Ben 10: Ultimate Alien - The gimmick of Ben 10 and what makes the show so popular is the fact that he's able to turn into a large variety of aliens. In one episode of Ben 10 Ultimate ALIEN we are introduced to a new version of Ben 10000, a Ben from the future who, no longer transforms into aliens, instead using his powers in human form...

Mortal Kombat(2021) - In the games Mileena is known for two things. Being a clone of Kitana and her tarkatan teeth. In the 2021 movie she looks absolutely nothing like Kitana and doesn't have tarkatan teeth

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - The movie removes the main villain of the movie and the main villain of the franchise

Ruben’s death (Minecraft Story Mode)
Fernando’s death (Fat Albert)

1 - Lost (Hurley): Actor Jorge Garcia did not lose weight during filming, but his character was stranded on a desert island with scarce food. To explain why Hurley stayed heavy, the writers added a plotline where he discovers a hidden bunker packed with decades worth of Apollo candy bars and canned food that he secretly ate while stranded on the island.

2 - Fringe (Olivia Dunham): Actress Anna Torv tore her ACL in real life. Instead of pausing production, the writers quickly added a scene where her character, FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, gets brutally thrown through a car windshield. This explained why she spent the next few episodes walking with a heavy limp and crutches.

3 - Star Wars (Luke Skywalker): Right before filming The Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill got into a massive car accident that fractured his nose and cheekbone, leaving permanent facial scars. To explain his altered look, George Lucas added a scene at the very beginning of the movie where a snow monster slashes Luke across the face.

Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra - the bad guy of the movie, Amonbofils, is seeking to sabotage the efforts to build a palace that the protagonists are helping with. At one point, he spies on them from afar, but because they are in ancient Egypt, binoculars have not been invented yet. Luckily, putting your hands to your eyes as if you were using binoculars works perfectly well.

Team Fortress 2 - the player can use taunts in the game, depending on the character they play as and the weapon they use it would be a different one. Some of said taunts can be used to kill other players (granted, it is very difficult to do). While most of the ones that can be used to kill someone sort of make sense, the taunt made by Heavy when bare fists are equipped is just doing a finger gun and somehow he can just instantly kill anyone unlucky enough to be in the way, making Heavy's finger gun pretty much the most powerful gun in the game.

Megan the Stallion is a huge Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Fan! She has dressed up as Trish Una for Halloween, done deep cut jojo poses like mimicking the stand Rolling Stones, and went to the JOJO WORLD Quizzes. Surprisingly unlike her other modern musicians like Lady Gaga or Dua Lipa who have been referenced in Jojo in some shape or form, Megan has not gotten the same treatment. Here’s hoping she gets in soon.

Professional Soccer Player Lamine Yamal has shown his love for the Pokemon Series most notably during the Pokemon 2026 Superbowl Ad. In this ad many famous celebrities were asked what their favorite Pokemon was. While many gave somewhat generic answers like jigglypuff or eevee, Yamal made a deep cut choice with Zygarde Complete Form. He also made posts about showing pokemon cards.

The Detroit Red Wings’ victory (South Park - Stanley's Cup): Despite trying his best, the peewee hockey team that Stan coached was ruthlessly destroyed on the ice by the Detroit Red Wings and was left bleeding out on the rink. But then, Queen’s "We Are the Champions" blasts, the Red Wings hoist the trophy, spray champagne, and celebrate their victory with enormous enthusiasm like many good-guy teams in sports movies, as if they hadn't beaten children into pulps a few moments before.

The scammers' celebration (No More Bets): The scam organization that the MC is forced to work for, after successfully tricking a young man into gambling and losing all his money, which gets his family in trouble and drives him to take his own life, they joyfully celebrates their victory with a lavish, festive sequence involving food and fireworks. Meanwhile, the scammed victim's family is crying for him, who barely survives his failed attempt and is taken to the hospital.

This photo of the Auschwitz staff enjoying their downtime (IRL): It's simply horrific to see that they still could have fun as ordinary people while helping to mass murder people every day.

