Acting Unnatural/Playing With

Basic Trope: Characters are told to 'act natural', as in 'ordinary', but instead they act completely the opposite.

• Straight: Bob and Alice are trying to track down Alice's Stalker with a Crush. They try to act natural, but instead, they whistle and walk in such an exaggerated way, which makes the stalker suspicious.
• Exaggerated: Bob and Alice try to act natural, but instead they start to talk gibberish, read a newspaper upside-down and fiddle with their hands. The stalker gets suspicious, obviously.
• Downplayed: Alice and Bob try to act natural, and they do it perfectly, except when Alice mentions whether they have acted right or not.
• Justified: Bob and Alice are not good actors.
• Inverted: Bob and Alice try to act unnatural, instead they act very natural and normal.
• Subverted: Bob and Alice try to act natural, and they had a little problem at first, until they finally act correctly.
• Double Subverted: Before they began to behave in such an odd way to act natural.
• Parodied: Alice and Bob literally try to act natural, by walking on four legs and chewing grass, like cows.
• Zig Zagged: Their result of acting natural is filled with 'natural' acts and 'unnatural' acts.
• Averted: Alice and Bob try to act natural, and does so perfectly.
• Enforced: "We need some comedy here, and we always know a good one is when they try to act natural, but never succeeds!"
• Lampshaded: "Gee, that sure is an odd, exaggerated way to act 'natural'!"
• Invoked: Bob and Alice try to act natural (and fail) in order to make the stalker less careful.
• Exploited: The stalker realizes the presence of Bob and Alice, so he tries to run away.
• Defied: "Bob, we can't act natural! Everybody knows it's way harder to act natural than be natural!"
• Discussed: "If this is some kind of comedy movie or something, trying to act natural just makes us look outrageously stupid, right? "
• Conversed: "In these kinds of shows, they always fail to act natural."
• Played For Laughs: Almost always is.

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Back to Acting Unnatural. Quick, act natural! He's coming! *everyone stands on a straight line*