Are the cameras constantly focusing on that feature every time they go to her? If so, the editors might be trying to deliberately invoke the trope.

(If it's always visible because she just never shuts up, that's a potentially different case.)

I can't say the cameras focus on it, but whenever she opens her mouth to whine about or abuse the others (especially the members of her alliance!) it becomes evident. Or maybe it is just an illusion because of the bile that comes from her mouth.

I think it's those long hollow canines.

In many faiths, if you're good, then when you die, you get to go into the light.

In some stories, if you're really good, it comes to you.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisappearsIntoLight

And given the way this often winds up being handled, what you actually wind up doing is Going Into The Cheese.

That's it! I've had enough of whatever's happening right now which I totally disapprove of! Something must be done about this and I'm the one to do it! It is time for action! It is time for countermeasures! It is time for a

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StronglyWordedLetter

...what? I had a stamp.

The Twelfth Law Of Cartoon Physics:

A large solid object possessing a single empty gap, should it fall onto a character, will tend to land with the gap lined up directly over that character.

Which leads to one of the best trope names I've ever seen.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ByWallThatIsHoley

Yeah, the trope itself is kinda silly, but the name is inspired.

I wonder which came first, the cartoon version of this or the Buster Keaton one? That scene was great, especially considering how they didn't have special effects then like now.

I would have to Randomly get this one a few days after the Fieri fiasco...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HePannedItNowHeSucks

In which any critic has at least a tiny chance at public acceptance until they shoot down something the public actually likes.

Also applies politically.

Look, I know it may feel like we're at capacity. It may even look as if we've packed it to the max. In fact, there's a chance that by the standard definitions, there is no space left between atoms in the entire area. But I'm sure there's still room for me to shove in a

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaferThinMint

...oops.

Someday, we will make one snarky wise cracky idiotic comment too many, and the IT universe will explode. And we will return to the days of making fun comments on the sex habits of mastodons and saber toothed tigers on cave walls.

(Holds breath....Whew. Not yet).

As per Samuel Vimes:

"You can't ask questions, it's magic. It doesn't explain anything, it's magic. You don't know where it comes from, it's magic. That's what I don't like about magic, it does everything by magic!"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoesNotLikeMagic

(In faith-related miracle issues, just ignore the irony. Oh, and don't ask about theurgy. Just don't.)

LAST EDITED ON 11-21-12 AT 07:47 AM (EST)

Let's say you have a character in a movie with an uncommon name. Something that looks like an unholy union of Irish and Welsh with a little Saudi thrown in. Something where Y is the primary vowel with Q somehow hitting cleanup. And if so, here is a phrase you will pretty much never hear in the course of that film.

"How do you spell that?"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodSpelling

Because time spent in spelling out that name could be used on explosions. And so every single person the character encounters will instinctively know what the name is, how it's spelled down to the last umlaut and incidentally, be able to write it in full runic script.

Movies often fail at math, physics, ethics, and basic logic, but gawds, can those people spell.

I read the examples and wound up spending five minutes looking up if the correct word is "spelt" or "spelled".

...and?

http://grammarist.com/spelling/spelled-spelt/

In the watery world, it's smelt. We don't write a lot, mostly we just use bubbles. (Hence, smelt).

Interesting that infants don't need to be taught an oral language, they pick that up on their own. But if they aren't taught their ABCs, they may never learn a written language.

Most superheroes eventually run into costume problems. Think about what your average crimefighter goes through every day and then consider what that's going to do to a typical piece of clothing. You're going to need more than one copy of your outfit because at any given time, one was just barbecued, another got electrocuted, that one still reeks of sewage, let's not even talk about the one which got hit by the guy whose whole power is mutated saliva, and you know the new one you thought was just perfect? That turned out to be an alien symbiote which really wanted to partner up with you, an ally had to blast it off you with a sonic cannon, and now you have to get home without giving your identity away to the populace. Or in the nude. One of the two. So with no other options available --

-- ladies and gentleman -- The Bombastic Bag-Man.

...maybe 'nude' would have worked out better...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CheapCostume

By the way, that model comes with a 'Kick Me' sign on the back.

Earlier this week, I saw that very outfit in a toy store on an action figure. I wanted to applaud.

I would buy that action figure.

They used to state Superman's costume was made from blankets found in the spaceship that carried him to Earth. Who knew blankets could be so form fitting?

Here's a picture from an eBay listing.

(The seller wants $50.00 for it: the store price I saw was closer to $10. I'd go for the $10.)

Equally fun blanket question: since this was probably from the day where anything and everything that came from Krypton was indestructible, how did anyone sew them? Still -- pretty cheap, once you factor out the import and shipping costs...

From the Real Life section:

"In 1999, California engineer David Phillips did the math and found that a particular promotion, in which a food company offered airline frequent flyer miles in exchange for inexpensive food purchases, was a phenomenally good value. For about $3000, he was able to buy enough pudding to redeem for over a million airline miles—enough to fly just about anywhere, first class, dozens of times over. And he donated the food to charity, and he got an $800 tax break for the donation.

