Disguise Tropes

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Tropes about dressing up and pretending to be someone you're not. Or maybe dressing up and becoming who you really are. See also Prop.

Tropes

• Adults Dressed as Children: An adult tries to impersonate a child.
• Agent Provocateur: An individual who pretends to be the other side in order to incite something and frame the other side.
• Animal Disguise: A human disguised as an animal.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The physical appearance of a being depends on who is looking at them.
• Ass in a Lion Skin: An animal disguised as another animal.
• Bad Actor, Good Liar: A character makes for a very good liar or con artist despite being terrible at professional acting.
• Bad Habits: Someone disguises themselves as religious clergy.
• Bandaged Face: Covering your whole face in bandages.
• Beardness Protection Program: Growing (or shaving off) a beard for a disguise.
• Becoming the Costume: Particularly popular around All Hallows' Eve, a curse that transforms the individual into whatever their costume resembles.
• Becoming the Mask: The personality that is supposed to be the person's cover becomes how they really are.
  • Secret-Identity Identity: A person with two separate identities feels conflicted over which one is their true self.
  • Double Consciousness: The internal conflict of a person whose ancestry and/or upbringing are on two different sides.
• Bed Trick: Pretending to be someone's significant other to trick them into having sex with you.
• Beneath the Mask: A person hides their true personality from others.
• Black-Tie Infiltration: The Infiltration takes place at a formal social event.
• Blatant Burglar: Stereotypical masked criminals.
• Blending-In Stealth Gameplay: Hiding in the environment often requires obtaining a disguise item first.
• Bluff the Impostor: Weeding out an impersonator by tricking them into saying or doing something that the real person would never say or do.
• Body and Host: When a foreign entity enters/outright hijacks a body.
• Brown Bag Mask: Someone hides their identity by wearing a paper bag over their head.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: A person compliments themselves while disguised as someone else.
• Cast as a Mask: A character and their disguised persona are played by separate actors.
• Catfishing: Using a fake profile to trick or lure someone into a relationship or for other means.
• Celebrity Masquerade: A superhero whose secret identity is a famous celebrity.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Wearing camouflage or changing your skin to blend in perfectly into the background. Any background.
• Charlie Brown from Outta Town: A person in exile returns in a Paper-Thin Disguise.
• Cheap Costume: Someone in need of a disguise must make do with whatever they can find.
• Checkpoint Bluff: Trying to get past an enemy checkpoint under disguise.
• Clark Kenting: No one figures out the superhero's secret identity in spite of the secret identity only having minor differences in appearance.
• Clipboard of Authority: A person carries a clipboard to makes it look like they belong there.
• Closet Gay: Queer people pretending to be straight.
• Clothesline Stealing: People are in need of clothing and steal from a clothesline.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: A type of superhero costume.
• Coincidental Accidental Disguise: A character ends up looking like something specific through a series of coincidences and gets mistaken for it.
• Coincidental Disguise-Complementing Trait: A character in disguise finds they have a trait that just so happens to make their cover more convincing.
• Collective Identity: An alias is used by more than one person at the same time.
• Confronting Your Imposter: An impersonator is foiled by the real person showing up.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Someone tries to avoid attention by wearing an overcoat and a fedora.
• Convenient Color Change: Sides are depicted depending on what color they change into.
• Cool Mask: A person wears a mask to conceal their identity.
• Costume Copycat: A hero is impersonated by someone in a nearly identical costume.
• Costumes Change Your Size: When clothing seems to expand and shrink to fit whoever is wearing it.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: A character, in disguise or otherwise pretending to be someone else, doesn't know some basic piece of information about the person they're pretending to be.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: Some sort of Covert Group or Secret Society hides behind the cover of a seemingly ordinary business or other public front for their true activities.
  • School Club Front: A Students' Secret Society tries to pass themselves off as an ordinary school club that's not up to doing anything too strange.
  • Totally Not a Criminal Front: A criminal gang uses a more innocuous, but also totally obvious, front business to hide their more illegal transactions.
