A-Cup Angst/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A female character is unhappy because she has a small chest.

  • Straight: Alice is extremely unhappy because she has an A-cup chest.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Alice goes to extreme lengths to hide her small chest, including wearing extremely baggy clothes to make it appear like she's hiding a large chest.
    • Alice is Driven to Suicide because she has a concave chest.
  • Downplayed: Alice, while not happy about her small chest, doesn't make too much of a deal out of it, mostly just making self-deprecating jokes about how she could pass for a boy or something.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
    • Alice doesn't seem to mind having a small chest.
    • It's shown that Bobbi has back troubles because of her overly large chest.
  • Double Subverted: She doesn't mind it publicly. But in private, she angsts over her lack of a bust.
  • Parodied: Alice has a C-cup chest but all her friends have E-cups or greater, so she still complains at regular intervals about her lack of chest size.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Alice is eventually Driven to Suicide because she's so unhappy with her lack of assets, and partially prompted by Bobbi who frequently bullies her about it.
    • Alternatively, every single relationship she tries to get into fails because she can't look past the fact that she has a small bust. Guys that would ordinarily be interested in her are turned off by her extreme angst.
    • Alice has a serious neurosis that manifests itself as her physical insecurities. Something terrible ensues.
  • Reconstructed:
    • Alice then gets implants or moves to a place where she is statistically normal or well-endowed by comparison.
    • Alice seeks professional treatment, and learns to react to her small cup size much more moderately.
    • Alice decides that she'd rather have flat boobs than constant back pains.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • Some days she feels inadequate. Other days, she doesn't mind at all.
    • Alice has big boobs but she still thinks her boobs are too small to be attractive.
    • Alice wishes she had no boobs, though her boobs are quite small.
  • Averted: Alice never has any issues regarding her bust size, or she is average sized or well-endowed.
  • Enforced:
    • Alice is the star of a new series aimed at younger girls, so she's given a smaller chest to appear younger to help her relate with the target audience.
    • Alice is the star of a comic in a women's beauty magazine. Alice's experimenting with supposed methods for a bigger chest serves as a medium for the author's advice to women regarding that subject.
  • Lampshaded: Alice looks down her shirt, and says to her breasts, "Where are you guys?"
  • Invoked: The very busty Bobbi routinely flaunts herself around Alice to stir up feelings of inadequacy in Alice.
  • Exploited: Bobbi, of the Invoked example, notices Alice's preexisting angst, and flaunts herself to bruise Alice's self-esteem further, knowing that she would ask Charlie for a date as a measure to reinforce said bruised self-esteem. Bobbi does this because she knows Alice and Charlie would make a nice pair.
  • Defied:
    • Bobbi realizes she's going to meet the flat chested Alice, and having some jealousy inducing assets, chooses to incorporate a sweater into her everyday wardrobe to help smooth over their acquaintance.
    • Bobbi tells Alice that Alice is actually a B-cup, not an A, and her breasts are actually only slightly below average - and that many women are actually, because of public perceptions, wearing a bra a size too small.
  • Discussed: Two characters are discussing, "It's sort of funny how ladies tend to get so flustered over something as insubstantial as their cup size."
  • Conversed: Two characters are discussing a work they like, "Well, at the very least, I guess we should be happy they included a female character who doesn't look like she should have back problems."
  • Played For Laughs: Alice is flustered at being surrounded by other women's huge and often awkward busts. Hilarity Ensues, Alice faking a big chest would be a source of comedy, with Gainaxing and the occasional Skinship Grope for good measure.
  • Played For Drama: Alice is flustered at being surrounded by other women's huge and often awkward busts. Reality Ensues. The Deconstruction line provides some pretty sterling examples of this.

Fine! Go back to A-Cup Angst. You're only doing it because that page has bigger breasts than me, you perv!

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/A-Cup_Angst/Playing_With?oldid=885786"