Next up:

Irony.

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

One of the more recent tricks: following a projectile's flight from the projectile's point of view. So we fly with the arrow as it closes in, or the bullet skidding off the target, or the torpedo moving through flak. Anything, really. Including someone looking down at their own homing-action feet. Assuming you can do that.

Those feet can home in for miles.

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

And in the spirit of the link, we will never discuss this trope again.

Lips are sealed.

LAST EDITED ON 12-13-12 AT 07:50 PM (EST)

Mum's the word.

Never ever again shall this trope be mentioned in these threads.

LAST EDITED ON 12-13-12 AT 11:52 PM (EST)

Nope. Never again. No sirree.

What trope? I don't see no trope.

For reasons known only to myself, I decide to put some of my hair into a sidetail while ponytailing most of the rest. And then I weave a gold hook into each and connect them to each other. I go out in public and think nothing more of it for the rest of the weekend.

On Monday, I see two other people with their hair done the same way.

Then six.

Then eight thousand.

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

Then Taylor Swift claims she started it.

LAST EDITED ON 12-14-12 AT 02:39 PM (EST)

Oh. Yeah. She does have a hairdo, doesn't she.

Self-inflicted injury to the fingertip is erotic!

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

Brought to you by Japan, the only country to successfully weaponize paper cuts.

Sucking finger tips for pleasure!

Really?

I understand what was expected of me when you hired me on, the innuendos, naughtiness, commenting on the fleshier side of life, etc. But really. This is just too easy.

I won't besmirch my art.

Congratulations! You just got the hero's mask off! You've taken pictures of the face underneath. You grabbed fingerprints and DNA samples. You have conclusively proven the lack of identical twins, clones, cross-dimensional counterparts who just happened to be in the area, and time travelers. This is the real name. There are no possible ways left for the hero to wriggle out of it. Dead. To. Birth. Rights. But because you forgot to tap into the local satellite, you didn't exactly broadcast the process as it happened. Which means that now you have to run down to the worldwide news leader with your evidence.

So naturally, you cross against the light.

Through the exact middle of the intersection.

Directly in front of a bus.

While holding the only hardcopy of the evidence in all the world.

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

Just like the last six people who found out.

I apologize in advance to anyone who has learned my secret identity through FB or Secret Santa/T Shirt exchanges.

LAST EDITED ON 12-16-12 AT 06:51 PM (EST)

I think this may be a dark hint as to what will happen to any of us if we find out her identity.

And the bus may be a metaphor for something too gruesome to contemplate.

Let's just leave that door closed, remember the "Ki..." factor.

An example which isn't on the trope's page:

Once upon a time, there was a superhero universe which was slightly different from the others. For starters, there were relatively few superhumans: they were at the beginning of the discovery and public exposure phase. And every one they did have, regardless of the moral side they were on, shared a common origin.

They were all dead.

Or rather, they had been dead. Each one had died in an uniquely excruciating way -- and come back. They were alive again, yes. They had powers. They healed at paranormal rates and would never age from the biological point of their demise (which wasn't always a plus). But in order to get all of that, they'd died. Every last one.

So in this world, you had a megachurch. One with its own vision for the world. And the leader of that church had a visitation, one that told him the final war was coming and the church was going to need an army. Volunteers were called for, men and women to step forward for a chance to serve their deity more directly than they'd ever dreamed.

And one by one, those volunteers were killed, each in an uniquely excruciating way. New methods of murder were invented just to make sure there would be no repeats. Removal of fluids a cubic centimeter at a time, that was pretty creative. Hundreds of people, none of whom had been told what they were volunteering for, systemically exterminated -- just so the church could watch the bodies and see if any of them moved.

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

They got six back...

Bill Willingham's Elementals. Some images stay with you.

There are many universes like this, ones where the only way to gain power is to court death. Most of the mutations are lethal. The virus has a 90% fatality rate and you don't want to see the majority of the survivors. You will no longer care about human emotions, but at least you didn't go full autistic. You'll either be dead in two days or you acquired superhuman intelligence and you'll be dead in two days.

And in every last one of their universes, give enough time and understanding of the process -- someone will call for volunteers.

The RL example, and maybe the best, is Autism.

two bodies, two souls

two species

human and something other

no common ground

no place to begin

just a touch

a single moment of seeing

and then work together, fight together, think together

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

two bodies, one soul

One person saying they like a product is an endorsement.

Four people saying it is a market segment.

A dozen repeating the same line (or a small part thereof) over and over until either the commercial ends or you personally vow to destroy every piece of stock you see is a

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

Apply directly to the forehead.

The pool has been established for how long this gets referenced in a political way, and the tie breaker will be which way will it go, Dem or Repub.

There is a more neutral "just a politician" third choice.

"Wait a minute. I just lit a rocket. Rockets explode!"

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

...or not.

In short: you can't use a rocket launcher in an enclosed space, with an audience, with a wall directly behind you, with any force-bounce surface in the vicinity, without proper bracing, without wearing a decent amount of body armor, and without consequences -- unless you're lucky enough to be in one of the many fictional settings in which basic equation payback has been banished. And that's just about all of them.

