| rdfs:comment | - The Adrenaline Makeover is a particular form of Character Development for action genre entertainment that disguises itself as a Love Trope. It's what happens to a Shrinking Violet, or a Girl Next Door who finds herself embroiled in an adventure situation. It is most common in movies, but has been known to turn up in other media. The Adrenaline Makeover candidate is almost always or was Beautiful All Along. But at the beginning of the story, our heroine is mousy, shy, wearing the bad glasses, the frumpy clothes, etc. Examples of Adrenaline Makeover include:
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| abstract | - The Adrenaline Makeover is a particular form of Character Development for action genre entertainment that disguises itself as a Love Trope. It's what happens to a Shrinking Violet, or a Girl Next Door who finds herself embroiled in an adventure situation. It is most common in movies, but has been known to turn up in other media. The Adrenaline Makeover candidate is almost always or was Beautiful All Along. But at the beginning of the story, our heroine is mousy, shy, wearing the bad glasses, the frumpy clothes, etc. Sometimes she's secretly, unknowingly, the Hot Librarian, or a case of late blooming gorgeous. Sometimes they're gorgeous but shy, or otherwise mild-mannered because they have to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good in a male-dominated field; and being sexy equals not being taken seriously; and being aggressive is considered a negative trait for a female -- at least, in this part of the story. Less frequently, she's a teenager going through this, which results in I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me at some point during the transformation. The usual progression of the trope has the character starting out blinded to the world by their academic pursuits. She's in trouble that she needs assistance to get out of, resulting in a hero showing up and helping her through an epic adventure. The adventure distracts her from maintaining her frumpiness; the hero is there to rescue her, to help her de-frump, and to fall in love with her, making her realize as she returns his affections that if she'd just shaken out the hair and dumped the glasses before, she might have gotten a hot hero guy that much sooner. By the end of the movie, she's come out of her shell, cast off her shyness, and come into her own in her own field. She takes a level in badass, amps all the way up to Action Girl, and joins the guy in his field, and they become a Battle Couple. This often happens to make The Chick more palatable to men (and sometimes, "more exigent" females), and to add that romantic element so that action movies can also be date movies. The recipient of the Adrenaline Makeover is almost Always Female, though a Non-Action Guy can occasionally also get a Makeover. The Adrenaline Makeover has Unfortunate Implications, as it can be viewed as a contradiction of the Be Yourself trope. This trope can also be viewed as implying that a woman is not desirable just as she was; she was not worth noticing or the hero's interest until her adventure-triggered transformation took her from plain to pretty. Basically Fan Service Pack as Character Development. The opposite of Chickification. Subtrope of Took a Level In Badass (or of Xenafication when it's done without Character Development). Examples of Adrenaline Makeover include:
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