A picture of two or more characters who aren't friends any more shows them chilling out together back when they were younger and best of buds with each other.
The people in the picture may be bitter enemies or rivals. They can be The Lost Lenore or someone they loved and didn't get a chance with if romantic feelings were there. Or it may just show people who went their separate ways for whatever reason — including being forced apart by outside circumstances. But for whatever reason they're apart, the picture will bring up sore feelings about why the person looking at the photo isn't connected with their former friends anymore.
Also included are other types of recordings, such as video and audio tapes, and in the modern era phone pictures or photos rather than printed ones. For drama, the person holding the photo can rip it in pieces, symbolically showing their emotional separation.
A specific expression of We Used to Be Friends (and, at times, of Evil Former Friend). Also related to Happier Home Movie, which is about a particular character's happy past rather than past relationships, and Family Portrait of Characterization, which shows a family's relationships through a photo. Photos Lie is an inverse of this where the photo hides past enmity, rather than revealing past friendship. Being upset enough can mean the other person is Removed from the Picture or the holder of the image may Stab the Picture.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Chapter Five of The Garden of Sinners prominently features an old photograph
◊ of Touko Aozaki (a Mentor Archetype to the good guys), Cornelius Alba, and Souren Araya (the Big Bad Duumvirate of the series) from back when they were working together at the Clock Tower. The three of them seem quite friendly on the photo for people who take every opportunity to murder each other in the story proper.
- A photo in The iDOLM@STER shows that the President of 765 Production used to be friends with their nemesis, President Kuroi of 361 Production, along with his reporter friend and Kotori.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam has a variation: At the outset of the show, Domon is searching the world for a man and shows people a torn photograph, asking if they've ever seen him. A few episodes in we find out that the man is Domon's older brother Kyoji, who went nuts and stole the Devil Gundam, and the torn portion of the picture shows Kyoji giving a preteen Domon a piggyback ride. By the end of the series it turns out that Kyoji was Good All Along, restoring Domon's opinion of his brother, and we see the picture taped back together.
- In Muhyo and Roji, there's a photo of Page and Tomas, both of whom were friends and fellow magical law teachers. Some time after the photo was taken, Tomas was discovered to have been a criminal prior to coming to MLS, and he fled to join Ark, resulting in him and Page becoming enemies.
- In Show By Rock!!, an old photo of Rom and Shuuzo when they were in a band together is tucked away inside one of their CD's. In the game, Selen finds it while researching old, obscure bands; in the anime, Yaiba finds it at BRR and shows it to the rest of Shingancrimsonz, who are understandably shocked.
Comic Books
- Emmie & Friends: Not always photos, but frequently tied to We Used to Be Friends.
- In Positively Izzy, there's one that rips as Izzy talks about her former friends Hannah, Gabi, and Becca.
- In Just Jamie, a picture of the four-girl group is shown when Jamie is wondering what changed to make her friends so mean now.
- In Remarkably Ruby, there's many illustrations of Ruby and Mia as friends before Mia started to push Ruby away.
- In Surprisingly Sarah, an illustration of one is shown when Sarah's talking about how her former friend Kerri Kowalski blew her off for the cool crowd right after starting middle school.
Fan Works
- Ancienverse: Seamus has a picture of himself with Travis and Merle, while Kukui has one with Akela and Guzma.
- Archetypal: Chapter 13 opens with Ronnie Anne noticing a picture of her posing with Sid and Lincoln during happier times before they'd all discovered their respective superpowers.
- Elements of Justice: A Hollow Diamond: After Diamond Tiara accidentally gets another pony murdered with one of her selfish schemes, Silver Spoon's parents forbid them from seeing each other again. Diamond Tiara gets shipped off to a reform school, where she keeps a torn photograph of her and Silver Spoon in her dorm room.
- Infinity Train: Crown of Thorns: Juleka finds a photograph of her, Drogo Denver and the rest of her classmates in his old room, much to her disgust — whatever she felt about him before, she doesn't care for him anymore.
- In Spike's Gambit, Spike attended Celestia's School For Gifted Youths along with Sunburst, Sunset Shimmer, Moon Dancer and Trixie, and keeps a framed photo of the whole group together.
- Three-Point Shot: While combing through the files in his lab, Shuichi discovers a picture of Rantarou and Tsumugi together, in the middle of a class trial. Himiko sadly observes that the two of them appear to have been good friends.
Film — Animated
- Wendell & Wild: Raul used to be part of Siobhan's Girl Posse before he transitioned, and shows Kat a picture of that period.
Film — Live-Action
- In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), Chip has a golden "collector's edition" pog that shows all of the Rescue Rangers together, and effectively functions as this, being a reminder of how he and Dale have become estranged over the years.