Burma-Shave once offered a mock promotion that promised a trip to Mars for anyone who collected 900 empty jars. When Arlyss French, a grocery store owner, managed to actually collect them, Burma-Shave responded, "If a trip to Mars you earn/Remember, friend, there's no return." After French collected another 900 jars for the return trip, they decided to go ahead and send him to Moers, Germany."

In other words...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompetitionCouponMadness

...this is The Official Trope Of My Coke Rewards.

*sigh*

Well, at least it didn't come up on December 1st.

Good old Skyway Soap.

"To kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousand deaths." -- Scott McCloud.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoundOnlyDeath

Because what you can imagine happening, based on those screams, is arguably worse than anything you could ever see.

Few programmed worlds go on forever. The best you can hope for is a complete globe: go far enough along the great circle and wind up where you started. And for a few, that's the case. But most games take place in limited environments. One country, a single city, that given neighborhood, maybe even a lone building. And players being what they are, eventually, someone will reach the edge of the code and try to leave. Designers have multiple tricks for stopping this. Armed guards hiding behind barriers: can't be targeted, will shoot you with no problem. Crackling waves of electricity. Aliens teleport you back to the start.

Or they can just be lazy and do this:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InvisibleWall

There is nothing in your way and it's completely stopped you. There is no way through the nothing. There is no way around the nothing. The nothing is solid, cannot be penetrated in any way, and just for extra fun, it's completely transparent, so you can see something on the other side of the nothing.

The sad thing is that the aliens made more sense.

Jeremy: I'm taking a break if anyone wants my seat.
Will: (moving in) It's the good chair.
Jeremy: I'm just gonna run to the bathroom. You wanna come with me to the bathroom, Dan?
Dan: Why, no, Jeremy, I don't.
Jeremy: You don't want to step outside with me and talk on our way to the bathroom?
Dan: (beat) Sure.
Jeremy: (addressing the room) We're just stepping out and going to the bathroom.
(Dan and Jeremy move outside.)
Jeremy: I didn't really have to go to the bathroom.
Dan: (wryly) Really?
Jeremy: I just wanted to talk.
Dan: (wryly) I don't think anyone saw through your clever ruse.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TalkAboutThatThing

Buffy: We were gonna do that...thing.
Willow: ...oh, right. That thing!
Xander: Hey. We can do that thing anytime. I'm tired of doing that thing! We're on!

And of course the classic Survivor variant:

"Let's go gather some firewood."

Also:

"I could use some help with the fishing."

"Anyone else gotta pee?"

"So who wants to read the Tree Mail with me?"

And for the exceptionally stupid:

"I'm going to go look for the idol. Wanna come?"

Genre readers sometimes like to pretend the industry has come a long way. We have better writing now, they say. The stories are darker (although that's not necessarily better) and more complex (occasionally ditto). And we're almost sure that most of the writers are no longer creating while on hard drugs. The Sixties are over. No more gorilla crime bosses being fought by Krypton-empowered horses. Everything's relatively normal now --

-- oh, crap.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimalSuperheroes

Note that this trope works three ways: parody characters, empowered animals, and anthropomorphic heroes. And it's actually possible to tell good stories in any of the styles. (Most recently, we've had Grant Morrison's heartbreaker, We3. Find it in your local library for a good self-hatred session.) But as far as the industry really having escaped those LSD roots? See above.

Fear the retro.

Fear the Retro? Maybe more than you think.

http://news.yahoo.com/saturns-second-pac-man-moon-revealed-nasa-photos-145725208.html

Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew will always be my favorites.

There are three people in the moving car.

I am in the passenger seat.

She is in the back seat.

For reasons known only to yourself and your deity, you have just gone into the back seat.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhoIsDriving

...ohcrap.

The eldritch abominations have found their way to Earth.

The insane cultists have chanted up the end of the universe.

The dark forces of the outer edge destroy the minds of all those who would oppose this destiny.

And the good guys -- win?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovecraftLite

This is any cosmic horror story which manages to come out with, if not a happy ending, at least a stalemate with hopes to hold the line for a while: taking the elements of Lovecraft and removing the automatic doom that characterized much of his canon. There are nightmares out there, and just knowing that fact could break you -- but not everyone or every time. And with a lot of luck and the right moves, they can at least be stalled.

For now.

This is only the second time I've put up a link to a troped-out work of fiction instead of a trope, and the first where I've done it deliberately. But roughly twelve hours ago, I was heading into a theater for my first (and last) attendance of

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Theatre/TheNutcracker

The last thing I saw with that flimsy a plot had a cult following on ABC.

Were the Asian dances supposed to feel incredibly racist?

The nutcracker. Infantile plot, but good music. Music for the ages, actually.

Tchaikovsky.

Flimsy plot, but good merchandise, right??

Considering a late 1800's take on the various nationalities... probably.