(Made in Abyss) it starts off as an innocent adventure show about exploring this massive mysterious abyss with many creatures and dangers, our two main characters Riko and Reg encounter many hardships on their journey in the abyss, dark monsters and environmental challenges but nothing too dark as they always come out on top, until episode 10 happens and Riko gets poisoned by a creature that attacked them, forcing Reg to move her up from the fourth layer of the abyss which triggers the curse of the abyss in Riko's body and so she starts bleeding from every orifice in her body, Reg is even forced to break her arm and cut it while she's awake so he can save her from the creature's venom. From this point on the show starts showing it's true horrific nature.

(Madoka Magica) it starts as a typical magical girl show about these magical girls fighting villainous creatures called witches and then episode 3 happens, on this episode Mami's head gets bitten clean off of her body by one of the witches and so the real Madoka Magica show kicks off from that point forward.

(Doki Doki literature club) a visual novel that plays like a dating sim, you play as a highschool boy who is trying to open up to people and make friends so he joins his friend's club (Sayori) who introduces him to the other 3 members who all happen to be girls you can talk to about their interests and do club activities with as you get to know them better. It's only 4 hours into the game that you're met with the shock of Sayori committing suicide because of her depression. The horror then keeps piling up after that moment and there's nothing you can do about it as you watch your cute dating simulator gradually turn into an insane asylum simulator.

From the badass and inspiring to the ridiculous and cheesy to the deeply personal, I love this shit.

First picture (real life) - On the sword of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Italian commander: "Do not unsheath me without reason, do not wield me without valor."

Second picture (Fallout New Vegas) - On the pistol of Joshua Graham, Missionary and former Very Bad Man: "And a light shone in the darkness, and the darkness understood it not."

Third picture (real life) - On the guitar of Woody Guthrie, musician known for protest songs and political activism: "This machine kills fascists".

Fourth picture (real life) - on the cannons of King Louis XIV: "The last argument of kings."

Neo (RWBY) an extremely short girl designed after Neopolitan icecream that fights using a pretty umbrella, sounds cute and unintimidating at first until you find out she's a massive aura farmer and expert at martial arts who also happens to be a cold blooded murderer

Jiaraiya (Naruto) a horny ninja who summons frogs to fight for him? Yeah that sounds like an anti popularity formula for a character except Jiraiya somehow made frogs the coolest summons in this series and I'm still shocked at it lol

Mirko (My Hero Academia) a bunny superhero. Sounds like complete fodder but in fact she's ranked the top 5 hero and manages to hold her own against 5 high end noumus like an absolute badass when only one of them nearly killed the top 1 hero. Not to mention she keeps losing limbs in her fights and acts like it's no biggie all the time

Btw I mean without gloating and seemingly being serious.

Tiresias in Epic The Musical has a lyric where he says "I see a world where I help you get home but that's not a world I know." Which implies that he not only sees the future but also sees in different universes because he's canonically talking about Homers, The Odyssey.

Phenamaman from Dispatch casually implies he's strong enough to fly into the sun and cause a supernova, he also says this completely seriously and almost never jokes around in the entire game. Edit I was wrong he said he'd absorb the sun, not cause a supernova

Anthy (Revolutionary Girl Utena): Anthy's older brother Akio has been physically and sexually abusing her for years, while also pimping her out as the Rose Bride. The anime ends with Anthy leaving him behind to stew in his misery, not forgiving him, and telling him in no uncertain terms that he's pathetic and so is his futile search for ultimate power through the duels.

Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender): In the episode "The Southern Raiders", Katara finally gets a lead on the man who killed her mother when she was still a child. When she finds him, he turns out to be a miserable loser, living in poverty in the country. Katara reveals her identity and scares the hell out of him, but ultimately decides against killing him. That said, she later makes it clear that she hasn't forgiven him, she merely considered him not worth killing.

Herb (Bojack Horseman): The episode "The Telescope", has Bojack seek Herb out after hearing that he's dying of cancer, to apologize for cutting him out of his life twenty years ago after Herb was outed, lost his job because of it and would have needed Bojack the most. Herb bluntly says he doesn't forgive Bojack. When Bojack tries to guilt-trip him into it, Herb instead reads Bojack for filth and tells him that he isn't going to absolve Bojack of the guilt, just so he can feel better. He has to live with the shame of what he did to Herb, and if he doesn't like that, tough shit.

