"All you have to do is tilt your head to the left, close your eyes, and let your mind soar like an eeeeeagle."
— Scrubs, J.D. hanging a lampshade on his day dreaming pose.
A specific type of Character Tic. When Bob is sitting deep in thought, trying to solve a difficult problem, the writers will often provide a tic as a visual shorthand. This move is unconscious, and its main purpose is to underline just how perplexed and frustrated Bob is. Expect to see it happen very often during homework, tests or really tough relationship issues.
Stock variants include:
- Snapping one's fingers.
- Twirling one's fingers and pen, sometimes biting it in annoyance.
- Drumming his fingers while staring absent-mindedly.
- Stroking his chin or scratching his beard in wonder.
- Playing with his hair locks.
- Tapping on his lips or chin impatiently with his fingertips.
- Biting his lip, sometimes accompanied by a "tsk" sound.
- Clicking his tongue impatiently.
- Sitting in the Thinker Pose.
- Scratching the top of his head in confusion.
- Scratching one leg with the toes of the other foot.
Often accompanying it, especially if he isn't alone, will be someone else getting progressively more annoyed by it and finally yelling at him to "Stop that!"
See also Finger-Tenting, Putting On My Thinking Cap. Can be Truth in Television.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Death Note: L bites his nails, particularly the nails on his thumb. While Near plays with his hair.
- Hyouka's Houtarou Oreki has a habit of playing with his forelock when he's thinking particularly hard about a case.
- Shikamaru in Naruto sits with his hands splayed and opposing fingertips touching. In a way, it's his way of announcing that he's getting serious.
- Izuku Midoriya in My Hero Academia mumbles his thoughts out loud while tapping his right index finger against his chin when he's not busy scribbling notes down.
- Shenmue: Ryo will often run his fingers over his bandaged scar whenever he thinks of Lan Di, the one who caused it in the first place. Ren even lampshades this in “Shenmue”, and mentions that Ryo has stopped doing it when he resolves to go to Guilin and find out the truth about Iwao’s murder.
Asian Animation
- In earlier seasons of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Weslie does a short dance involving him jumping from side to side and doing a spin for his last jump, before striking a pose, whenever he thinks of important ideas.
Comic Books
- Supergirl used to put her finger to her mouth
◊ as she puzzled out some conundrum in early issues of Action Comics. That quirk that has been seen every now and then even in modern comics.
- Superman often grasps his chin when he ponders something. In Kryptonite Nevermore he does this as he wonders about an astronaut's sudden sickness.
Eastern European Animation
- Brave Bunnies: Whenever Bop and Boo the bunnies come up with an idea that progresses the plot, they think about the problem and twitch their ears side-to-side for about a second before they point their ears upwards when the idea comes to them.
Fan Works
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fic Breathers For Applejack, Twilight has a habit of nervously chewing on her hoof-tip while she thinks.
- In The Raven Cycle fic For Me to Know and For You to Find Out, the main character's psychic mother Maura Sargent has a penchant for scratching her ankle with the toes of the other foot whenever she's having a vision or just lost in thought.
- In My Hero Academia fic From Muddy Waters, Izuku mumbles his thoughts aloud when he's thinking hard and tends to tug on his lower lip. He shares the latter trait with his father.
- In Naruto fic Konoha No Senkou Arashi, Hinata's signature gesture of Shy Finger-Twiddling became the one of plotting.
- In Let Nothing Fall to Chance (a Crossover fic between Fallout: New Vegas and Arknights), Six is prone to the chin-grabbing variety. Crownslayer has also used it on at least one occasion.
- In The Chronicles of Narnia fic On the Origin of Duffers, the eccentric magician Coriakin has a habit of scratching his ankle with the toes of the other foot when he's lost in thought.
- In The Shield's Dragon (a Like a Dragon / The Rising of the Shield Hero Crossover fic), Kiryu has a habit of stroking his chin, just like his "deep-in-thought" animation during dialogue cutscenes across the Yakuza games.
Films — Animation
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Multiple:
- Whenever facing a problem, Pooh, being not to so bright, tends to lightly tap his head and repeat "Think, think, think" while rocking back and forth.
- While he's thinking, Tigger makes a bizarre facial expression with his mouth. Kind of like he has chewed an idea in his mouth and he's deciding if it tastes good or not.
Films — Live-Action
- Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet: Nick Carter (America's greatest detective who investigates a mysterious case in Prague) often folds his arms and put fingers on his lips or face. He sometimes points out that he's deep in thoughts or "investigating intensively" when he's disgruntled that police commissioner Ledvina is not as invested in the case as he is.
- Akeelah and the Bee: When spelling words Akeelah often pats her hand on her leg in a constant beat. Upon spotting this, her teacher recognizes this as a rhythm technique and starts having her learn words according to a rhythm so that she'll remember them better.
- In The Big Sleep, Philip Marlowe tugs on his earlobe when he's concentrating.
- In GoldenEye, Boris has a tendency to fidget with his pen and click it when mulling something over. This turns out to be a Chekhov's Gun later when he has one of 007's pens which is actually a mini-bomb in hand while thinking.