- The Eiger Sanction. Jonathan Hemlock has a photograph taken during the Vietnam War of his special forces buddies Henri Baq and Miles Mellough—the latter is crossed out because Miles is a Double Agent who betrayed them to the enemy.
- In the first film of The Mighty Ducks trilogy, this is Subverted in a case of Dramatic Irony with regards to Gordon Bombay's past as a member of the Hawks. During District 5's shopping spree at Hans' sporting goods store, Peter sees an old newspaper clipping framed in the store showing Bombay as a kid in a Hawks uniform; combined later with him and two other Ducks overhearing Gordon seemingly talking poorly about them to his old coach Jack Riley (who still coaches the Hawks in the present), they get the impression that Bombay is a Hawk at heart even now and looks down on them, driving them to launch a team mutiny before their next game and causing them to forfeit. The irony is that Gordon was actually defending them at that moment — he was being sarcastic to his old coach when the Ducks overheard him.
- In Racing Stripes' Rage Against the Mentor scene, Franny tells Stripes to "look closer" at a photograph hanging on the wall. Much to his surprise, Stripes recognizes its subjects as Tucker beside egotistical champion Sir Trenton. Turns out, Tucker is far more experienced with racing than Stripes thought.
- In the director's cut of Spider-Man 3, Harry Osbourne looks at a broken picture of himself, Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Remembering how they used to be friends and tying in with the film's theme of forgiveness, he has a change of heart and sets off to rescue them.
Literature
- In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Mad-Eye Moody shows Harry a picture of the old Order of the Phoenix, that includes Harry's parents as well as their former friendspoiler who betrayed them to Voldemort and caused their death.
- Sherlock Holmes: Two of Holmes' cases features a man ravaging a photo of his betrothed/wife (the former for dumping him after learning he'd set a cat loose in an aviary; the latter for running off with another man). In both cases it turns out to be indicative of severe issues (for the former, it had rankled until he determined to frame the woman's son for his murder; for the latter, he murdered both the wife and lover before asking Holmes for help).
Live-Action TV
- In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, Len aids his explanation of mirror twins with photo showing him and Adam, the original Kamen Rider Dragon Knight and yet to be named Master Eubulon in the background. The two of them used to be best friends before Adam's betrayal caused the downfall of the Ventaran Riders.
- In NUMB3RS, Colby is shown to keep several pictures in his desk from his days in the Army. Among them is a picture of him and Dwayne Carter before Carter turned traitor.
- At the end of the first series of A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017), an old photo reveals that Lemony Snicket and Count Olaf used to be friends. They are photographed smiling next to each other during their school days.
Music
- FLAVOR FOLEY's "Spoken For" revolves around an Idol Singer portrayed by Kasane Teto, who has become mega-famous and hating it; aside from it destroying her mental and physical health to the point she's developed bulimia to stay thin and is implied to be cutting herself from the untreated stress put upon her by her management, it starts when the singer is chosen over her other friends (represented by fellow UTAU Uta Utane and Momo Momone) to be their flagship idol, with Uta and Momo visibly disappointed when the singer's chosen. She keeps a photo of them by her makeup mirror, but as the song progresses, the photo is torn to show only Teto.
Video Games
- Promotional materials for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night contain an old photo of The Hero Miriam, her aloof ally Johannes, and the Big Bad Gebel chilling out as friends during happier times.
- In Command & Conquer: Renegade, one of the mission loading screens shows a photo of the Dead-6 Commando back when Sakura was still a part of it. She starts helping Havoc again after revealing she was a double-agent working for GDI the whole time.
- Like a Dragon: When Kiryu sings "TONIGHT" at a Karaoke Box, he reminisces on the good times he shared with his Evil Former Friend Nishiki, ending with a photo of them together in their teens.
- In Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, rival mob bosses Don Salieri and Don Morello are introduced as long-time bitter enemies, but towards the end of the game, Tommy finds an old photo◊ of them back in their youth, when they were best friends working as caporegimes for the then-Don Peppone. This photo is part of what makes Tommy realize that Being Evil Sucks.
- In Overwatch there are several photos of the title organization's members in their glory days, including several showing Jack Morrison (Soldier 76) and Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) standing next to each other.
- In the final cutscene of the original Saints Row 1, Benjamin King ponders at an old photo◊ of him and Julius Little back in their youthnote . Although in the game, the two of them are rival gang bosses (King leading the Vice Kings and Julius, the Third Street Saints), Julius reveals that both of them come from Sunnyvale, where they were Best Friends and started the VKs together for much the same purpose as the Saints' — to Clean Up the Town. When King and other VKs began turning into just another gangnote , Julius broke up with them, dropped his flags, and started anew in the Row. However, when the VKs turn on King for trying to go legal, Julius honors their old friendship and sends his own men to bail King out, then convinces him to drop his flags... by dismantling his gang. In turn, King having held on to their old photo after all these years shows that he also hasn't really stopped viewing Julius as a friend, even after ending on the opposing sides of the Mob War.