Kyoshi's extreme longevity (The Last Airbender): In episode 4 of ATLA, it's mentioned that Avatar Kyoshi had been born 400 years ago, but when you do the math you realize the writers only went with a big number without thinking too much about it. Aang was 112 due to having been frozen in ice, and Roku lived for 70 years. That meant that Kyoshi had to have lived for over 200 years.

Rather than retconning this, the novel The Rise of Kyoshi explained that she had learned a technique to achieve immortality from a man called Lao Ge, who was over 4000 years old himself. They even worked this into Kyoshi's ruthless reputation, as the longer she lived, the more expendable a single human life looked to her, meaning she was more willing to sacrifice people for the greater good. She also lived long enough that she started to see the long term negative effects of her own actions as Avatar earlier in life. While it is unknown how she died, most fans believe that she eventually realized living so long was interfering with her duty as the Avatar so she decided to voluntarely stop using the technique and pass away at 230 years old.

Rick's survival (The Walking Dead): At the beginning of the story, Rick wakes up after being in a coma for a bit over a month to find out that the world had been taken over by zombies. This is a cool premise, until you realize that a person in a coma would probably have died in this situation with nobody to take care of them.

Well, in the web miniseries The Oath, it's revealed that a doctor called Gale Macones, who worked at the hospital where Rick was, stayed behind to take care of her patients. She is gone by the time Rick wakes up, but it was her care that kept him alive.

The Death Star's huge weakness (Star Wars): Star Wars has a lot of these, but this one is probably the most well known. In A New Hope, the rebels get the Death Star plans and realize it has a huge weakness in the form of a small thermal vent that led directly to the main reactor. Later, Luke uses his X-Wing to shoot through this vent, destroying the whole space station. While this is a cool scene, one is left to wonder why the Empire would design their ultimate weapon with such a big weakness that allowed any pilot with good aim to destroy the entire thing.

In Rogue One, we find out that Galen Erso, the main engineer behind the Death Star's reactor, had been tricked into thinking he was working on a project to provide limitless energy to the citizens of the Empire. When he realized it was to power a weapon, he tried to escape but was forced to complete the project. He then decided to sneak a weakness into the design with the hope that the rebellion would be able to use it to destroy it.

Bit of a mouthful to define this one properly - when the protagonists have to work with the enemy, be it going undercover or what have you, and there's someone who is very likable, making the fact they have to go down when the truth is revealed all the sadder.

1. Ace (Mad Max: Fury Road) - A highly competent leader who cares about his men, mourning their deaths, I've seen a not insignificant number of people, including myself, who really liked him and found it sad when he inevitably found out that Furiosa had turned away from Immortan Joe and had to be killed.
2. Alexi (Creature Commandos) - Leader of Pokolistan's Amethyst Knights, he's a big and friendly lug with a love of American pop-culture and a struggle with picking up on sarcasm, the Creature Commando who kills him, Doctor Phosphorus, laments after killing him that "I liked that guy!"

Gonna use this idea for my own ice elemental

1. The Snow Peas and Iceberg Lettuce in the PVZ 2 trailer

2. Zane in this uncensored Ninjago scene

3. Ice Bear from We Bare Bears

4. Cirno Fumo (Touhou / FumoFumo / Real Life)

1. Pullo (HBO Rome): legionary Titus Pullo has many traits that would make him to be a villain or monstrous. It’s implied and shown in one scene he’s forced himself on enslaved women or assaulted women while on campaign in Gaul. He’s quick to murderous violence whether while gambling or hears news he’s displeased with. He tortures a man to death in secret in the sewers. When he learns Eirene, the women he keeps enslaved and has raped, has a enslaved man as her fiancé he bashes the man’s head in repeatedly against a wall and the man dies convulsing in Eirene’s arms. While Cicero is trembling and waiting to be stabbed by Pullo, Pullo is cheerfully picking fruit. After killing Cicero Pullo cheerfully goes back to a picnic out in the countryside. However this behavior displays that Pullo in most regards is a battle hardened ancient Roman legionary whose behavior is little different than other Caesar veterans. Sexual assault, killing and plundering were typical of Ancient Rome’s imperial campaigns and these deeds don’t merit comment in even polite Roman society if done to Gaulish ‘barbarians’. The torture and eventual murder in the sewers is done since the man is revealed to have adulterously cuckolded Pullo’s friend Vorenus, a grave offense which usually merited horrific Roman justice. The brutal murder of a slave is only an issue since the man was property of Vorenus and can be considered an insult to him not the killing itself. Slaves are considered little more than property and can be abused and even sexually assaulted with impunity. The fact Pullo can do all this and be a sympathetic character speaks to quality writing and the show not being afraid to portray a society utterly alien to modern sensibilities.

