Sand in My Eyes/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character (usually male) is seen crying, but immediately denies it.

  • Straight: Alice catches Bob crying, but Bob insists that something is in his eye.
  • Exaggerated: Alice catches Bob pounding his fist on the floor, intensely wailing, torrents of tears running from his eyes, and Bob still insists that something's in his eye.
  • Justified: Bob doesn't want to be seen crying because Men Don't Cry.
    • Alternatively, there's a grain of sand literally in Bob's eyes.
  • Inverted: Bob is embarrassed that he got sand in his eye by accident, and tries to cover it up by saying that he's crying.
    • Bob's eyes are watering, and Alice asks, unironically, "Sand in your eye?"
  • Subverted: Bob tries to make up an excuse, but Alice tells him that it's OK to cry.
  • Doubly Subverted: Even though he appears to accept crying as OK; he still rubs his eyes and insists that there is sand in his eyes.
  • Parodied: Bob is seen crying, and denies it by saying that something is in his eye. As it turns out, there really was something in his eye.
  • Deconstruction: There really is sand in his eyes; he's not actually sad about anything.
  • Reconstruction: When he starts to cry, he clandestinely throws sand in his eyes.
  • Averted: Bob flat out admits that he's crying.
  • Enforced: "If people see this character crying, they'll think he's weak." "Have him say that something's in his eye."
  • Lampshaded: "Lemme guess... there's something in your eye, isn't there?"
  • Invoked: Alice throws sand in Bobs eyes to make it look like he was crying.
  • Defied: Men Don't Cry.
  • Discussed: "Why is it that they always say that something's in their eye? Can't they just admit that they're crying?"
  • Conversed: ???
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