Expressive Hair/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character's hair changes, subtly or drastically, to reflect their mood.

  • Played Straight: Bob's normally straight hair sticks up when he gets frightened.
  • Exaggerated: Bob's hair does something different for every emotion Bob feels.
  • Downplayed: When Bob gets scared, his hair jumps slightly, but instantly goes back to normal.
  • Justified:
    • Bob's hair is actually a sentient life form.
    • What frightened Bob was really scary.
    • Alice's curly hair frizzes up when she is under stress because she keeps messing with it.
  • Inverted: When Bob gets scared, he has a quick spaz attack while his hair remains completely still.
  • Subverted: It looks like Bob's hair stuck up when he got scared, but it turns out his hair was actually being moved by the wind.
  • Double Subverted: However, his hair stays stuck up even after the wind goes away.
  • Parodied: People start scaring Bob on purpose just to see his hair stand up straight.
  • Deconstructed: ???
  • Reconstructed: ???
  • Zig Zagged: When Bob gets scared, his hair seems to stand up straight, but that was actually caused by the wind. However, his hair stays standing up even after the wind goes away...because he accidentally got hair gel in it.
  • Averted: Bob's hair doesn't do anything weird.
  • Invoked: The group needs Bob to have his hair stand up straight so he can impersonate someone with a similar hairstyle, so they scare him to get his hair to stick up.
  • Enforced: ???
  • Lampshaded: "Your hair's starting to freak me out, Bob. It's like it's alive or something."
  • Defied: Bob wears a hat to keep his hair from sticking up when he's scared.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

Back to Expressive Hair