Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Attractive characters get away with questionable actions due to their beauty.

  • Straight: Josephine, a beautiful blonde, uses her looks to manipulate others into doing her bidding and completely gets away with it.
  • Exaggerated: Josephine is a Complete Monster who gleefully engineers constant infighting among her many admirers for her own amusement. And in the end she gets away with it because she's the hottest character in the story (and a Fetish Fuel Station Attendant, by the way).
  • Justified: Josephine lives in an extremely shallow and superficial culture which places physical beauty on a pedestal.
    • Josephine is supernaturally beautiful, just looking at her leads to Mind Control.
  • Inverted: Josephine's beauty attracts more attention to her, and thus more scrutiny to her unscrupulous actions.
    • Plain Jane is assumed guiltless, because people think manipulation relies on looks. Cue Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
    • Ivan uses his intimidating appearance to intimidate people into cooperating with him without having to resort to overt threats.
  • Subverted: Josephine attempts to use her looks to manipulate others; unfortunately, the people she tries to manipulate don't actually find her attractive.
    • Josephine gets away because the people are insanely forgiving, not for her looks
  • Double Subverted: The reason it didn't work on the last man whom Josephine used her looks on was because he was gay; as soon as she finds a straight man, she's got him wrapped around her little finger.
  • Parodied: Josephine is the very definition of Gonk, yet it still works.
  • Deconstructed: Beauty is fleeting, so Josephine's sway over others naturally wanes with time. Eventually, she's forced to face the consequences of her actions without her pretty face to protect her.
  • Reconstructed: Aware of this natural time-limit, Josephine nevertheless decides to flaunt it while she's got it.
    • As her beauty slowly fades, she realizes she won't be able to get away with being a Jerkass any more and becomes a better person as a result. By the time she's completely lost her looks, she's a Cool Old Lady.
  • Zig Zagged: Josephine gets called on her manipulative behavior by boyfriend Bob, but she lavishes him with a little extra affection until he's putty in her hands, willing to do anything for her. She then sets Bob and Dave against each other for laughs; this leads to Bob's death and Dave being seriously injured and Josephine's Heel Realization... only she doesn't care. Not until Bob's sister Maybelle comes after her and scars her face, robbing her of the very thing she used to avoid punishment for her misdeeds...
  • Averted: Josephine's looks don't factor into how her various crimes / flaws are dealt with.
  • Enforced: "We want this show's villain to slip through all kinds of cracks really easily, without being a brilliant bitch. I know, let's just make her beautiful and surround her with lusty guys."
  • Lampshaded: "All it takes is a little smile, and I can get away with murder."
  • Invoked: Josephine takes special care of her appearance in order to be as attractive as possible and use this to her advantage.
  • Defied: "I don't care what you look like, you're still suspected of murder and I'm going to interrogate you like I did the other suspects!"
  • Discussed: "She's cute. There are different standards for cute people." "You mean no standards."
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: Josephine uses it as an actual legal defense for Hero Insurance despite use of nuclear weapons. The courts just accept it and release her immediately.
  • Played For Drama: Josephine gets away with so much shit it t akes Summary Execution Man to stop her.
    • The story is from the perspective of one of Josephine's victims.
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