actual but relatively mild cuss words, such as "hell" and "damn", will get promoted to the top of the swearing ladder.

Contrary to popular belief, the words "damn" and "hell" are permissible in a G-rated film. For example, the 1971 movie Airport had both ("Where the hell are you?" and "You've always got some damn excuse!") and it still received a G rating, though movie-rating standards have changed since then. Even some G-rated animated features, such as Sleeping Beauty, The Secret Of NIMH, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, have included mild swear words. However, it is worth noting that "Hell" can refer to the place and "damn" can mean condemnation to said place, and thus are not swear words even if such concepts are a little heavy for children. "Bitch" and "ass" almost never get such passes, though "ass" is sometimes used as a joke when referring to a donkey.

Possibly the most frequently used gag in the history of film and television. If ever in a comedy somebody tells a character or a group of characters to move/turn left, you can bet the character/one or more of the group will go right instead, prompting the phrase, "Your other left!". (Or they correctly turn left, at which point the first character realizes they actually meant right and tries to cover with the same phrase.)

If this doesn't happen, it's usually replaced with a confused exchange about "My left or your left?", even if the characters are facing the same way.

Corsets are painful, the popular theory goes. Squeezing four or more inches from your waist in order to get that perfect figure? Dear god, woman, that must be torture—however will you be able to breathe? This perception has been carried into fiction: if corsetry is mentioned in a period drama, it is often in the form of a woman's complaint about the pain caused by being squeezed —usually against her will—into the garment, and often faints from the restrictions. In more recent years, creators have taken to using the physical constriction provided by corsets as an allegory for the societal constriction women faced in the past; when a woman complains about her stays, she’s actually complaining about how she’s oppressed by society’s norms, a common complaint of the Spirited Young Lady.

Want to make a bad situation worse? Add a bear!

Just as monkeys and penguins are guaranteed to make something funnier or cuter, bears have a knack for scaring the crap out of everyone. Polar and brown bears are the largest extant land-based predators in the world (The African lion is slightly smaller though stronger physically), with a penchant for aggressive behavior, might be a reason for that (polar bears, the largest of bear species, can weigh up to 1500 pounds and have been known to hunt walruses and beluga whales). Because of this, throwing a bear into a scene is the best way to let the audience know that our heroes have gone beyond rock bottom and are now totally screwed.

When the bad guy is finished off by a large, vicious animal.

This is a method to keep the hero's hands clean while still dispatching the villain. The difference is that that trope is more removing an obstacle without losing karma for the heroes. Often, the death happens entirely off screen, with the villain's gruesome mauling being implied instead of shown, though sometimes you will hear sounds or see a silhouette of the carnage. Can also be used to bring the villain Back from the Dead, since really, did you think a mere bear would stop him?

Ah, Great Britain. Mother of America. Land of the... Big Red Buses.

Are aliens landing in UFOs? They'll land in Hyde Park. Is there a neighborhood full of world-class martial artists with superhuman powers? It's probably right off of Shaftesbury Avenue. Is there a mysterious gigantic cavern hidden just beneath the Earth's surface, wherein aliens once upon a time created all life on Earth? There's probably a sealed tunnel in The London Underground that breaches right into it. Are you looking for the leader of a secret den of werewolves? He's probably drinking a piña colada down at Trader Vic's.note Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny? The Albert Hall has front-row seats. A magical gateway between worlds? Look in the London Underground again — or keep your eye out for an out-of-place police box.

In Hollywood, any characters visiting Britain will stop in one place: Central London. They'll catch a ride on those cool red buses, try to make the Guards at the palace laugh, get into a debate about whether it's fries or chips, and at some point meet the Royal Family. The Establishing Shot will show Westminster Palace, Tower Bridge, The London Eye, or all of the above to a brief Standard Snippet of "Rule Britannia", just in case you weren't clear on the location. If the makers think they're being subtle, it will feature a red phone box, a red Routemaster Bus driving by (quite rare in real life), and a red-and-blue London Transport sign for one of London's major interchange stations like Liverpool Street or Kings Cross.

Usually, when characters do something illegal or socially unacceptable, they’ll try to be discreet about it, keep their misdeeds small and subtle enough that either no one knows what they’ve done, or no one cares. Sometimes a character does the exact opposite; take their misdeeds so far over-the-top that there’s no way they can’t be noticed and they still get away with it.

The key is to be so audacious in how you violate the rules (whether they be laws or a moral/ethic code) that no one can believe you did it. If someone tells the police how you tried to stab them with a knife, you’ll be arrested. However, if they tell the police how you tried to throw them into a tank full of hammerhead sharks, there’s good odds the police will just laugh them off and not bother investigating. Alternatively, suppose you’re in a food court and start picking food off people’s plates; they’ll take their food back and tell you to leave them alone. However, if you dash through the food court with a wheelbarrow, tossing everyone’s food into it, yelling, “Quickly! All your food in here! No time to explain!” they might be so flabbergasted by what’s happening that they can’t bring themselves to stop you. Basically, people have a Weirdness Censorwhen it comes to human behavior; since most people follow the rules (or pretend to), someone who breaks the rules with such flagrant abandon is so unusual that people have a hard time accepting that they exist.

A container or object which holds all or part of a person's soul (or life, or heart) outside of their body; this makes that person immortal and/or invulnerable. The only flaw is that the Soul Jar is now their Achilles Heel. Usually, they make sure it is very well protected (the word phylactery actually comes from Ancient Greek phylacterion, form of phylássein, (φυλάσσειν) meaning "to guard, protect").

We all know that karma can be a bitch, but sometimes it's a total jerkass. It's not enough that the bad guy is a Karma Houdini. It's not enough that the good guy Cant Get Away With Nuthin. It's not even enough that he's a Butt Monkey or Chew Toy, put through the wringer for no reason. No, sometimes fate isn't satisfied until disaster befalls the good guy purely as a result of his doing the right thing.

If this happens because the hero helps people who are ungrateful, it can be a case of All of the Other Reindeer or The Farmer And The Viper. More often, helping out exposes the hero to some other danger, like the wrath of a villain whose plans were disrupted by said good deed, or the wrath of a populace that is opposed to the method of said helping out, such as in many Burn the Witch! stories that involve actual witches, or being Arrested for Heroism. Or being targeted by people who assume you have Chronic Hero Syndromeand so will be glad to help them for free.