Naughty by Night/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Somebody who acts proper in public, but has a hidden 'wild side'.

  • Straight: Sarah is a calm, kind girl who dresses modestly and wears her hair in a tight ponytail. After a hard day's work, she goes home, pulls out the ponytail, pours herself a few drinks, and has herself a good time.
  • Exaggerated: By day, she's a sweet but Stern Teacher who always seems perfectly composed and extremely conservative. When she's off the clock, she trades the button-up blouses and long skirts/pants for shorter and saucier attire, with a mood to match.
  • Justified: Sarah is very professional, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to relax, especially in the comfort of her own home.
  • Inverted: Vicki likes to play herself up as a Femme Fatale, but when she doesn't have an audience, she reaches for her comfy-but-unflattering shirts and loose pants, kicks off the heels and sprawls out on the couch or in front of her computer.
  • Subverted: Her idea of "shaking things up" is...eating pancakes for dinner instead of breakfast.
  • Double Subverted: Before going nude-skydiving with her significant other.
  • Parodied: Soon as she steps into her house, Sarah whips off her blouse to reveal her skimpy 'evening attire'.
  • Deconstructed: ???
  • Reconstructed: ???
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: The character in question behaves exactly the same way in private as (s)he does in public.
  • Enforced: The writer, very unsatisfied with his own wife's actions, decides to write in a character that is the direct opposite of his own wife, to live out his fantasies.
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: ???
  • Exploited: Sarah's coworker Rachel spreads rumors about her private life to this effect.
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: Letting Her Hair Down lets Sarah blow off steam after working hard all day, but if certain peers of hers learned how she chooses to relax, they'd try to get her fired. Which is also why she feels so much pressure to be extra conservative at her job, which puts her under even more stress she has to try and alleviate somehow...

Back to Naughty by Night.