I'm personally not a fan of dating simulators or most romance arcs in games (specifically the ones where the character's arc is locked behind an optional romance, all the characters fall in love with you regardless of what you do, or let you romance as many characters as possible). But I like it when a game gives a dating option and puts the player on the other side by letting the characters refuse them, hold them to a standard, or otherwise explore their relationship in a way that isn't solely dictated by romance.

This trope covers games that give you romance options, but actually treat a relationship as something that requires you to respect the other sides' wishes and WORK through it, rather than something you can rush through carefree.

1) Dusa (Hades)

Dusa is a gorgon custodian in the service in the house of Hades, and a very friendly character to Zagreus, the son of Hades. She's one of the three romanceable characters in-game, and if Zagreus keeps gifting her Ambrosia and Nectar (food of the gods and a highly-desirable commodity in the Underworld), Dusa will pick up on his romantic intentions.

The game actually explores the ramifications of Zagreus' relationship with Dusa, especially with the power gap between himself and Dusa (who is under his parents' employ), and is often overburdened by work. Some of the members of the house will note Zagreus' relationship, and caution him for Dusa's sake.

Should Zagreus continue on with romancing Dusa, she will take him aside for an intimate conversation... and admit she's realized she's not looking for an intimate relationship, and feels terrible for it. Zagreus handles it with grace, and Dusa even offers to return the gifts he gave her (giving Zagreus the option to accept or not). Still, this doesn't ruin their relationship, and Dusa in fact has a far-better relationship with Zagreus for him respecting her personal decisions (even down to personally assisting him in his battle against his father).

2) Lilienne the Net-Picker (Disco Elysium)

Disco Elysium puts you in the shoes of an amnesiac detective with a severe alcohol addiction. Throughout the game, he and his partner, Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, are tasked with resolving the case of a man hanged outside a hostel. Along the way, the protagonist can also engage in several other cases: side-activities to help him regain his bearings and develop his new personality after obliterating his memory during a three day drinking binge.

One of these tasks is to take a local woman out on a date. This woman, Lilienne, is a local fisherwoman, mother, and provider for three kids. She lost her drunken husband not too long ago, and she's not unreceptive if you succeed in asking her out. However, you NEED to do it properly. If you sexually proposition her or make her feel at all threatened, Lilienne will sadly turn you down, wishing you were better than that. But if you take her on a walk on the coast near her home, you simply have a nice little walk and a chat while you watch the sun over the coast.

And more importantly, she won't go on another date with you, at least right away. You're still an alcoholic (and at best, a recovering alcoholic) who needs time to improve himself. Still, she had a nice time with you, and likes you well enough to give you her sword as a gift. And your skills will even note that she might be an option in the future if you spend the time genuinely working on your best self.

This date is a minor thing in the context of the present, but it's everything for Harry, who is haunted by the ghost of his last relationship, his ex who left him due to his growing instability and addiction issues. While you can never fix that relationship and it still haunts you even after your amnesia, dating Lilienne is a huge point of growth for Harry, and shows he can move on beyond the failures of his past and find something better for himself by engaging in life as it is. And if he doesn't give up on improving himself, he might be able to have something more with her, or somebody else.

Caine (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Zane (Ninjago)

Brienne (Game of Thrones) She is stoic and a great fighter but she grew up hearing songs about gallant knights and beautiful maidens. When Renly treated her like a lady and danced with her instead of mocking her, she fell in love with him. She desperately wants to be appreciated and loved, even if she doesn't openly admit it.

Yor Forger (Spy X Family) Yor is an extremely lethal assassin but her personal dream is to be a Mom and a housewife. She’s also totally down to fight a bunch of people, but gets super flustered about her love life.

Toph (Avatar) She prides herself on being tough. But in The Tales of Ba Sing Se, she enjoys a girls' spa day with Katara, including makeup and pampering. When other girls mock her appearance, it genuinely hurts her feelings. She might act indifferent to being pretty, but she clearly appreciates being seen that way.

1. Chloe - Miraculous Ladybug was based off of a bully the Creator had.

2. Funky Flashman - DC was a character created by Jack Kirby to get back at Stan Lee.

BoJack Horseman - In this world all animals are humanoid and behave like humans as well as being able to talk, but for some reasons bears don't talk, instead only growling

Avatar: The Last Airbender - In this world all animals are hybrid between real life animals, one of the only exceptions is Bosco, who is just a bear

Bonus points if things go badly for Character A.

Defiance:
- later in the movie, the partisans capture a Nazi soldier. Said soldier begs for mercy, saying that he has a wife and two small children. One of the partisans says "So did I!" before they start beating the soldier up, all while yelling about their own relatives who were lost to the Nazis ("My son's name was David! He had blue eyes! He was only 15!" "My brother's name was Hanz!")