• Crossdresser: If someone dresses up as a member of the opposite sex for the purpose of hiding themselves in public.
  • Disguised in Drag: When a man disguises himself as a woman.
    • Harmless Lady Disguise: A man disguises himself as a woman specifically to avoid suspicion.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: When a woman disguises herself as a man.
    • Sweet on Polly Oliver: A man becomes attracted to a woman disguised as a male, the implication being that he is subconsciously figuring out that she's actually female.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Someone uses the identity of a dead person as their alias.
• Decoy Leader: Someone who is posing as a leader to protect the real leader.
• Delivery Guy Infiltration: Someone is disguised as a courier, deliveryman, or mailman in order to infiltrate some restricted area.
  • Deadly Delivery: An assassin poses as a postal worker in order to kill the target at their home.
• Demonic Possession: When an evil entity hijacks control of someone's body, they'll usually try to pass themselves off as their host's identity if they want to stay incognito.
• Disguised Hostage Gambit: A villain disguises a hostage as himself to fool The Cavalry.
• Domino Mask: A type of mask that covers only the eyes and the area around them.
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: A character with way too many concurrent allegiances to opposing factions.
• Dramatic Unmask: A masked character takes off their mask, revealing their identity to a shocked character and audience.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Wearing an enemy uniform in order to sneak around their base.
• Dye or Die: Having your hair color changed to try to avoid your enemies.
• Easy Impersonation: A hero is impersonated by someone in a not-even-similar costume.
• Emergency Impersonation: An impersonator tries to fill in for someone else and hilarity ensues.
• Expressive Mask: Someone wears a mask that is somehow still able to register their emotions.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: A disguised character has differing eyes that give away their true identity.
• Facial Façade: Possessing a false facial marking for mimicry or pretense.
• Fake Aristocrat: A character who passes themselves off as being higher ranking in the social order than they actually are.
• Fake Identity Baggage: A character's stolen or fake identity brings them unexpected negative consequences or attention.
• Fake Relationship: Two people pretend to be a couple of lovers.
  • The Beard: Pretending to be someone else's lover or spouse to hide their sexuality.
  • Undercover as Lovers: Two people pretend to be a married couple or in a romantic relationship as part of a covert mission.
• False Flag Operation: A group sends out covert operatives (disguised as members of an enemy/rival group) and stage a violent act, falsely blaming them as an excuse to declare a war against them.
• Fauxreigner: Pretending to be from another country when you're not.
• Flock of Wolves: Somebody disguises themselves as a member of some group to sneak among them and it turns out everyone else in the area is also in disguise.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: A monster or other non-human being hides in plain sight on Halloween, on the grounds that everyone else will assume they're just wearing a costume.
• For Halloween, We Are Going as Each Other: Two or more characters dress as each other for Halloween.
• Full-Body Disguise: A disguise consisting of a costume that completely hides the wearer's body.
• Genuine Imposter: Someone turns out to actually be the person they appeared to be impersonating.
• Gideon Ploy: Disguising how many people you have on your side
• Glasses Curiosity: Wearing glasses as part of a disguise, to impersonate a glasses-wearing person or simply as a bit of facial concealment.
• God Guise: A mortal pretends to be a deity.
• Goo Goo Getup: Dressing up as a baby.
• Hiding in a Hijab: Wearing a headscarf, face veil, or full-body cloak in order to disguise oneself as a devoutly religious Muslim woman.
• Holding Both Sides of the Conversation: Faking a person's presence by pretending to be them during a feigned conversation.
• Holographic Disguise: Someone disguises themselves by projecting a hologram over their body.
• Human Disguise: When non-human beings pretend to be humans.
  • Changeling Tale: When fairy creatures pretend to be human children, usually after abducting the real kids and switching places with them.
  • Devil in Disguise: The Devil (or one of his minions) is hiding among humanity.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: When an inhuman being assumes the form of something familiar to humans in order to keep from creeping humans out. Often, the form they assume also looks human.
