They have their uses.
Tropes that cover things that distract or divert a character's attention, whether by accident or design, as well as the characters that plan or fall for them.
For examples of things that might distract you, the reader, from something you really should be doing instead, see Wiki Walk and TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.
Tropes:
- Actually a Doombot: A villain sets up a decoy to throw the heroes off their trail.
- Attention-Deficit Disciple: The Dragon tends to get caught up in the enemy's shenanigans, much to their boss' chagrin.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A character is easily distracted by the most trivial of things.
- Backseat Changing Room: Changing in the backseat.
- Cacophony Cover-Up: Covering up a loud noise with an equally or greater loud noise.
- Cats Love Laser Pointers: If you're facing a giant feline beast, it’s best to give them a red dot to chase.
- Caught Monologuing: Taking action while your opponent is busy talking.
- Centipede's Dilemma: When asked how they are able to do something, the character loses their ability due to being too focused on figuring out how it is so.
- Chasing a Butterfly
- Convenient Decoy Cat
- Conveniently Timed Distraction: A distraction that wasn't planned happens at a critical moment.
- Covering for the Noise
- Crashing Through the Harem
- Cuteness Proximity: When a person sees someone or something adorable, their first instinct is to stop whatever they're doing and gush about how cute the cute person or thing is.
- Dangerously Distracted: A character's attention is grabbed at just the wrong time, making them hurt themselves or break things.
- Decoy Convoy
- Delicious Distraction: Distracting someone with food (often a Big Eater).
- Derailed Train of Thought: Forgetting what you were talking about in favor of an unrelated topic.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?
- Distracted by the Luxury: Using luxuries, like jewelry, to distract ladies.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Someone gets distracted by an attractive person.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Someone gets distracted by their own reflection.
- Distracting Disambiguation
- Draw Aggro
- Easily Distracted Referee
- Escort Distraction
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Two people kiss to divert attention from others. Compare Kiss of Distraction
- Fakin' MacGuffin
- Flash Mob Cover-Up: Characters stage a flash mob as a distraction.
- Forgotten State of Undress: A character is too preoccupied to notice their state of undress.
- Freudian Slippery Slope
- Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls
- Go Fetch: Distracting a dog by playing fetch with it.
- Hey, Catch!
- Hitchhiker's Leg
- Hounds Hunt a Ham: A scent dog alerts on something unrelated to its intended target.
- Inconvenient Itch: Being distract by an itch at an inappropriate moment.
- Infraction Distraction
- Institutional Allegiance Concealment
- Kiss of Distraction: Exploiting the surprise of sudden physical affection to further a hidden goal. Compare Fake-Out Make-Out.
- Leaving a Trail: Leaving a trail of items for someone to follow — one example usage being to divert their attention towards something else, such as a trap or a Red Herring.
- Look Behind You: You escape someone pursuing you by lying that something they'd be interested in seeing is behind them so that they'd temporarily turn away from you.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Someone is showing a lot of skin, but no one notices or cares.
- Not Listening to Me, Are You?: Someone tries talking to a distracted person.
- Outfit Decoy
- Paralysis by Analysis
- Primp of Contempt: Being distracted from what’s going on in front of you because your nails need filing and your hair needs some fixing.
- Privacy by Distraction: Distracting someone so you can have some privacy.
- Pushed at the Monster: Someone deliberately trips up another to distract someone, usually a monster, chasing them.
- Show Some Leg
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: Someone gets distracted thinking of the literal sense of an anology.
- Smoke Out: Someone activates a smoke bomb as a distraction to escape.
- Smokescreen Crime: Someone commits or stages a crime to obscure another one.
- Throwing the Distraction: Throwing something to distract a person.
- A Truce While We Gawk: A fight grinds to a halt as something catches the combatants' attention.
- We Need a Distraction
- Wild Goose Chase: Sending someone on a fake mission to distract them.
Wait, what's that behind you?!
~Disappears~