Once you've seen this trope in no-reaction, you can't unsee it. And you'll keep seeing it everywhere you go...

You have a habit that's going to kill you.

What's the perfect time to indulge in it?

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

As the description notes, this can be any habit a character regularly follows: smoking is just the most cliche. And sometimes, the indulgence itself is still what kills you -- go down to the Real Life examples and read the Russian entry. The pay stinks in the Soviet army, but my, do you get the perks.

Come to think of it, there's probably a countertrope called One First Smoke. 'I'm going to die anyway. Might as well see what all the fuss was about.'

LAST EDITED ON 12-21-12 AT 11:09 AM (EST)

Amendment to the Hero's handbook: When they offer you an alcoholic beverage before battle, run away, run away.

"On August 16, 1975, an off-duty cop driving around his own neighborhood in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah saw a VW Bug that didn't belong there. The driver promptly took off. The cop eventually chased him down and cited the driver for failure to stop for an officer and possession of burglary tools. A detective connected that driver with an open case of kidnapping and attempted murder. And the driver was soon linked with some two dozen murders and became America's most notorious serial killer -- Ted Bundy."

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot?from=Main.GonnaNeedABiggerWarrant

Sometimes, law enforcement comes down to dumb luck and determined terriers.

Here's a simple challenge. Go climb a fire escape. Then a ladder. Then a rope, cliff, side of a building, rockfall, tree, and vine.

Okay. Now do all of that again, only while holding a weapon.

No, you're not allowed to put the weapon away. Ever.

No, you can't drop it either.

Oh, stop whining. Video game characters do this all the time. How hard could it be?

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

Now one more time, while carrying a sword that's three times the length of your body.

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

Middle fingers pressed inwards against the center of the wrist, outer fingers pointed up on a curve, thumb splayed.

Two fingers slanted left, two right, creating a V of space. No one cares about the thumb.

Hand cupped into a rough C shape, thumb under eye, fingers above.

Touch in order: forehead, abdomen, left shoulder, right shoulder.

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

Middle finger, straight up.

LAST EDITED ON 12-26-12 AT 09:54 AM (EST)

Which brings up a pet peeve of mine, the bastardization of the FU hand gesture.

A middle finger protruding from a clenched fist just doesn't cut it. The gesture should (according to FU aficionados) have knuckles on either side of the protruding finger, thus representing the male genitalia more correctly as well as offering a statement too low brow for words or response.

Kids these days...

She loves you.

You love her.

But -- there's another she. Who loves you too. And you love her just as much.

Deciding between them is not an option. You will not break one heart to save another.

What do you do?

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

You royally piss off the IRS, that's what you do.

If Wagstaff was around, I'd probably be about to have this same bloody argument again.

Much as I am tempted to go with the three-way angle, or even the intriguing Love Dodecahedron (which might be worth a lesson in geometry), I'll just observe that mention of missing Wagstaff brings brings up an important point in regard to gun control and lessons in accuracy.

At this point, I've seen enough anime to have encountered the harem genre and Love Dodecahedron. It is, put mildly, a pain in the rear. Which will be only one of the pains the linchpin of the structure has because there's always a tsundere involved and she will be hitting you. A lot.

The rules of sports -- all sports -- are written down. Every last one of them. No secret clauses are kept from public viewing. They are available on the Internet, in book form, and sometimes in shorthand cheat sheets. In some sports, the referees carry copies at all times and in one, most players have them tucked into the golf bag. There is always an expert fan somewhere within either casual reach or the touch of a keyboard. A wealth of information about the history of every game, the evolution of their rulesets, and the exceptions which tested them is available everywhere you care to look. And therefore, there is really no reason any writer of any kind of fiction should ever get a major detail wrong when describing a game, especially if the setting of the work is the sport itself. Right?

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

Wrong.

These are usually pretty entertaining. The subtle ones are fun to spot.

What gets irritating though are the over-explained rules or facts, such as "Well you know Vern (sorry Moley), the replay official has to have 'conclusive' evidence before he can overturn the call on the field." I mean, they feel like they have to say this every single time.

Or (outside the sports world) "A black hole is black because not even light can escape from it". Hey, by now, don't we all know this about a black hole?

Or "Kingfish is always right". By now, this should be pretty much a universal truth. However, maybe this could bear being repeated a few more times, there are always a few slow learners that need to be reminded of this basic fact of life.

LAST EDITED ON 12-27-12 AT 11:44 AM (EST)

That's not even a theorem. At best, it's an outright lie.

I never really thought of sports script errors as fun because they should be so easy to avoid. It's the sort of thing where most of the audience can instantly spot what went wrong -- so why didn't anyone from script to final print? And when even Friday Night Lights drops the ball, can you trust anyone to read a rulebook?

Science errors are frequently handwaved or ignored in the service of the script. Basic physics are laughed at if it means an extra explosion. Continuity? Yeah, right: continuity. But most of us come together at sports -- and so for me, this trope is the common ground intersection of groans and "Idiots..."

Oh, and they keep bringing up conclusive evidence because Viewers Are Goldfish. (And so are half the announcers.)

And at worst?

(I'm saving that for when I Take Over the World!.)