  • Hugh Mann: A human disguise done badly.
  • Humanshifting: Some shapeshifters are only able to change into humans from their natural form.
  • Inconspicuous Immortal: An immortal character posing as a mundane mortal.
    • God in Human Form: A deity pretends to be an unassuming human.
  • Mobile-Suit Human: When a small creature is piloting a robotic vehicle that looks like a human.
  • Prefers the True Form: When A Form You Are Comfortable With doesn't buy it, and goes with their true selves in behalf of the recipient.
  • Replicant Snatching: When a robot steals the very hide of a human and wears it to cover its body.
  • They Look Like Us Now: When evil creatures figure out a way to look like humans.
• Identical Stranger: A person comes across and is mistaken for a lookalike.
  • Prince and Pauper: Two identical strangers, one upper-class and the other one lower-class, decide to switch lives and disguise themselves as each other.
  • Twin Switch: When identical twin siblings impersonate each other.
• Identity Impersonator: Protecting your secret identity by appearing in public with another person pretending to be your alter ego.
• Impersonating a Lawyer: Lawyers can do things other people can't, so some characters pretend to be a lawyer.
• Impersonating an Officer: Pretending to be a police officer as a cover for criminal activity.
• Impersonation Gambit: The hero tries to infiltrate the villain's organization by passing themselves off as one of the bad guys.
• Impostor All Along: A character is revealed to actually be someone else impersonating them.
• Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Someone is on the run but has to pose as a doctor and heal somebody else.
• Inhuman Eye Concealers: A character with recognizably inhuman eyes tries to pass as ordinary by wearing glasses or something similar.
• Inopportune Impersonation Failure: A character in disguise makes an identity-revealing mistake at a pivotal moment and is unmasked.
• I Never Told You My Name: Someone is revealed to be more than they seem by knowing someone's name without an introduction.
• In the Hood: Big, face-concealing hoods for that extra identity concealment.
• The Infiltration: A character must get "inside" a bad-guy organization and pass as a bad guy to accomplish a goal.
• Institutional Allegiance Concealment: A character must go undercover and gets rid of anything that could reveal their true identity, particularly their affiliation with a known organization.
• Irisless Eye Mask of Mystery: A character's irises suddenly disappear when he puts on a mask.
• Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Infiltrating a location by posing as cleaners.
• Julius Beethoven da Vinci: Multiple historical figures turn out to be the disguises of an immortal being.
• Kill and Replace: Someone intends to murder another person so that they can impersonate them.
• King Incognito: A member of royalty pretends to be an ordinary common citizen.
• Knight's Armor Hideout: Those suits of armour on display might just have someone hiding inside them.
• Latex Perfection: A person disguises themselves by wearing a ludicrously lifelike mask.
• Lie to the Beholder: A spell or other mysterious effect is placed on a character to make them look and sound like a completely different person.
• Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: A superhero with a Secret Identity knows someone who likes one identity, but can't stand the other.
• Living Bodysuit: Someone is puppeteered by a sentient, supernatural force from within the victim.
• Loves My Alter Ego: A superhero's Love Interest is only attracted to their heroic identity, not their secret one.
• Malevolent Masked Men: A group of people wearing creepy masks.
• Mask of Confidence: A person suddenly gains confidence while wearing a mask.
• Mask of Power: A mask that grants powers to the wearer.
• Mask of Sanity: An insane character that feigns sanity.
• Masquerade: A secret society hides its existence from the normal world while living alongside it and interacting with it.
  • Extra-Strength Masquerade: Events happen that should break the masquerade all the time, but normal people still don't know about the wizards/aliens/etc.
  • Masquerade Enforcer: Any super-person who tries to reveal their supernatural nature to ordinary people will be punished.
  • Masquerade Paradox: A masquerade with supernatural forces that stays hidden from the public despite having no clear reason for doing so.
  • Mutual Masquerade: There are two secret groups hiding their existence from normal people — and thus also from each other.
