History Main / TwitchyEye

** In one episode, where various female characters are competing in the annual Miss Dimmsdale beauty competition, Timmy gets a twitchy eye when his mother(''one of the contestants'') [[https://s2.desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/aco/image/1553/66/1553661766711.jpg shows off that an old swimsuit of hers]] ('''[[https://s2.desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/aco/image/1553/66/1553661766711.jpg in this case, a bikini]]''') still fits.
** In "Class Clown", Timmy finds out that the flower he has just given to Trixie is actually a carnivorous alien who will awaken to devour her at midnight. He rushes to her house, but is stopped at the door by her father, who ponders whether he should let the boy in. As Timmy is ''slowly'' inspected, his eye twitches from sheer anxiety.
** Trixie during her SanitySlippage (see the image above) in "Just the Two of Us".

** The lunch lady in the episode ''Little Glop of Horrors'' does this when Fanboy insults her glop.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' ends with a shot of Fry doing this after being forced to destroy his robot Lucy-Liu girlfriend, and then watch Bender start making out with the real Ms. Liu. Or at least her head. It's complicated.

* On ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'', Heloise does this after [[CallASmeerpARabbit Cerbee]] and [[TheSlacker Beezy]] ruin her private picnic with Jimmy. She then is paralyzed with rage, breathing deeply and heavily in one spot for hours.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': In "Injustice For All", ComicBook/LexLuthor gets this when the other members of the Injustice Gang stare quietly at him for letting Batman alive instead of killing him.

* ''WesternAnimation/DCSuperHeroGirls2019:'' Diana, in the midst of a HeroicBSOD over getting an A-, develops one, mixed with a ThousandYardStare.

* The main character of ''WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'' has this as a CharacterTic. It becomes very pronounced when he's nervous, almost to the point of being a HollywoodTourettes tic. In particular, it tends to occur when he's discussing his ArchEnemy Captain Hammer and when his desire for his LoveInterest, Penny conflicts with his desire to be a {{supervillain}}. In contrast with the typical use of the trope, the tic becomes noticeably less pronounced the stronger he grows in his Dr. Horrible persona.

* The OCD-suffering Hannelore of ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent'' does this when Marten unthinkingly jokes about spreading garbage around her apartment.
* This is supposedly the "tell" in poker of the Patterner in ''Webcomic/ExterminatusNow''. To clarify: the Patterner is an {{Expy}} of Tzeentch, ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'''s god of [[MagnificentBastard Magnificent]], [[TheChessmaster manipulative]] [[GodIsEvil bastardry]]. When he's shown preparing to deal, he has at least five decks of cards floating around him and held in all four hands. And ''he'' displays he's bluffing when his eye (which is not only all of his head, but floats around separate from his body) twitches.

** Jack's had a long two years on the run from the [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge revenge driven Parcel Mistress]], so the sudden appearance of these kids who he's pretty sure he killed already doesn't exactly [[http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=007255 help his mood.]]

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'':
** Subtly done when Pandora realises that finding people who can get the kind of powers she wants to give them is [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=497 harder than she thought]]. And then less subtly when she encounters [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=501 Ashley]] and [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=505 Catalina]].
** And by Ashley in [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=681 the non-canon "Goomanji 2" arc]], when telling herself she has "no irrational grudge" against Catalina.
* Invoked by [[spoiler: Dave Davenport]] in ''{{Webcomic/Narbonic}}'', as part of a threat.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* The main character of ''WebVideo/DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog'' has this as a CharacterTic. It becomes very pronounced when he's nervous, almost to the point of being a HollywoodTourettes tic. In particular, it tends to occur when he's discussing his ArchEnemy Captain Hammer and when his desire for his LoveInterest, Penny conflicts with his desire to be a {{supervillain}}. In contrast with the typical use of the trope, the tic becomes noticeably less pronounced the stronger he grows in his Dr. Horrible persona.
* In the eighth ''WebVideo/{{Jacksfilms}}'' "Royalty Free Christmas Songs" video, Jack and Erin are preparing to finally go on a normal Christmas vacation, but Jack wastes time singing about how much he wants to see a ''Franchise/{{Shrek}} 5'' trailer. Cut to a very annoyed Erin with a twitching eye.
* When ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'' reviewed ''Film/SmallSoldiers'' and got to [[NightmareFuel the Gwendy doll scene]], he tried to imagine just how the making of that scene might have played out. A sixteen-year-old Creator/KirstenDunst asks the assistant director just [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids why the kids' movie she's starring in]] has a scene where she's BoundAndGagged by creepy, naked, robotic Franchise/{{Barbie}} dolls and then [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything taunted in the dark by the villain]], leading him to answer with "look... just do as [[Creator/JoeDante the director]] says, before his other eye starts twitching."