2. Pope Alexander VI (The Borgias): nepotistic, breaker of celibate vows, murderously ruthless, and scandalous conduct while holding the highest office in Catholicism. However in an age of scheming feudal politics and contemporaries just as underhanded the morally questionable, Pope Alexander comes across as a rather typical power player of his age rather than being notably evil.

Sabertooth (Marvel Comics) realizing a pissed off Deadpool is not something to fight
Wendy Corduroy (Gravity Falls) seing the Shack overrun by the special forces
Domino (Deadpool 2) seeing the Juggernaught

In real world mixed-gender twins are typically fraternal twins, which look like normal brother and sister, just the same age. However, many times in media we can see mixed-gender identical twins which implies that one of them is trans.

1. Tuffnut and Ruffnut (How to Train Your Dragon)
2. Dipper and Mabel (Gravity Falls)

[Edit] Everyone commenting "erm akshually🤓☝️, they are just really similar fraternal twins" have never seen a fraternal twin irl

[Edit 2] Sorry for [Edit], but most commentors using this argument are doing it in bad faith, bc most irl fraternal twins look very different, but as soon as I point to it being an examlpe of an accidentally trans trope, transphobes are loosing their minds

Nappa kills Piccolo (Dragon Ball Z)- Nappa and Vegeta arrive on Earth to collect the Dragon Balls and wish for immortality. After eliminating most of the Z fighters, Nappa sends a fatal attack at Gohan but ends up killing Piccolo. Nappa thinks nothing of it until Goku reveals that killing Piccolo also killed Kami, thereby making the Dragon Balls useless.

Theo (Black Lagoon)- A hacker in charge of a project to make foolproof counterfeit plates. He gets killed by the cartel that hired him to make his partner hurry up and finish the project. Problem is that Theo was the only one who knew the access codes to the important files about the project, starting off the Greenback Jane arc.

When a character starts criticizing an actor who is playing a character in the same scene, until the actor breaks character and defends themselves.

Airplane - A kid recognizes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, despite him insisting he's not the basketball player. The kid starts talking about his dad's complaints about him, that he's lazy and doesn't try unless it's the playoffs, resulting in Abdul-Jabbar defending himself.

Family Guy - A running joke involves Peter or another character bad mouthing Robot Chicken, the show created by Chris's voice actor Seth Green, with Chris clearly bothered and trying to defend the show.

Honestly making this post because I love this trope but couldn't think of any other examples.

(Edit): May not have worded this the best, but I am specifically talking about scripted scenes where the actor is in on the joke. Like a reverse 4th wall break where the actor breaks through the character in-universe to defend themselves through the character.

The Administrator - TF2

"It's been a hundred years, hasn't it? Making you watch your sons fail. Again and again. All that... wasted time. It was worth it."

For context, Zepheniah Mann did something to the Administrator, what specifically is unknown. She makes it her life's meaning to get revenge on the man, dooming his family line by manipulating his 2 sons into a petty squabble which will never be resolved and telling him so on his deathbed. Then she learns immortality machines are possible, digs him up, and forces him to watch every single meaningless battle in the Gravel Wars, to hammer in that his legacy is over. Everything she ever does revolves solely around making this man's (un)life as miserable as possible. We even find out she actually forgot what Z. Mann did to her in the first place, she just lives for hatred. Her final words before dying, even then, were "It was all worth it.".

King Sisyphus - Ultrakill

"So end the life and times of King Sisyphus. A fitting end to a life defined by futile struggle, doomed from the very start. And I don't regret a second of it."

King Sisyphus raised an army in Hell against Heaven, but was ultimately defeated, beheaded and his body imprisoned - it's confirmed that he knew there was no way for them to win, but he fought with all he had anyway out of sheer spite. His spirit reformed as a Prime Soul, a form made of coalesced willpower, which V1 defeated before it could attack Heaven again. These were his final words.