  • The Unmasqued World: The masquerade has been broken, and the world of normal humans must now adjust to the extraordinary living in their midst.
• Masquerade Ball: A dance where a person can wear Gorgeous Period Dress and a mask to hide their identity.
• Masquerading As the Unseen: Posing as a mysterious character who has never been seen by those the guise is intended to deceive.
• Master Actor: A person who is good enough at acting that they can impersonate anyone.
  • Master of Disguise: A person who can make themselves look like anyone they choose.
• Menacing Mask: A mask meant to disguise as well as frighten.
• Membership Token: A person sneaking into a secret club just by presenting an item that proves they're a member.
• Mimic Species: A species whose evolutionary traits make them imitate another species.
• Minor with Fake I.D.: An underage person tries to get into bars or purchase stuff they're not allowed to have using forged IDs claiming them to be adults.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: The real person is mistaken for someone impersonating them.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Someone brings the prop they're disguising as with them.
• Mock Millionaire: Someone pretends to be wealthy.
• The Mole: The villain has an underling infiltrate the good guys by pretending to be one of them.
  • Mistakenly Attacked Mole: A person is unaware that the "traitor" is a mole and attacks them.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: A character attempts to convince others that they are something by very deliberately and awkwardly claiming to most certainly be that thing.
• Mugged for Disguise: Disguising yourself by stealing another person's clothes.
• Multilayer Façade: Someone uses nested disguises.
• Multiple Identity IDs: When someone has several fake IDs for several fake identities.
• My Grandson, Myself: An immortal or long-lived character throws off suspicion by disguising themself as their own descendant(s).
• Mysterious Veil: A character's face is covered either partially or fully with an opaque or semi-transparent veil.
• Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Someone hides behind reading material when they're sitting in a public place and don't want to be noticed or recognized by someone else there.
• Nixon Mask: A rubber mask with the caricatured features of Richard Nixon.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: Avoiding detection in a location containing statuary by pretending to be one of the artworks.
• Not a Mask: It turns out that what was thought to be a mask is the person's actual face.
• Obfuscating Disability: Pretending to be mentally or physically disabled.
• Old Beggar Test: A god or other powerful being tests someone by turning up at their doorstep posing as someone in need.
• Out-of-Character Alert: An imposter is identified from the observation that their behavior is nothing like the person they are impersonating.
  • Something Only They Would Say: A character proves their identity to their allies by saying something that only they would say.
• Outfit Decoy: A character uses a decoy with their outfit as a distraction.
• Overly Stereotypical Disguise: Someone tries to pose as a person of a specific nationality or identity, but relies far too much on (often inaccurate) stereotypes, such as wearing formal national dress.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Someone wears a disguise that is so obvious that you'd have to be really dumb to fall for it.
• Perfect Disguise, Terrible Acting: The disguise is spot on, but the bad acting still instantly gives the imposter away (or logically should)
• Performer Guise: A character disguises themselves as an entertainer.
• Phony Relative: A character lies about being related to someone.
• Playing Nice for Now: Two enemies put on an act that they are getting along.
• Playing the Enemy: Transforming your appearance to appear like you're part of the enemy party in a Player Versus Player game.
• The Power of Acting: A character whose acting abilities can fool anyone.
• Preferable Impersonator: The impersonator is more liked than the original.
• Pretending to Be One's Own Relative: Well, pretending to be one's own relative.
• Press Hat: Can be used to disguise yourself as a reporter.
• Private Polymorph Reveal: A shapeshifter is unmasked... but only to the audience.
• Pull the Thread: Playing along with a lie until the liar can't keep up the act.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Wearing glasses as part of a disguise, to impersonate a glasses-wearing person or simply as a bit of facial concealment. Similar to Glasses Curiosity above.
• Reassuring Face Reveal: A character removes their disguise to convince another to trust them.
• Retractable Faceplate: When a face is an embedded coverage that opens up to reveal the true appearance.
• Revealing Injury: An injury reveals someone's disguise to others.