- In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Gollum frowns when pondering over a riddle, then his face lights up with an idea, but, disliking the idea, he frowns again. You can just see his split personalities battling it out in his facial expressions as he ponders.
- Gladys Glover, in the film It Should Happen to You, needs to take off her shoes in order to think clearly.
- In Survivor Style 5+, the commercial director blinks her eyes rapidly when she's coming up with a new idea.
- The Three Stooges:
- Shemp would often start going into spasms when he tried to think, and might request Moe to bonk him in the head to help get the thought to come out.
- Curly, on the few occasions where he tried to think, would start banging his head against the wall. Then, seeming to have an epiphany, he'd exclaim "I got it!" When asked what he got, he'd reply "A terrific headache." Other times, he would stare off in space for a few moments, before turning to Moe and saying "I try to think but nothing happens."
Live-Action TV
- Doctor Who: When trying to concentrate or when lost in thought, the Fourth Doctor will often run his fingers through his hair or stroke his nose. This gets ribbed at in "Castrovalva", where the newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor attempts to run his hands through his own hair while thinking, only to disappointedly discover that it's much shorter and straighter now.
- A Doctor Who related sketch has a bit where the BBC head of programming and the producer who is pitching Doctor Who to him are thinking and both drum their fingers to the "da-da-da-da" tune of the Doctor Who theme.
- Yo Gabba Gabba!: The Gabbas tend to scratch their heads whenever they think, especially Brobee. Muno often strokes his chin whenever he thinks.
- Scrubs: Whenever he's having one of his fantasies, J.D. tends to tilt his head to the left.
- Rodney from Stargate Atlantis starts snapping his fingers rapidly whenever he's having an epiphany.
- Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation will sometimes cock his head sharply to one side when he's doing some deep calculation. Star Trek: Picard reveals that his "daughter", Soji, inherits this trait, which Captain Riker picks up on.
- In a Season One episode of Wizards of Waverly Place, Max is shown needing to tap his foot and poke his cheeks with his tongue to focus on his textbook. Justin finds it distracting, and starts a slap fight. In the final season, Max scrunches up his face to make his "Thinking Face."
- Bridge Carson, the Cloudcuckoolander and Green Ranger of Power Rangers S.P.D., does a full handstand when he wants to do some serious thinking. He claims having the blood rush to his head makes him think better. His Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger counterpart Sen-chan also shares this habit, which the narration constantly refers to as his "thinking pose".
Literature
- And Not Quite Human: The captain drums his fingers when he gets impatient.
- In The Bluest Eye, the main character Pecola has a habit of scratching her calf with her toe when lost in thought, which she seemingly inherited from her mother. This triggers her father into raping her.
- In Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the protagonist's sister Avdotya Romanovna has a habit of pacing up and down the room while thinking.
- Doc Savage: The eponymous character is known for making an eerie trilling sound when in deep thought.
- Erast Fandorin: From Special Assignments onwards, the eponymous detective acquires a habit of grabbing his jade rosary beads and telling them in silence while contemplating.
- The First Men in the Moon: Cavor's Thinking Tic of making odd noises while he's thinking is the whole reason he and Bedford even meet. Cavor has the habit of walking past the cottage Bedford lives in, while contemplating his experiments. He unconsciously sings as he walks, and the singing disturbs Bedford's attempts to write, to the point that he asks Cavor to either stop or to walk somewhere else.
- Fu Manchu: Sir Denis Nayland Smith tugs on an earlobe when thinking—even if he's in disguise at the time.
- Gloves Of Virtue: The main character's wife Abigail has a habit of scratching her ankle with her toes when she's thinking over something. And that's just a small part of her weirdness.
I know that she sits with one shoe slipped off, scratching the other ankle with her big toe, when she's thinking about something that puzzles her.
- Mediochre Q Seth Series: Mediochre thinks best when playing the piano. As a result, when a piano is not available, he tends to start visibly playing an imaginary piano. In addition, he also has a tendency to twist his fingers into his hair when thinking particularly urgently.
- Horatio Hornblower paces up and down when deep in thought - on a quarterdeck for preference, but anywhere of sufficient length will suffice. On one occasion he did so while staying at an inn, to the annoyance of the occupant of the room below him.
- Nero Wolfe: Whenever Archie Goodwin sees Nero close his eyes and start pushing his lips in and out, he knows Wolfe's brain has just gone into overdrive. It's the only time Archie knows for sure that Wolfe is working and he never interrupts it.
- In The Princess Bob and Her Friends by Bret Harte, the titular Indian Princess Bob is noted to have "a simian habit of softly scratching her left ankle with the toes of her right foot, in moments of contemplation".
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: Violet Baudelaire ties her hair up with a ribbon when she starts thinking about her next invention.
- Teddy Robinson: Teddy Robinson believes that Philip is pulling faces, when he is actually thinking.
