Bare Your Midriff/Playing With

Basic Trope: Showing your bare belly for Fan Service.
 * Straight: Alice wears a midriff-bearing outfit.
 * Exaggerated: All of Alice's clothing-or even all women's clothing everywhere in the setting-is designed with midriff-baring in mind.
 * Downplayed: Alice wears an outfit that reveals her belly button, but not much more.
 * Justified:
 * Alice is at the beach in a bikini, or Alice is a mermaid who wears a Seashell Bra.
 * Alice lives in a hot climate and needs to keep cool.
 * Inverted:
 * Alice wears a skimpy outfit that exposes everything except for her midriff.
 * Alice wears an outfit that exposes her chest, not her midriff.
 * Subverted: Alice's shirt looks like it bares her midriff at first, but closer examination reveals that part of the shirt as skin-colored...
 * Double Subverted: ...until that part gets ripped off due to Clothing Damage or Rip Tailoring.
 * Parodied: Ms. Fanservice Alice wears a sexy midriff-bearing outfit, as do Walking Shirtless Scene Bob and Fat Bastard Fred, much to the other characters' (and the audience's) horror.
 * Deconstructed:
 * Alice comes from a very conservative family that punishes her when they learn that she wears a midriff-baring outfit.
 * Alice's midriff-baring outfit attracts the attention of some boys at her school.
 * Reconstructed: Alice's family realize they were being strict on her, so they let her keep wearing them, provided she doesn't do it too much.
 * Zig Zagged: Alice starts wearing a midriff-baring outfit (Straight). However, it's because there's a heat wave going on in her city (Justified). In the middle of the heat wave, Alice switches to a skimpy outfit that reveals everything above her groin except her midriff (Inverted). After the heat wave, Alice simply decides to ditch the outfit (Averted).
 * Averted: Alice simply doesn't expose her midriff.
 * Enforced: School or military etc uniforms show her midriff.
 * Lampshaded: Bob calls attention to Alice's bare belly.
 * Invoked: Alice gets a new navel piercing and specifically wears a midriff-bearing outfit to show it off.
 * Exploited: ???
 * Defied:
 * Alice intentionally picks an outfit that won't expose her midriff, for that very reason.
 * See most schools in Real Life.
 * Discussed: Alice and her friends discuss how midriff-bearing outfits are gaining popularity.
 * Conversed: ???
 * Played for Drama: Alice is captured by the Big Bad, and he forces her to wear a sexy midriff-revealing outfit.

Back to Bare Your Midriff