• Revealing Skill: A rare skill reveals someone's disguise to others.
• Room Disservice: Someone disguises themselves as hotel room service.
• Second Super-Identity: A superhero creates another super identity.
• Secret Identity: An ostensibly normal person who is the true identity of a costumed superhero/supervillain.
  • Secret Identity Change Trick: A person with a superhero identity must improvise a way to get out of sight to change identities.
  • Secret Identity Vocal Shift: A character changes their voice while in costume.
• Secretly Wealthy: A wealthy person makes others assume that they are middle-class or poor.
  • Slumming It: When a rich person pretends to be poor so they can understand how life is like for the less fortunate.
• Self-Defense Ruse: Hiding a murder by disguising it as self-defense.
• Serial Killer Baiting: Someone disguises as a suitable target to lure out a Serial Killer.
• Sexier Alter Ego: A person's costumed persona has better luck getting dates than their civilian identity.
• The Shadow Knows: A person's shadow takes the form of their true self.
• Sham Supernatural: Someone pretends to be a supernatural creature that they aren't.
• Shell Game: A game that involves finding a small item underneath a shell that is shuffled among other identical shells.
• Something for Everyone: Multi-target illusion with personalized effects.
• Spot the Imposter: The imposter and the person they're impersonating are seen together at the same time, leading to the other characters having to figure out which of them is their real friend and which one is the phony in disguise.
• Spotting the Thread: Figuring out someone is an imposter by noticing a subtle flaw in their disguise.
• A Spy at the Spa: A person disguised at a spa to gather information.
• Spy-Tux Reveal: A spy strips off his gear to reveal a tuxedo underneath.
• Stand-In Portrait: A person hides by standing in front of a portrait.
• Starting a New Life: A character makes a fresh start, possibly with a new identity.
• Stocking Mask: A character disguises themselves by wearing a stocking over their face.
• Stripping the Scarecrow: A character in need of clothes takes some off of a nearby scarecrow.
• Surprise Inspection Ruse: A character pretends to be an inspector checking the facility in order to gain access.
• Suspicious Ski Mask: A character conceals their identity with a ski mask/balaclava.
• Swapped Roles: Two characters swap roles to better understand each other's life.
• Totem Pole Trench: Two or more people disguise themselves as a taller person by standing on top of one another and wearing a big coat.
• Toy Disguise: A small creature can pass off as a common toy.
• Trojan Prisoner: The heroes infiltrate an enemy base by pretending to have been captured, with the mooks usually other heroes.
• Two Men, One Dress: Two or more characters share a costume/disguise.
• Undercover as Family: Two or more unrelated characters pretend to be family members to preserve their incognito.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Someone is revealed to actually be a police officer on an undercover assignment, usually disguised as a criminal or civilian.
  • Dirty Harriet: An undercover policewoman pretends to be a prostitute.
  • Must State If You're a Cop: A misconception that undercover police are obligated to reveal their true identity when asked. This is not true for obvious reasons.
  • Undercover Model: A pretty policewoman goes undercover as a supermodel, or another profession requiring good looks.
• The Unmasking: A superhero (or supervillain) reveals their Secret Identity to someone, willingly or by force.
• Unseen True Form: A character whose form has changed never has their true form shown.
• Usurping Santa: A villain captures and impersonates Santa Claus.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Anyone with the power to change their appearance at will inevitably use this ability to pretend to be someone or something else.
• Wainscot Society: A whole second social system exists in close parallel to the "normal" world.
• Wallpaper Camouflage: Disguising yourself to blend in to the wallpaper or furniture.
• We Will Not Use Stage Make-Up in the Future: In a science fiction setting, advanced technology is used to change someone's appearance, instead of makeup, wigs or prosthetics.
• White Mask of Doom: A character wears a Cool Mask that is white.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: A character uses simple props to disguise themselves.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: A character hides their true self by pretending to be nicer or more harmless than they truly are.
• Your Costume Needs Work: The real person is mistaken for a shoddy impersonator.