Visual Novels
- In Double Homework, Lauren and Morgan are introduced as bitter rivals, but hints are dropped at a couple of points that they weren’t always that way. Finally, if the protagonist confronts Lauren about it at a critical juncture, she shows him a picture of the two of them, and admits that she used to be in Morgan’s gang.
- In Lilly's route of Katawa Shoujo, Akira shares a photo of Lilly with her cousin Shizune and Shizune's friend and interpreter Misha, while they were working at the school festival together. Neither Shizune nor Lilly turns evil, but they had a falling out due to clashing over Shizune's approach to her Student Council President job. By the end of the route, they reconcile.
- Life After Magic opens with Akiko looking at a picture of herself with her friends back when they were all the Sentinels of Justice, a team of Magical Girls. As the title implies, she's retired, and has since lost touch with the others, having wound up in a Soul-Sucking Retail Job.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Lana and Gant used to be partners. Ironically the photo commemorating their achievements was taken only hours before the incident that started the entire mess with murder and blackmail.
- Villainous Nights: Lorelei's second season ends with Monarch discovering an old photograph of Lorelei alongside Scarlet Brighid, with both smiling and wearing a pair of matching rings.
Webcomics
- Cirque Royale: Leo had one of him, Quinn, and Kingston from when they were young adults pinned in his dorm at college. He tears it apart after seeing Kingston and Quinn hiding in the Sheep Kingdom (while Quinn is pregnant, another surprise to him) and overhears that Quinn, the heir to the throne, didn't want to be found by anyone from Clowny Island. The three of them have now reconnected and Leo's forgiven Quinn, but he went through major abandonment issues after they ran off and left him behind that were already compounded by his parental issues.
- In El Goonish Shive, the photo Raven looks at is a hint that he used to have a closer relationship with Tedd's parents.
Web Original
- In Acquisitions Incorporated season 10, the party finds a photo of Jim and his "buddy" Roger back in magical school. Roger being the guy who murders Jim on his 40th birthday (though he gets better).
- "Friendship ended with Mudasir / Now Salman is my best friend" which underwent Memetic Mutation and inspired a series of photoshopped parodies. They eventually reconciled though.
Western Animation
- In Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Tummi and Gusto find an ancient Gummi city where they are met with hostile sentient trees. Later on they find a mural that depicts the Great Gummies and the trees as allies.
- In the Donkey Kong Country episode, "Best of Enemies", Diddy Kong finds an old photo of King K. Rool and Cranky Kong when they were friends. Cranky explains to Donkey and Diddy that they used to do many exciting stunts together, such as tsunami wrestling, and skydiving without parachutes. Their friendship ended during the last event, walking across the wing of an airborne bi-plane, when Cranky accused K. Rool of cheating. Donkey and Diddy try to get Cranky and K. Rool to be friends again so that K. Rool will stop trying to steal the Crystal Coconut.
- Hazbin Hotel: The final episode of the first season shows that Vox has a torn picture of Alastor, despite how Alastor frequently uses his powers to distort his image and make it harder to capture on film. While he preserved the part of the picture featuring Alastor, enough of the figure beside him is visible to recognize as Vox... back when he had an older model TV for a head.
- In Justice League: Gods and Monsters, the film shows a photo of Batman, the Big Bad and the latter's wife before the credits roll.
- In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls 1, Twilight Sparkle finds a group photo of the human counterparts of her Equestrian friends during their freshmen year, which lead her to suspect that Sunset Shimmer may have had a hand in tearing their friendship apart. By helping them clear out their misunderstandings and amend their friendship, they in turn help Twilight defeat Sunset through The Power of Friendship and reclaim her Element of Magic by the movie's end.
- The Owl House episode "Understanding Willow" is set in motion because of a photo of Willow and Amity back when they were friends. Amity panics when she catches a sight of it and attempts to burn her face off of it so her Girl Posse won't see. Unfortunately, it's actually a magic photo directly connected to Willow's memories, so when she ends up destroying it and all the other ones next to it by accident it causes Willow to suffer a bout of amnesia. Ironically, despite how happy the two are in the picture, it was actually a memory of the day that Amity's parents forced her to end their friendship.
- One episode of Recess features TJ secretly attending Menlo's birthday party, to the confusion of the rest of the gang. As he leaves, Menlo gives TJ a picture of them both when they were younger. He and TJ explain that when they realised they were drifting apart, TJ promised to always attend Menlo's birthday, and holds himself to it.
Real Life
- In Malaysian politics, there is an old photo of Muhyiddin Yassin, Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Razak and posing together as UMNO members◊. Today, they have a contentious relationship to say the least.
- Similarly, back in 2005, Donald Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton had an amiable relationship, Clinton even attending Trump's wedding.