Timeline (2003)
- William DeKere, who is revealed to be an ITC employee named William Decker who got stranded in the 1300s, has captured Gordon, Johnston, and Marek. Gordon tries to plead with DeKere, saying that he has a family. Being reminded of his own family that he's been separated from, a now furious DeKere yells "So did I!" before stabbing Gordon with his sword.

Links:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzfNacJlnpc
- https://subsaga.com/bbc/films/drama/2011/defiance.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEwLgrpyamQ
- https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?t=144276

In Inglorious Basterds Aldo Raine has a giant scar over his neck. They never point out or explain his scar, but most fans think he somehow survived a hanging.

In Demolition Man, future bathrooms have three seashells instead of toilet paper and they never explain what they’re used for. Most likely controls for a bidet.

The Disney's Hercules TV series had a crossover with Aladdin 4 years after "Aladdin and the forty thieves", which had served as a finale of the Aladdin series.

Lilo and Stitch had a crossover with Recess 5 years after that series' final episode.

Tojima Wants to be a Kamen Rider had a crossover with Air Master over 15 years after that manga ended.

Super Sentai has several of these, so to put an example, the Hurricangers had a crossover with Gokaigers 9 years after the series ended

Reborn as a Vending Machine has a crossover with "I'll dominate the Fields" another Web Novel from the same author which had ended about 6 years before it

When one character is obviously meant to be the crazy, over the top, unhinged one in a duo. However as the story goes on, we start to see that their quiet/voice of reason partner is the ACTUALLY CRAZY one.

(The lighthouse)

At the beginning of the story, the crazy old lighthouse keeper Thomas wake (Willam Defoe) is clearly nuts. He’s an old sailor with many superstitions and eccentric mannerisms. As the story goes on, his new assistant light keeper (Robert Pattinson) is meant to be the quiet, reserved one. It is revealed that HE is actually the crazy one because he murdered his previous boss and stole his identity before taking this job at a lighthouse.

(Malcolm in the Middle)

Lois is the hot headed mom of the family who runs a chaotic ship. Quick to loudly voice her opinion and run her insane household with an iron fist. Clearly meant to be loud and crazy (in an albeit loud and crazy environment)

Hal is her quiet unassuming husband. As the show goes on, we see more examples of just how close to crazy Hal is at all times.
For example: he fills in all the letters in encyclopedia sets with a red pen. He builds a killer robot when Lois is gone. He becomes the pack leader of a group of simple
Minded body builders. He steals a car and dumps it in a pond (with Lois to be fair).

Uncle Ruckus - The Boondocks. Uncle Ruckus believed he was a white man suffering from a condition—"reverse vitiligo"—that made him appear Black; however, a DNA test revealed that he was 102% Black, with a 2% margin of error.

Antonio Recio, from the series *La que se avecina*, is a character who embodies the cliché of a Spanish ultra-nationalist. In one episode, he discovers that his grandfather might have been a Muslim man who had an affair with his grandmother. At first, he is shocked, but he later decides to embrace his Muslim heritage and attempts to become a terrorist. In the end, he is stopped by his wife, who shows him a DNA test proving that his grandfather was actually his grandmother’s husband—not her Muslim lover.

Daniel Burros—a neo-Nazi and member of the Ku Klux Klan—died by suicide after a *New York Times* article revealed his Jewish ancestry; before taking his own life, he declared: "Long live the white race! I have nothing left to live for."

- In Fate/Apocrypha, Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, who fought in the third Holy Grail War on the side of the Nazis, ended up fighting against Zouken Matou, who is a crawling vampiric collection of worms that eats people to stay alive and uses said bugs to control and put eggs on people.

- In What If?, the solution to dealing with Infinity Ultron is to have Armin Zola replace him, so the choice between a robot that kills everything and a literal Nazi with omnipotence is....yeah....then once Killmonger takes the Infinity Ultron armor and stones it becomes a stalemate between the two, forever as they're trapped there.

1. Two and a Half Men's final episode teased Charlie Sheen's character coming back and going to harm the other characters whilst also having insults to his character and Charlie Sheen himself. It's clear the director had a grudge and the ending where his character comes up to knock then get crushed by a piano before it cuts to the director before he says "winning" before getting crushed by another piano
2. This was an upbeat animated show about a magical teen princess. The writers desperately wanted a romantic endgame for her and her best friend, but the way they got there was essentially multiversal omnicide. To stop a villain, the main character unilaterally decides magic is the root of all evil and destroys it entirely. By doing this, she casually commits mass genocide against every purely magical being in the multiverse. It also triggers a massive apocalyptic event that violently crashes different dimensions together into a chaotic hellscape. But the show frames this horrific, mass-extinction catastrophe as a sweet, triumphant ending just because two teenagers get to hold hands in the rubble (Star Vs The Forces Of Evil)

1. The original Suicide Squad Will Smith played Deadshot. He changed the movies focus to that character and made him the main character and then instead of leaving him in the iconic mask/helmet decided to leave it off for most of the movie so he could have his face shown more often (which is another hated trope that I'll post some other day). He also put more focus into Deadshot being a more sympathetic villain who cares for his daughter (which I admit I don't hate the idea of). Notably, several other characters survived the soft reboot which tells me that the overal cast was not the issue. The less said about the Joker in this case the better.