Play by play isn't usually scripted, so the entertainment comes as ex-jocks try and assume the role of commentators gifted with mental and verbal ad-lib acuity. Even Cosell was fun for a while. Writers, even ex-jock sports writers, and their editors should know better, and it's pitiful when they don't. You get the feeling that they just don't care sometimes.

However, I'm impressed that you could pull out that appropriate cross reference. Remind me to never challenge you to a quick draw trope contest.

So. Over the last few years of publication on the Spider-Man titles, Otto Octavius (Doctor Octopus) has been dying from a progressive, degenerative nerve disease which has been paralyzing him and shutting down his organs bit by bit. Cause of said disease? Concussions. Lots of them. Because once you get past the robot tentacles, he's a normal man who's in his early fifties, out of shape, and is not physically equipped to be hit in the head by someone who can deadlift ten tons. And that's on those days when he isn't facing off against his regular sparring partner. During that publication time, he has been looking for cures, extensions, ways to leave a legacy, and ultimately revenge, kept alive by an increasingly elaborate cybernetic shell -- which can't do the job forever. Tick-tock.

All well and good so far storywise? Fine.

Now Spidey's been approaching Issue #700, and Marvel traditionally likes to do something big for the round numbers. This time, they had Otto grab Peter and pull the old soma switcheroo. This soul goes in that body, the reverse is also true, and now Peter is the one who gets to enjoy Otto's last moments from the inside out. Meanwhile, Otto has a fresh lease on life in Peter's superpowered body, and takes it out for a test drive to, you know, destroy a lot of stuff, starting with what little ever remains of Spider-Man's forever-dubious reputation. Otto's worst enemy will die, he'll live on, and whatever legacy Peter had? Goodbye.

Still good given the genre? Thought so. Onward.

Ultimately, Peter (in Otto's body) winds up in prison, counting down those last hours. And has to break out, coordinating a mass escape of supervillains -- pretty much all of his rogue's gallery -- in order to go take himself down. So it's just about everyone he's ever fought going up against himself, only he's leading the charge and hoping he can do it in such a way that it gets the switch undone in time for him not to die and he can worry about undoing the PR damage later. And don't forgot: he has to lead this army of evil in such a way that they don't kill Otto themselves. Plus -- and here's a fun part -- Otto has not broken cover. He knows Peter's style fairly well and the idea is not to go around making people think he's in a freshly-hijacked hero, so he has not been trumpeting his triumph to the skies. He's been, to the best of his ability, acting like Spider-Man. The general populace doesn't know exactly what's going on, especially since the only way Peter could pull off his end was to maintain his very best Otto impression. It's not as if that rogue's gallery was going to follow him if they thought they were being led by Spider-Man and heading off to save his life. So as we hit Issue #700, it's the last showdown between them. In the wrong bodies. Behaving just like each other. Which is kind of appropriate because there are ways in which they are dark mirrors: one defined by his ability to take personal tragedy and make it work as motivation to help others, the other riding the horror of his child abuse and turning into a core arrogance which made him prove he was worthwhile no matter who had to get hurt for it. Oh, and there's a supervillain horde which could kind of get in the way.

On track? Good, because here comes the climax.

Peter confronts Otto. And dies.

The switchback does not occur. Otto stays in Peter's body. Otto's body gives up the ghost, which happens to be Peter's. Peter dies in the arms of his worst enemy -- but not before passing along one gift: every memory, every drive, every bit of himself that ever went with being in the costume.

And Otto -- sees the error of his ways. Sees what he could have been doing with his own intellect plus powerset the whole time, realizes what he can do with this one. As far as the world knows, Otto Octavius is dead. And now he has all the tools he needs to fully step into Peter's life and continue it as Spider-Man. Only, because he's, you know, still hyper-arrogant, he's going to improve that life. Starting by fixing Peter's relationships, and isn't that redhead pretty? Also, something has to be done about the man's job security, personal wealth, oh, and the costume, he might have to tweak the costume, work on the webshooters -- you know, general upgrade. And Marvel, for their part, ends the original issue count at #700 and announces a new #1 next month, entitled The Superior Spider-Man.

...

...yep, looks like we're at the dawn of another

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

I give it ten months.

Note that A. Survivor has a section here and B. It is not a short one.

LAST EDITED ON 12-28-12 AT 10:12 AM (EST)

Unbeknownst to both of them, the body of Spidey's Uncle, who had been the victim of murder most foul in an earlier episode, was rotting away in the sub-sub-sub-basement of their tenement. Apparently, in the hectic aftermath of his death and Spidey’s preoccupation with his new powers, they forgot to actually bury him. So his corpse has been lying in the lowest basement all this time, forgotten, steeped in an increasingly concentrated bath of Radon Gas. Initially, the Radon simply preserved him from decay, but with time, cellular restructuring began, and finally animation.

He became "Basement Bug Guy", with no memory, and an unquenchable thirst for..., well, something. World peace, let's say. Or Oreos. Something. Maybe those comic book woman’s breasts/hour glass bodies would finally catch his eye.

Nice riff. they should hire you to pen the trailers.

Otto would have been my screen name if Kingfish hadn't finned it aside.