Jerk The Tears

''If you laugh, you're a monster. Apparently.''

When someone's appearance and/or condition can pull at heartstrings. This type of Emotional Manipulation is used on characters in fiction instead of the audience themselves. The UnTrash to do that is So Unbelievably Sad. Like its double, Jerk The Tears has its fun when stirring people's feelings, no matter how much that fun comes at the expense of the audience's respect for the writers. Common methods of Jerking The Tears are putting a child in a wheelchair or a baby animal in urgent medical care. This rarely fails to earn a round of "aww" from any gathering of onlookers. Some personal backstories can also Jerk The Tears, like somebody who was unexpectedly separated from their beloved sibling by absence, kidnap, or death. It's more effective if the ruined relationship is explained in gushing detail, at which point the universe is successfully paused for one person. A person's past or current struggles pack potential to toy with somebody's emotions, more so if the person has been fighting for happiness or success for a long time. Non-person entities can also have Sob Stories. A beautiful natural scene like a forest can make weak hearts burst into tears when they're ravaged by the Super Evil Bad Guys known as rich people. All of these cheap Dirty Tricks on the cast hardly have any effect on the audience. Rather than cry with pity, they roll their eyes with annoyance.