This Index Means Trouble

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

This is an index of people, places, things, and tropes that will almost always lead to conflict, whether it be a Flame War, Bar Brawl, Blast Out, or even a full scale actual war.

These Stock Characters and people are looking for trouble.


This place is just bad news.

  • Bad Guy Bar: a place where troublemakers of various sorts congregate
  • Diners: because why just have dinner when you can have a fight with dinner?
  • The combination of Crapsack World and Empathic Environment: everyone feels like crap and wants to take it out on someone else
  • Wretched Hive: a lot of very bad people centered in one very bad place.
  • Vice City: a lot of very bad people and a lot of money circulating around one place.


That thing looks dangerous.

  • Arab-Israeli Conflict: No one can touch this without starting a fight.
  • Berserk Button: Don't Touch It, You Idiot!!
  • Any Chekhov's Gun: why yes, they will be fired
  • Hate Plague: If someone (or some group of people) contracts this, fighting will ensue.
  • Happy Fun Ball: Because someone will discover that it is nowhere near as innocent as it looks.
  • Misplaced Nationalism: Whenever this gets invoked online or offline, run for your life. Sometimes, literally.
  • Politics: There is a reason why it's banned or heavily restricted as a topic of discussion pretty much anywhere that it's not the only topic of discussion. Religion is very, very close to it. Combining the two will almost always lead to fights.
  • The Deadliest Mushroom / Nuke'Em /nuclear weapons in general: if one ever gets set off, war (and The End of the World as We Know It) will ensue
  • The Plague: A devastating disease can drive societies to chaos as people left and right drop like flies.
  • Post-Peak Oil: Restricting modern society from one of the most, if not the most important substance can lead to a complete breakdown and collapse of it.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Probably one of the very first examples. Opening it is not a good idea. And yet of course someone will...


Why did you have to invoke that?:

  • Any of the "All X are Y" tropes. This includes such tropes as All Gays Are Pedophiles - stating straight belief in them around anyone who is part of the X group but not the Y group will almost always start a fight (or at least lead to very uncomfortable silence)
  • Axes At School: Unless it's a school of warfare (and even then sometimes) bringing a weapon into school will cause major trouble.
  • Commie Nazis: Conflate "Commies" and "Nazis" to a Russian, get anything from slapped to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Guns in Church: In some settings, and in MOST settings in Real Life, openly carrying or especially brandishing a firearm will lead to an arrest, a fight, or sudden death.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: If someone decides to invoke this, of course there will be conflict.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Invoking this to most women who don't believe in it will start a fight
  • Strawman Political: Invoking this will almost always start a fight
  • Violence Is the Only Option: Obviously, if someone thinks this, there is gong to be violence.