* ''WebAnimation/SonicForHire'': At the start of Season 4, having lost entire fortune and mafia business, Sonic tries working at Burger Time with Knuckles, until Tails shows up and treats him like a total loser before throwing a milkshake at his face and drives off, making Sonic twitch his eye which then leads to:
-->'''Knuckles:''' Where are you going? Your shift just started!\\
'''Sonic:''' Well... I'm definitely not going to smoke crack in the bathroom and then burn this place down with my crackpipe.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''The Green Azumarill'':
** In "Green Azumarill How To's: More Ways to Get Your Annoying Friend to Stop Being Annoying", during method 5, Angie grabs Green while screaming and demanding the Pelipper working at the delivery services to ship Green. However, after the plane takes off, Green is teleported out of the plane by an Abra he met, and when Angie learns about this, her eye ends up twitching, before moving on to method 6.
** In "My Pokemon Heartgold & Soulsilver Randomized Soul Link Nuzlocke Experience (feat. xShirokuuma)", during the randomized Sudowoodo encounter, Green finds a Darkrai, and he is hyped up for this moment...only for Shiro to accidentally knock out the Farfetch'd he encountered, meaning Green misses out on Darkrai. Having had bad luck with encountering good Pokémon on his end up to this point, Green's eye twitches, with it getting faster until he glares at Shiro and growls.

* Kevin pulls this in the ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' episode "Charm School" when he and Rook finish making his car indestructible and celebrate their hard work...only for one of Charmcaster's spells to get deflected at it and transport it to another dimension.
-->'''Rook:''' ''(realizing what they forgot)'' Magic.
-->'''Kevin:''' I blame myself.
* Roodaka's eye twitches in ''WesternAnimation/{{Bionicle}} 3: Web of Shadows'' as she expresses her demand for the corpses of the Toa.

* Detective Piquel ([[PronouncingMyNameForYou "pih-kell"]] [[BerserkButton not "pickle"]]; basically an expy of [[Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Det. Valiant]]) develops one after about two days with his manic Toon partner WesternAnimation/{{Bonkers}} (averted with Bonkers' second, younger and more adaptable partner).

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'':
** Buttercup does this in "Nuthin' Special" in a scene where her sisters keep matching her in showing off special powers.
** Buttercup and Bubbles do this at one point in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!"
** Buttercup gets one in "Sun Scream" whilst lying down on a bed.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Sealab 2021}}'': Captain Murphy has this moment when his finds out his Happy Cake oven has gone missing.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': In [[Recap/StevenUniverseS4E17Rocknaldo "Rocknaldo"]], Ronaldo wakes up Steven in the middle of the night. After Ronaldo hits a milk carton which spills some of its content in Steven's face, Steven's eye has a minor twitch.

* Miss Wormwood has one in ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries''.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': "Calvin's going to be inside for a week?"

[[quoteright:259:[[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/trixie_375.jpeg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:259:[[GoMadFromTheIsolation TELL ME I'M PRETTY]]!]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': Characters occasionally do this when annoyed or enraged, such as in "Cyborg the Barbarian" when hero wannabe Krall is upstaged by Cyborg.

* Diane of ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' exhibits this whenever the writers want to play up how mentally unstable she is. [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality Shelley Long is not very good at it, though, and scrunches up her whole face in attempt to get her eye to move]]. The other characters still refer to it as "the eye thing".

** In “My Pokemon Heartgold & Soulsilver Randomized Soul Link Nuzlocke Experience (feat. xShirokuuma)”, during the randomized Sudowoodo encounter, Green finds a Darkrai, and he is hyped up for this moment…only for Shiro to accidentally knock out the Farfetch’d he encountered, meaning Green misses out on Darkrai. Having had bad luck with encountering good Pokemon on his end up to this point, Green’s eye twitches, with it getting faster until he glares at Shiro and growls.

** In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E15FeelingPinkieKeen Feeling Pinkie Keen]]", she develops a twitchy eye and [[BurningWithAnger evolves]] [[MemeticMutation into]] [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Rapidash]] when Pinkie tells her that the Hydra ''wasn't'' the doozy she predicted.

In RealLife, a twitching eyelid ''can'' be sign of emotional instability, but it's usually a sign of tiredness or severe stress.

* ''Fanfic/ThePowerOfTheEquinox'':

* ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'':

--> '''Po:''' "You're so much bigger than your action figures, except for you Mantis - you're about the same"
--> '''Mantis:''' ''*twitches one of his antennae*''
** [[BigBad Lord Shen]] of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'' also has a tendency to develop an eye twitch during his particularly unstable moments.

** Ritsuko's eye twitches erratically when Leader and Shiki resspond to her usual snark by flipping her the bird and then ignoring her entirely.

* Prince Andrei Bolkonsky developed facial tics in ''Literature/WarAndPeace,'' but that was probably due to a degenerative disease. The way it's written sounds like his personality (he was a curmudgeony sort) was getting the best of him.