2. Black Adam is traditionally Shazam/Captain Marvel's main nemesis. However the Rock pushed it so he could have Superman be his rival. Oh and of course Rock's contract, this is hearsay so take this next bit with a grain of salt. I've heard that his contract states that he can't lose a fair fight and for every hit he receives, he has to throw one back. Basically he wants to be written as the unbeatable tough guy and has it baked into his contract.

i love when a character is in constant pain and there’s nothing they can really do about it.

Mr. Meeseeks (Rick and Morty). Meeseeks are created to complete a task and normally only live for a few hours before disappearing. existence is painful for them, but they can't die until they've completed their task, so they want to get it done as quickly as possible. when Jerry can’t improve his golf swing, the Meeseeks end up living much longer than they’re supposed to and become increasingly desperate, eventually deciding to kill Jerry to end their suffering.

Curly (Mouthwashing). after Jimmy crashes the Tulpar, Curly survives with most of his skin burned off and his limbs severely damaged. he’s still conscious but can barely move or communicate, and spends most of his time lying in the medical room. when he isn’t given his painkillers, he screams and writhes in agony. even taking his medication is painful because he can barely swallow it. at the end, Jimmy puts him into the only working cryopod before killing himself, leaving Curly as the sole survivor.

Ted (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream). AM has been keeping the last five humans alive for 109 years so it can torture them. Ted eventually finds a way for the others to die and escape their suffering, but AM prevents him from killing himself and turns him into a shapeless creature with no mouth. he’s still conscious but can’t speak or kill himself, leaving him trapped with AM indefinitely.

Neutral means the trope is both liked but hated by fans.

Yuki Yoshida-In the original American English, she speaks with a Japanese accent, since she was actually voiced by a Japanese-American actress, but in the Brazillian Portuguese dub, the accent is removed for some reason...which makes it less obvious the character is Japanese...

Stewie Griffin-He speaks with a British accent in the original American English, but in the Brazillian dub the joke is lost...as the British accent is literally part of his personality.

Applejack-In the early episodes of the Brazillian dub of MLP, she didn't have a country accent at all, even though Chico Bento literally does it. This was changed probably due to fan complaints in the later seasons. The same happened to her relatives and other stuff.

Street Fighter: While spending most of the series being known for being a musclebound wrestler, in SD6 Zangief is an avid reader obsessed with training his mind as much as his muscles.

Scary Movie: Presenting himself as a dim-witted and disabled assistant at the local sheriff's department, Doofy is revealed to be the true villain and mastermind behind the killings.

Transformers TSA: Bulkhead is a clumsy and friendly simpleton known for accidently breaking things, but is later captured because he's surprisingly Cybertron's foremost expert on Spacebridge Technology.

Roadtrip, 2000. In this movie about travelling across country to have sex or whatever, Kyle (the guy on the left), who is a shy loner with no friends and who got bullied/manipulated into hanging out with the 'cool guys', eventually meets a BBW who sleeps with him and instantly becomes social and cool.

Eurotrip, 2004. In this movie about travelling to Europe to have sex or whatever, Jamie (the guy on the right), who is extremely nerdy about cameras and doesn't seem to have many friends, gets a blowjob from a camera saleswoman in an alley and instantly becomes social and cool.

(Can you tell i hate this trope?)

Going Merry (One Piece): In One Piece when a ship is well cared for by the crew members it will gain a spirit called a Klabauterrman that assists the crew by repairing itself, warning sailors of danger and magically transporting itself to the crew's location in dire situations without being seen. And it will only reveal itself to the someone that truly cared for the ship. In this case going Merry revealed it's form to Ussop

Ballooney (Phineas & Ferb): During Dr. Doofenshmirtz childhood he didn't have any friends so he got Ballooney after winning him at a carnival then he painted a face on it and sprayed it with life long lasting spray. Then Doof lost Ballooney when he was being a gnome never to be seen again, until they were reunited on an alien space ship, things happened and Ballooney sacrificed himself to save Doof from evil robots. A lot of things happened