Not sure how much of a modern interpretation one can do given the musicality and the context. I'm sure someone's done it, but usually Nutcracker stagings are pretty conservative and true to the original and if you did way too much too it one might have to sneak out the back like the Jets do so regularly.

Of course, if we were to mention this to middle schoolers, it will need a new name.

Not all shapeshifting is reversible.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metamorphosis

This represents any drastic (and frequently, total) change to the body which is one-way and permanent. It generally doesn't mean becoming another human: as with the trope namer, anyone invoking this is typically moving between species and having a hard time of it on the other end. This trope can have a happy ending, but a rough beginning, middle, and just-before-the-finale are almost built-in.

Happy endings are not necessarily a normal result.

Information retrieval.

Deresolution.

Dipped.

Bought a ticket.

Drew the Black Queen.

Sunshine units.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadlyEuphemism

*closes eyes*

Resettlement in the East.

I wonder what euphemism Uganda will use.

They've already used pass the bill as a Christmas present.

I think they'll be direct and go with 'Kill in the name of God.'

Works for a lot of people.

Yay! New game! I've been waiting for this to hit the release date for months! Just got to pop it in and install!

...okay, installed. Now to get the thing open.

...I wrote this thing to the hard drive: why does it need five minutes to initialize? Oh, well -- at least I've got the character creation up.

...and another five minutes for the opening sequence...

...seven to bring in the first map...

...finally found something to fight. Combat time!

...right after this nine-minute delay for the battle screen.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading

...I've been waiting for this release for months. And counting.

But if you think about it, there's a horror aspect to this: how did it eat the bait?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FishingForSole

Don't put it on...

LAST EDITED ON 12-04-12 AT 12:27 PM (EST)

Well, here’s the deal, see. (Oh, and you knew this was coming, right?)

Meat bag land creatures are so annoying, what with their insistence on using the piscine world as a focus of their culinary habits on the one hand, and, although you’d think that they’d be grateful for that contribution (ugh) to their life, then they turn around and insult us, using terms like “slimey” (actually we are pre-lubricated, a condition that I know that some of you should appreciate) , “fish or cut bait” (which part of that is the more insulting or even makes sense?), “fish eye lens” (which is a cruel reference to those of us with Hyperthyroidism. Bullies!!), and “a fish out of water” (for which “A meat bag under water” should be substituted).

OK, I lost the train there for a second, but the point is that the blood balloon land creatures are so annoying that there are a few of us that are trying to develop feet so that we can go up there and deliver some well-deserved ass whoppings to their sorry excuses for dry-land tail end assemblies (a fish tail is a thing of exquisite and erotic beauty, I think we can all agree on that) so we accumulate old shoes for that purpose. We don’t have shoe stores in the malls down here <sarcasm>, and internet sales don’t work well in salt water <more sarcasm>, so we are reduced to gathering what we can from Mafia hit victims, suicides, and klutzy foot bridge crossers.

Then, adding to the mountain of injustices, your “fisherman” (let’s not get into what that word does to the psyches of our fry, it takes years for them to dare to look under their beds because of the terror that word brings to the table) are trying to steal our stash of old shoes and boots.

Someday a hit squad of fish with newly developed hind legs will put one of those old boots where the moon rises and the sun don’t shine.

Manipulated footage.

Voiceover narrations filled with distortions, propaganda, and outright lies.

News priorities designed to present one point of view while repressing or demonifying all others.

Audiences carefully selected for how easy they are to deceive.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Newsreel

Faux and MSDemBC aren't as original as they think.

Are coverups included in this? Such as the coverup involving the great Shoe thievery scandal?

When the story opens:

The living room couch is on fire. And only the living room couch. Nothing around it is even warm to the touch.

A car is on your bed. Full-size sports coupe. It is resting on its side and covered with a fine down quilt.

Your mother-in-law is in the bathroom. She is nude and accompanied by your other mother-in-law. Both of them are having sex, but not with each other.

There is a donkey in the kitchen. It is attempting to make coffee. All things considered, it would be doing rather well if it could only get the heavy cream open.

Clearly someone needs to explain

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HowWeGotHere

If done well, it's one of the classics. If done badly? You still have to clean up this mess...

New thread tomorrow.

A new thread begins.

- There is water seeping out of the closet, the closet door drifts open revealing an interior packed with wet boots.

- Newsome is tied to a chair and being sex teased by a pair of dominatrix lesbians. Kingfish is taking notes and occasionally asking questions.

- Fooner is training possums to beg for tequila (the good stuff, not the Taco Bell street stuff) in the corner.

- Republicans and Democrats are square dancing together. Doe-see-doe, round you go, grab your partner and doe-see-doe.

- Pink and blue ponies are recreating the dance routine for “Billie Jean”.

- Superman has managed to embed his head in the sidewalk, and seems to be frozen in time.

- Time itself seems to be an anime version of space.

And new thread begins. But, really, isn’t “new” a pejorative term in the case? You be the judge. This is the Twilight Zone”.

I guess that would be like watching a season of Survivor after reading source spoilers of the finalists.

300 - woo hoo!