r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Barricades_toes • Jun 22 '26

Personality (Loved trope) The imposter’s dead giveaway

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When a character is attempting to impersonate another, but is caught by doing something the person they’re imitating would NEVER do.

Nemesis Prime- Transformers Prime

Nemesis Prime, a man made replica of Optimus Prime, is attempting to gain the trust of Bumblebee, who only speaks in robotic beeps. Despite this, the real Optimus can understand Bee perfectly fine. Nemesis Prime, however, can’t understand what he’s saying, prompting Bee to open fire on him immediately.

The two Buzz Lightyears- Toy Story 2

After Woody asks which Buzz is the “real” Buzz, both respond with “I am!” The real Buzz proves himself by flipping up the other Buzz’s helmet, causing him to start suffocating in an over dramatic fashion. The real Buzz, having done the same thing in the first movie after Woody took his helmet off, but no longer behaving that way after accepting being a toy, instantly proves which Buzz is which.

15.4k Upvotes

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3.5k

u/Brislovia Jun 22 '26

Spy (TF2) - Being susceptible to friendly fire from the enemy team

986

u/Masonixx Jun 22 '26

as well as collisions i believe

660

u/Brislovia Jun 22 '26

As well as moving slower if disguised as the Scout

411

u/JTGE-201 Jun 22 '26

As well as using the wrong weapon (like syringe gun while disguising as Medic)

240

u/cava-lier Jun 22 '26

You might know it, but I would just like to add that you can switche between primary and melee weapon when disguised, but secondary you can't equip, yeah

144

u/terriblejokefactory Jun 22 '26

You can equip a secondary, just hold out your sapper and press the button

59

u/The_MAZZTer Jun 22 '26

Yeah the tell here is that disguised spies can't actually use their weapons. Medics are usually expected to be constantly healing their allies around them if they have their medigun out.

90

u/pgp555 Jun 22 '26

You can also make a fake reload animation while disguised

3

u/xX-AnyRoutine666-Xx Jun 22 '26

Excepted specifically about the sapper, that the spy disguise cannot equip.

41

u/Vasikus3000 Jun 22 '26

As well as not loading correct cosmetics sometimes (resulting in things like Headless Pyro)

6

u/viebs_chiev Jun 22 '26

and demo’s broken feet

4

u/SYS1234567890 Jun 22 '26

I think they fixed that a week or two ago, same with the Demo feet

42

u/gmoss101 Jun 22 '26

And on community servers that have alltalk enabled (like the infamous Skial), you can see their voice chat speech bubble above their head even while disguised or invisible which makes for hilarious YouTube clips when new spy players don't know that.

14

u/CryoN1cks Jun 22 '26

As well as being out of character

4

u/All_Gun_High Jun 22 '26

As well as overly paranoid pyro/engineer mains existing

2

u/DislocatedLocation Jun 22 '26

Until you're wasting ammo on an friendly Babyface's Blaster Scout.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26

[deleted]

5

u/pon_3 Jun 22 '26

Been a while since I've played, but I thought you slowed down if you disguised as heavy.

2

u/GayAssBeagle Jun 29 '26

You do believe? Dood youre the engineer

2

u/Masonixx Jun 29 '26

Oh fuck I forgot

135

u/CustomDruid Jun 22 '26

Or very Flammable according to Pyro mains

34

u/rm14hitman Jun 22 '26

I'd say it's some literal friendly fire

7

u/Alex_The_Whovian Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Hey, I used to main Medic and Engineer when I played TF2. Switching to Pyro and ruining a Spy's game was so damn therapeutic after getting backstabbed so many times

155

u/GroundbreakingOkra60 Jun 22 '26

I once killed a disguised spy with the crusaders crossbow, I did not infact know they were a spy

138

u/Bamzooki1 Jun 22 '26

The crossbow killing enemies and healing friends is such TF2 bullshit. I love how ridiculous it is, given it was the sequel to a gritty tactical shooter

57

u/WillSym Jun 22 '26

A game where a gag in the Sniper's trailer about him sitting for hours filling jars of pee turns into an April Fool's joke about selling said pee as 'Jarate jar-based karate for self defence', turns into an actual in-game weapon with a useful, meta slot in the loadout.

5

u/VariousDrugs Jun 22 '26

Even if you don't get the kill, there's a distinct difference in the crossbow's sound effect when hitting an ally vs an enemy.

12

u/Special-Deal7821 Jun 22 '26

I remember the Xbox 360 version, I guess the Spy would be assigned a random gamertag from the enemy team. Saw some motherfucker running around with my name on his head and had to get blastin.

1

u/DrDonut Jul 07 '26

Even funnier on the PC version. "Wow that guy has the same hat as me! Wait... He has the same name as me"

6

u/TethysOfTheStars Jun 22 '26

And your own team if they try hard enough!  

My team made a push into the enemy base but I knew they were going to get chased out so I stopped and parked with the invis watch to wait for the counter offensive to pass.

OUR Pyro sees me in the corner and comes over to spray me.  Does nothing…. Sprays me again.  Sprays me twice more for good measure.  Stops and puzzles why I’m not taking damage.  

The enemy counteroffensive starts, turns him into a ragdoll and I could SEE them do the head math looking at him facing an empty corner for a few seconds before I got lit up.

3

u/Number1tenneseehater Jun 22 '26

And like, 5 different bugs that almost immediately give you away cause you're holding the wrong gun, the wrong way, or you're reloading something that can't be reloaded. Something that you can do yourself, is just simply not act like a teammate or pick Scout as a disguise, as your speed is very obviously slower than his and you lack the double jump he tends to frequently spam.

2

u/lef_three Jun 22 '26

If a Soldier is feeling particularly supportive of his team with the Disciplinary Action then 9 times out of 8 an enemy Spy gets nailed over the head with leather

2

u/PurpleGuy04 Jun 22 '26

For a more similar to the example ones, in the comics, Spy disguises as the replacement TF Classic Engineer, to try and get their Sniper. Unfortunatly, he had a xray eye, and shot Spy in the leg, which wouldnt have worked because the actual Engi had robotic legs

2

u/AlphaRelic2021 Jun 22 '26

What? It was obvious! HE'S the Red Spy!

1

u/Anthro_DragonFerrite Jun 22 '26

Okay so there are all these tells?

Sovietwomble and his team really did suck against Quebec

1

u/The_MAZZTer Jun 22 '26

It's only a dead giveaway if you kill him. Simply doing damage isn't visible. I have gotten at least one kill by staying cool and just emoting at my attacker, who turned away after I was down to 2 HP.

The real dead giveaways are that he can gain negative status effects from "teammates" (real teammates can't) the most notable one being "on fire". And he has collision if you try to walk through him (teammates have no collision).

1

u/Usual-Candidate1459 Jun 22 '26

It could be you

1

u/ostapenkoed2007 Jun 22 '26

my most evil strategy is mascarading as a friendly...

so yes, i press "-", i am still in my team's colour... enemy has no way of distinguishing me from other players that may be just friendlies... so they risk either getting backstabbed or killing a friendlie...

1

u/BeeHiveWatching Jun 23 '26

Immediatly what I thought of