El Charro Negro, La Llorona, La Nahuala, Las Momias, etc (Legend Quest/Las Leyendas)

Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, Electro, and the Lizard (Spider-Man: No Way Home)

Tai Lung, Shen, and Kai (Kung Fu Panda 4)

Ginjirou Musaka (Uma Musume Cinderella Gray)

Landlord (Yani Neko)

Eileen the crow (Bloodborne) She's a hunter who hunts other hunters who have gone mad

Itachi Uchiha (Naruto) he can create illusions that make his body scatter into multiple crows

Qrow Branwen and Raven Branwen (RWBY) they're brother and sister that can turn into a crow and a raven

Swain (League Of Legends) he has a demon that lets him do a lot of magic stuff including control over ravens, seeing what they see and and hearing what they hear

~Kill La Kill~

The story follows a girl named Ryuko Matoi as she tries to find out who murdered her father. She wields a giant scissor blade, and is searching for the culprit carrying the other half, which was the murder weapon. Her search for revenge leads her to Honnoji Academy, where she meets the head of the school council, Satsuki Kiryuin. Who Ryuko thinks was the culprit.

However, neither of them knew that they were actually sisters this whole time.

The main villain, Ragyo Kiryuin, had a plan for world dominance after she discovered Life Fibers. Which, if you don't know, are strands of thread that harbor great power. They're typically used in the show for powerful battle outfits, at the expense of the users blood, which powers them up. Ragyo commits unspeakable experiments with these Life Fibers, including experiments on herself where she makes the Life Fibers part of her body, and flowing through her bloodstream. Not only that, but she commits the same experiments on her own newborns, with Ryuko being the first one experimented on.

Once the experiment was considered a failure, she just tossed the newborn Ryuko into the garbage like she was nothing. Which leads to Ragyo's husband leaving her, rescuing Ryoku, altering his appearance, and going into hiding. While also doing his own Life Fiber research, as a way to take down his heartless ex-wife. Only to be found out by Ragyo years later, having an assassin sent out to finish him, and leading Ryoku into the situation she's in now. Which was only revealed to her after Ragyo pulls Ryuko's heart out of her chest, revealing the Life Fibers in her blood stream. Showing that yes, she was the daughter she experiemented on all those years ago.

This discovery ultimately leads to Ryuko and Satsuki reconciling, and taking revenge on their mother for how terribly she treated both of them.

•

~Magic Knight Rayearth~

The story follows 3 highschool girls of completely different backgrounds, being summoned into another world called Cephiro. They're told they are the legendary Knights chosen to save the world of Cephiro in their time of need, and their mission is to find the Princess Emeraude. Who was taken by the main villain Zagato. The main trio go off to find Emeraude, thinking that they're going to save her.

Little do these girls realize is that... they have to kill the Princess.

Princess Emeraude is a pure, goddess-like being meant to protect the world of Cephiro. However, she ends up falling in love with Zagato. Which ends up corrupting her pure heart, ruining her sacred duties, and leading Cephiro to become corrupted. And the only reason why the Legendary Knights are to be summoned into their world is to kill the princess.

- Avatar: The Last Airbender: After Zuko joins the team in Book 3, he doesn’t get the trust or affection from everyone automatically, save for Toph, due to their history together and his betrayal at the end of Book 2, resulting in him having to dedicate himself into helping every single member on a personal quest in order to gain their trust.

- BoJack Horseman: Upon receiving news that Herb Kazzaz, his estranged friend from his days in stand up comedy and the writer/creator of the show that made him famous, is in his last days, BoJack is convinced to go visit him to make amends. Even though they share a friendly, snarky banter and BoJack apologizes for the way that he treated him, Herb accepts his apologies but refuses to forgive him for abandoning him after he was outed as a gay man just in order to preserve his image and career, the moment he needed a friend the most.

- Dragon Ball: Decided to sacrifice himself in order stop Majin Buu, Vegeta asks for Piccolo to take Goten and Trunks to safety, but, before he leaves, asks him if there is any chance for him to meet Goku in the afterlife, to which Piccolo replies that, despite his good deeds and giving his life for a noble cause, it doesn’t wipe Vegeta’s past actions of cruelty, assuring him that his soul would end up in Hell. Later on, in Super, Vegeta is shown to go out of his way to protect the Namekians in New Namek, which is very unlike him, in order to try to make amends for the suffering he caused them during the Frieza saga.

- Kung Fu Panda: During his confrontation with Tai Lung, Shifu admits that he was blind for giving him false hopes and grooming him to become a perfect warrior, feeling responsible for not giving the love and care that he deserved and for the way he turned out, apologizing for his mistakes, which, even though it shakes Tai Lung momentarily, isn’t enough to stop him in his quest for the Dragon Scroll in that moment.