Teddy Robinson: The face you're pulling now would make anybody laugh.Philip: I'm not pulling a face. This is my ordinary one.Teddy Robinson: Well, it's different from usual.Philip: I'm thinking.
- The Twits: Mrs Twit accuses her husband of plotting something, because she knows that when he goes very quiet, he is plotting like mad, which is true: he is trying to think of a really nasty trick he can play on her.
Video Games
- 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim: All of the protagonists have their own unique "thinking animation" that show off their different personalities during Thought Cloud, such as Yuki stroking her chin, Keitaro crossing his arms, Shu scratching the back of his head and Gouto reading his personal notebook.
- Most major Ace Attorney characters have a thinking sprite that is used whenever they're pondering something. Phoenix holds his chin in one hand, Maya looks up and to her left, Edgeworth crosses his arms, Apollo pokes his forehead, Mia covers her mouth, Athena fiddles with her earring.
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Avril Mead usually stares at her hand and runs her thumb over her pointer finger when contemplative.
- ANNO: Mutationem: Whenever Ann and Ayane are having thoughts for certain events they have questions about, they both hold their hands underneath their chins as they ponder the current situation.
- Seeing that the series is about murder mystery and class trial, Danganronpa has a lot of this especially for the main trial leaders. Asahina crosses her arms while glancing up to her right, Hinata and Komaeda put their index finger on their chin, Nanami scratches her chin while looking up like she's wondering. Kirigiri got a special mention; her angry pose is the same as her thinking pose (crossing her left arm under her chest while her right arm propped over it), just with a different expression. She only uses that pose when the situation is utterly ridiculous but nevertheless is the truth, as if she's trying so hard to think but it could never make sense.
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- Clueless Detective Hildibrand has a rather hammy thinking tic. Twisting to the right at the hip, bending his knees to tilt his body at an angle, Hildi flexes his arms and simultaneously points to his head while his eyes are closed in thought. If inspiration strikes, he splays his hands with a smile on his face.
- The detective's low-poly clone Brandihild in Endwalker gets his own: He mimes sitting in a chair drinking a cup of tea, with one leg crossed over the other, which is accompanied by the world around him fading away, showing mathematical equations floating around him in a void.
- The players have their own in the form of the /think emote, which varies depending on race and gender.
- Higurashi: When They Cry: Rena once lampshades that when Keiichi is thinking deeply about something stupid, he will often bend his head backwards and start speaking his thoughts without realizing it.
- Kingdom Hearts: Sora tends to cross his arms across his chest when he's thinking, typically accompanied by tilting his head to the side while looking down. Aqua does something similar, though she props her left arm up on her folded right one and places a hand over her mouth.
- The iDOLM@STER: Haruka tends to look up and to the right or left whenever she's in thought.
- Mass Effect: Liara T'soni comes to adopt a standing-up variant of the Thinker Pose. It's most noticeable in Mass Effect 3.
- World's End Club: Each of the Go-Getters have their own ponder animation; Yuki looks up while pondering, Vanilla closes her eyes while putting her finger next to her cheek.
- Xenogears: Citan tends to tilt while placing his hand on his face in the midst of thinking.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: Caine drums his finger against his thigh when he thinks up the Gloink quest to get Pomni off the topic of the exit doors.
Web Comics
- Radic from Murphy's Law has a habit of holding her chin when in thought.
- Most characters in Questionable Content will raise an index to their faces when thinking aloud.
- In Realm of Owls, the detectives have their hand on their chin so much that it is practically a part of being professional.
- Terry from Uncommon Animals bites her lower lip when she's thinking.
Web Original
- The Nostalgia Critic has a tendency to pucker his mouth when he's thinking something over.
Western Animation
- Grampy from Betty Boop wore a mortarboard with a light bulb on top as he thought of ideas. When he had an idea, he'd break into a happy dance.
- All three of the human characters in Cyberchase have one of these. Matt plays with a yo-yo, Inez stands on her head and Jackie paces (usually prompted by her stating "Make room! I gotta pace!"). Interestingly none of these are perceived as annoying by those around them and the trio often does their own tics side by side while trying to work out their problem of the day.
- Felix the Cat's famous tic of walking back and forth with his hands behind his back.
- Gravity Falls Dipper has the irritating habit of clicking his pen when thinking.
- Mike, Lu & Og: Og, when in deep thought, usually sits down while flicking his nose ring until he hits on something.
- When asked what he thought of something, Mr. Horse from The Ren & Stimpy Show would rub his chin with his hoof and pucker his lips saying "Hmm...", before inevitably replying "No sir, I don't like it."
- Skull Island (2023): Irene frequently puts her hand to her chin when she's thinking.
- Obi-Wan in Star Wars: The Clone Wars frequently rests his elbow on his arm and strokes his beard when he is thinking.
- Tom Terrific would go through bizarre movements whenever he would think of an idea. Smoke would blow out of his thinking cap (a huge funnel) when he did come up with an idea.
- Winnie-the-Pooh, in many iterations of the cartoon, folds his arms with a look of concentration, taps his head, and chants, “Think, think, think.”