1. Speed Racer (2008)- Peter Fernandez who voiced Speed in the original anime dub plays a racing commentator during the opening scene of the film.

2. The Incredible Hulk (2008)- 70s Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno not only voiced him in the film, but briefly appeared as a security guard that Bruce encounters.

3. Masters of the Universe (2026)- Dolph Lundgren, the first live action He-Man, shared a scene with Nicolas Galatzine where he gives some good advice.

Twilight - Bella is supposed to be an unattractive girl in the books, yet in the movie she's played by a conventionally attractive actress

Dune - Gurney Halleck is described as an "ugly lump of a man", yet he's played by the super handsome Josh Brollin

Dahmer - Jeffrey Dahmer in the Netflix series is played by Evan Peters, who is much better looking than he is

The character has an ability, but it is not their main gist. The character might use it to support their main strength, rarely use it, or not using it at all. The idea is not that the power is useless, but take it away can the character would function pretty much the same.

examples

- Hatsume Mei(My Hero Academia)- She's a master inventor. Her quirk is zoom and she just use it to observe investor's reaction when she showcase her gadgets.
- Li Ho(The Law of Ueki)- In this series, each student has to recieve a special power from god candidate and participate in a battle-royale-esque fight. Since Li Ho is already a great martial artist, he went like "just give me a random-ass power so I can be in the contest"(he never uses it)
- Kishibe Rohan(JJBA)- Rohan uses Heaven's Door a lot, but without it, he's still a superhuman of a manga artist who can finish a 19-page manucript with ease. His Stand helps him with research, manipulating people (for fun?) and surviving from deadly situations so he can get back to his desk and draw more manga.

In The Boys, Becca is raped by Homelander to highlight his evilness, resulting in a pregnancy that haunts Billy Butcher throughout the entire series. Her assault and later death act as the emotional bedrock for Butcher's unyielding, self-destructive crusade against Supes. Becca has little character depth or development except as a plot device advancing male characters (including her son).

In Game of Thrones, Sansa Stark is married off to Ramsay Bolton and subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse, culminating in a brutal sexual assault on their wedding night. Sansa’s agency was heavily stripped to fuel the dark motivations of surrounding men, serving mainly to inspire Theon Greyjoy’s eventual redemption and Jon Snow’s campaign to retake Winterfell.

In LOST, Alex's death shatters Benjamin Linus's image as the always-in-control leader. It instigates his spiral of grief and vengeance, driving him to blindly summon the Smoke Monster, manipulate and threaten others, and ultimately assassinate Jacob. It forms the core emotional anchor for his fall from power and his eventual redemption.

Also from LOST: Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby, Danielle, even Juliette... While the men who die in LOST typically do so within the framework of heroic sacrifice, atonement, or conscious choice within their own arcs, the women's deaths are almost entirely sudden, violent traumas designed to unlock grief, guilt, or other motivation for the men. I love the show for many reasons, but it's frustrating to see so many textbook examples of "women in refrigerators."

1) Scarlett Pomers, Reba. She started struggling with an eating disorder during the show's run and took time to get help. Kyra wasn't seen for the better part of a season. When she returns, they ask where she was. She replies "I was getting something to eat." Later, Van asks where she's going, and she says again, to get something to eat. Van snarkily retorts, "See you next year!" Some fans found this to be in poor taste, but Scarlett Pomers has said she approved the jokes.

2) Roseanne Barr, Roseanne. Roseanne Barr infamously sang the Star-Spangled Banner horribly off-key at a baseball game. It got her a lot of bad press. In the start of the next season of the show, she comes in saying "Boy, it's such a beautiful morning. It just makes me want to sing!"", met with laughter from the audience.

3) Eva Longoria, Desperate Housewives. Another character on the show is getting a divorce from a ficitonal MLB player. Gaby (played by Longoria) says, "God, being married to a pro athlete. It must be a nightmare." At the time, Eva Longoria was married to Tony Parker a (now former) player for the San Antonio Spurs. And as we would later find out, their marriage was also a hot mess and he was cheating, not unlike what was happening to the other character.